Q&A: Bill Nye the Science Guy on Creationism, Mars and Science TV

Bill Nye — the creator and star of the 1990s hit TV show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" — thinks that entertainment can help raise scientifically literate kids.

Nye recently stirred up some controversy when he and author and creationist Ken Ham debated whether creationism is a viable way to explain how the universe came to be. Nye spoke with Live Science about the debate, his work with The Planetary Society, why humans should go to Mars and other topics.

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Bill Nye: I petitioned his [Sagan's] assistant at that time … she arranged five minutes, so I sat with him for five minutes. He said, "Focus on pure science. Don't do technology. Kids resonate to pure science" — that was his verb. It gave me a lot of food for thought. So, instead of doing a show about bridges, for example, we did a show about structures, and this expanded to bones and tendons and leaves and tree trunks and sea jellies and so on and so on.

Nye: Well, we're just trying to change the world here, that's all. For me, what's at stake is the future of the U.S. and the future of the world. I'm not kidding. We want to raise a generation of students who are scientifically literate. I hope many of these people will become scientists, and especially engineers, and [that] they will innovate. What keeps the United States in the game, what keeps the United States able to compete on the world stage, is our long tradition of innovation, our long tradition of new ideas. You don't get those without basic research. You don't get those without people trying to solve problems that have never been solved before.

Nye: We wouldn't question for a moment the value of investing in basic research, but the U.S. Congress does [question it] unless it has to do with the military. We would not hesitate to invest in the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention]. We would not hesitate to send people to Mars, rather than the situation we have now, where Congress has dictated or specified certain spacecraft and then the world's largest space administration [NASA] has to shape its programs to somehow use this hardware which otherwise would have no purpose … It's this thing where Congress specifies programs without funding them, and that's just a formula for stuff not getting done.

Nye: I strongly believe that we've got to go there with people to explore. There are a lot of ways of reckoning this, but it's fair to say that what our very best robot does under our very best weather conditions on Mars, driven by our very best robot drivers, directed by our very best Mars scientists, built by our very best engineers — what that rover can do in a week, a human geologist does in about a minute. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas]

Nye: We have this huge rise in what I will call — for lack of a better term — "geek culture," where people like being scientifically literate. However, at the same time, we have this crazy polarization where we have this enormous number of people, especially influential people — and by that I mean government officials and members of Congress, for example — that eschew science and don't accept it and poo-poo it as a trivial pursuit.

Nye: To my academic colleagues who were very critical of me for doing this: This is one of my favorite expressions — you may be right. In the short term, it may be that this promoted creationism or energized the creationist political base more than the scientific literacy base. Right now, at the end of April 2014, I believe that in the medium- and the long-term, this will undermine creationism. I cannot get over the number of people that watched that thing.

Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a staff writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also serves as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight. Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person.