'Hey Bill Nye, What If the World Were Run by Scientists and Engineers?' | Big Think

'Hey Bill Nye, What If the World Were Run by Scientists and Engineers?'
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Politicians aren’t too popular, and yet we keep voting them into the top offices. Would the world be a better place if it were run by scientists and engineers? As an engineer himself, having spent his career in the company of rocket scientists and Nobel laureates, Bill Nye has a firm answer to this week’s question. Nye's most recent book is Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.
Bill Nye's most recent book is Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.
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BILL NYE:

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.
While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”
Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.
Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.
Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Wei: Hi Bill. My name is Wei. I'm an electronic engineer coming from China. A big fan to your show by the way. My question is hypothetically instead of politicians if the world were only run by engineers and scientists would it be a better place in your opinion? Thanks.
Bill Nye: Wei. Thank you so much for calling and thanks for being a fan of the show. You've asked a great question and categorically the world would not be a better place run by engineers. I say this all the time. I spend time with rocket scientist, a lot of time with them. From time to time I spend time with Nobel laureates. You do not want these people teaching kindergarten by way of example, they're just not qualified. When you find somebody who's interested in making deals, in compromising, in empathizing with people, in other words feeling what they're feeling and then trying to establish laws and traditions that benefit everyone, when you find someone that wants that job that to me is amazing and we need those people, those people would be politicians.
With that said, what we want are politicians who are scientifically literate, who are technically informed. Now you're in China and you have what in the U.S. people often referred to as a technocracy. You have a system of government that is run largely by engineers or scientists in what in the U.S. we would call top down fashion. People in power make decisions for everyone. And the system is workable. I mean my goodness China is this extraordinary economy and so on. But the experiment in the United States and the other Western democracies is to have representatives that work the system top down but are elected by everybody. And the idea is that this would be more fair, this would be consistent with how everybody feels. So I will say that what we want is people making decisions on behalf of all of us that are in the best interest of all...

[raymondfine]

i feel like a more constructive question would be, how would things be different if scientists were consulted and taken seriously in relation to big issues

[gekkanshounen]

Whatever their qualifications, I'd argue scientists and engineers can't do any worse than the shitstorm of a political climate we've got going on right now

[Fj]

I'm a political science graduate and I'd rather have scientists and engineers lead our country rather than traditional politicians.

[afatchimp]

As Jean Luc Picard said, a good leader will listen and take advice from their crew.

[SCP--nmly]

I respectfully disagree Mr. Nye, We have scientists who also have a high capacity of empathy, for example I believe Carl Sagan would have been an amazing president. I appreciate how humble you are, but a scientific approach is an extremely valuable asset to our government.

[kimgee.]

I think one of the main issues is that Bill Nye is one of the very few people in the world that makes it his mission to educate the mass public about technical and scientific concepts in a way that the layman can understand. The average citizen or politician may not trust scientific fact because the feat of reading and comprehending a scientific journal article is ludicrous to them due to their scientific illiteracy. The way the entire scientific community communicates their discoveries needs to be overhauled.

[FuhrerShattercore]

Compares government to a kindergarten lmao

[jayfaisa]

Scientists and engineers are qualified for... Science & engineering... Though they would be good at being public servants in certain respects, they know little to nothing about law, ethics, economics, business, and political theory, which is what most politicians are specialized for anyway.

[krishnamohan]

I'm sorry but Trump made me lose hope in democracy too.

[MikaelLewisify]

“Leaders elected by everybody”? When has that ever been true?? Never.

[GingerGingie]

Way more philosophical than I had expected, he's like the perfect mix of scientist, engineer, philosopher, and celebrity. Thank you, as always, for your unique and enlightened point of view. Love you Bill Nye!!

[VR_Wizard]

Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany has a doctorate in physical chemistry.

[Almaest]

this reminds me when Dawkins was asked the question whether evolution (his life's work) was a fit model to base our mortality and way of life on, he responded by saying evolution was merely the reason we came to be and a model to take notes on how Not to base our society. Somebody gifted in a specific field may be brilliant, but not cut for leading. Yet, in my opinion, its best to have somebody informed and intelligent to lead, to make the best; perhaps not perfect, laws and solutions, somethings i feel missing in the USA today. i cant help but feel these brilliant educators like Bill or Neil would be great candidates.

[YoungEducationUSA]

Our last democratic primary was corrupted, both parties keep out other parties I.e. Independent & Libertarian parties. Then we elected a game show host because of all of the corruption! This time you were way off in my opinion Bill!

[ManikandtanCK]

None of the issues Bill mentioned is unsolvable by a technocracy. What stops a fixed duration review system followed by reelection, but the elected candidates are qualified for the posts they occupy?

[catsgonom]

Just because you know a lot about something doesn't make you good at teaching it or being a leader in that field. Case in point my Audio professor in my Film school sucks at teaching but he's worked in Hollywood and on some pretty famous movies. He still sucks at teaching and keeping us interested in the topic. Some people are just better at teaching or leading.

[shawarmageddonit]

In all fairness, though, if engineers did run the world, at least the trains would be on time.

[BennettAustin]

The world would not look too much different if run by scientists and engineers. What you actually need are philosophers

[austin-lo]

My thought on this has always been that scientists search for truth and have no problem being wrong and base their views off of evidence and what can be proven while also being open minded to new ideas. A lawyers job is to argue a point and “win” the argument regardless of what is true. Having so many lawyers in politics is a huge problem.

[dianedong]

Having competent, well meaning people in charge is certainly better than letting ignorant and/or psychopathic people run the show. However, no amount of money and politics will be able to create a society which is compatable with our long term survival as a species on this planet. Merely having scientists and engineers "act as politicians", would be ineffective. Our long term survival will require a system of scientific governance, and a distribution system based on energy and resources rather than barter. What China has in reality is anything but a "Technocracy". Chinese politicians may have technical degrees in one academic field or another, but the decisions they make are still based on politics and money.