Ologies with Alie Ward - Pedagogology (SCIENCE COMMUNICATION) with Bill Nye

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

BILL NYE. That’s right. Bill Freakin’ Nye sits down to get grilled by your Dadward (that’s me, Alie) all about Pedagogology, the art and science of science communication. How did the modern day hype man of facts and wonder get his start? What does he love about his job? What are the most important elements of spreading knowledge? WHICH TIE IS HIS FAVORITE TIE? We chat about everything from comedy to TV crews, what he thinks about when he goes for walks, taking risks to follow your dreams, advice from Carl Sagan, tackling climate change, what makes him optimistic and … how to be the next Bill Nye. Truly one of my most cherished episodes; it brought me to tears. Enjoy. And listen to Bill’s own podcast, Science Rules! With Bill Nye. For more on Bill Nye, see https://billnye.com/ Follow Bill Nye at Twitter.com/BillNye, Instagram.com/BillNye or TikTok.com/BillNye A donation went to www.planetary.org Listen to Science Rules! With Bill Nye at AskBillNye.com or wherever you get podcasts! Sponsors of Ologies: alieward.com/ologies-sponsors Transcripts & bleeped episodes at: alieward.com/ologies-extras Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologies OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes and now… MASKS. Hi. Yes. Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologies Follow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWard Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris Theme song by Nick ThorburnSupport the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh hey, it's that little beetle grub in your compost that you mistook for a dead human finger. Ali Ward just squirmed toward one of the most exciting episodes of oligies in the three-year history of the show. I mean, we have rock star oligists on every week, but celebs, I mean, we have a verifiable famous person on this week. And like, what's next? Vibology with Paula Abdul? Iconology with Missy Elliott? I mean, the sky's the limit. But before I sit down with our collective personal hero, some thanks to patrons at patreon.com slash oligies for submitting the questions for this episode, for every episode, and for supporting the show each and every day. If you want to join that, it's a dollar a month,

literally $12 a year gets you access to submit questions for over 50 episodes. So it's cheaper than a parking meter, folks. That's patreon.com slash oligies. Also, thank you to everyone rating the show and subscribing and spreading the word. It matters so much as do reviews. And I read all of your reviews because I love you back, such as this freshie from Carly, who says, pretty sure oligies cured my cancer. But for real, though, almost a year of chemo surgeries and quarantine, hearing a Tasmanian devil's screech or learning how not to lose a boat has been the highlight of my journey. You too can experience this enlightenment. No cancer necessary, says Carly. Carly, thank you and please continue to be healthy. And while we're here, big hugs to a

longtime listener, Krista Avampato, who just went through surgery last week. Okay, onward. Now, the title of this one is pedagogology and pedagogy pedagogy. What is it? I'm never sure. Pedagogy pedagogy. Okay, the title of this one is pedagogology. And pedagogy means the method in practice of teaching. So theoretically, this ology is the study of teaching. So learning to teach, to learn, to communicate, perhaps science. So to be a science communicator in Psycom, to calm some Psy. And there was maybe no one better on planet Earth to ask than the world icon of science TV. He graduated with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and worked at Boeing and has a zeal for all things scientific. He's the author of several books. He hosts several seasons of his own

show on Netflix. And after wanting to be his generation's Mr. Wizard, he's been communicating science for decades. And now we all would want to be him. So we chat about communicating science, the intersection of policy and conservation, the joy of discovery, gender fluidity, TikTok masks, voting, ties, monks, craters, and the F word with your hero and my pedagogologist, Bill Freaking Nye. Hi. Hi. Hi. Greetings. Greetings. I'm so excited to talk to you. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me here. I don't know how to do this interview because there's too many questions that I want to ask. So start with one of the first ones. Okay. So start with the first.

Okay. That's a good idea. Yeah. Well, that wasn't really my idea. It's so nice to talk to you again. I had so much fun being on your podcast. I'm such a huge fan. Obviously, you know that huge fan. It's good. I'm a big fan of yours also. Stop. Okay. I'm just going to get right into it. You ready? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I would like to know what a typical day is like for Bill Nye. Right now, a typical day is getting up and eating breakfast, which usually consists of some stone fruit from nearby grocery stores or the farmer's market, which is nearby where I live here in Los Angeles. And then I get on calls like this. No, that's what I do. There's a lot of zooming. That's a brand name, a lot of casting of pods. You know, we do science rules.

You've been on science rules. We do science rules, coronavirus edition. And I do a little research for those. And there's always a lot of email associated with the Planetary Society. So Bill is the CEO of the Planetary Society, which is the world's largest and most influential non-profit space organization. They, quote, introduced people to the wonders of the cosmos, bridging the gap between the scientific community and the general public to inspire and educate people from all walks of life and make voices heard in government and affect real change in support of space exploration. Non-profit badassery is what's happening. So there's a lot of activity for me associated with that. Then

at the end of the day, after a lot of often apples and peanut butter for lunch, then I go for either a long walk of about four and a half miles, or I ride my bike for about, what is it, 15 kilometers. So what is that? I don't know. Some number in there, 10 miles or something like that. 15 kilometers is 9.3 miles, which is a lot of miles. And I go up the big hill, the hill here that separates Hollywood proper from like the valley. And I like totally living the valley. And I found that doing these two activities every other day is good for the hips and knees.

Oh, how about for ideas? Do you get a lot of ideas when you're cycling or when you're physically occupied? Yeah, you know, this idea of mindfulness where you're supposed to think about nothing? Oh, would but that I could. I know. I think about things all the time. Yeah. And I hearkened to the story of this guy named William Friedman, who was one of the code breakers in World War II. And he says he encouraged the people that he worked with to just think about in the background, you're working on the problem all the time. You're always working on the problem. So yes, I'm always thinking about things, Ali. I don't doubt it.

And right now, man, we are I'm in California, everything is on fire. No sign of rain to come. The hurricanes hitting the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. We have got climate change big time. Yes. Yes. Do you ever wonder in all of this, do you ever subscribe to any theories of this is one of many universes or just a simulation gone bad? Or is that just giving up? That it's a simulation gone bad is completely unreasonable to me. And I'll tell you why, everybody, this gets back to our good friend, Occam's razor. William of Occam, pronouncing it as best I can goes, you know, if you think about it, the simplest explanation for a phenomenon

is probably the best. William of Occam was a friar from Occam Surrey in England in the late 1200s. And I just look that up today. I always pictured Occam to look like some sort of Trent Reznor goblin holding a razor blade with his teeth. But no, he's just a monk who's like, hey, man, chill out. Simple answer is probably the deal. And then like went back to eating some unsalted porridge. So one explanation would be that we live, we're all in a giant video game. And our memories are implanted by the galactic over director, the God of the God of the video game. And everything that we do is prescribed by the rules of the video game. And somebody's in charge. And what you think is reality is not reality, because you're part of it. That's one explanation.

Another explanation is we're not in a video game. This is actually the universe. And here we are. That's just a lot more reasonable to me. Now, whether or not there are other universes, is a fabulous question. But apparently the only reason or the best reason or the most compelling reason that there might be other universes, multiverses, is there's nothing to exclude that possibility. Okay. All right. We'll see. Or maybe it will be shown that you can never see that it's unknowable. Okay. All right. I'm still going to have coffee in the morning. And we still have to fix this big ball on fire that we live on. Yes. But these are worthy questions. You know, this thing, the two things that get us all,

all the time are, are we alone in the universe? Are we the only sentient or whatever you call us contemplating our fate beings? And where do we all come from? Where do we all get here? And I think the video game hypothesis is somebody trying to come up with, how did we all get here? What is going on? And it is a fundamental and amazing question. I mean, I don't know, man, but I sure want to find out. I mean, this is, you know, the premise in science, everybody, and I know we have questions to get to Ali, I can't wait. Oh yeah, no. But the premise of the bit, as we say in comedy writing, in science is the premise is that the universe is knowable, that the cosmos is knowable. And that we can even ask that question is amazing. It fills me with reverence

every day, that we are made of the dust of stars. And so we are at least one of the ways that the universe knows that it exists. We are one of the ways the universe knows itself. That's really, it's profound, people. Do you ever find that kind of existential rooting in science itself? Well, you've been on the Science Rules podcast. I have, it's a great podcast. And I mentioned this as, of course, to promote my podcast, but also as a witness, if you ask Corey Powell, my co-host, what's my favorite thing? And right now, I'm a mechanical engineer. Physics was how I, that's how I got here. But my favorite thing these days is evolution. Evolution explains is how we understand all of biology, all of life sciences in the context or the lens of evolution.

For more on evolution and some hot Charles Darwin gossip, see the evolutionary biology episode, if you like. And so I think about science every day all the time. And where did we all come from? And are we alone in the universe? I think about that all the time. On the topic of evolution, let's talk a little bit about yours. You are kind of proof that one's mutations are their superpower, that you are someone who's a mechanical engineer who is also gifted in comedy. And a lot of times, people probably find themselves in one bucket or the other, but you were a bit of both. And that kind of led to how you used your voice. Or did you ever struggle with wanting to be a performer versus wanting to be an engineer? What was that

like for you? Okay, let me just say, are you kidding? Yes, I struggled. Oh, my goodness, did I struggle? So you guys, let me also back up one little thing. You used the term gifted. Mm-hmm. I'm always concerned about the term gifted. I'm always concerned about the term talent. Okay. You know, I mean, to me, Fred Astaire, you know, talent. Okay. Bill Nye, talent. I'm not sure. You kind of lost me there. Don't be so modest. But along this line, yeah, so I, what started it was, everyone, you could say, I was a senior in college and the guy who had been my freshman roommate, Dave Lax, when we see each other at reunions, it's always great. Hey, Dave, I love you, man. I love you, man. But he had gone into material science. I went into mechanical

engineering. It's just like, you got to come see this. So I went to his house. They had this extraordinary technology in 1977. They had cable television. What? Yeah. And so I saw Steve Martin at the boarding house. The boarding house is a nightclub in San Francisco. And he goes, look, this guy is just like you. Look at this. His sense of humor is just like yours. Look at this guy. Hey, this guy isn't good. So then a year later, one of the other's records sponsored a Steve Martin lookalike contest. And a different, completely different set of friends in a whole other city, Seattle, pressured me to enter this contest. And I did. And I won. I mean, due respect, I won. I did not win the national one. I did not advance beyond Seattle. The guy who won could play the

banjo. And I guess objectively kind of looked like Steve Martin. But this led to people wanting me to be Steve Martin at parties because you're not of a certain age, but it is my claim that when Steve Martin released these first two albums, the whole world was laughing with him. The whole world was on board with his just people would call it absurdist or just his point of view, which was deep irony. Anyway, then you start doing stand up comedy. You start trying to do stand up comedy. You know, you start trying to write your own material. Meanwhile, I was working as an engineer. And then because everybody was talking about comedy early on, this is before Seinfeld, before everybody loves Raymond, before all that, the head of the NBC affiliate station in Seattle,

Chuck Jones, I guess was his real name, wanted to have a comedy show. So I had met these guys at comedy clubs over the couple of years there. And I got invited to do a bit. And then one thing led to another and we had to fill six minutes, which is quite a while. And so raw Schaefer, who's still a good friend of mine said, why don't you you could do that science stuff you're always talking about. So I did the household uses of liquid nitrogen. Of course, the science guy. And it was Ross who just blurted out Bill Nye, the science guy in a meeting. And it was, you know, it was well received. So then there was pressure to do a science guy bit every few weeks. And I started doing it out doing it as kind of a magic

thing that is to say, not everything you see maybe was real. But then it occurred to me how cool would be just to make it all real. Bill says that during the mid 1980s, the Reagan administration opted to remove and not replace President Carter's solar panels, which was a mega bummer to many environmentalists. And they also ended the push to have us convert to the metric system, which is why I had to ask a search engine, how many miles 15 kilometers is and why I'm not sure if it's kilometers or kilometers. And so I just had to look that up. Kilometers is American, and kilometers is British. They're spelled the same though. Any freaking who's all the folks who produced the Seattle Today show hired our then 35 year old buddy Bill in 1989 to make an

educational video for the Washington State Department of Ecology. And it was called fabulous wetlands. And it was fabulous. So what is a wetland anyway? Well, you got land, you got water, it's not that complicated. And that became a template for the science guy show. And then one thing led to another in the Children's Television Act, where they had station owners had to have three hours of educational television every week. Right. You mean we're going to stop our printing press for money? Yeah. You're going to stop printing money for three hours every week? I know. Oh, my goodness. But anyway, that's one thing led to another. But as far as quitting my engineering job, man, oh, man, I was working part time on a comedy show in Seattle that only would go six

weeks at a time. And then you're unemployed for the next six weeks. You know, for a guy who was used to having a job, you know, he used to wear a tie to work, a straight tie. I can't help but imagine Bill wearing a straight tie to his day job and then coming home and changing into a bow tie like Mr. Rogers to teach science or ducking into a phone booth like Clark Kent, changing only his tie, but emerging clearly our nation's science Superman. I'll just tell you also, Allie, in those days working bowing and then sun strand, when I wore a tie, I also, it's just my thing, I also wore a shirt. I didn't want to scare anyone, you know. So anyway, quitting my job, October 3rd, 1986 was a real stopping and thinking. I mean, I had, I set aside my end of the world

money, which was $5,000. That's a lot of money. And it was enough to pay that I had a mortgage, I had a condo, condominium. I was like, you know, I was a young single guy in a condo, driving a Volkswagen bug. But, you know, even then the world was changing so fast. And I realized if I left engineering for a year, I would be not unhirable, but it would be quite difficult for me to get back in it. Yeah. So you ask, was it an agonizing decision? Yeah. But I was a young guy, people much, they much more regret what they don't do than what they do. Yes. I mean, once in a while, there's, you know, problems. But most of the time, we regret what we didn't do. So I quit my job and tried it. And then for another six years, I worked part-time as an engineer. But in,

traditionally, it's called a contract engineer. That was a long answer to one of your questions. No, I liked it. Yes, it was, I agonized. Of course you did. But you also, did you not get a little bit of advice from some guy named Carl? Oh, Carl Sagan. Yes. Okay. Okay. Some guy. So what happened to everybody was, first of all, I was in high school in Washington, DC, and a guy who had graduated two years ahead of me who had the same physics teacher said, you know, Bill, you ought to apply to Cornell. You're the kind of guy that would fit in at Cornell University. And you know, we love the word skepticism, Allie. But I was very skeptical of this claim. But nevertheless, I applied. I had never visited the Cornell campus. I just,

in football, if you're familiar, I threw a Hail Mary pass. I typed the application on a typewriter, a manual typewriter, and I got in. I just, I still to this day am amazed. The people I went to college with are so freaking smart. Yeah. So yes, Bill got in and took some pretty cool classes. As a senior, I took one class from Carl Sagan, who was at Cornell. And it changed my life. It really did. So the guy was so inspiring. He was all that as the kids say. So years after he graduated, Bill was making a Sunday morning educational TV show called Bill's Basement. And he got back in touch with his former Cornell instructor to ask a psychon question. I asked Carl Sagan about this. And he says, when you're doing these things, Bill, it sounds like a funny call me Bill.

It sounds like a fine thing. But this is at my 10th college reunion. So my 10th reunion, I had written a paper letter. Some of you may know this technology sounds like this. And this is where you can store its plant based information storage. And I wrote him a letter and his assistant arranged for me to meet with him for five minutes. And I told him about this thing called Bill. He says, focus on pure science. He said, kids resonate to pure science. That was a verb he used. And so I did. That was just outstanding advice. And I can is one sentence out of the all the sentences I've heard over my entire life. And it was really cool advice. So if you watch the Science Guy show, it's all about pure science. Even the computer show is about the science or the mathematics or

the fundamentals of computing rather than the state of that art in 1997 or whatever it was. So Bill is still in touch with Ann Sagan. And the Sagan kiddos were fans of Bill Nye the Science Guy. He still hangs out and has a beer and shoots the shit about our place in the cosmos with them. Because that is the kind of casual madness that Bill Nye brings to the table. All these remarkable circumstances have led me to where I am. And you know, each of these things is some crazy turning point in your life. Like you're doing an ology's podcast. You're crazy. You're wild. Who knew? Who knew? I definitely think that you should take the risks. Cut bangs. Text your crush. This is likely not a simulation.

Have you ever been part of any studies where they've tried to figure out generationally what generation gives a bigger shit about science and if it's related to their watching Bill Nye the Science Guy? Like I feel like millennials care. Maybe an older generation doesn't. If they had had a better Bill Nye the Science Guy, do you think we would have an easier time with policy that would protect the earth? Well, I think we're about to see a fantastic turning point. Yeah. To your point, not to make you all jealous, but I was at the foot doctor recently. Yeah. Okay. Back in the day, when you could walk around, I was in Penn Station in New York City and this woman with a giant piece of luggage ran over my foot. Now, why didn't you

get out of the way, Bill? Yeah, well. Physics. So anyway, the toe is broken and crooked and all these exciting things. So anyway, I was in the doctor's office and he said, this guy was my age, this doctor singer. He said, you wait here and he brought in five people who work in his office and they're young people, millennials, who all watch the Science Guy show. And they all said the reason we're physicians and nurses is because we watch the Science Guy show. I got choked up. I went, wow, you guys. I mean, we made the show in a brick warehouse in Seattle. It's still there and to have it stand the test of 27 years of time is really surprising and wonderful. So I believe with these people who are in their 20s and early 30s, when they are running the show,

people like you, Allie, things are going to change. Things are going to change big time. And I remind us all in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, refers to the progress of science and useful arts. That's your job as a member of Congress is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. So this is the patent and copyright clause, which states that the Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. End quote. Now for more on the US Constitution, including hearing it read word for word in its entirety with asides.

You can see the nomology episodes with USC law professor Fergie Nittolson, who sheds so much light on this ancient foundation of our country. And that's in there because the people who wrote the Constitution say what you will about their other activities. They realized how important science is to the success or to your economy, to want to your country's economy. So I think you all are going to change the world. Well, Bill Nye has already changed the world. Is it weird for you to be, by the way, an archetype? I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm just being honest. I see so many Twitter buyers that are like, I'm the next Bill Nye. I want to be the next Bill Nye. I want to be Bill Nye. Is it ever weird for you to be like, I'm the Bill Nye. I'm a Bill Nye. Well,

it's always weird. But here's the thing, everybody, if you want to be the next Bill Nye, please do it. I'm of a certain age. You know, I jumped off of buildings onto airbags. I parachuted out of planes. I did bungee jumping till I got floaters in my eyes because of the G forces when you decelerate. Okay. And I memorized all those lines. I wrote most of them. And the show almost killed me. But it was, you know, still very, very proud of it. Put my heart and soul into it. But to all the Bill Nye's of the future, just remember that part of what made the Bill Nye show successful was the crew. Everybody on the crew had a terrific sense of humor. It's one thing to be enthusiastic and celebrate snot or barf or whatever wonderful things we all might consider

gross or to celebrate being a nerd and soldering and welding and using a microscope and putting a cover slip on a slide without cracking it. Those are all great things. But just make sure that or consider or embrace the idea that you also want it to be funny. Yes. I was going to ask about that. About communicating science because I think that's, I don't know what allergy this is going to be. By the way, I haven't figured that out yet. You got any suggestions? Well, pedagogy. Okay. That's a good one. Is that, is that an ology? Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedagological. Pedag-thing stuff, the G. Survey says it is indeed a word. So pedagogological,

like capri-length britches and smallpox scars. This word appeared more in the late 1800s, but it does exist. So we're going with it. In terms of being a science communicator, if you could give someone really good advice about calming sci, would it be to try to find the humor in things? Make it relatable? What do you think? Well, the biggest, what I tell everybody is try, is two things, is come up with your learning objectives. Now I am not trained as a professional educator. I have not been hired by a United States state or Commonwealth to teach professionally, but learning objective is a technical term in education that means the thing you're going to get across. And this, this takes discipline. Talk about dinosaurs. There's, you know, everybody,

dinosaurs in space. We all love dinosaurs in space and people say they don't love dinosaurs in space. They are lying to your face. They're lying to your face. And so, by the way, it was in my lifetime that the connection between space and dinosaurs was discovered. I can't, isn't that nuts? Isn't that nuts? If it doesn't freak you out, I don't know what does. I know we're such babies on this planet. There were such tiny, tiny, young little babies not knowing what is going on at all. When I was a kid, Allie, and I will not lose my train of thought. When I was a kid, the best idea anybody had was dinosaurs had small brains. So, the mammals took all their food and the dinosaurs died. And Mrs. McGonagall, my second grade teacher, was like, okay, I'm supposed to

read this book to you all, but this is nothing. Come on. That dinosaur's giant Tyrannosaurus is like getting outwitted by a mouse. Maybe. I mean, maybe. Anyway, so in my lifetime, I was out paying taxes. I was a grown-up. The discovery of the asteroid that almost certainly finished off the ancient dinosaur 66 million years ago was discovered. It's really something. P.S., this crater is on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and we didn't know about it until the 1970s. The movie Jaws had been out for three years before we figured out definitively where the rock that ended the dinos hit. There are sex pistols albums older than this knowledge. So, back to the learning objectives. So, in the case of dinosaurs, there's so ancient dinosaurs,

there's so much you can talk about. Birds are dinosaurs. Whoa, cool. Dinosaurs had feathers or not. Dinosaur fossils are found here. They're not found here. Well, we thought they'd find, we'd find them here, and we found them all over here, all this sort of thing. But dinosaurs and people did not live at the same time. That's kind of a gigantic idea. We know that dinosaurs live because we found their fossil bones. That's it. We know they lived. And if you can get those two things across in 28 minutes, you're doing something. So, I really encourage everybody to think about what in education or communication is what you want to get across. And we all do it, Ali. We bury the lead. We start thinking out loud and you don't get to the point for a couple sentences.

Then the other thing that's really important in my opinion, and as you know, my opinion is correct, is what I call the discipline in vocabulary, DIV. If you introduce words that the listener or viewer doesn't know, you're going to lose them. And this is very well documented and don't come running to me. And then the other thing, along this line, you don't want to introduce a word and then explain it. You want to have the explanation before the word. And we all do it. We all define the word with the word. What's echolocation? Well, what do you mean echolocation is when you echolocate? Oh, right. It's really easy to fall into that trap. So, when you go to write these things or create them or produce them, I really encourage everybody, learning objectives, figure

out what you're going to get across, and be disciplined in the words you use to introduce words and technical terms. Were you a kid that liked science or did you think that? Oh, man. Yes. Oh, yes. Now, understand, everybody, I'm of a certain age, and the space program was the thing. Yeah. I mean, this is what was going on. I was a little, little kid when Sputnik flew, but I remember very well the anxiety my parents felt, 1957, when the Ruskies were getting into the ultimate high ground. And then when these guys, Alan Shepard, John Glenn flew in space, and Yuri Gagarin, you know, they hid this truth, but apparently Yuri Gagarin was like this maniac test pilot, very accomplished guy, could just handle any situation, comes back in after orbiting

the earth, coming back into the atmosphere. Well, you know, Yuri, it's not going so well, your retro rocket system. Okay, don't worry about it. So he parachutes out of the freaking capsule. He just jumps out and parachutes to the earth, and the capsule, I guess, landed pretty hard. And at that time, the Soviet government didn't want to tell people. But I mentioned it. It was a very exciting time in space exploration. It was just all this wild stuff going on. And there was this intimate connection between the Cold War, and the Civilian Space Agency, NASA National Earth and Space Administration. So I was brought up with that. And, you know, even now, people talk about the World's Fair in 1964, 65 in New York City. Well, my family, I grew up in Washington,

DC, in the city limits of Washington, DC, we went there, went to New York. It was astonishing. I mean, the future, you know, and almost every day, when I get on a freeway in Los Angeles, back when you went places and cars, right, I remember six months ago, yeah, the freeways were really envisioned at that time in the future. Man, and the term was man, man will travel through roadways in the sky. And that turned out to be true whether or not it's this utopian vision is something else. But these ideas were presented to us as kids. And it's just so inspiring and amazing and fabulous. We spent a lot of time looking things up. You don't have to do that anymore. I mean, the access to information now is even cooler, even cooler. So yes, furthermore,

my mother's father was a chemist. He was a professor at Duke University, then Johns Hopkins University, then he got a job, apparently his most satisfying job was a company called Crown Cork and Seal. Okay. And only older listeners would remember when bottle caps had cork glued under the metal cap. Anyway, he had the patent on that adhesive, apparently. So I grew up with science. And then if you knew this about my mom, my mom was one of the code girls. Yes. And so she was, I just will say objectively, she was very good at puzzles. Yes. Crossword puzzles and stuff like that. And so she was recruited by the Navy to do something. Mom, what did you do during the war? I can't talk about it. My whole life.

And so there was an event, and I know not everything we talk about makes it into the podcast, but there was an event last year, a year ago, April at the Library of Congress, celebrating these women, a few of whom were still alive. And a gal came up to me and said, you know, my mom was with your mom in Hawaii. I said, my mom was never in Hawaii. Actually, she was. So after VE, after the European Victory Day, several of these women were taken to Hawaii to work, to continue work on the JN, Japanese Navy codes. JN 25 was the famous one. So I learned something every day. So anyway, that was really something. So I was raised, by the way, everybody, the Equal Rights Amendment has been passed now by 38 states and commonwealths.

We'll see what happens. My mom was a very feminine feminist. She marched in at least one of the Equal Rights Amendment's parades, but I think it was she marched in three of them. And my great-grandmother, whom I never met, marched in the suffragist parade in 1913 in Washington. So I go back with this, everybody. Yeah. And actually, every episode, we donate to a cause of the ologist choosing. Well, we love the Planetary Society. Well, there you go. So everybody, Carl Sagan started the Planetary Society in 1980 because he and two other guys, Bruce Murray, who was the head of the Jet Propulsion Lab, during the Voyager missions, the famous, famous gold record and all that. But it's just cool. And Lou Friedman, who was an orbital mechanics guy

at JPL, Jet Propulsion Lab, they felt that public interest in space was very high, but government support of it was not so high. And that's still true when it comes to planetary exploration. I mean, we just discovered evidence of life on Venus in the atmosphere of Venus. Right. And I've talked all the time, as you know, who wouldn't, that Venus is like hell. I mean, the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. It rains sulfuric acid. No way, total way. It rains sulfuric acid, but the acid doesn't hit the ground. It evaporates before it gets the ground because the ground's so hot. But apparently, in the atmosphere, way above the surface, there are some temperatures, if I can use that. See, that's an example of using the word

to define the word. Right. There's some... You defined it with a definition. There's some word, there's some temperatures that aren't especially too crazy hot to dissociate every molecule we associate with life. So maybe, maybe there are Venusians, aerosol Venusians, zooming around or getting winded around in the Venusian atmosphere. Exciting. It really is amazing. And I tell the time, everybody, if we discover life or evidence of life on another world, it will change this world. Everybody will feel differently about being a living thing in the cosmos. I mean, it's just jaw-dropping. Oh, okay. I'm going to bombard you with listener questions. Lightning round? Lightning round, Mr. Nye. Is it a lightning round or just listener

questions? Whatever you want to do. It'll hit me the ball, as we say. It's lightning round of listener questions. 43 pages of listener questions. So I have organized them as best I can, and I'm just going to start firing them off. You ready? Well, I'm so ready. Before your questions, patrons, a quick word from sponsors of the show who made it possible for us to donate to the Planetary Society. Okay. Now on to 43 pages of your questions. I said I wasn't going to make a cry. Oh gosh, there's so many. Okay. Liz Ropke, great question. Were you ever scared to perform as a science communicator on TV or radio or podcast, and how did you overcome that? Or are you still working on that? If you're not scared, quit doing it. That's the old saying.

And the other really good remark Tom Bergeron made, you know, and dancing with that guy who hosts Dancing with the Stars and hosted, he says, take your nervousness and turn it into excitement. It's a theater expression, you know, there's a lot to it. But as Robin Williams said, if you stop being nervous, quit doing it. Great advice. But whether or not I'm scared, that's something else. No, if I'm scared, but I'm always like, on this podcast, Allie, I don't want to say the wrong thing, man. Well, man. Oh, no, it's like very, very high stakes. I'm a real hardball interviewer also. You know that, Bill Nye. Oh, man, it's just, sweat is pouring. Yeah, if you're not crying about it, I haven't done my job. Nick Bakash

says, how do we depoliticize science? What are the ways not to approach science communication for those who are resistant to science? So you guys, this is a question I'm really serious. That's a great question. I've struggled with this the last 20 years. Right. How do you get people who refuse to or seem to refuse to acknowledge the facts that we have discovered through the process of science? You know, I say all the time, I went to elementary school with a kid who had polio. You do not want polio. It wouldn't even occur to you not to get vaccinated against polio. And so then you show all this evidence that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. But people still have this perception. Changing their minds is quite difficult. But here's the

new thing I'm working on. And that's making people aware of this phrase that I have come to embrace. The liar's dividend. The liar's dividend. So after the lie is out there and lie is a hard, after the pseudoscience or after the false claim is presented, that's stuck in the listener or the viewer's mind. And so for the liar, it continues to pay dividends. These false claims get stuck in people's heads. It's very difficult to displace it. However, pointing out to people that they're receiving the proceeds from a liar's dividend, it may raise awareness and help them overcome it. It's clear that the anti-science people are completely outnumbered by the regular people. So if regular people vote with the environment and

mind or with how you should respond to a public health crisis in mind, then normal people will win. And we can move on. Just keep in mind that trying to change somebody who's a climate denier or a contrarian, trying to change his or her mind takes a couple of years. It's really difficult. Actually, kind of on that note, first time question asker, Erin Spencer wants to know what evidence helped you essentially change your mind about climate change or was the most impactful? What's a nice piece of evidence to have in your tool belt for those conversations? Well, I never was a contrarian about climate change. Yeah. And the reason, no, the reason everybody, I'm of a certain age. And so what happened was people, Carl Sagan and another guy

named Jim Pollock, James Pollock, had written a computer program, a mathematical model. What would happen if you set off all the nuclear weapons in the world on the same afternoon, same day, right? And then a couple years later, Walter Alvarez and his son discovered this asteroid impact that finished off the ancient dinosaurs. And then James Hansen, Jim Hansen, was studying the planet Venus and realized the significance of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere. And so he testified in front of Congress in 1988 about global climate change caused by all the carbon oxide put in the air by people. 1988. So those three things came together for me as a guy reading Scientific American and Science News and just interested in that sort of thing.

So I was always or always concerned about climate change. And then I became a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is a very good political, but not partisan, non-profit organization that studies things like climate change. You know, I was on board with this from the get go. But what I say to everybody is scientists around the world, and you'll hear 97%, but it's more like 99% of climate scientists are convinced, have shown, that humans are putting all this carbon oxide in the air, and that's just making the world warmer. So everybody, how could you see it any other way? And then the other striking thing, it's 2020, these fires, which are ravaging the West, and these hurricanes, which are stacking up in

domino fashion in the Mid-Atlantic, are all predicted by the mathematical models that were written originally in the 1980s and really honed in the 1990s. And the first hockey stick graph was published by Michael Mann and others in 1995. And just a side note, the late climatologist and director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Jerry Mahlmann coined this hockey stick term and stated in 2004 that, quote, global warming is real and it's a phenomenon that humans have created. Climate scientists worldwide have understood its essence since the so-called Charney report of the National Research Council in 1979. Our burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas is the indisputably direct cause of the ever-increasing concentrations of

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This added carbon dioxide acts directly to warm the planet. There is no scientific controversy about these facts. Again, a 2004 quote from climatologist Jerry Mahlmann. So this is neither fresh news nor is it really up for debate. Facts. And every time they do an analysis, the hockey stick gets more compelling. It gets accurate or an accurate error. And so that people are in denial about it is just because it's so big. The problem is so overwhelming that it's easier just to tell yourself this couldn't possibly be happening rather than say, well, I guess we should get to work on this. And so that's a great question, but figuring out how to convince people who are entrenched for sort of spiritual reasons

is really difficult. But I remind us about the word political. Politics is not inherently bad. What's caused trouble is might be a better word for everybody to think about is partisanship, where if you're on board with these other policies of your party, then you also are on board with denying climate change. And so just careful of that, everybody. Political is not partisan. They're closely related, but they're not quite the same thing. Right. And kind of in that vein, Ruby Johnstone wants to know, how do you feel about social media and the ability to communicate science both real and very fake to a broader audience? And I also know you're killing it on TikTok. Any tips? Well, the thing on TikTok, up I am

cracked, if I may, I'm cracked up. So you guys, you know, I'm a miserable, hateful person, and I hate everything. But along with that, I'm generally an opt, pretty much a crazy optimist. I'm very excited about the future. I can't wait to get up every morning and stuff like that, because of science. But this idea that you have a right to not get vaccinated is just wrong. And it makes me a little crazy. So I did that TikTok video. And you know, it's been shown that wearing a face covering is very effective in preventing the spread of this coronavirus. But apparently the real thing is being in enclosed spaces with people who are infected, because it goes through the air. So anyway, this idea that you have a right to not wear a mask

is not understanding this fundamental idea that I have rights to, you may think you have a right to infect me, but I would say no, actually, no, maybe you don't. And the example I give everybody is you pay taxes on the whole road, but you don't get to drive on both sides. You have to drive on one side at a time. And so wear a mask. But convincing people that is really difficult. So the reason we want you to wear a mask is to protect you, sure. But the main reason we want you to wear a mask is to protect me. Okay, next question. First time question asked her by someone of the name Rachel Bloom, you may know her Emmy. Oh, really? Yes, Emmy. Oh, she's great. A worn winner. That's really her real name. Yes, her real name. She's a

listener ofologies. She's an idol of mine. Just FYI, this is the Rachel Bloom of the Emmy-winning CW show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And as long as we're talking about her, her book, I Want to Be Where The Normal People Are, is due out on November 17th. And you can pre-order it now. And I hear that it is hilarious. I'm going to add a link to it at alleywar.com slash ology slash Bill Nye. And yes, she is a fellow oligite. And she has a question for Bill. She wants to know, how has being a science icon for all ages impacted you as a person? Also, this is totally awesome. Thank you, Rachel. How is it? I don't know. Here's, I'll tell you what. Television and to very, about the same extent, podcasts are intimate. Television is intimate.

The guy there, as the saying goes, you don't hate anyone more than you hate someone on television. And so the same is true in a much, perhaps much more important example. If you don't like the baseball announcer, you just hate the guy. It's like this deep thing, because he's just in your ear, he's in your face, whatever it is in the case of television. So when it comes to Bill Nye and the science guy show and all that, you can either take my word for it or ask anybody I've worked with is what you see is what you get, man. I mean, I love science. I think it's the coolest thing ever. And what I still love about television and what I love about the podcast alley, it's still handmade. Even though we're using this extraordinary technology, converting pressure

waves in the air and do electronics and putting them back in the air around the world electronically, even though we're doing that, it's still a conversation between you and me, between you and Rachel Bloom and me. And I just love that. And when we did the show, Rachel Bloom was on the saves the world show. When we did that show, it was, I just tell everybody, the crew, everybody's there trying to do the same thing. It's still this handmade product. And that's what I think appeals to people. And so when you watch the science guy show, I'm talking to you listener, viewer. You're my, you're the person I'm trying to get through to. I really care about every viewer. When I'm talking to the lens, I'm talking to one person. I'm trying to convince one person.

So I love you out there, Rachel. I love you, man, woman. A few more listener questions. Oh, man, I got time. Okay, good. Marie Hancox, Julie Bear, Mark Ackie, Liz Ropeke, Katherine Gilbert, Celia Levante, and Casey Hanver want to know, is it true that the bow ties make it the man? And do you have a favorite bow tie? Be honest. So don't tell me to be honest. I'm going to tell you to be honest. I don't, I'm not going to accept lies. So people have, have asked me about the bow ties many times, and I have about 500. Okay. And so picking a favorite is quite difficult because, you know, it depends on your mood, depends what else you're wearing. It depends on the expectation of the

viewer. Okay. Where you're going to be, you know, if you go to somebody else's wedding, you don't want to show up looking, you know, sharper than the groom. That's true. Although, of course, for me, it's quite a challenge. It's hard. No, that's a joke, everybody. That's ironing. But with that said, my grandfather owned a tie. So my grandmother was, you know, people talk about immigrants. My grandmother was French. She was a war bride. She married a U.S. Army captain after the First World War. But she would go back to France to see her sisters and hang out. And she brought this one tie back that is just so beautiful. It's dark blue silk. And it's two kinds of silk. And there's a stripe of one kind of silk going through the middle of

the other kind of silk. And it just makes the most beautiful knot. And it's very narrow. And it has arrow points, as they're called, or diamond points. The ends of the tie are diagonal, not straight. I only wear that on very special occasions. Yeah, where have you worn it? I want to find my commencement speaker. I was at my mother's alma mater, Goucher College, where she was recruited by the Navy. I wore it there. And also, as is my policy, I also wore a shirt. No, it was sleeveless, though, right? You get the sleeves tailored off? Actually, everybody, I'm a fan of the short sleeve shirt. So we have a whole thing right now, where everybody running air conditioner in Southern California led to these brownouts.

Yes. Air conditioning takes all this electricity. Well, there's a tradition in Japan right now called cool biz. Okay, you know, they have a lot of Romaji. They have a lot of English words going on in Japan. So guys wear short sleeve shirts. That's like this business thing. Embrace it, everybody. Embrace it. Short sleeve shirt. Show your guns. Yeah, there you go. See, Ali gets Ali cuts right. I get it. Okay, a couple more because I thought Megan McLean asked a great one that had nothing to do with anything. And I want to ask it, what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? I guess calf brains. What was the occasion? I got invited to a restaurant with friend, a woman I used to know, I used to date. His father had spent time in the Middle East, I guess North

Africa, Morocco kind of thing. And he'd eaten this dish many times and he took us to a Moroccan restaurant. And yeah, what that tastes like. It's quite rich. It's fatty. Hence the expression. Fat head is a compliment. Yeah. Well, but I don't do that anymore, you guys. I wouldn't be surprised as time goes on. I'd become a vegetarian. Yeah, you know, it's I feel like I maybe hadn't ate fish. I don't like to eat mammals. Yeah, you know, birds or dinosaurs. Yeah, I get that. I understand that I'm heading that way. And I know we have questions to take Ali, but humans are now running the planet. This was not our idea. You know, we all I think all of us grew up with the idea that there's the outdoors and nature and organic or natural ecosystems. And then there's

us. There's cities and urban and even you know, every car commercial features you driving through deserts or swamps or some amazing thing that you usually don't do with a car. But but here's the thing, we ended up in charge of the earth now. So we have to manage the deer population, the wolf population, bobcat population. I'm not kidding. Humans are now in charge. We have to manage the freshwater. We have to manage the oceans and we have to manage the atmosphere. This is not something everybody who listens to allergies probably plan to do with his or her life. But now, as taxpayers and voters, we've all got to embrace the idea that we are running the show. When I was a kid, there were fewer, fewer than three billion people and my grandparents were

raising my dad. They were about one and a half billion. Oh my gosh. Now there's seven point, almost seven point eight billion people. Yeah. We're and there's going to be nine and probably 10 billion people. And so even though the rate of growth is slowing, it's still growing the human population. So we have such an effect on the earth that we have to take charge. So go out there and take charge you all. We have we have to actually I wanted to ask Vlad Balfoury had a great question about how did you become the kid guy? And you've had some very memorable recent appearances, dropping F bombs, talking like an adult. Hey parents or weird uncles babysitting, just cover the kids ears or prepare to shrug at them. By the end of this century, if emissions

keep rising, the average temperature on earth could go up another four to eight degrees. What I'm saying is the planet's on fucking fire. That was heartfelt. Yeah, it is heartfelt. I mean, I let whatever language fly on this podcast, but did you find that that was a transition from talking to kids to talking to kids after they grew up? Since you've been in the game for a while? I guess so. And this gets back to discipline and vocabulary. So dropping the F bomb on last week tonight was just huge fun. Because I feel that way. You get so angry. So angry with with anti science climate deniers. It's crazy making, you know, why this guy is blue. No, it isn't really. Yeah, I think really, we can't we agree on that.

Anyway, so climate deniers make me crazy. And that bit on last week tonight was heartfelt. But along that line, if you look at the science guy show about atmosphere, about climate, about pressure, about I'm thinking about extreme weather storms, we have bits about climate change. And in the 1990s, there was discipline in I'm not kidding, not trying to scare the kids. There was discipline. I use expressions like things could get weird. We're going to have to keep an eye on this. This is who knows the future. This is going to be a very important idea, stuff like that. So yes, of course, or yes, I do change the approach based on the audience. But both manifestations of me are authentic. That's my claim. That's my claim

for you to evaluate. When I was talking to kids on the kid show, I really mean it. When I'm talking to adults on a comedy show, I also really mean it. It's manifestations of the same Bill Nye. And that's part of comedy, too, is is reading the room and being able to morph your delivery based on what? Yes, assess what you hope will work. Right. Yeah. Maria Hancox, please, Marie, hit me. Okay, Maria Hancox, Biddy Pong want to know, have you ever gotten your own theme song stuck in your head? I love the theme song. It's so good. It's really good. It was written by a guy named Mike Green, who was a production company,

38 Fresh in Los Angeles. And he's just a cool guy. And he came up with that. That's his wife's voice. No. inertia is a property. Yeah, it was wondering. Okay. So I just thank the guy every day. He just did a great thing. So good. But everybody one note to importantly note for your notation that's important. I don't sing the song. People asked me to sing the song. No, no, somebody else. That's the whole idea of somebody else is singing the song like Gilligan's Island Gilligan doesn't maybe an older reference. There's one kind of cool exception to that though. And that was the show Fraser, Kelsey Grammer sang the song. Really? Yeah, it's interesting. But the guy on the TV, the gal on the TV doesn't sing the song. Yeah, no, that's somebody else, of course. That's right.

Last questions I always ask, what's the shittiest part about your job? What do you hate the most? What's the most petty, annoying, or huge thing you hate about being Bill Nann, the science guy? Well, that my genius is unrecognized. You only have 19 Emmys. It sucks. No, well, no, but I mean, now look, you guys, a couple things, Ali. It's only 18 Emmys for the science guy show. And keep in mind that the writers won every I was one of the writers. We won five times. Yeah. And editors and the sound design sound mixers, these guys and gals won every year because they were just so creative. They're so funny. And you know, that voice, Bill, I don't think that's going to work, Bill. That's Pat Cashman. He's just a comedy genius.

Okay, but come on, what is the shittiest thing about being a beloved icon doing their dream job? And so the most frustrating thing, I guess, is that we're still fighting this fight. That climate change was discovered and presented to Congress in 1988, and we have hardly done anything about it. And it is quite frustrating. And so everybody vote. Then I mean, I'll say that it's a guy on the on camera department, the OCD, as I like to call it, is, you know, you're standing there, your knees get tired, your feet get tired. It's I'm whining. It's not like getting your head blown off in a war. But it's some days, it's physically quite difficult for me. But so what? Yeah. Come on, man, we're trying to change the world here. Let's go, make something of yourselves.

Come on, people. Anyway, wham, wham, wham. You guys, my life's amazing. You know, I have my health, and it's just my life's amazing. And actually, on that note, JV Hampton Van Sant says, hi there, Bill. Can Bill Nye say hello to all the trans people who follow allergies, like just hello all transologites? I don't know. Hi, transologites. So you guys, that show and Rachel Bloom was on it, big part of it. We did a show about human sexuality based on the current science about people and the way they perceive themselves, the way they present themselves to the world, the way with whom they want to hang out. Can I say hang out on allergies? Yeah, you can say that. With whom they want to interact. Yes. You know, interact hard.

Yes. Big, big, big knowing wink. Anyway, this is what is happening with the study of human sex and sexuality. Right now, biologists, sociologists, anthropologists, they're all trying to figure this out, and they're finding human sexuality is on a spectrum. Also, I have some great friends who worked on this episode, including Derek Muller and Tegan Wall and Sandin Totten, and they were nominated for an Emmy for writing. Not everyone was pleased, however. Everybody, so many people are so upset by that show. You know, what's a big deal? It's like this is the latest science. You know, just accept people. What's it to you, man? And a woman and or queer person. You know, what's it? What's a big deal? Like, and this gives me great hope, Ali, and I'm not

changing the subject. Just look how fast the world embraced gay marriage. I'm serious. It went on, you know, whatever, pick a number, 400, 500, a thousand years. People weren't that into gay marriage, at least not in Europe and then in the United States and places that were colonized by the British Empire. People were not that into, were very critical of gay people or rejected, shunned them, I think is the modern word, shunned gay people. But then the last 16 years, whatever, oh, gay people are getting married. Oh, okay. Oh, I guess, wow, the world's still spinning. Are they paying taxes? They, are they paying taxes? Yeah, they're paying taxes. Oh, do they work at my coffee shop? Whoa, they designed my car? Whoa, they, yeah. Yeah. I guess it's no

big deal. Wow, I guess you're right. Yeah. And so, you know, Australia just had big, okay, we're going to gay marriage. Oh, wow. And so, this just gives me, and I'm not changing this up, because it's giving me great hope for climate change, that I'll bet you there'll be sweeping changes that are instituted or put in place very quickly because people just want these sweeping changes. Yeah. Bill says, depending on how the election goes, and we of course recorded this a few weeks ago, but it's coming out on election day, November 3rd. So, Bill and I would like you to kindly vote if you have not already. So, I think things are going to change very quickly, and I want to thank the LGBTQ community for being leaders, for being brave and going out there and

demanding change. 100%. And Black Lives Matter, we are living at an extraordinary time. You know, I'm so old, Allie. No. I remember when Malcolm X was shot, when Martin Luther King was shot, I grew up in the city of Washington. I remember Resurrection City, this plywood encampment on the National Mall that led, that was the audience for the I Have a Dream speech and so on. Bobby Kennedy getting shot. I remember all this stuff as a kid, and it led to some big changes, but not big enough. And so, we are at a time now where things could, we could make just cool, important, and wonderful changes. So, everybody, let's embrace the future. I have, my last question is just, what do you love the most about what you do?

About being good? Well, as the saying goes, when you're in love, you want to tell the world. And I love, I really do love science. I love the process and the body of knowledge. And, you know, it's fashionable now, again, to be a nerd. And I'm a nerd, you know. I think, Allie, if I know you well enough, you're pretty much a nerd. And so, it's learning and learning about the universe and our place within it just fills me with reverence and joy every day. And so, on the Mars rover, spirit and opportunity, which are on the surface of Mars right now, both are not operating, they're in op. But curiosity is still running, still roving. On all three of these spacecraft, there's a thing where we get the colors of the pictures right,

a photometric calibration target. And we call them the Mars dials, because for a while, we used them as sundials on Mars. You got a little something to do with that. Planetary science community used them, electronically used them as sundials. We had a student project, the Earth dial project, so it's very cool. But in little letters, around the edge of each of these three things, it says, we built these spacecraft in 2003, arrived in 2004 or 2010, 2012. We built them to learn about the Martian environment, to look for signs of water and life. And then it says, on the last of the four edges, it says, to those who visit here, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery. And that, my friends, is the essence

of the scientific enterprise, is the joy of discovery, the JOD, as I call it. And science is, as far as anybody can tell, the best way to make discoveries about the cosmos, about ourselves, and our place within it. And so that's what gets me every day, Allie, is the joy of discovery. Celebrate it, my friends. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. You're just the best. So if you're listening to allergies, let me just tell you, Allie Ward is all that. No, I'm tattooing that on my back like a book blurb, by the way. But science rules is so good. Thank you so much for doing it. People can find science rules wherever they find podcasts. So, Allie May, I also add, we have two versions. We have science rules, the long version on which

you were. And we also are doing science rules coronavirus edition, where we have the real experts on this thing, on this pandemic, telling it as it is. We had Tony Fauci on the podcast. Everybody, wear a mask and wash your hands. And thank you again, Allie. Thank you so much. You're the best. Just keeping you okay. Okay, I'll talk to you later, Bill. Thank you. Thank you, Allie. Let's change the world. Yay! So what do we do? We get your smart heroes on the horn, and you ask them stupid questions about climate change, and ties, and everything in between. And for more on this up-and-coming psychomer, Bill Nye, you can visit billnye.com. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok at Bill Nye.

And listen to his podcast, Science Rules. There's so many guests and episodes you're going to love. We are at Allie G's on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Allie Ward with one L on both. Please be my friend. There will be links in the show notes, as well as at allieward.com, slash Allie G's, slash Bill Nye, because pedagogical Allie G is too tough. Too tough to say, too tough to spell. Allie G's merch, including some brand new masks, are available at AllieG'smerch.com. Thank you, Shannon Feltes and Bonnie Dutch for managing that. They are sisters who host the comedy podcast You Are That, which is very worth checking out also. Erin Talbert admins the Allie G's podcast Facebook group, and you can also join the community at patreon.com slash Allie G's.

Thank you to every single person there making the show possible. Emily White heads up a league of wonderful transcriptionists, and those transcripts are linked in the show notes. They're available for free. Caleb Patton bleeps episodes to make them kid-safe, and those are available on the same webpage. Noelle Dillworth helps with scheduling guests. Thank you so much, Noelle. Assistant editing and emotional cheerleading is done by the wonderful Jared Sleeper, who hosts the Mental Health Podcast, My Good Bed Brain, and of course, the not-in-all-of-our-ties main editor Stephen Ray Morris, who hosts the podcast The Percast about kitties and C-Jurassic Right, which is about dinosaurs. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music, and he's also in a band called Islands,

a very good band. And if you stick around until the end of the episode, you know, I tell you, you see great. And this week, it's my ding-dong birthday, and I haven't taken a real vacation since 2009. And as a surprise, Jared booked some time away for four days at a remote location with no self-service, and then he realized after he booked it that it's clothing optional. So for my birthday, I was possibly going to go see a lot of floppy dongs and some bare nips, maybe some untrimmed muffs. But, Grammy is on the mend. Apparently, our dog has a bad back, so we have to postpone. So stay tuned, because I look forward to talking to you about some naked people I see in the future. Either way, I hope we all have an easy and comforting early November.

Do a lot of breathing. Just stare at a wall. Breathe. Drink some bubbly water. You are important. Thank you for voting. We got this. Okay. Bye-bye. Well, thank you for sitting high and dry with me as we considered the fall.