Science Popularization Quotes

Anything that promotes a kernel of science, even though it's exaggerated and hyped by Hollywood, I think is a step forward. We in the ivory tower ultimately have to realize that in some sense we have to sing for our supper.

I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.

After I had this idea to be Bill Nye the Science Guy, I wore straight ties the first couple times, and then I got this thing going and I started wearing bow ties.

In the 1970s, we had Carl Sagan, and he was so suave with his turtleneck and his tweed jacket. And he was, you know, he made science look cool. And in punk rock, we haven't had that. We haven't had the Carl Sagan of punk.

Bill Nye the Science Guy' was awesome.

Academic scientists aren't generally interested in books for the public. So when one comes out, the authors can't expect much praise from scientists. My goal both as a singer and an instructor is to educate through provocation and entertainment.

I am not a scientist. I am, rather, an impresario of scientists.

We have to change the way people look at scientists. Today, they are the nerds, the geeks. Instead, we want some of the cool kids to say, 'Hey, this is all right.'

Somehow we must reintegrate the scientific with the popular and reconnect the future to the present. This is less a job for scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, and administrators and more a job for novelists, moviemakers, popularizers, and politicians.

I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people.

My father was not only a planetary scientist and a great popularizer of science, but he thought very deeply about the world. He was a scholar, he studied history. He taught a class in critical thinking, and he was very, very aware of the directions we might go.

'The Daily Show' took a topic - politics - which many people considered to be boring, confusing, or even annoying to learn about, and found a way to make it interesting, digestible, and fun. I believe 'Bill Nye Saves the World' can do the same for science.

I'm a great believer that scientists should spend as much time as possible explaining, and you do explain in the process of teaching.

I hold that popularization of science is successful if, at first, it does no more than spark the sense of wonder.

I'd love to present a popular science programme because it's something I feel very passionate about.

I'm writing a science book - a sort of compendium of all the ways I've found of explaining things to my artsy friends over the years.

The gas man came one day, and he said, 'What does your husband do?' so I told him, and he said, 'What's the use of that?' He had a point, but on the other hand, I firmly believed in Stephen and his brilliance. I encouraged him to popularise his science just because the gas man had been so insulting.

We need to make science cool again.

Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.

The media thinks that you have to make science sexy and concentrate on themes such as rivalry and the human issues.

The phrase ‘popular science’ has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific.

I think science is a foreign land for many people, so I think of my role as an ambassador's job.

A lot of people view science as dull or boring, and I think the stance we take, using humour, not taking ourselves too seriously... I think people enjoy that. I think it's quite refreshing.

Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice . . . . Truth breaks free, science is popularized, and religion totters; soon it will fall, in the course of centuries--that is, tomorrow. . . . In good time we shall only have to deal with reason.