Bill Nye "The Science Guy" just had the unasked for pleasure of meeting a whole lot of people who are actually in the field he has so long presented himself as an expert in. Under the hashtag #BillMeetScienceTwitter, Nye was flooded with thousands of tweets Friday from scientists around the globe who decided it was high time for Nye to start sharing the spotlight with people who are actually credentialed experts rather than former-child-entertainers-turned-hysterical-leftwing-activists.
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The Verge provides some more details on the origins of the campaign, which it notes was "born out of frustration" and followed another hashtag movement from February, #ActualLivingScientist:
The hashtag movement caught on — big time. On Friday alone, Nye's Twitter account was flooded with what Forbes reports was "more than 3,400 tweets and introductions" from scientists introducing themselves in the likely vain hope that he would actually defer to them in future discussions on scientific topics. By Monday, mentions of the hashtag had topped 27,000. The Verge notes that some scientists who sent tweets did not intend them to be interpreted critically; however, the "frustration" driving the movement is evident.
Bill Nye Trolled Online By THOUSANDS Of Tweets From Scientists
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The Verge provides some more details on the origins of the campaign, which it notes was "born out of frustration" and followed another hashtag movement from February, #ActualLivingScientist:
The Twitter campaign was born out of frustration. It started when Melissa Marquez, a marine biologist, tweeted from a collective Twitter account hosted by a new scientist every week, called @biotweeps.
The question kicked off a conversation about whether these science celebrities could do more to acknowledge the limits of their expertise, or use their enviable platforms to incorporate the diverse voices of experts in the field. The gripe started a similar Twitter campaign back in February. That hashtag, #actuallivingscientist, was inspired by a survey that revealed most respondents couldn’t name an actual living scientist. Those who could, overwhelmingly named men — NDT and Nye among them. (NDT has a PhD in astrophysics, Nye has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.)
The question kicked off a conversation about whether these science celebrities could do more to acknowledge the limits of their expertise, or use their enviable platforms to incorporate the diverse voices of experts in the field. The gripe started a similar Twitter campaign back in February. That hashtag, #actuallivingscientist, was inspired by a survey that revealed most respondents couldn’t name an actual living scientist. Those who could, overwhelmingly named men — NDT and Nye among them. (NDT has a PhD in astrophysics, Nye has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.)
The hashtag movement caught on — big time. On Friday alone, Nye's Twitter account was flooded with what Forbes reports was "more than 3,400 tweets and introductions" from scientists introducing themselves in the likely vain hope that he would actually defer to them in future discussions on scientific topics. By Monday, mentions of the hashtag had topped 27,000. The Verge notes that some scientists who sent tweets did not intend them to be interpreted critically; however, the "frustration" driving the movement is evident.
Bill Nye Trolled Online By THOUSANDS Of Tweets From Scientists