Today at Breitbart “News’ we find self-hating malevolent misogynist weirdo Milo Yiannopoulos attacking Bill Nye, presumably because he’s a strong advocate for science and against climate change denial, and anyone who writes for Breitbart has to be upset at people like this. It’s their business model.

Yiannopoulos titles his ridiculously dishonest hit piece: Scientists Who Are Actually Really Stupid #2: Bill Nye.

The first twelve paragraphs of this verbose pile of effluvia consist of nothing but insults and ad hominem attacks; for example, he calls Nye “the quintessential pencil-neck geek,” which is guaranteed to appeal to Breitbart’s audience of knuckle-draggers who think pro wrestling is real.

But then we get into the distortions and dishonesty that are standard fare for Yiannopoulos.

One of Nye’s favourite pastimes is climate change fearmongering. “This isn’t something you should be debating or denying,” he said last year. Because as we all know, shutting down debate and scepticism is how real science works. Nye also signed a letter calling on media companies not to give airtime or column inches to climate sceptics.

Of course, by saying we “shouldn’t be debating or denying” climate change, Nye isn’t “shutting down” anyone; he’s making the perfectly valid point that the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists consider climate change to be documented fact. Only conservative pundits and shills for the fossil fuel industry still insist there’s something to “debate.”

But It always amazes me when right wing hacks try to claim they’re being persecuted for denying climate change — in articles that deny climate change. If Bill Nye (or anyone else) is trying to “shut down” their denial he’s not doing a very good job.

Then Yiannopoulos attacks Nye for “hypocrisy,” because he met with President Obama aboard Air Force One.

Like most climate alarmists, Nye is a hypocrite. He spent earth day 2015 spewing tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere as he tooled around in Air Force One with Obama. How typical — lecturing Americans about their Sport Utility Vehicles from the comfort of a private plane.

Apparently Milo thinks President Obama should be traveling around the world in a Nissan LEAF, or he’s a “hypocrite.”

Then he attacks Nye for supporting women’s reproductive rights, another guaranteed big talking point for the wingnut audience.

Nye is also famous for playing to a number of other pet liberal causes. Surprising no-one, Bill Nye on abortion reads like an engineering undergraduate trying to explain biology. When it comes to abortion, the only thing Nye is qualified to do is manufacture the coat hangers, and even then he’d probably fuck it up by trying to make them out of sustainable “green plastic.”

People who support the right to a safe, legal abortion don’t use “coat hangers.” The only point to writing something like this is just to be as nasty and offensive as possible — another big part of the Breitbart business model.

Then he attacks Nye for criticizing creationism. He’s hitting all the right wing anti-science hot buttons here.

His attitude towards teaching evolution is that kids “need” to believe it, “or else.” (It’s the “or else” that gets me.)

In this section, Yiannopoulos is flat out lying. To attack Nye for promoting acceptance of evolution, he links to a creationist website connected with the infamous Discovery Institute, where we find this video:

YouTube

Go ahead, watch it for yourself. At no point in this video does Bill Nye ever say that kids “need to believe in evolution, or else.” This quote simply does not exist in the video, or anywhere else on the Internet. Bill Nye never said this. Milo Yiannopoulos made it up.

Then he proceeds to attack Nye for his previous skepticism about Genetically Modified Organisms, or “GMOs.’

Weirdest of all is Bill’s wacky beliefs on GMO crops. For years, Nye held the fashionable — yet scientifically laughable — view that GMOs were dangerous.

Again, Yiannopoulos is distorting the record to make Nye appear irrational. In fact, here’s what Bill Nye actually said about GMOs in 2014:

I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem.

Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better.

So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin.

Did he say “GMOs are dangerous?” No, he did not. You can criticize Nye’s position (and many people did!), but he was simply saying genetic modifications might have unforeseen consequences. He was wrong about this, but it’s not a totally irrational position.

And by the way, since that time Bill Nye has looked into the research on GMOs and publicly admitted he was wrong to be skeptical about their safety.

How does Yiannopoulos address the fact that Nye has recanted his criticisms of GMOs? By attacking him for changing his mind, of course. He attacks him for criticizing GMOs, then attacks him for not criticizing GMOs.

At the height of 1990s environmentalism, this was a hugely popular progressive dogma. It has since gone out of fashion, and — lo and behold — Nye has changed his mind. The Washington Post said this change of heart was “proof he’s the Science Guy.” Nah. It’s proof that he’s the Fashionable Liberal Opinions Guy.

It’s no surprise that Yiannopoulos has no idea how science works; when new evidence is discovered, real scientists change their minds and revise their opinions. Only right wing hacks see this as “fashionable” or “weak” — it’s a sign of strength and honesty to change your mind when evidence and facts prove you wrong.

Yiannopoulos concludes this sleazy hit piece with four more paragraphs of ad hominem attacks like this:

I’ve profiled a lot of insufferable people, but I’ve yet to encounter anyone quite as uniquely odious as Nye.

And I’ve never seen a clearer example of projection.