Sarah Palin: "Bill Nye Is as Much a Scientist as I Am"

Climate-change denier and Trump surrogate Sarah Palin, promoting her new film, Climate Hustle, inexplicably challenged just how much of a Science Guy Bill Nye really is: “Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am,” she said during a Congressional event Thursday. “He’s a kids’ show actor. He’s not a scientist.”

Palin lumped Nye in with those she perceives as spreading untruths about the environment: “There is a predetermined agenda definitely of those who I think are controlling the narrative right now on changes in the weather.”

“There is definitely a political agenda behind all of this and as you suggested people who are involved in this issue they are not stupid. They have studied this stuff. They have studied the data that they are erroneously delivering to the public to make us think that we can somehow change the weather and how they do that is to grow government and allow the government to have more control over us, our homes, our businesses, our families, our lives, and it’s quite unfortunate because these people must be purposely doing this, right? Because they are smart enough to know better,” the former vice-presidential candidate said.

Whatever. Neither Sarah Palin nor Bill Nye are scientists, but Bill Nye—a mechanical engineer who does not call himself a scientist, but the “Science Guy”—is certainly more of a scientist than Sarah Palin. He is also better at what he does than she is at what she does.

Nye has been a visiting professor at Cornell, and is an executive at the Planetary Society. Palin, meanwhile, said on Thursday, “We need to keep in mind how important it is for parents to understand this issue and to understand the political agenda behind global warming. It is being used as a fundraiser, it is being used as a partisan issue unfortunately so that parents can be first and foremost in their child’s life and influence them to trust science and believe in science and not leave it to the teachers.”

Okay.