So now he’s Bill Nye, the Judge-Your-Patriotism Guy, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially since Rachel Maddow got the renowned climatologist as a guest. Wait, Nye isn’t a climatologist? He’s a mechanical engineer? Well, then, asking him to verify anthropogenic global warming is as silly as hiring a railroad engineer to chair a panel on climate change, isn’t it, or in passing unpublished student dissertations as reliable peer-reviewed studies in scientific presentations.  Maybe Nye is an expert on patriotism?  Er, no (also at Townhall and Story Balloon):

This is the worst possible time to claim that AGW is settled science, as even the IPCC has decided to dramatically revamp its processes after a series of embarrassing disclosures on how they conducted that “settled science.” Does Nye insist that a sufficient test of patriotism is belief in the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035? Until a few weeks ago, that was “settled science,” too, according to the same authorities on which Nye bases his “patriotism.”

Questioning scientific claims is not unpatriotic. In fact, refusing to question and test scientific claims is itself unscientific, as was many of the actions of the IPCC in building its claims in the first place.  Demanding unquestioning acceptance of recent scientific claims as gospel amounts to a forced belief system, and our Constitution actually has an explicit prohibition against religious tests for office.  Is the Constitution unpatriotic as well?  Maybe Nye should stick to classroom demonstrations of basic science and leave AGW and the measurement of patriotism to those more intellectually capable of discernment.