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Cape Town - Science educator Bill Nye has taken to the internet to teach evolution - with emojis.
In an online YouTube video, Nye explains how, within a long period of time, simple molecules eventually replicate to form more complex molecules, then basic life forms such as bacteria and eventually large living things.
Using emojis, Nye describes the process by which most scientists believe life evolved on Earth.
But his message is not universally accepted and Nye recently had to face creationist Ken Ham of the Creation Museum in a debate that highlighted the continued political nature of science in the US, where some commentators have disregarded established science such as evolution and climate change.
Scientists have expressed their concern that conservative beliefs that contradict with established scientific practice could do untold damage to research.
Uphill battle
"If you'd got a very conservative Republican in power, they might not be happy about some of the scientific research going on, because it conflict with their fundamental beliefs," Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell recently told Fin24.
Some of the research that has already been effectively put on hold includes stem cell research and active gene therapy as political conservatives hold sway over funding.
New scientific thinking has often faced an uphill battle as established special interest groups first lobby to dismiss the evidence or attempt to have the science banned.
Naomi Oreskes, who co-authored Merchants of Doubt with Erik Conway, said that established science is usually conservative in its view, despite the accusation of exaggeration.
"We've heard a lot of noise lately about exaggeration of scientific claims - alarmism; hysteria - but actually, I believe that history shows that scientists have actually been conservative in their estimates and that global warming has begun to unfold faster than scientists thought," she said.
Oreskes is a professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.
In SA though, conservative communities have a history of tolerance with science projects that may contradict their beliefs.
"To a large extent the communities that host the cutting-edge science are receptive to these projects, as there are many collateral benefits that accrue to these communities," former Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom recently told Fin24 at the site of the SKA.
Evolutionary process
The SKA or Square Kilometre Array is a massive science project that intends to answer questions on the origins of the universe over 13 billion years ago.
In his debate with Ham earlier this year, Nye could not explain many of the questions thrown at him, but argued that the nature of science was one of doubt.
As far as evolution is concerned, he said that mutations are the primary means that allows the process to develop different and specialist organisms.
"The imperfections that helped them [molecules] make more copies - stayed there," Nye says in the video, which has a few views shy of one million on YouTube.
Watch Bill Nye's video here:
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