No, Bill Nye “the Science Guy” isn’t dead, despite what Twitter may have told you.
The 140-character-or-less site was full of false reports on Monday of the TV personality’s demise, but Nye tweeted a proof-of-life photo of himself last night to put those rumors to rest. As the International Business Times reminds us, this was actually the third time someone with a Twitter account did his or her best to convince the world, however temporarily, that Nye was dead.
The site’s latest death hoax appears to have begun Sunday night, prompting users to mourn what they thought was the passing of the popular science educator and causing the rumor to trend. Fortunately, no news outlets appear to have been fooled.
It’s unclear what prompted the latest social attempt on Nye’s life, although a number of observers have been quick to point out that the fake news came only days after Nye published a video on YouTube entitled “Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children.”
Here’s a snippet:
“I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.”
And the full video, which has been viewed nearly 1.7 million times since it went live on Thursday, no doubt in part because of all those RIP tweets:
