This segment originally aired live on November 6, 2014. An edited version was included in a best-of episode of The Brian Lehrer Show on January 2, 2015. The unedited audio can be found here. 

Scientist, engineer, and now author of Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (St. Martin's Press, 2013), Bill Nye, calls evolution "the most meaningful creation story that humans have ever found." He explains how the science of evolution factors into day-to-day life and how the anti-science agenda became so influential.

Plus, he took listener calls -- like one from Jim, who asked why it's so hard for people to understand complex scientific ideas. Here's an excerpt of Bill's amazing answer about death: 

"For most of us, it starts with our brains which end up to be -- if I may -- more than we need. So our ancestors out-competed other hominids like Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons. And we ended up with this ability to recognize patterns and especially predict the future, which is of great value in hunting, it's great value in raising crops or at least in finding food sources, and it's great value in finding or choosing a mate. And so, along with that, we end up with this capacity to realize that we're going to die! And that is so troubling!

Where it really got me was algebra. When I see people, and I'm one of them, who went to all this trouble to learn algebra and calculus and stuff and then you die and all that goes away! Ah! It just sucks! And so along with that we all just have trouble accepting that it all goes away when we die. Whether or not it does has yet to be proven but it sure seems like it does. And so that leads us to create these complex stories about what happens to you after you die and one things leads to another and then you just can’t believe than humans can change the climate of a whole planet."