Thanks to everyone who hung in there for this video, I know it took forever, but I couldn't be more proud of the end result. If you'd like to subvert other people's weakly held beliefs about pop-science, you can do your part by pressing the like button, subscribing or sharing!
This is a really good and entertaining video, but it's a little annoying that the effect of it on a lot of viewers (and even people who just read the title, which definitely carries a derogatory tone despite being unembellished with clickbaity phrases) is going to be 'I can't trust pop science', when the whole point was to explore the details deeper and not rush to conclusions like that just because someone knows how to appeal to your 'weakly held beliefs' and encourages you to. The underlying agenda still seems to be to criticize pop science, and I wish that the format and context of the video made the points in favor of pop science more like slightly backtracking on the main argument than promoting an equally balanced counterpoint. It got better towards the end for sure, but the comments (including this one) show a decent bit of hypocrisy in my opinion
@@obnoxiouslakerfan I think your criticism is very fair, and I really like the point about backtracking instead of counterpoint, but I don't agree with you saying that the title and image are derogatory... With a video that touches on a subject with so much controversy, it is extremely hard to make it feel as though he isn't attacking the pop sci industry. As well, the man needs to make some money... I think he's done a fantastic job at making the video appealing to more people, while still maintaining educational value and merit. Videos such as his are great starting points for this topic as it can be extremely hard to sit through long videos that cover all parts of this very broad subject. For example, smarter every day's fantastic new series on social media has the same ideas of researching, but can be really difficult for an uninterested person to sit through. Also thank you for not being an ass when presenting your opinion. It's obvious that you've thought this out and it's very refreshing to read a criticism of the video that isn't just a hormone rush. Cheers :)
Thanks, this video make sense of a lot of things! especially why some Pop-science videos I've watched felt 'offensive'; because it was in their formula to challenge people's personally held belief! I thought those people are just Edgy and annoying, turn out it's a formula. Lol. I really hope Pop-science video is more about "clarifying things" instead of "challenging things", I mean this video clarify things, I don't see it attacking my personal opinions of things.
I think your instrumentals video is incredibly wrong. As a musician myself, I am actually quite offended. If you want to understand this then read "Path to the new music" by Anton Webern.
I was worried about how my words were going to be used, so I am glad that this was a very thoughtful treatment of the topic. It is easy to be cynical about this, which I sometimes lapse into, especially when writers take the position that they can rake in all the cash but have no responsibility for what they say. We don't know their motivations, but it is coincidentally the same position that an amoral individual would take: if you buy it, we will sell it. On the other hand, writers have to position their work so people will read it, to make it accessible and interesting. In any case, that there is an appreciative audience for Stephen's work is a reason to be optimistic.
Moritz Wegge / Why do we buy anything that we hear? Because it is impractical to find out for ourselves. The balance is between being ignorant and wasting time
@@-caesarian-6078 You can't be an expert in everything by experience, need to be taught by people who have made 1000s of mistakes to speed up the process
@@CoffeeBreaks Isn't that not the point of the video though? For a video that makes a lot of nominal efforts at being impartial, the fact that this is the top comment and is 'loved' by the creator kind of proves that this ultimately still serves as a slight hitpiece/takedown of pop science, masked by moments of backtracking and a seemingly un-clickbaity, balanced title that already carries a negative connotation and the implied distinction that 'pop science' is a completely separate category than 'real science'. If we want to talk about being meta and all that, how about the fact that in a video about stressing the nuance in things and that it's not always enough just to be a 'conversation starter' because of the real impact that pop science has on people, we have a perfect example of one of those people here in this comment, misinterpreting the video and thinking you can't somewhat trust pop science, and it's encouraged by the creator rather than exploring the nuance of how much we should trust pop science. Anyway, this was a very good video, and I think Stephen is aware of some of his own hypocrisy in making this, but this comment and the subtext/impact of a video like this still kind of bugs me, if that makes sense.
Another 90 days to change this You are thinking way too small. I submitted a tonne of overdue assigments from last semester just this week. Now I have 3 days untill exams and here I am. You can always procrastinate ☠☠
Except it's not pop science at all. He's not claiming to be backed up by studies or showing data or percentages. He's just saying what can be observed. The only times you have to trust him is when he makes claims (not studies, just stuff like "ths book says x"), and if you want to check those claims out you can just do it.
My problem with pop science is that it may fool people into thinking they fully know the subject explained or that it substitutes formal education. Ex: "wow this is better than school and books!"
@@althechicken9597 oh you’ve never met an evangelical. Or a hard core full left or full right. The more fundamental the more they quote because so and so said so.
People just want to feel smart without doing any work. It's the same way people read the headline of a news article and then act like they're political experts.
I don't think I'd blame the consumer of pop-science for these issues. The whole point is to inform people who aren't scientists and who don't have the time to do extensive research and become properly well-informed on a specific topic.
@@sprazz8668I honestly do though. Humans are social and are only capable of thinking in groups and are incapable of thinking for themselves which makes something like misinformation that much more dangerous.
Gladwell oversimplifies but also aggressively defends his oversimplification. I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast where Gladwell disagreed with the original author of the 10,000-hour research that he oversimplified his findings in his book. Sometimes I noticed Gladwell not only oversimplifies but also overextends original research to his own ideas based on anecdotes. I spend a while looking at learning psychology book and noticed that he used a concept of desirable difficulties (which is when you make things harder for yourself when learning to help you get better results - ex: recalling stuff from memory rather than looking over notes when revising for exams) to imply that dyslexia was a desirable difficulty because a lot of millionaires tended to be dyslexic... What's worse is Gladwell's ideas are then cited by highly educated and influential figures.
Using the dyslexia example, I will attempt to prove that environmental causes have a varied effect on the individual. Suppose we look at a group of dyslexic people. Will we see a normal distribution or one highly skewed left or right? I would argue neither, as I would expect a distribution with a u shape pattern. When you have any man face a trial, there are two important results baring completing the trial; growing stronger or growing weaker. For example, two men start lifting weights and start lifting amounts beyond what they ought. The resulting intense pain and possible injury may discourage one and encourage the other. Likewise, dyslexia places a heavy burden on children whom lack in most virtues, as they haven't had a chance to cultivate those quite yet. Thus when children must bear this burden then they tend to either run away into other activities or stubbornly refuse to give up. Both provide additional motivation for a task, which causes the task to receive more time, and key point, practice. Now the activities a child pursues depends largely on the parents and community of the child, which in turn determine the value of said activities. Becoming a master at tag doesn't pay well, but learning advanced mathematics does, for example. Thus the environment plays a large role in the success of a dyslexic child. However, the caveat to all this, is free will. A child, for reason or another, may choose to go against his environment for better or worse.
Yes, he's a very clear case of a guy who wants to get money and/or acclaim rather than someone trying to educate people IMO. People will go on about the principle of charity, but at a certain point if you're so charitable you're bending backwards for a charlatan, you're an idiot.
I think this really comes from the fact that he’s a journalist and not an academic. From an academic perspective, simplification is a communication tool, not a tool that brings you to any sort of insight. From a writer’s perspective wisdom is found in simplicity. You can very much tell by his work that he subscribes to the second philosophy. I think this is kinda what the video hit so well on IMO, the conflicting incentives and philosophies inherent to pop science means that it will *never* be truly scientific. Being academically minded I would agree that this makes him wrong sometimes, but I also think there’s an argument to be made that general wisdom with some grounding in science is better than general wisdom pulled from thin air, and that’s what Gladwell seems to peddle in.
Gladwell exposed himself as a hack years ago in that Munk debate imo. By then, I had already begun to realize how sloppy a lot of the science underpinning his work truly was, but seeing him have to make arguments on the fly that were truly idiotic was the nail in the coffin
I hope people don't keep attacking you because of your last Kurzgesagt video, and even if they do, I hope you don't let it get to you. What you are discussing is an important subject that needs to be talked about and isn't talked about enough in this content marketing era, please don't let some haters make you doubt the signifigance of your work. I'm also looking forward to the next fake guru episode on your second channel, those are also great. Wish you all the best.
One thing I really like (ironically) about what In a Nutshell does is when they, for instance, use an atom in their animations and write a tag that says "Atoms don't really look like this!". They use a useful, practical way of representing the objects they're trying to explain without needing to dive into the complex world of quantum mechanics, while also providing a challenge for the viewer to question what they're looking at and wonder how atoms really look, why they mention such a thing. So it passively encourages curiosity and investigation, without losing the benefits of the simplified concept of a Bohr atom.
Yes, but I think it's also important to stress that skepticism shouldn't be the same as cynicism or pessimism. We should question but we shouldn't immediately assume the worst. I feel like sometimes people forget this.
Something I think would be intensely helpful for spreading science to everyone is "Read-alongs" for journals. A lot of journals are byzantine, hard to parse at their best for most people. Having someone in the field record themselves explaining parts of the paper for someone to listen to as they read along would be a godsend. It might even help people learn how to parse more dense work and help them develop the tools to seek answers for themselves. Who knows, maybe by having experts reading journals and explaining them aloud we'd end up catching errors and faulty logic that would otherwise not be noticed. "Rubber duck debugging" has helped people do similar stuff. The people could learn stuff, might get a valuable skill, and we can walk away with a more watertight journal for the trouble.
@infinitemausoleum721 That is a freaking FANTASTIC idea! Like good enough for me to want to reach out to my network and see if I can get some professionals I know to try it. Do you mind if I work on your idea? Would you like to work with me on it?
k1w1 no one is mainly at fault; they both had done not very respectable things. that is a thing of the past and there's no need to try to bring it up again- and if you still wanna discuss it go to reddit or something and not RUclips.
accutus it was more of a suggestion as RUclips isn't optimal for discussion, at least not the comment section. I wasn't trying to command people to do whatever I said. Sorry if it seemed I was forcing something :P
So apparently the study has been "under review" since around 2017. Being under review basically means the prototype of the study is submitted to the academic journal whose peer reviewers give the researcher feedback or maybe even asks for improvements. But usually this process takes less than a year. It seems pretty obvious to me that this study has been rejected by all academic/scientific journals it has been submitted to.
@@orenalbertmeisel3127 the student finished her phd in 2014 so.. that is kind of a weird delay. BUT publications can take really long times.. especially if they keep targeting high impact factors. Rejection doesn't mean lack of value, be careful! Scientific publication is also a competitive market
I thought that was Cody's Lab! I'd recognise that shoddy production quality anywhere! I think one of the problems with pop science is that a lot of the time, things that have the best production quality, or are produced by someone with the best title/charisma will be more widely believed, regardless of the quality of the science.
This is probably the same issue with most reporters and media in general these days. You only get the version of the story that is quick and easy to tell/understand and packaged in a way to make it sound as interesting as possible, even if it's a stretch of the truth at best.
Well...yes and no. I can offer some perspective as someone who has worked in journalism and met many fantastic journalists. I think a good deal of people, especially people who claim to be very fair and critical thinkers, fall into the trap of not giving journalists any credit for the good work they do, which truly is most of the work, and love pointing out when a journalist fails. Often, journalistic reporting is actually how many people find the most amount of information on an issue. Journalists often come back to stories or write followups to major events with more context, but readers don't often come back and read that. There are tons of in-depth investigative reports being published everyday in mainstream media, but audiences don't read these like they do the big, sensational things. This leads to many readers assuming that journalism is "bad" or "incomplete" when the reality is, they don't fully understand how journalism has always worked. journalism is built on an understanding that readers have an equally robust journalistic reading habit to match the integrity of the journalism. That has changed with social media, because now most people barely even make it past the headlines on social media posts. Before we can have a public discussion of journalism, we have to meet journalism on its own terms, which most people never do. The general public has lost its journalistic literacy while the quality of journalism really hasn't slipped very much, and if anything has improved thanks to developments in news gathering technology.
This is enlightenment. I was thinking of starting a Pop Sci Channel, I'm engineering in Biotechnology but I have more than sufficient knowledge on important everyday topics that need to be explored to the masses. YOU JUST MADE ME MORE RESPONSIBLE , CAREFUL AND A BETTER PERSON THANKS
Regarding the self-regulation / checking of pop-science, it seems to be a problem with actual science too. Often claims are not re-tested to see if the results are actually repeatable, and when that is done and claims get more nuance or even whole papers are retracted it's already too late and the original claim is already deeply ingrained. A good example of this is the whole 'vitamin C prevents colds' stuff. I'm not claiming this plagues all scientific research, but it seems to happen often enough to be worth keeping an eye for.
*Proceeds to fact check everything he said* Seriously though, this video is well done! Hope that this series will be a success, expecting more of these from you CB
Here's the reference section. It ran a bit long for RUclips description, so I had to put it in a different file. docs.google.com/document/d/1X4Ti87E-kvBygzCprxLbSMuqWGOlvHCy-Om-IYK8-wE/edit?usp=sharing
I try not to fault experts when they falter, and I think you highlight an aspect of the intellectual market I value. Humility, and from it, trust. Addressing your faults and weaknesses really show you care about your audience getting the truth. For me, trust is the most valuable currency in a market of ideas.
'The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.' Bertrand Russell
Yes, but considering the incentives she received you can understand why Pop. Sci can be a problem. There is a TEDx talk by Jordan where he was just teaching people nonsense disguised as a speed-reading course.
I appreciate this a lot. Infortainment makes people feel empowered with knowledge, which is great, but it also lets them easily look past how little they actually know about topics.
This is why since the beginning things like Kurzgesagt or crash course rubbed me the wrong way. They present complex ideas so shortly and in a so clean format that people asume they are written in stone.
Crash Course is pretty okay imo, because they often state that the topic is ambiguous or that they simplified it a lot, inciting further research by its viewers
There was a phrase in the recent INET video that I really liked, "by the time something becomes conventional wisdom it's probably wrong." Either from not enough nuance or progress in the field that leads to refining or invalidating.
I am so glad you've made this video. I'm having this bizzare problem where my physics teacher is more likely to talk about pop-science black holes rather than the actual subject, so I have to substitute him with khan academy courses. I absolutely despise popsci at this point. Also making fun of "flat-earthers" in class (even elsewhere) is really annoying.
I don’t know if you will ever read this... but this is one of the best videos I have ever seen. It’s just thorough, the content is 10/10 and the editing 10/10. Fantastic! Honestly this is so great!
Really enlightening RUclips video. Best part was " I have ideas but it doesn't means i have answers " . It really got me thinking. My chem teacher use to say that all the things I'm teaching you are theoretical, it dosen't mean that these are right, it only means that these theories haven't been proven wrong. And that is what I have to say about this vid
Dude! I know this video was originally intended against kurzgesagt. But you didn't mention them at all here. Nor have you talked about any other stem RUclips channels. Like you said, they're low hanging fruit. I think you did a great job!
Truly phenomenal video. I’m just left with a bit of anxiety. If I find information through a speech or article I feel like every single time I’ll have to do a thorough review of the cited studies just to be sure what I’m hearing isn’t BS. But at the same time that’s so inefficient because that is incredibly time consuming, and honestly I have a life and responsibilities to tend to so I can’t just be constantly doing research on cited studies. Lol that probably sounds ridiculous but this whole video, while beautifully put together, has definitely caused me to second guess many things I’ve come to believe from articles and speeches I’ve listened to.
I know exactly what you mean, it's incredibly frustrating to feel like you need to take EVERYTHING you hear with a grain of salt. I wish there were absolute truths that I could be confident in. I feel like everyone should start their sentences with the precursor "my current understanding is..."
I can definitely relate. I've come to find that it also deadens a lot of my curiosity about the scientific world, especially when it comes to studies that are psychosocial. I don't even bother with documentaries anymore
It's ok to not have time to fact check as long as you're aware the stuff you're reading could be wrong and don't treat it as certain, and don't tell other people about it as if it was certain. Uncertainty and admitting one doesn't have an in depth understanding of important issues is perfectly acceptable. Let the people who's jobs it is to know this stuff know that stuff and inform you and the rest of us what is important to know and how we should treat that information in relation to our lives and public policy. Though of course you run into the issue of needing to verify that a particular person is actually an expert, and specifically knows the topic they are talking about well, but that is usually a much simpler task than fully comprehending the field itself.
I like to look for the opposite of the current opinion i am looking at. I try to find the extremes and the middle ground. If you find either one of the three more so or less so then you can tailor your thinking and personal opinion.
I think this is why I don’t want to make videos sharing my ideas on RUclips or public platform just yet because I know I don’t have the mindset I’d like to share with the world. Just having ideas isn’t the end all, it’s about executing them. Lovely video. Glad to have you back Coffee Break. 💖
@@Nick_Lamb I'm upset that this guy is an immature idiot and take advantage that people forget too soon, he even has videos on this subject, so ironic.
Hey! This is gold! I have this repulse to pop science. I always say it’s counter productive, but you touched the heart of the issue: policies pushed by journalists and politicians that are feed by this entertaining industry. There’s this pride of being a critical thinker but without any baggage of a experienced researcher. Generally it ends up with their (politician and journalist) commitment to a position they cannot change anymore, like a real scientist needs to/should do.
I watch ALOT of RUclips, but almost never comment. I was so impressed by this video I grabbed my phone to write this while the video was still running on my TV! You are spot on in drawing attention to the fact that for most people, nearly all the "science" we consume comes to us in the form of extremely carefully curated shorts (
I was almost worried that i have been consuming wrong content but your conclusion makes sense, you eat an elephant one bite at a time and don’t hold opinions so strongly you can change, again i quote you beauty of life is in its intricacies.
Also, for what my lil comment is worth, I applaud you for opening my eyes to the insane potential of misinformation even my favourite channels can provide me with. Beautiful animations and charming accents, or not. I could not help but view all of RUclips (and myself as a viewer) differently after watching the prior video so, thank you. ☺️🙏
Yeah, this is exactly right. The stuff that sells books is sort of the opposite of good science. Good science almost always sounds like "it's complicated, but in this extremely specific controlled situation, we can at least say this thing happens". The public doesn't want real science, it's just confusing, and demonstrates how little we really know. They want a quirky rule of thumb that astonishes them. This crap overwhelmingly comes from business/management departments and social science departments. The kinds of studies they do would never, ever, ever fly in STEM. I am an academic in mathematics. The standards could not possibly be more different than in business/management depts. The sophistication of their experiments is laughable. They have a negative attitude towards real scientists, who they consider "nerds who just don't get it". They are right in the sense that we don't get politics...but we do science correctly, and that's enough for me.
You got me in the end of your pop sci video where you neatly and efficiently packaged your ideas into the sentence that pop science needs to be neatly and efficiently packaged.
sorry, love the video, very informative and nuanced, leaves you feeling you understand enough of the topic that you can back up what you now think, but that smile at 9:34 is probably the thing that will stick with me the most
I came in not expecting what I got. What an amazing and thoughtful video. Thank you for your work. It clearly shows how much effort went into making it. Sorry for not coming in with an open mind, you had an uphill battle. Which ironically maybe should be how much of pop science should be faced anyway... A+👏
Your channel is so incredibly underrated. This, like most of your videos, was easily more balanced and entertaining than most Ted talks. Keep up the amazing work!
This one is of significant quality. It isn't enough to "just ask questions" or to present whatever makes you popular regardless of its effects or it's legitimacy. Please, continue to do more videos that are well founded like this one.
Most people who can cite trivia about quantum physics would be completely incapable of mathematically finding the volume of a cylinder. I hate these "educators" because they feed people useless and watered down information about the bleeding edge of fields when the audience couldn't pass an entry level exam on the actual base of the topic.
As a psych doctoral student, I'll say this is an excellent video. Blew my expectations away from a... well... popsci channel :) Man I do love pop sci though
Yeet. PopSci is fine as long as we know it's PopSci and treat it as such. PopSci needs to be viewed as a point of interest on a topic and should always be critical of.
Very pleased you completed and released this video, and I think you touched on a lot of important points succinctly. Whenever I read/watch Popsci content, I try to keep an open mind and do my best to consider it as just a component of a larger complex and nuanced picture. The exposure of a new idea and the conversations it can generate when packaged in a TED talk, I feel, is worth running the risk of misinterpretation. I appreciate and enjoy your video essays.
Thank you very much for making this. I was so sure it would come off emotionally charged (given the whole kurzgesagt debacle), but you pulled this off really well. You offer pros and cons for pop science instead of demonizing or worshipping it. The video is thorough and nuanced, which is very fitting for a video about this. :P So thank you for being you. Keep up the good work. :)
I'm so glad that RUclips decided to suggest this video to me. It is a great take on important issue with current world. And, controversly, it is great that you didn't suggest any strict solution but make people aware of the pop science problem.
Interesting that this video, on pop science, is, in itself, approximately 18 minutes long. May be pop science should expand itself, like this video (pun not intended), and we could have a positive and productive leap towards correct and cognitive pop science. Cheers mate @Coffee Break
Thank you for this! This is something I have awkward conversations with people about; people either want to believe everything, or nothing, and I can sympathize with both reactions, but it makes talking about the value and problems of this space challenging. I think you've put together something that lays out the problem-space clearly, and I look forward to sharing this.
2:04 this problem that pop-scientits have with people not accepting strong held believes is called the "backfire effect" and is the tendency of some people to resist accepting evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. The effect is demonstrated when people presented with that conflicting information become even more convinced of their original beliefs rather than questioning them. In the video you never tell us the name of the reason why, so it lead me to believe that you weren't aware of it. I hope it makes thing clearer to somebody
Snyde not necessarily, you could say that about vaccines. Perhaps if it sounds too good to be true, you should look into it? Hell, even GMOs sound too good to be true, but they aren’t, and most of modern medicine.
The problems with the reliability of pop science and their focus on possibly unreliable studies are why when I'm in the mood for some quick, fun science I usually go to channels like Smarter Every Day, Cody's Lab, and Thought Emporium where you know the basic science has to work because they're holding it in their hand and probably built something to demonstrate it.
Perfectly summarizes all the beef I have with popsci. I believe that the idea of pop science is to spark an interest in a certain topic, so that the reader can then do further reading, exploration and research on his own. The problem arises when all you consume is only popsci, which unfortunately seems to be a growing trend, as it is much easier to watch a 15 minute youtube video than it is to follow the sources of the said video or just google the stuff
RE Pop Sci educators - I think one of the most trustworthy channels is SciShow. I believe Hank and his team have a particularly high regard for conveying the nitty gritty and even will state when scientific literary conclusions are nuanced / ambiguous, and strike a fine balance between this and getting bogged down.
Glad to finally see this come out. When I think of pop-science I'm usually thinking of the Social Media side of it, with companies like "I Fucking Love Science" and the people who follow them being the most annoying. Pop Science on social media usually reminds me of this Cyanide and Happiness comic from back in 2014 (explosm.net/comics/3557/), and how most people just want to feel smart and arm themselves with interesting fun facts.
Coffee break I just love how you don't take things as they are you go deep to findout is it actually so, the videos you mentioned influenced me, but now that you raised good points, you made me realize I should not be ok if something comes from authority. I still need to know it myself.
It's been interesting to reflect on my view of pop-science. I've spent a few years in university working towards becoming what one could reasonably call a scientist. Quantum mechanics especially is communicated extremely poorly from pop-science. It's easy for me to become cynical about it but I think about how it has influenced me to study what I'm studying. I had thought pretty negatively about Neil Degrasse Tyson for some time until I saw a conversation between him and Katy Perry. She asked him something like, "Is Jupiter a planet?" My response might have been, "wow, seriously?" He said something like, "Yes. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun." Pop-science has been important even if some of the nonsense I hear makes me cringe a little.
So, people with social skills of any kind, in other words, it turns out, are not totally useless. Who'd have thunk it. Intelligence is diverse, and you're in academics and realizing it. That's promising.
@@LadyVandMrT People in academia have always realised this (and most lecturers are perfectly capable of doing it themselves). They just don't care because it's not their job and not something they're interested in doing
All this time I felt like I was procrastinating when watching those TED talks. Now I feel rewarded seeing someone paint a bigger picture referencing many of the most memorable ones :D
This really interesting since we can kind of see this transition of everything towards entertainment whether it is science, politics, and education because entertainment is really good at getting people's attention and since people realized this they now know they need to capitalize on this in order to get their ideas through.
One fundamental argument against Pop Science. Pop Science is losing it's value because of its sheer vastness and short duration in which it retains in a person's mind. It has become entertainment material to most. Who would retain the entirety of 20 videos he/she watches everyday? Even if they were all important in the field of science?
Thanks to everyone who hung in there for this video, I know it took forever, but I couldn't be more proud of the end result. If you'd like to subvert other people's weakly held beliefs about pop-science, you can do your part by pressing the like button, subscribing or sharing!
This is a really good and entertaining video, but it's a little annoying that the effect of it on a lot of viewers (and even people who just read the title, which definitely carries a derogatory tone despite being unembellished with clickbaity phrases) is going to be 'I can't trust pop science', when the whole point was to explore the details deeper and not rush to conclusions like that just because someone knows how to appeal to your 'weakly held beliefs' and encourages you to.
The underlying agenda still seems to be to criticize pop science, and I wish that the format and context of the video made the points in favor of pop science more like slightly backtracking on the main argument than promoting an equally balanced counterpoint. It got better towards the end for sure, but the comments (including this one) show a decent bit of hypocrisy in my opinion
@@obnoxiouslakerfan I think your criticism is very fair, and I really like the point about backtracking instead of counterpoint, but I don't agree with you saying that the title and image are derogatory... With a video that touches on a subject with so much controversy, it is extremely hard to make it feel as though he isn't attacking the pop sci industry.
As well, the man needs to make some money... I think he's done a fantastic job at making the video appealing to more people, while still maintaining educational value and merit. Videos such as his are great starting points for this topic as it can be extremely hard to sit through long videos that cover all parts of this very broad subject. For example, smarter every day's fantastic new series on social media has the same ideas of researching, but can be really difficult for an uninterested person to sit through.
Also thank you for not being an ass when presenting your opinion. It's obvious that you've thought this out and it's very refreshing to read a criticism of the video that isn't just a hormone rush.
Cheers :)
Thanks, this video make sense of a lot of things! especially why some Pop-science videos I've watched felt 'offensive'; because it was in their formula to challenge people's personally held belief! I thought those people are just Edgy and annoying, turn out it's a formula. Lol. I really hope Pop-science video is more about "clarifying things" instead of "challenging things", I mean this video clarify things, I don't see it attacking my personal opinions of things.
Hey man, your videos always wake me up, put a smile on my lips and me wonder. Love your work.
I think your instrumentals video is incredibly wrong. As a musician myself, I am actually quite offended. If you want to understand this then read "Path to the new music" by Anton Webern.
I was worried about how my words were going to be used, so I am glad that this was a very thoughtful treatment of the topic. It is easy to be cynical about this, which I sometimes lapse into, especially when writers take the position that they can rake in all the cash but have no responsibility for what they say. We don't know their motivations, but it is coincidentally the same position that an amoral individual would take: if you buy it, we will sell it. On the other hand, writers have to position their work so people will read it, to make it accessible and interesting. In any case, that there is an appreciative audience for Stephen's work is a reason to be optimistic.
I appreciated what you said in the video.
+
Why do we buy that stuff?
Moritz Wegge / Why do we buy anything that we hear? Because it is impractical to find out for ourselves. The balance is between being ignorant and wasting time
@@-caesarian-6078 You can't be an expert in everything by experience, need to be taught by people who have made 1000s of mistakes to speed up the process
This video subversed my weakly held believe that I can somewhat trust pop science content.
M E T A
@@CoffeeBreaks This video reinforced my strongly held belief that all science is unreliable and that the earth is flat.
My beliefs are changed weekly.
Question everything
@@CoffeeBreaks Isn't that not the point of the video though? For a video that makes a lot of nominal efforts at being impartial, the fact that this is the top comment and is 'loved' by the creator kind of proves that this ultimately still serves as a slight hitpiece/takedown of pop science, masked by moments of backtracking and a seemingly un-clickbaity, balanced title that already carries a negative connotation and the implied distinction that 'pop science' is a completely separate category than 'real science'.
If we want to talk about being meta and all that, how about the fact that in a video about stressing the nuance in things and that it's not always enough just to be a 'conversation starter' because of the real impact that pop science has on people, we have a perfect example of one of those people here in this comment, misinterpreting the video and thinking you can't somewhat trust pop science, and it's encouraged by the creator rather than exploring the nuance of how much we should trust pop science.
Anyway, this was a very good video, and I think Stephen is aware of some of his own hypocrisy in making this, but this comment and the subtext/impact of a video like this still kind of bugs me, if that makes sense.
The person who wrote procrastination is good is procrastinating publishing the paper.
Is that surprising?
Lol love this
Well they are overdue by now, I don't think they can be procrastinating at this point.
Another 90 days to change this
You are thinking way too small. I submitted a tonne of overdue assigments from last semester just this week. Now I have 3 days untill exams and here I am.
You can always procrastinate ☠☠
@@JKenny44 jeez Luiz. Hope you're good now, dude.
He didn't procrastinate on writing that book though
**Makes pop science video about pop science**
Sorry, i had to. I love you ❤️
Except it's not pop science at all. He's not claiming to be backed up by studies or showing data or percentages. He's just saying what can be observed. The only times you have to trust him is when he makes claims (not studies, just stuff like "ths book says x"), and if you want to check those claims out you can just do it.
Un Usuario *sarcasm*
@@alvin_row you just described pop science
@@parkermillican the original comment did not seem sarcastic. joking, but not sarcastic.
Arnold ok
My problem with pop science is that it may fool people into thinking they fully know the subject explained or that it substitutes formal education. Ex: "wow this is better than school and books!"
I don't think anyone assumes they know more than someone studying biology just because they watched a Ted talk.
@@althechicken9597
I wish that were true.
Anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and flat-earthers wouldn't exist.
@@althechicken9597You'd be surprised.
@@althechicken9597are you joking?
@@althechicken9597 oh you’ve never met an evangelical. Or a hard core full left or full right. The more fundamental the more they quote because so and so said so.
People just want to feel smart without doing any work.
It's the same way people read the headline of a news article and then act like they're political experts.
I don't think I'd blame the consumer of pop-science for these issues. The whole point is to inform people who aren't scientists and who don't have the time to do extensive research and become properly well-informed on a specific topic.
@@sprazz8668I honestly do though. Humans are social and are only capable of thinking in groups and are incapable of thinking for themselves which makes something like misinformation that much more dangerous.
This is the Coffeebreak I subscribed to! Wonderful return to form
Ozepyon09 exactly what I wanted to say, happy it’s back!
Big brain over here lmao
Gladwell oversimplifies but also aggressively defends his oversimplification.
I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast where Gladwell disagreed with the original author of the 10,000-hour research that he oversimplified his findings in his book.
Sometimes I noticed Gladwell not only oversimplifies but also overextends original research to his own ideas based on anecdotes. I spend a while looking at learning psychology book and noticed that he used a concept of desirable difficulties (which is when you make things harder for yourself when learning to help you get better results - ex: recalling stuff from memory rather than looking over notes when revising for exams) to imply that dyslexia was a desirable difficulty because a lot of millionaires tended to be dyslexic...
What's worse is Gladwell's ideas are then cited by highly educated and influential figures.
Using the dyslexia example, I will attempt to prove that environmental causes have a varied effect on the individual.
Suppose we look at a group of dyslexic people. Will we see a normal distribution or one highly skewed left or right? I would argue neither, as I would expect a distribution with a u shape pattern.
When you have any man face a trial, there are two important results baring completing the trial; growing stronger or growing weaker. For example, two men start lifting weights and start lifting amounts beyond what they ought. The resulting intense pain and possible injury may discourage one and encourage the other. Likewise, dyslexia places a heavy burden on children whom lack in most virtues, as they haven't had a chance to cultivate those quite yet. Thus when children must bear this burden then they tend to either run away into other activities or stubbornly refuse to give up. Both provide additional motivation for a task, which causes the task to receive more time, and key point, practice. Now the activities a child pursues depends largely on the parents and community of the child, which in turn determine the value of said activities. Becoming a master at tag doesn't pay well, but learning advanced mathematics does, for example.
Thus the environment plays a large role in the success of a dyslexic child.
However, the caveat to all this, is free will. A child, for reason or another, may choose to go against his environment for better or worse.
Yes, he's a very clear case of a guy who wants to get money and/or acclaim rather than someone trying to educate people IMO. People will go on about the principle of charity, but at a certain point if you're so charitable you're bending backwards for a charlatan, you're an idiot.
I think this really comes from the fact that he’s a journalist and not an academic. From an academic perspective, simplification is a communication tool, not a tool that brings you to any sort of insight.
From a writer’s perspective wisdom is found in simplicity. You can very much tell by his work that he subscribes to the second philosophy.
I think this is kinda what the video hit so well on IMO, the conflicting incentives and philosophies inherent to pop science means that it will *never* be truly scientific.
Being academically minded I would agree that this makes him wrong sometimes, but I also think there’s an argument to be made that general wisdom with some grounding in science is better than general wisdom pulled from thin air, and that’s what Gladwell seems to peddle in.
Gladwell exposed himself as a hack years ago in that Munk debate imo. By then, I had already begun to realize how sloppy a lot of the science underpinning his work truly was, but seeing him have to make arguments on the fly that were truly idiotic was the nail in the coffin
Gladwell is such a fraud.
I'm very glad that you made a video on this. It's very important and I think you nailed it.
I hope people don't keep attacking you because of your last Kurzgesagt video, and even if they do, I hope you don't let it get to you.
What you are discussing is an important subject that needs to be talked about and isn't talked about enough in this content marketing era, please don't let some haters make you doubt the signifigance of your work.
I'm also looking forward to the next fake guru episode on your second channel, those are also great. Wish you all the best.
it is important. It's just. What would be a better way to disemenate these ideas? Like. What are we lay people to do?
He’s also funded by billionaires I’m talking about kurzgesagt
"We tend to believe claims that sound science-y."
-Scientist, 2019
Which is why you hear the “basic biology” argument used a lot to attack marginalized groups of people.
One thing I really like (ironically) about what In a Nutshell does is when they, for instance, use an atom in their animations and write a tag that says "Atoms don't really look like this!".
They use a useful, practical way of representing the objects they're trying to explain without needing to dive into the complex world of quantum mechanics, while also providing a challenge for the viewer to question what they're looking at and wonder how atoms really look, why they mention such a thing.
So it passively encourages curiosity and investigation, without losing the benefits of the simplified concept of a Bohr atom.
Basically nuance is important and you should be skeptical
Matthew B about every issue. Must do your part to avoid the Internet hivemind.
Not nuance, but specificity
Not just that: there is an incentive for pop sci to be simple and novel, and that's what makes it deserving of skepticism.
Yes, but I think it's also important to stress that skepticism shouldn't be the same as cynicism or pessimism. We should question but we shouldn't immediately assume the worst. I feel like sometimes people forget this.
@@unfig3034 well said. :)
That coffee break animation is sleek
Something I think would be intensely helpful for spreading science to everyone is "Read-alongs" for journals.
A lot of journals are byzantine, hard to parse at their best for most people. Having someone in the field record themselves explaining parts of the paper for someone to listen to as they read along would be a godsend. It might even help people learn how to parse more dense work and help them develop the tools to seek answers for themselves. Who knows, maybe by having experts reading journals and explaining them aloud we'd end up catching errors and faulty logic that would otherwise not be noticed. "Rubber duck debugging" has helped people do similar stuff. The people could learn stuff, might get a valuable skill, and we can walk away with a more watertight journal for the trouble.
@infinitemausoleum721 That is a freaking FANTASTIC idea! Like good enough for me to want to reach out to my network and see if I can get some professionals I know to try it. Do you mind if I work on your idea? Would you like to work with me on it?
Ahhh, so this is what you had been working on which kinda led to the whole misunderstanding.
You are joking, right?
@@bluee6894 That's exactly what it was :)
k1w1 no one is mainly at fault; they both had done not very respectable things. that is a thing of the past and there's no need to try to bring it up again- and if you still wanna discuss it go to reddit or something and not RUclips.
@@markzheng1509 thats a weird thing to do: to tell people what and where they have to discuss things.
accutus it was more of a suggestion as RUclips isn't optimal for discussion, at least not the comment section. I wasn't trying to command people to do whatever I said. Sorry if it seemed I was forcing something :P
Glad that you're still into Making these!!! I love your Content dude and just wanted to say - Thanks :D
glad to see an intellectual army
9:30 trust me that study is never going to be published in a scientific journal
Lmao his weird face shouldn't have too. :P
If he published it, he wouldn't be procrastinating would he?
So apparently the study has been "under review" since around 2017. Being under review basically means the prototype of the study is submitted to the academic journal whose peer reviewers give the researcher feedback or maybe even asks for improvements. But usually this process takes less than a year. It seems pretty obvious to me that this study has been rejected by all academic/scientific journals it has been submitted to.
@@orenalbertmeisel3127 or he's procrastinating you fool!
@@orenalbertmeisel3127 the student finished her phd in 2014 so.. that is kind of a weird delay. BUT publications can take really long times.. especially if they keep targeting high impact factors. Rejection doesn't mean lack of value, be careful! Scientific publication is also a competitive market
13:25 This seems to imply Cody'sLab is an example of educating us "efficiently and accurately using robust science". I agree with this assessment.
Add Nile Red to the list.
I thought that was Cody's Lab! I'd recognise that shoddy production quality anywhere!
I think one of the problems with pop science is that a lot of the time, things that have the best production quality, or are produced by someone with the best title/charisma will be more widely believed, regardless of the quality of the science.
codys lab is great
@@Dendroapsis you're so right!
Malcolm Gladwell just gives the masses what they want to hear so he can sell books, not sure even he believes what he writes.
This is probably the same issue with most reporters and media in general these days. You only get the version of the story that is quick and easy to tell/understand and packaged in a way to make it sound as interesting as possible, even if it's a stretch of the truth at best.
Too bad people are too stupid to understand REAL facts.
Well...yes and no. I can offer some perspective as someone who has worked in journalism and met many fantastic journalists. I think a good deal of people, especially people who claim to be very fair and critical thinkers, fall into the trap of not giving journalists any credit for the good work they do, which truly is most of the work, and love pointing out when a journalist fails. Often, journalistic reporting is actually how many people find the most amount of information on an issue. Journalists often come back to stories or write followups to major events with more context, but readers don't often come back and read that. There are tons of in-depth investigative reports being published everyday in mainstream media, but audiences don't read these like they do the big, sensational things. This leads to many readers assuming that journalism is "bad" or "incomplete" when the reality is, they don't fully understand how journalism has always worked. journalism is built on an understanding that readers have an equally robust journalistic reading habit to match the integrity of the journalism. That has changed with social media, because now most people barely even make it past the headlines on social media posts.
Before we can have a public discussion of journalism, we have to meet journalism on its own terms, which most people never do. The general public has lost its journalistic literacy while the quality of journalism really hasn't slipped very much, and if anything has improved thanks to developments in news gathering technology.
This is enlightenment. I was thinking of starting a Pop Sci Channel, I'm engineering in Biotechnology but I have more than sufficient knowledge on important everyday topics that need to be explored to the masses.
YOU JUST MADE ME MORE RESPONSIBLE , CAREFUL AND A BETTER PERSON
THANKS
Regarding the self-regulation / checking of pop-science, it seems to be a problem with actual science too. Often claims are not re-tested to see if the results are actually repeatable, and when that is done and claims get more nuance or even whole papers are retracted it's already too late and the original claim is already deeply ingrained. A good example of this is the whole 'vitamin C prevents colds' stuff. I'm not claiming this plagues all scientific research, but it seems to happen often enough to be worth keeping an eye for.
*Proceeds to fact check everything he said*
Seriously though, this video is well done! Hope that this series will be a success, expecting more of these from you CB
Here's the reference section. It ran a bit long for RUclips description, so I had to put it in a different file. docs.google.com/document/d/1X4Ti87E-kvBygzCprxLbSMuqWGOlvHCy-Om-IYK8-wE/edit?usp=sharing
Hi That Guy
About procrastination... I have an exam next week and so I finally taught myself to knit just to do anything BUT studying.
I try not to fault experts when they falter, and I think you highlight an aspect of the intellectual market I value. Humility, and from it, trust. Addressing your faults and weaknesses really show you care about your audience getting the truth. For me, trust is the most valuable currency in a market of ideas.
Lemmino has an amazing video on this called 8 spiders, absolutely mind blowing.
Thats a neat new intro animation
'The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.' Bertrand Russell
Grit is just another word for conscientiousness. An already established personality trait
Yes, but considering the incentives she received you can understand why Pop. Sci can be a problem.
There is a TEDx talk by Jordan where he was just teaching people nonsense disguised as a speed-reading course.
I appreciate this a lot. Infortainment makes people feel empowered with knowledge, which is great, but it also lets them easily look past how little they actually know about topics.
Right. There is so much of the subject that cannot be condensed into consumable bite sized pieces and it does not make that obvious.
This is why since the beginning things like Kurzgesagt or crash course rubbed me the wrong way. They present complex ideas so shortly and in a so clean format that people asume they are written in stone.
Lol sure
Crash Course is pretty okay imo, because they often state that the topic is ambiguous or that they simplified it a lot, inciting further research by its viewers
Considering how little rewards they get , they are not that bad.
@Softy The problem is that research takez a lot of time and a lot of people just cant do it.
This is a dilemma for any pop science channels. As the video becomes more and more satisfying, people stop looking at references.
There was a phrase in the recent INET video that I really liked, "by the time something becomes conventional wisdom it's probably wrong." Either from not enough nuance or progress in the field that leads to refining or invalidating.
Lol... K.
I am so glad you've made this video. I'm having this bizzare problem where my physics teacher is more likely to talk about pop-science black holes rather than the actual subject, so I have to substitute him with khan academy courses. I absolutely despise popsci at this point. Also making fun of "flat-earthers" in class (even elsewhere) is really annoying.
I don’t know if you will ever read this... but this is one of the best videos I have ever seen. It’s just thorough, the content is 10/10 and the editing 10/10. Fantastic! Honestly this is so great!
Really enlightening RUclips video. Best part was " I have ideas but it doesn't means i have answers " . It really got me thinking. My chem teacher use to say that all the things I'm teaching you are theoretical, it dosen't mean that these are right, it only means that these theories haven't been proven wrong. And that is what I have to say about this vid
Dude! I know this video was originally intended against kurzgesagt. But you didn't mention them at all here. Nor have you talked about any other stem RUclips channels. Like you said, they're low hanging fruit.
I think you did a great job!
Truly phenomenal video. I’m just left with a bit of anxiety. If I find information through a speech or article I feel like every single time I’ll have to do a thorough review of the cited studies just to be sure what I’m hearing isn’t BS. But at the same time that’s so inefficient because that is incredibly time consuming, and honestly I have a life and responsibilities to tend to so I can’t just be constantly doing research on cited studies. Lol that probably sounds ridiculous but this whole video, while beautifully put together, has definitely caused me to second guess many things I’ve come to believe from articles and speeches I’ve listened to.
I know exactly what you mean, it's incredibly frustrating to feel like you need to take EVERYTHING you hear with a grain of salt. I wish there were absolute truths that I could be confident in. I feel like everyone should start their sentences with the precursor "my current understanding is..."
I can definitely relate. I've come to find that it also deadens a lot of my curiosity about the scientific world, especially when it comes to studies that are psychosocial. I don't even bother with documentaries anymore
It's ok to not have time to fact check as long as you're aware the stuff you're reading could be wrong and don't treat it as certain, and don't tell other people about it as if it was certain. Uncertainty and admitting one doesn't have an in depth understanding of important issues is perfectly acceptable. Let the people who's jobs it is to know this stuff know that stuff and inform you and the rest of us what is important to know and how we should treat that information in relation to our lives and public policy.
Though of course you run into the issue of needing to verify that a particular person is actually an expert, and specifically knows the topic they are talking about well, but that is usually a much simpler task than fully comprehending the field itself.
@@bugspray6662If you want absolute truths, you might like: math :)
I like to look for the opposite of the current opinion i am looking at. I try to find the extremes and the middle ground. If you find either one of the three more so or less so then you can tailor your thinking and personal opinion.
I think this is why I don’t want to make videos sharing my ideas on RUclips or public platform just yet because I know I don’t have the mindset I’d like to share with the world. Just having ideas isn’t the end all, it’s about executing them.
Lovely video. Glad to have you back Coffee Break. 💖
Is this the video you were originally going to make?
yes.
@@CoffeeBreaks Its a VERY good one. Thank you.
@@CoffeeBreaks You were always so bad at editing, but now even the content is bad and biased, bye.
@@Frank1e.b0i What part are you upset about?
@@Nick_Lamb I'm upset that this guy is an immature idiot and take advantage that people forget too soon, he even has videos on this subject, so ironic.
Been waiting for this one.
Amazing intro with the coffee mug closing in towards the letter 'C'. Damn good! And amazing video, great content :')
The ad before this was Malcolm Gladwell's Masterclass, hahahahaha
Hey! This is gold! I have this repulse to pop science. I always say it’s counter productive, but you touched the heart of the issue: policies pushed by journalists and politicians that are feed by this entertaining industry. There’s this pride of being a critical thinker but without any baggage of a experienced researcher. Generally it ends up with their (politician and journalist) commitment to a position they cannot change anymore, like a real scientist needs to/should do.
I watch ALOT of RUclips, but almost never comment. I was so impressed by this video I grabbed my phone to write this while the video was still running on my TV! You are spot on in drawing attention to the fact that for most people, nearly all the "science" we consume comes to us in the form of extremely carefully curated shorts (
I was almost worried that i have been consuming wrong content but your conclusion makes sense, you eat an elephant one bite at a time and don’t hold opinions so strongly you can change, again i quote you beauty of life is in its intricacies.
YOU PRONOUNCED THE 'S' IN ILLINOIS. THAT'S HERESY!!!!!!
Fam, keep doing the great work. You have no idea how much knowledge you bring to all of us. Thank you for taking your time to make content for us.
Also, for what my lil comment is worth, I applaud you for opening my eyes to the insane potential of misinformation even my favourite channels can provide me with. Beautiful animations and charming accents, or not. I could not help but view all of RUclips (and myself as a viewer) differently after watching the prior video so, thank you. ☺️🙏
It's just so amazing how you put all this effort to fact-check every source. Journalism could learn from this.
Yeah, this is exactly right. The stuff that sells books is sort of the opposite of good science. Good science almost always sounds like "it's complicated, but in this extremely specific controlled situation, we can at least say this thing happens".
The public doesn't want real science, it's just confusing, and demonstrates how little we really know. They want a quirky rule of thumb that astonishes them.
This crap overwhelmingly comes from business/management departments and social science departments. The kinds of studies they do would never, ever, ever fly in STEM. I am an academic in mathematics. The standards could not possibly be more different than in business/management depts. The sophistication of their experiments is laughable.
They have a negative attitude towards real scientists, who they consider "nerds who just don't get it". They are right in the sense that we don't get politics...but we do science correctly, and that's enough for me.
"Science entertainers" is a perfect way to describe them
You got me in the end of your pop sci video where you neatly and efficiently packaged your ideas into the sentence that pop science needs to be neatly and efficiently packaged.
yo don't stop making vids your too good at them
sorry, love the video, very informative and nuanced, leaves you feeling you understand enough of the topic that you can back up what you now think, but that smile at 9:34 is probably the thing that will stick with me the most
Years later… so well done and relevant even in the field of hard science and bahvioural science today with Stanford and Harvard
I love the fact that the music artists are showcased at the end
I came in not expecting what I got. What an amazing and thoughtful video. Thank you for your work. It clearly shows how much effort went into making it. Sorry for not coming in with an open mind, you had an uphill battle. Which ironically maybe should be how much of pop science should be faced anyway... A+👏
Your channel is so incredibly underrated. This, like most of your videos, was easily more balanced and entertaining than most Ted talks. Keep up the amazing work!
This one is of significant quality. It isn't enough to "just ask questions" or to present whatever makes you popular regardless of its effects or it's legitimacy. Please, continue to do more videos that are well founded like this one.
Gladwell's face at about 14:00 is like "are you seriously going to ask me about something i wrote?"
Most people who can cite trivia about quantum physics would be completely incapable of mathematically finding the volume of a cylinder. I hate these "educators" because they feed people useless and watered down information about the bleeding edge of fields when the audience couldn't pass an entry level exam on the actual base of the topic.
I love that I'm subscribed to a channel that finds real issues in the world that actually cares about being correct. Thank you
As a psych doctoral student, I'll say this is an excellent video. Blew my expectations away from a... well... popsci channel :)
Man I do love pop sci though
Yeet. PopSci is fine as long as we know it's PopSci and treat it as such.
PopSci needs to be viewed as a point of interest on a topic and should always be critical of.
Very pleased you completed and released this video, and I think you touched on a lot of important points succinctly.
Whenever I read/watch Popsci content, I try to keep an open mind and do my best to consider it as just a component of a larger complex and nuanced picture. The exposure of a new idea and the conversations it can generate when packaged in a TED talk, I feel, is worth running the risk of misinterpretation.
I appreciate and enjoy your video essays.
Thank you very much for making this. I was so sure it would come off emotionally charged (given the whole kurzgesagt debacle), but you pulled this off really well. You offer pros and cons for pop science instead of demonizing or worshipping it. The video is thorough and nuanced, which is very fitting for a video about this. :P So thank you for being you. Keep up the good work. :)
I'm so glad that RUclips decided to suggest this video to me. It is a great take on important issue with current world. And, controversly, it is great that you didn't suggest any strict solution but make people aware of the pop science problem.
Interesting that this video, on pop science, is, in itself, approximately 18 minutes long. May be pop science should expand itself, like this video (pun not intended), and we could have a positive and productive leap towards correct and cognitive pop science. Cheers mate @Coffee Break
Thank you for this! This is something I have awkward conversations with people about; people either want to believe everything, or nothing, and I can sympathize with both reactions, but it makes talking about the value and problems of this space challenging.
I think you've put together something that lays out the problem-space clearly, and I look forward to sharing this.
This needs to be a documentary
You opened my eyes 😮
This channel certainly needs more exposure .
2:04 this problem that pop-scientits have with people not accepting strong held believes is called the "backfire effect" and is the tendency of some people to resist accepting evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. The effect is demonstrated when people presented with that conflicting information become even more convinced of their original beliefs rather than questioning them.
In the video you never tell us the name of the reason why, so it lead me to believe that you weren't aware of it. I hope it makes thing clearer to somebody
This is quite possibly the best video I've watched this year. Awesome job Coffee Break
Excellent video. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." A maxim to live by.
Snyde not necessarily, you could say that about vaccines. Perhaps if it sounds too good to be true, you should look into it? Hell, even GMOs sound too good to be true, but they aren’t, and most of modern medicine.
If you apply this maxim to itself you create a time paradox.
I think the message of the video is that in reality it’s complicated. I think we should learn to be comfortable in living in that gray space.
I love how he is procrastinating on releasing research into procrastination
I think economics is the maximum expression of Pop Science, where nuances are always shut down.
you've come a looooong way since you started man, keep tackling difficult topics
Pop science makes *everyone* an expert! 🤔
especially soccer moms with their fkin self help books and magazines
What a wonderfully thoughtful video. Very nice.
The problems with the reliability of pop science and their focus on possibly unreliable studies are why when I'm in the mood for some quick, fun science I usually go to channels like Smarter Every Day, Cody's Lab, and Thought Emporium where you know the basic science has to work because they're holding it in their hand and probably built something to demonstrate it.
Keep coming back for this one, a very important case. Thanks for making it.
Great Video, Greetings from Germany!
Perfectly summarizes all the beef I have with popsci.
I believe that the idea of pop science is to spark an interest in a certain topic, so that the reader can then do further reading, exploration and research on his own. The problem arises when all you consume is only popsci, which unfortunately seems to be a growing trend, as it is much easier to watch a 15 minute youtube video than it is to follow the sources of the said video or just google the stuff
RE Pop Sci educators - I think one of the most trustworthy channels is SciShow.
I believe Hank and his team have a particularly high regard for conveying the nitty gritty and even will state when scientific literary conclusions are nuanced / ambiguous, and strike a fine balance between this and getting bogged down.
I love channels that present ideas and perspectives with a bit of skepticism. Some video-essay channels aren't so good as this one.
Thanks for the great video. Now I shall take your word for it without doing any further research! :^)
Glad to finally see this come out. When I think of pop-science I'm usually thinking of the Social Media side of it, with companies like "I Fucking Love Science" and the people who follow them being the most annoying. Pop Science on social media usually reminds me of this Cyanide and Happiness comic from back in 2014 (explosm.net/comics/3557/), and how most people just want to feel smart and arm themselves with interesting fun facts.
Great work man!
You might be interested in the book "How to lie with statistics"
What a come back bro! Keep doing this awesome work!
loved this until you pronounced the S in Illinois
I've come back to this video for the 3rd time this year. Very interesting. It has changed my attitude towards education.
Great video! I think the kurzgesagt scandal made you more aware and balanced ;)
Coffee break I just love how you don't take things as they are you go deep to findout is it actually so, the videos you mentioned influenced me, but now that you raised good points, you made me realize I should not be ok if something comes from authority. I still need to know it myself.
It's been interesting to reflect on my view of pop-science. I've spent a few years in university working towards becoming what one could reasonably call a scientist. Quantum mechanics especially is communicated extremely poorly from pop-science. It's easy for me to become cynical about it but I think about how it has influenced me to study what I'm studying. I had thought pretty negatively about Neil Degrasse Tyson for some time until I saw a conversation between him and Katy Perry. She asked him something like, "Is Jupiter a planet?" My response might have been, "wow, seriously?" He said something like, "Yes. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun." Pop-science has been important even if some of the nonsense I hear makes me cringe a little.
So, people with social skills of any kind, in other words, it turns out, are not totally useless. Who'd have thunk it. Intelligence is diverse, and you're in academics and realizing it. That's promising.
@@LadyVandMrT People in academia have always realised this (and most lecturers are perfectly capable of doing it themselves). They just don't care because it's not their job and not something they're interested in doing
All this time I felt like I was procrastinating when watching those TED talks. Now I feel rewarded seeing someone paint a bigger picture referencing many of the most memorable ones :D
Wow. I was so wrong. This is not a take down piece. This is incredibly thoughtful and nuanced. Thank you for your work!
This really interesting since we can kind of see this transition of everything towards entertainment whether it is science, politics, and education because entertainment is really good at getting people's attention and since people realized this they now know they need to capitalize on this in order to get their ideas through.
One fundamental argument against Pop Science. Pop Science is losing it's value because of its sheer vastness and short duration in which it retains in a person's mind. It has become entertainment material to most. Who would retain the entirety of 20 videos he/she watches everyday? Even if they were all important in the field of science?
I'm so happy to see the old Coffee Break back, all the best!!
great video! i do think that pop science article should be viewed as just an introduction to a subject and not the whole picture...
I'm super happy that you were able to finish this video. I love your content