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Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

blogs.scientificamerican.com

21–30 of 100 posts

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".

We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.

These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok.

The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific drivel has no place anywhere.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".

We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.

Ignorance is fine -- it is an unfortunate fact that nobody can learn it all. But to think that one is "engaging" in science -- I suppose most fans of the Page think they're somehow engaging in it (anecdotal) -- is, well, wrong.

As much as I'd like it to be true, looking at a bunch of .gifs about quantum mechanics and astrophysics plastered with white majuscules does little for one's understanding of science. In other words, IFLS is to the scientific community as r/atheism is to the religious-sceptics community (not the best analogy...).

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#23
I run a popular fan page on Facebook, and if I know who the artist/author is, I will credit them. If I don't know who they are I say "artist: ?" and someone will always send a message to let me know who the artist/author is.

I too, sell t-shirts (through TeeSpring) and my latest experiment was quite successful - I found some designs on another t-shirt site that I quite liked the look of, emailed the artist and said I'd pay them $1.50 for every t-shirt I sold. They agreed, and sent me the images. I sold heaps, the artist made extra money and my fans were happy.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#24
post #2

Nor do they love science. Most of the things they post are not accurate. The picture of the universe and a synapse for example springs to mind. They are just a "Like" farm. They use their tracking of likes to mine relationships so you can get personalized spam that appears that it came from your friends.

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science. It's similar to people cheering at a basketball game. They're not basketball players, so most of what they have to say about the topic is going to be wrong. But they're still rooting for you, and this is a good and powerful thing.

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science.

Seems to me that a lot of the point of 'cheering science' is lost when you're posting inaccurate facts.

Can you even call it science any more?

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#25
Jacking everybody else's internet subculture for your mainstream, bland and toned down for-profit site is nothing new. I remember ebaumsworld stamping everything on earth with their logo that they didn't create, same with I Can Haz Cheeseburger? blatently ripping off all the caturday user content uploaded to 4chan.

If it exist on the internet and is hilarious somebody will steal it and milk it to the masses for money.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science. It's similar to people cheering at a basketball game. They're not basketball players, so most of what they have to say about the topic is going to be wrong. But they're still rooting for you, and this is a good and powerful thing.

>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".

I agree. It seems like supporting science through ignorance is missing the point.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#27
post #9

Yes, I agree. But why call out something like this page? Surely there are more successful and profitable content farms. Not justifying the behavior, just saying that this example is the 'little guy'.

"Most popular science page on Facebook", if true in any meaningful sense, does not describe a "little guy", or gal in this case.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#28
The bottom line is this:

1. Elise Andrew is making money off IFLS. (Whether or not she's giving it out to charities is non-relevant.)

2. IFLS' success rests largely on the high quality content created by artists, scientists, photographers

3. A small part of IFLS' success rests on Andrews' eye for picking out good/funny/clever quotes/cartoons/photographs/artwork

Given (1) and (2), I'd say not only is IFLS largely indebted to the artist/photographer/science community at large, but not attributing work is an incredibly selfish thing to do. Whether she didn't attribute the work out of laziness, negligence or malice is non-relevant. My only point is that IFLS is a very good target for the blog post.

If someone stole my code and used it without attribution and to make money off of it, I would be pissed. If someone that's received the major media attention IFLS has stole my code and used it without attribution to make money, I'd be even more pissed.

Also note that artwork can have varying licenses, as well - similar to MIT, GPL, etc. licenses we see in source code. Some licenses preclude all non-endorsed distribution. She's had a ton of media coverage in the past 6 months (especially after the whole Twitter thing), so the "small corner of the internet" argument won't fly.

Neither will the "Reddit/9gag/etc. does it" argument. Reddit, for example, is a mass-user-driven aggregate. Reddit can't possibly police all posts and ensure that attribution is given. Conversely, the IFLS page is not an aggregate. Andrews picks the images very carefully and in a conscious manner; in the latter case, there is clearly room for attribution.

However, I think that IFLS has garnered the same type of militant defenders as /r/atheism/ or fans of Carl Sagan (or, more recently, NDGT). Ironically, this type of blind following is exactly what the aforementioned groups are trying to dissolve. Andrews screwed up. Badly. This is not a rookie mistake; it's something she could get sued for. Lets leave it at that.. enough with the apologists.

Edit: I would just like to re-iterate that the burden does NOT lie on the artists to scour the internet looking for mis-attributed pieces of artwork. But rather, on the distributor of the work. Just about every judge in existence would agree with this.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.

These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok. The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific d…

It reminds me of the criticisms of Mythbusters. They do bad science a lot of the time, with shoddy understandings of underlying mechanisms. It's fair to criticise them as bad science for this. But on the other hand, they very much promote the idea of "think of something, suggest what might happen if you do it, then do it and see what you find (, and then publish it)". So while they may not do good science themselves, they do promote the fundamental ideals of science, and are open to having their suggestions found wrong.

Whereas the facebook page does nothing like this at all - it's just funny pictures with a theme. It doesn't encourage any way of thinking or promote figuring out the world.

Re: Facebook’s “I F*cking Love Science” does not love artists

#30
post #9

Yes, I agree. But why call out something like this page? Surely there are more successful and profitable content farms. Not justifying the behavior, just saying that this example is the 'little guy'.

Considering she's working on a TV deal, I bet not many. Plus it doesn't matter who is larger, wrong is wrong.
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