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It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.
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The irony here is that Sabine Hossenfelder falls into exactly the same patterns as the science media that she is criticizing. A punchy headline, with significant oversimplifications. For example, she makes it sound like science news is always aimed at scientists, and that they do not explain the science (I have several excellent counter examples). That doesn't mean there is not some very good points in there (e.g. pu…
I feel differently about her work. I think she is doing the less popular and therefore less lucrative work of summarising what is just not correct out there. She spends time deflating amazing claims. The medium of YouTube is not conducive to lengthy expositions and is definitely not academic grade but it shouldn’t be! She is making pithy responses to headline grabbing sensational mainstream hype reporting. There is a…
I've actually found a couple channels on YT specialising in lengthy reviews/essays, which I find very good. Off the top of my head:
1. Whitelight[1] - game reviews/critiques/analyses. Particularly worthy of note are the Assassin's Creed Unity[2] (1.5h), Batman Arkham City[3] (3h 10min) and Watch Dogs[4] (1h 15min) reviews.
2. MauLer[5] - critiques of mostly Star Wars, but sometimes also other mainstream films. The ongoing series of TFA critiques has 4 parts so far (there is going to be at least 6 total), each part taking anywhere between 2 and 4 hours.
I also feel that I'm forgetting some, which I don't watch regularly, but periodically am reminded about their existence and then after a long break spend several days watching, to then forget about them again.
But the channels I listed aren't fringe. Quite the contrary, they're quite popular. I think it's also interesting that one of, if not the most popular Vsauce video is the one about the Banach-Tarski paradox[6], which is almost 30 minutes long. His other videos also show this trend, where the long-form ones seem to get more views in general.
And those are just essays/reviews/etc. There is a whole genre of podcasts on youtube dedicated to 3-4h in-depth interviews. Everybody knows a whole bunch of them, therefore I don't even need to list any examples here to support that.
So it seems that YouTube is a pretty good place for long-form in-depth exploration of whatever topic (as long as you don't say "fuck", "murder" or show a human body).
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/Whitelight>
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5dOporS8IY>
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3U1TL5yBm4>
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk2G6zc5pKo>
[5]: https://www.youtube.com/c/MauLerYoutube>
[6]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA>
It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.
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I’m a physicist by background and even when active in academia it was hard for me to understand some papers in closely related sub fields, and that was with working experience in that area. I did theoretical and computational physics research and understanding leaps forward in for e.g. experimental hardware would have got blank stares from me. For a journalist, who may have been out of academia for some time, a large amount just gets taken on trust from what the academics themselves say, because you haven’t got a hope of understanding the fine points of the research.
If we want to deliver the scientific gospel to the laymen we need some kind of rigorous technical writing thing.
Unless entertainment is literally our method and profit is literally our aim. Is it?
No matter how good the advice to reporters is, no matter how closely they follow that advice, science news will still suck.
The irony here is that Sabine Hossenfelder falls into exactly the same patterns as the science media that she is criticizing. A punchy headline, with significant oversimplifications. For example, she makes it sound like science news is always aimed at scientists, and that they do not explain the science (I have several excellent counter examples). That doesn't mean there is not some very good points in there (e.g. pu…
> Top ten lists I couldn't find any "listicle" style top N list, the closest was "top players in quantum computing" > awful generic CGI backgrounds That's pretty par for the course for this tier of channel. Arguably the "quirky room with nerd tchatckies backdrop" is more authentic, but both are just filler behind a talking head. > give me your opinion in the comments Necessary evil to drive engagement to appease The…
> I couldn't find any "listicle" style top N list, the closest was "top players in quantum computing"
The whole premise of the video of this article is "I give you the ten reasons why I think science suck". Sure it's not in the title (which is even more polarizing), but it's still a top ten list.
>> awful generic CGI backgrounds
> That's pretty par for the course for this tier of channel. Arguably the "quirky room with nerd tchatckies backdrop" is more authentic, but both are just filler behind a talking head.
She could just be sitting at her desk though, but I agree this is more aesthetics and it would have not grated me if it wasn't for the other things
>> give me your opinion in the comments
> Necessary evil to drive engagement to appease The Algo.
That's exactly my point. I don't necessarily blame her, but am more lamenting the fact that all videos seem to have to become like this, if a creator wants to make a living on youtube.
> Imho her work is a step above the lion's share of science reporting, but I can see how she might be polarizing.
I'm not sure, her work is definitely not on par with quanta magazine for example.
It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.
> We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. This is a common trope - and has a name - "gell-man amnesia", that people raise again and again, but I don't think it's the whole story. There are different incentives at play. Journalists are sometimes investigators, sometimes storytellers, and other times just mediators. The article mentions the exagerations and unique incentives at play in the research domai…
It's actually better when stated without this 'name' like in the GP because then its weird nihilism and tropey-ness is more obvious. "Gell-Mann Amnesia" elevates a funny warmup bit Chrichton did in a talk once to something that sounds sophisticated and scientific.
Science news sucks because their audience is a science-illiterate public that doesn't really want to learn but feels it knows enough to make important decisions. To be eye-catching (ad-attractive) enough for widespread broadcast it needs to have human interest angles and show "both sides" (as if there are 2) and not alienate that ad-clicking audience. No matter how good the advice to reporters is, no matter how close…