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Why does science news suck so much?

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Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#141

Post by the_only_law »

zaphar wrote: post #140
tensor wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an arrogant and toxic saying. Let's not repeat it let alone add to it please.

Someone made a statement of opinion without supporting evidence. You followed that up with another statement of opinion without supporting evidence. As a result no consensus was reached and this entire exchange went no where. Why do you think it was an arrogant and toxic statement? Do you disagree that financial journalism is better? Do you think finance journalism itself is toxic? Do you have evidence that a belief…

They're referring the first sentence, with the cliche phrase. I personally don't make it seriously, because half the "doers" I've met can hardly do shit.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#142

Post by jahnu »

cycomanic wrote: post #105
jahnu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sort of agree and disagree with you. I think generally you are correct we do need more Sabines not fewer. However, I disagree that what she does is the "less popular and therefore less lucrative work of summarising what is just not correct out there". The sort of takedowns she does are quite popular and very easy to do. However, my criticism is that quite a few of them are superficial and fall essentially into the…

I hear you and respect your point of view. I just have different tolerances it seems.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#143

Post by jahnu »

yakubin wrote: post #122
jahnu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The medium of YouTube is not conducive to lengthy expositions 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 mos…

Good point well made.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#145

Post by jahnu »

zarzavat wrote: post #89
jahnu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The issue for me with her videos is that she mixes two very different kinds of criticism. The first is criticism of things that are clearly wrong, such as the aforementioned science journalism. This is a good public service, I agree. The second is criticism of other physicists’ ideas. i.e. her personal opinions and professional disagreements with other physicists. She doesn’t delineate the two clearly enough to her a…

I really don’t think it’s her problem to fix that the crazies latch on to it. I have no problem getting when she is offering a view or criticising consensus. And to be honest it seems you don’t either.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#146

Post by ekianjo »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #62
refurb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean we have public broadcasters like Canada’s CBC and they still do the same thing. Why? Because they need to justify their budget. If nobody reads/views your reports, why should the government pay for it. The real answer is: the public doesn’t want science reporting unless it’s punchy, simple and exciting.

Sometimes it's not about what the public wants, but what it needs.

what do you know about the public needs?

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#147

Post by jahnu »

cycomanic wrote: post #120
zarzavat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue for me with her videos is that she mixes two very different kinds of criticism. The first is criticism of things that are clearly wrong, such as the aforementioned science journalism. This is a good public service, I agree. The second is criticism of other physicists’ ideas. i.e. her personal opinions and professional disagreements with other physicists. She doesn’t delineate the two clearly enough to her a…

On top of that, in her more recent videos I get a weird feeling of her leaving some things purposefully ambiguous for that audience. For example in the video to this article she was using a lot of climate science examples, which will be interpreted in a certain way by the "science is a scam" crowd. I'm not sure she is doing this on purpose (I have the impression she strongly believes in climate change), accidentally…

She absolutely 100% accepts human caused climate change is happening and is a big problem

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#148

Post by [deleted] »

noduerme wrote: post #14

It's like this. (Not that it needs to be stated. We all know this.) The Delta Airline pilot union today put out a terse, two paragraph letter to the public, blaming the airline for their forced overtime and subsequent flight delays. There were hundreds of news articles about this, all of which strung out the lead into several paragraphs and doled out a few sentences of this bland letter. Most of them did not link to…

[deleted]

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#150

Post by timr »

snarf21 wrote: post #84
arnaudsm wrote: post #38

A friend of mine worked for a mainstream European science news website. Most journalists had no science background, and were pressured into writing 4 articles a day. The result of course, was low quality articles and hastily copied press releases with no critical thinking. They believed everything corporations said, because they had no time to check. I don't blame the journalists, but the work conditions and economic…

Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. We want it to be free which means ads. NPR/PBS tends to have better and more balanced news but it is largely because of their donor/patron model. But to be clear, they are surely not immune. They are still run by people who are judged by views and reach and other eye…

NPR's science reporting has been abysmal for the past few years. Maybe they don't have the click-bait problem (debatable), but they routinely report everything one side of the political spectrum says as scientific fact. They also fall victim to the "experts say..." and "scientific consensus is..." tropes. Their "scientific expert" source list looks suspiciously like a group of the loudest voices on Twitter.

I say this as someone on that side of the political spectrum.

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