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Science Communications on YouTube

blogs.memphis.edu

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Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#41

Post by hermitcrab »

MPSimmons wrote: post #30
andrewflnr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's very hit or miss in her quality IMO. Also, she's explicitly disclaimed the title of "science communicator", so she might not want to be on this list anyway. :) I kind of wish they hadn't included Veritasium either. He seems to have gone downhill.

I don't know to what extent it has directly impacted his quality, but it appears that Derek sold Veritasium to a private equity firm https://www.electrify.video/post/electrify-completes-majorit...

I can't imagine that is going to end well. Hopefully I am wrong about that.

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#42

Post by predkambrij »

I recommend "YouTube Summary with ChatGPT & Claude" extension, which makes it easy to copy transcription. Paste it in Deepseek or your favourite LLM with prompt "summarize in 1 paragraph" and then you can run TTS and you get idea about of the video in 10 seconds. You can ask followup questions, or to format it differently or get the reason to actually watch it in full.

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#43

Post by MangoToupe »

griffzhowl wrote: post #17
mmooss wrote: post #6

Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial thi…

It's similar to the benefits of attending lectures (or watching them on yt): there are more informal asides and intuition-pumps, and maybe more detailed explanations of intermediate steps in calculations than you usually get in books. And for videos specifically, it can obviously help understanding in many cases to have animated visualizations

Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#45

Post by xvilka »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #7
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #4

Some people might take issue with the Veritasium recommendation. I think he's great though.

I was an avid viewer until he stepped in my area of expertise and leveraged technicalities, half-truths, and misrepresentation to really juice up the click-baityness and "wow!" factor. My interest in his videos plunged after that, and it seemed like he was re-alinging for consistent high views over straight hard factual education. Frankly I wish I could purge him from my feed at this point (youtube still recommends a…

What particular area, if I may ask?

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#46

Post by freefaler »

MangoToupe wrote: post #43
griffzhowl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar to the benefits of attending lectures (or watching them on yt): there are more informal asides and intuition-pumps, and maybe more detailed explanations of intermediate steps in calculations than you usually get in books. And for videos specifically, it can obviously help understanding in many cases to have animated visualizations

Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.

For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :)

I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the first chapters there were covalency chemistry and other stuff that I needed to sit down and write to understand.

Too stupid to do it while doing chores I guess...

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#47

Post by mmooss »

II2II wrote: post #29
mmooss wrote: post #6

Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial thi…

I find videos are a convenient way to get an overview of something I'm interested in, yet not so deeply invested in that I want to learn it in depth. In other words, I can do the chores and learn a bit more about the world in the process. In that respect, I would say that reading is much less efficient. If it is something I am interested in learning in depth, then I would agree that books are usually more efficient.…

> Written communication can be lossy.

That's a great insight.

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#48

Post by mmooss »

andrewflnr wrote: post #23
mmooss wrote: post #6

Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial thi…

It's not science communication, but I don't know where to find anything quite like Perun's content in written form. It's military/economics issues, often pretty granular, at just the right level of detail for an interested layman.

There are endless military and economic publications, from nonsense to easy overviews to serious research. What does Perun produce? Do you have an example?

(I can suggest some if you are interested and give me a better idea.)

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#49

Post by mmooss »

freefaler wrote: post #46
MangoToupe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.

For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :) I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the f…

I agree about serious lectures, but ...

> not story telling like history or other humanities

Those are not serious humanities lectures. The serious ones are not storytelling, but serious examination of the evidence or of its analysis. There are far more factors, complexity, and uncertainty in an historical event or process than in a petri dish, and the event can't even be reproduced. It's impossible to use the same kind of scientific method and obtain the same kind of certainty, and requires far more critical thinking, judgment, and analysis.

What caused Andrew Jackson to be elected? There's a relatively simple story told, but the reality is enormously complex and uncertain.

Re: Science Communications on YouTube

#50

Post by MangoToupe »

freefaler wrote: post #46
MangoToupe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.

For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :) I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the f…

Referring to "math" as serious just makes me want to discount your opinion entirely. Lectures (or indeed any linear encoding) are a bad medium for discussing formal languages. This has nothing to do with how much you care about a topic or whatever "serious" is supposed to imply here.

Regardless, listening to something intently and doing mechanical actions are not exclusive.

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