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I think it's the same reaction that police or lawyers have with watching crime procedurals, or why software engineers get disgusted by how "hackers" are portray
by natecavanaugh 9y ago
I think it's the same reaction that police or lawyers have with watching crime procedurals, or why software engineers get disgusted by how "hackers" are portrayed in most popular media.
However, I think this sort of simplified shorthand, with a bit of innocent embellishment (the whole mystery aspect of how nature does it) keeps people interested.
It could be something that gets someone interested in discovering more. I think any simplification could be viewed as misleading, but I think these sorts of articles really do more to educate than if they were to only be clicking celebrity gossip or worthless listicles.
- pishpash 9y agoThey don't educate anything. They generate crackpots who spread more pseudoscience. True science can be explained simply and clearly with good understanding and good communication (think Terrence Tao's blog) without dumbing it down.
- natecavanaugh 9y agoThank you for the response, and I will Google Terrence Tao for the link, but maybe adding a link will help others? I don't disagree with you, but honestly, Id rather argue science with a crackpot that only has 50% of the info than the crackpot who refuses to, and can't understand anything above 0%. It's like literacy. I'd far rather live in a world where most people have a 50% literacy rate rather than in a world where 0.5% has a genius level of literacy and the rest are illiterate. Sure it's a weird, cold calculation, but in the pragmatic part, I'm happy to accept the compromise.