10 ms·

I blame freakonomics. It's a great podcast (and book) but it occasionally pushes some shoddy science. Also, TED and TEDx for popularizing pseudo intellectual g

• colechristensen 8y ago
  .... and basically the idea that telling a good story is more important than representing the truth when talking about science.
  • thoughtexplorer 8y ago
    Sadly that extends to everything. Story and emotion trump facts.
    • da_chicken 8y ago
      Over the short term. Over the human term. Over the long term, facts win out because facts tend not to change. People will moan and complain and twist and excuse and blame, but facts just don't give up being facts. Facts don't get tired or change their mind. It might take 10 years or a hundred or a thousand. Truth is patient like that. Unfortunately, that doesn't really solve any problems in the short term before people start dying.
    • wolfgke 8y ago
      > Story and emotion trump facts. Pun intended?
  • J-dawg 8y ago
    Freakonomics etc made us fall in love with that particular kind of story where the outcome is kinda counter-intuitive and surprising and clever all at the same time. For example - the legalised abortion and crime effect. I'm sure you can think of plenty more. I think these stories are like crack to "rational" people. They have all the thrill of a good conspiracy theory, feel rebellious and anti-establishment, yet they're backed up by "real science". And you get to sound clever when you tell your friends about them. I know I'm a sucker for them.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • smogcutter 8y ago
      See also: anything by Malcolm Gladwell
    • ellius 8y ago
      I think "pattern addiction" is definitely a thing. Human beings are constantly searching for order and patterns. Getting other people to buy into your pattern/narrative/whatever is probably as old as the human race, but in the last 100-150 years we've gotten really fucking good at tricking each other on a massive scale. I think this is why people seem to intuitively understand that political media manipulation, advertising, junk science, etc. are related phenomena. They're all about hijacking the pattern recognition capacity of human beings for personal gain. It's essentially a form of parasitism.
    • colechristensen 8y ago
      >feel rebellious and anti-establishment I wonder what this is and why it is so prevalent (and maybe how it made our species/specific cultures successful). You can list a large number of groups that wrap up their identity and value systems around being opposed to or having knowledge that counters their perception of "the majority". It is both incredibly attractive and a way to signal your value by going against the grain in some way or another, in some field or another. Some philosopher/pyschologist/neurologist/evolutionary biologist could probably do a very compelling analysis about the human need to rebel or obey. One of the societal ills of the 21st century is that we're running out of big clear cut things to rebel against but are continuing to rebel with the same intensity while directing it somewhat aimlessly all over the place, and now mostly just at each other's rebellion itself. Political parties in America these days are less anchored in particular issues and more about believing strongly in something your opponent is against and making sure your team wins.
      • johnzhou 8y ago
        "I rebel — therefore we exist." - Albert Camus
  • maym86 8y ago
    Every story is a twist. "This one thing you thought you knew isn't actually true". Great for telling friends in the pub but misleading through selection bias as they don't tell all the stories where things aren't different to what was expected.
• platz 8y ago
  TED and TEDx had great content in the first few years, when profs were able to present their lifetime's work. Once they burned through those folks, they turned to cranks/homeopaths/etc
  • thoughtexplorer 8y ago
    It sucks what happened with them. TED/TEDx talks were awesome and I used to be able to recommended people watch any and all of them. Until I started seeing stuff like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY
    • platz 8y ago
      lol i skipped to the end and instantly felt bad for the audience even with my audio off
      • chasedehan 8y ago
        my god, that is terrible! I generally think there is good content in the TED talks, but I now won't even look at the TEDx talks because regionally they do have to turn to the cranks.
    • ww520 8y ago
      OMG. That's garbage.
    • Finch2192 8y ago
      another egregious example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w
    • realusername 8y ago
      Haha, that's even worse than the TED rocks parody...
  • escherplex 8y ago
    Recommend buddying-up with some friends and subscribe to Great Courses on ROKU if you want some additional intellectual stimulation. Runs around US$180/annum but app channel can be shared among (I believe) 5 other remote sites. I subscribe, use it on three separate ROKU boxes, and allowed registration from online acct to a relative living a couple of miles away and a retired neighbor who was pining for some mental stimulation - also got her away from the damned news channels :)
• airstrike 8y ago
  TED and TEDx aren't the same thing
  • kisstheblade 8y ago
    Oh my, how can anybody think that they are in any way affiliated!? /s That's just a cop out. Both are equally dubious, sugarcoated garbage.
• fhbdukfrh 8y ago
  Malcom Gladwell is also very good a pushing interesting, well-told stories with spurious scientific basis.
  • seventhtiger 8y ago
    I agree. Although Freakonomics feels like an exploration of the weird and unexpected, while Gladwell feels like he is handpicking studies to push the bigger narrative of a book.
• your-nanny 8y ago
  you blame them for what exactly?
• paulcole 8y ago
  Gladwell’s whole schtick is shooting an arrow and then drawing the bullseye around where it lands.