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These anthropomorphic evolution titles annoy me. How plants favourable to ants gained reproductive advantage.
by rezeroed 8y ago
These anthropomorphic evolution titles annoy me. How plants favourable to ants gained reproductive advantage.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoOr better: How Plants Benefit from Ants, and Ants from Plants. How can a science-centric site get it so wrong?
- braythwayt 8y ago> How can a science-centric site get it so wrong? Write software that A/B tests various titles. Measure the income from advertising click-throughs. Expand to A/B test various articles as well, optimizing for appeal to the kind of bored person who is susceptible to ordering miracle skin-creams at 2am. Presto, crappy click-bait.
- rbonvall 8y agoYes, article titles have evolved to be clicked.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoYet at the time science wonders why it's being questioned, it's authority, subverted, etc.? Isn't it obvious? Editorial: Perhaps instead of blaming the public, science should look in the mirror, as well as hold those between it and the public accountable for errors, inconsistencies, hyperbole, confusing correlation with cause, etc.?
- braythwayt 8y agoThis conundrum is no different than the moderation conundrum of social media. If you leave things to themselves and allow a social media forum to "evolve," it becomes a dumpster fire. If you leave a publishing journal to optimize for views and/or clickthrough revenue, it becomes a dumpster fire. If you don't want dumpster fires, somebody has to establish a set a of values and enforce them, even if they have "costs" in terms of popularity/clicks/attention.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoYes agreed. But my point is, between all the shady data practices within too many studies, and the click-bait "journalism", I find science's faulting of various non-believers (e.g., anti-vax, climate change is a myth, etc.) to be misplaced. That is, you can't do crap science and crap journalism and then blame the public their misunderstanding and/or lack of trust. It doesn't work that way.
- selestify 8y agoScientists aren't the ones doing crappy journalism
- ORioN63 8y agoHow ads evolved to make humans their servants? or more accurate: How ads favourable to humans gained reproductive advantage.
- nine_k 8y ago"Favorable" is a bit of a values judgment; I'd say "attractive".
- onemoresoop 8y agoeven better, in one word symbiosis
- lamename 8y agoI used to feel the same way, but I think there's some value in simplifying or making scientific ideas more attractive. The avg tax payer is not interested in obscurity for the sake of accuracy. This is a flaw of the human mind, but something to be exploited rather than resisted when conveying complex ideas. Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a headline? I think it's ok to get people excited. *I'm aware that evolution in particular is poorly misunderstood by some sections of the public, and anthropomorphism in this case may be worse than the general case I'm talking about.
- tome 8y agoMetaphor is important for reasoning and understanding, especially when it comes to systems.
- cgriswald 8y agoThere is a ton of value in making scientific ideas simpler. Sagan, Hawking, and plenty of others have done a great job taking complex ideas and distilling them down into apt metaphors for public consumption without grossly misrepresenting the ideas. This clickbaity title with a questionable metaphor isn't exactly in the same class. > Of course there should be subtleties mentioned in these articles, but for a headline? I think it's ok to get people excited. Just to disappoint them later? "Amazing thing! Okay, now that we have your attention, here's the boring truth with precious little detail, but you'll see that what we said was technically true or could be in the future." That disappointment was what taught me as a child that people can write anything, it doesn't have to be accurate or true. So I guess some good comes out of it, but it's always been a huge turn off for me.
- Varcht 8y agoTitles like these add a level of spookiness for people to misunderstand. Not as impactful as Pixar but still a problem.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- malmsteen 8y agoHow is that "antropomorphic" ?
- andrewthebold 8y agoI'm guessing the "evolved to make ... their servants" implies a human-like agency.
- leppr 8y agoLanguage is an abstraction. It is inexact as soon as it talks about something other than itself. There's nothing wrong about that metaphor except your lack of imagination.