4 ms·
This is slightly off topic but I have been using this trick lately to try to determine which part of a news article is likely to be BS: read the article in the
by IgorPartola 5y ago
This is slightly off topic but I have been using this trick lately to try to determine which part of a news article is likely to be BS: read the article in the movie announcer voice (you know the one: “in a world gone mad, one man…”). Whatever headlines or parts of the article sound boring are likely to be legit and whatever parts sound like they would fit in an action movie are likely overblown, underreseaeched, irrelevant, etc. Try it with this passage:
> They even brought in several of science's biggest names, including Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson, to help decide who was right.
This part just stands out like a sore thumb.
- pteraspidomorph 5y agoScience's Biggest Names! It got a chuckle out of me while reading.
- dagw 5y agoI mean they're not entirely wrong in the sense that if you asked a bunch of Americans to name some currently active 'scientists' then those names would almost certainly be at the top of list (I'd guess that those two plus Anthony Fauci would make up the top 3).
- ben_w 5y agoIn this case, your BS detector is giving you a false result: https://youtu.be/yCsgoLc_fzI?t=275 https://youtu.be/yCsgoLc_fzI?t=275
- IgorPartola 5y agoThanks for the data point! I would still argue that BN and NdT are only the biggest names in pop science (as in people who wear “I <3 science” t shirts) and not in science as in academia. But that’s cool that they did weigh in on this subject.