3 ms·

Would celebrity status help scientists do their job, though?

williamtrask 5y ago
If a billion dollars and all the followers/imitators were redirected from Kim Kardashian to the latest Nobel Prize winner, sure! It would change science sure, but monogrammed Microscopes and signed stethoscopes are probably better than the equivalent in makeup and fast fashion.
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
Yes! Science/engineering influencers are becoming more popular and doing a great job getting themselves funding and also generating very impressive content. Look into - https://www.veritasium.com/ https://www.veritasium.com/ - crazy science education and practical experiments to “prove new science”. Check out the series of videos on a sail powered car that moves faster than the wind that pushes it!!! It sounds impossible, and then Derek shows that it’s possible! Including all the debates with other scientists about it. Also check out the “how energy flows” and all the reaction videos - this topic hasn’t yet been explored further tho so be prepared to wait (if this type of conversation isn’t science I don’t know what is). Mark Rober’s creative engineering classes, science based philanthropy with TeamSeas are meeting his goal of being effectively inspiring. This dude is going to generate a similar magnitude of new scientists and engineers as The Beatles have and keep generating new musicians. https://youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai https://youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai - People always wonder why I’m optimistic about the future. Karoly and his channel are a small but important part of why! Watching the pace of innovation here is the only way to truly understand the catch phrase “What a time to be alive!”. He curates scientific papers and gets them visibility better than the legacy science publications. This channel is the “new Nature magazine” and it’s funded by relevant/educational ads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Morris - Hamilton’s work documenting the effects of narcotics and also the scientific pathways behind them is inspiring. His team and him haven't so much created videos or video essays as they have created the first audio-visual encyclopedia. I’m sure there are many more I’m forgetting or haven’t yet heard of. You can also look into the Stanford/Harvard professors, the research doctors, the dermatologists, etc that are getting into YouTube/podcasts because it’s a better medium to have scientific information disseminated and hopefully draw more donations for their research. Not all science influencers are doing “real science” yet. Some of them are “science news/educators” others “science documentarians” but many of them are already directly contributing to “real innovative science”. Pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and getting ”paid” to show it off!!! Yes it takes a bit of curation to find the content creators that are also doing “real science” but for me it’s a no-brainer: in 100 years, because of the monetary incentives, more innovation will come from donation/ad based “science content creators” (on YouTube/podcasts/similar) than from legacy academic institutions.
JohnBooty 5y ago
One can think of potential downsides, but the upsides would include: - More money flowing into science - More talent flowing into science
- balsam 5y ago
  Sadly, the amount of talent flowing in could still outstrip the money

If a billion dollars and all the followers/imitators were redirected from Kim Kardashian to the latest Nobel Prize winner, sure! It would change science sure, but monogrammed Microscopes and signed stethoscopes are probably better than the equivalent in makeup and fast fashion.

yazaddaruvala 5y ago

Yes! Science/engineering influencers are becoming more popular and doing a great job getting themselves funding and also generating very impressive content. Look into - https://www.veritasium.com/ https://www.veritasium.com/ - crazy science education and practical experiments to “prove new science”. Check out the series of videos on a sail powered car that moves faster than the wind that pushes it!!! It sounds impossible, and then Derek shows that it’s possible! Including all the debates with other scientists about it. Also check out the “how energy flows” and all the reaction videos - this topic hasn’t yet been explored further tho so be prepared to wait (if this type of conversation isn’t science I don’t know what is). Mark Rober’s creative engineering classes, science based philanthropy with TeamSeas are meeting his goal of being effectively inspiring. This dude is going to generate a similar magnitude of new scientists and engineers as The Beatles have and keep generating new musicians. https://youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai https://youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai - People always wonder why I’m optimistic about the future. Karoly and his channel are a small but important part of why! Watching the pace of innovation here is the only way to truly understand the catch phrase “What a time to be alive!”. He curates scientific papers and gets them visibility better than the legacy science publications. This channel is the “new Nature magazine” and it’s funded by relevant/educational ads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Morris - Hamilton’s work documenting the effects of narcotics and also the scientific pathways behind them is inspiring. His team and him haven't so much created videos or video essays as they have created the first audio-visual encyclopedia. I’m sure there are many more I’m forgetting or haven’t yet heard of. You can also look into the Stanford/Harvard professors, the research doctors, the dermatologists, etc that are getting into YouTube/podcasts because it’s a better medium to have scientific information disseminated and hopefully draw more donations for their research. Not all science influencers are doing “real science” yet. Some of them are “science news/educators” others “science documentarians” but many of them are already directly contributing to “real innovative science”. Pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and getting ”paid” to show it off!!! Yes it takes a bit of curation to find the content creators that are also doing “real science” but for me it’s a no-brainer: in 100 years, because of the monetary incentives, more innovation will come from donation/ad based “science content creators” (on YouTube/podcasts/similar) than from legacy academic institutions.

JohnBooty 5y ago

One can think of potential downsides, but the upsides would include: - More money flowing into science - More talent flowing into science

balsam 5y ago
Sadly, the amount of talent flowing in could still outstrip the money