8 ms·

Nor do they love science. Most of the things they post are not accurate. The picture of the universe and a synapse for example springs to mind. They are just a

by drakaal 14y ago

Nor do they love science. Most of the things they post are not accurate. The picture of the universe and a synapse for example springs to mind. They are just a "Like" farm. They use their tracking of likes to mine relationships so you can get personalized spam that appears that it came from your friends.

scumbagbrain 14y ago
Samething they did to: https://www.facebook.com/scumbrain https://www.facebook.com/scumbrain
sillysaurus 14y ago
I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science. It's similar to people cheering at a basketball game. They're not basketball players, so most of what they have to say about the topic is going to be wrong. But they're still rooting for you, and this is a good and powerful thing.
- aaron695 14y ago
  I think the problem is within the supposed science field sudo science is getting more traction. People who have done science degrees are coming out and still believing in forms of magic like organic, chiropractics, chemical free, anthropomorphizing animals etc. It's a fine line, should we appease the masses and try and get more scientists or try and at least get the supposed scientists practising and believing in actual science.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  >this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - iamdave 14y ago
    >There is no "good ignorance". This can't be stated enough; (the following is anecdotal) the amount of blatantly incorrect information being spread through the use of what I dub 'feel good infographics' across the internet is astonishing. The viewer looks at something, feels good about what they've read and then shares it because it passed their own personal sentiment analysis. It's kind of frightening because it sets the stage for all sorts of astroturfing and conditioning to spread; if anything we should look at the Boston Bomber/Reddit incident as evidence of this feel good propaganda. People were so eager to attach to the notion that they had 'caught the bastard' only for the truth to come out later that they had completely fingered the wrong guy.
  - janardanyri 14y ago
    We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok. The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific drivel has no place anywhere.
      - vacri 14y ago
        It reminds me of the criticisms of Mythbusters. They do bad science a lot of the time, with shoddy understandings of underlying mechanisms. It's fair to criticise them as bad science for this. But on the other hand, they very much promote the idea of "think of something, suggest what might happen if you do it, then do it and see what you find (, and then publish it)". So while they may not do good science themselves, they do promote the fundamental ideals of science, and are open to having their suggestions found wrong. Whereas the facebook page does nothing like this at all - it's just funny pictures with a theme. It doesn't encourage any way of thinking or promote figuring out the world.
- saraid216 14y ago
  > I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. The absolute only good thing about this is that it fights fire with fire: that is, it uses tribalism to fight tribalism. But that's all it is. Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity, and it's a problem whether or not magical woo is involved. It's the same kind of thing when people think that calling out a fallacy is some kind of argumentative coup d'etat. Or let's bring this back to software and business. How exactly do you feel when your sales team drastically overpromises your engineering capabilities? That's how I feel.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity" A lack of belief in God is not a belief in a God. Your example is ignorant.
    - omegant 14y ago
      Are you so sure? A person that is conditioned to follow an idea will behave in a conditioned way, I doesn't matter the topic. When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol".
      - scotty79 14y ago
        What if you are conditioned to believe and cheer replacing the facts you believed in with new ones that have no evidence against them and many clues for them? Can reason an scientific method itself be an Idol? And if you do not cherish those things do you think it's better since you are truly not a believer in anything? Even the method that verifiebly gives humanity models of predictive utility that gave us almost all we enjoy today?
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol"." Religion is the belief in an absence of evidence. Science is the whole of objective reality. You don't seem to understand what "science" and "religion" actually mean, but you really don't like persons who don't believe in anything, so you assign bizarrely negative qualifiers for someone who knows things. No one on earth worships "SCIENCE". It's a tool we use daily, whether you understand why things work or not.
- statictype 14y ago
  I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. Seems to me that a lot of the point of 'cheering science' is lost when you're posting inaccurate facts. Can you even call it science any more?
- drakaal 14y ago
  Oh, do the cheerleader mine the data of the audience, and use it to create spam? If the cheerleaders were sleeping with the fans and spreading venereal disease your analogy would be nearly perfect.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science." This is how What the Bleep, Dr. Oz, and all manner of pseudoscience subverts actual science. Fairweather friends like that make it more difficult because they're repeating a meme or sort of cargo cult understanding of how reality works.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
TeeDub 14y ago
In hindsight, I shouldn't have been so surprised to hear of groups farming likes for profit... Are there any good articles that talk about this practice? Seems like that could be interesting...
- pshin45 14y ago
  Not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but it's a good read nonetheless - For just $68, the author was able to create a 100% fake Twitter celebrity (a tech and social media guru) with tens of thousands of followers and a "verified account" checkmark, as well as his own Wikipedia page, personal website, etc. http://qz.com/74937/how-to-become-internet-famous-without-ever-existing/ http://qz.com/74937/how-to-become-internet-famous-without-ev...
noonespecial 14y ago
IFLS is to science as lol-cats is to feline veterinary medicine.
- scotty79 14y ago
  I think it's very true and flattering. Lol-cats among other things teach public why veterinary medicine is worth the fuss. It's because cats are so cute!
endgame 14y ago
See also: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  I second this, and generally, the entire page. While calling the way Maddox writes as "extremely offensive" would actually be a very nice thing to say, he usually does have a lot of really good points. Personal favourite: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=math http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=math.
jimzvz 14y ago
This image[1] pretty much sums up why I can't stand pages/websites/blogs like i fucking love science. [1] - http://i.imgur.com/OAGFxOJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OAGFxOJ.jpg
- Pwnguinz 14y ago
  What do you exactly disagree with? On first blush, that seems mostly agreeable--mostly. Is it the tone that gets to you, the underlying message, or the overly idealistic picture it paints?

by drakaal 14y ago

scumbagbrain 14y ago

Samething they did to: https://www.facebook.com/scumbrain https://www.facebook.com/scumbrain

sillysaurus 14y ago

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science. It's similar to people cheering at a basketball game. They're not basketball players, so most of what they have to say about the topic is going to be wrong. But they're still rooting for you, and this is a good and powerful thing.

aaron695 14y ago
I think the problem is within the supposed science field sudo science is getting more traction. People who have done science degrees are coming out and still believing in forms of magic like organic, chiropractics, chemical free, anthropomorphizing animals etc. It's a fine line, should we appease the masses and try and get more scientists or try and at least get the supposed scientists practising and believing in actual science.
jacoblyles 14y ago
>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- iamdave 14y ago
  >There is no "good ignorance". This can't be stated enough; (the following is anecdotal) the amount of blatantly incorrect information being spread through the use of what I dub 'feel good infographics' across the internet is astonishing. The viewer looks at something, feels good about what they've read and then shares it because it passed their own personal sentiment analysis. It's kind of frightening because it sets the stage for all sorts of astroturfing and conditioning to spread; if anything we should look at the Boston Bomber/Reddit incident as evidence of this feel good propaganda. People were so eager to attach to the notion that they had 'caught the bastard' only for the truth to come out later that they had completely fingered the wrong guy.
- janardanyri 14y ago
  We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok. The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific drivel has no place anywhere.
    - vacri 14y ago
      It reminds me of the criticisms of Mythbusters. They do bad science a lot of the time, with shoddy understandings of underlying mechanisms. It's fair to criticise them as bad science for this. But on the other hand, they very much promote the idea of "think of something, suggest what might happen if you do it, then do it and see what you find (, and then publish it)". So while they may not do good science themselves, they do promote the fundamental ideals of science, and are open to having their suggestions found wrong. Whereas the facebook page does nothing like this at all - it's just funny pictures with a theme. It doesn't encourage any way of thinking or promote figuring out the world.
saraid216 14y ago
> I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. The absolute only good thing about this is that it fights fire with fire: that is, it uses tribalism to fight tribalism. But that's all it is. Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity, and it's a problem whether or not magical woo is involved. It's the same kind of thing when people think that calling out a fallacy is some kind of argumentative coup d'etat. Or let's bring this back to software and business. How exactly do you feel when your sales team drastically overpromises your engineering capabilities? That's how I feel.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity" A lack of belief in God is not a belief in a God. Your example is ignorant.
  - omegant 14y ago
    Are you so sure? A person that is conditioned to follow an idea will behave in a conditioned way, I doesn't matter the topic. When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol".
    - scotty79 14y ago
      What if you are conditioned to believe and cheer replacing the facts you believed in with new ones that have no evidence against them and many clues for them? Can reason an scientific method itself be an Idol? And if you do not cherish those things do you think it's better since you are truly not a believer in anything? Even the method that verifiebly gives humanity models of predictive utility that gave us almost all we enjoy today?
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol"." Religion is the belief in an absence of evidence. Science is the whole of objective reality. You don't seem to understand what "science" and "religion" actually mean, but you really don't like persons who don't believe in anything, so you assign bizarrely negative qualifiers for someone who knows things. No one on earth worships "SCIENCE". It's a tool we use daily, whether you understand why things work or not.
statictype 14y ago
I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. Seems to me that a lot of the point of 'cheering science' is lost when you're posting inaccurate facts. Can you even call it science any more?
drakaal 14y ago
Oh, do the cheerleader mine the data of the audience, and use it to create spam? If the cheerleaders were sleeping with the fans and spreading venereal disease your analogy would be nearly perfect.
illuminate 14y ago
"I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science." This is how What the Bleep, Dr. Oz, and all manner of pseudoscience subverts actual science. Fairweather friends like that make it more difficult because they're repeating a meme or sort of cargo cult understanding of how reality works.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

TeeDub 14y ago

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been so surprised to hear of groups farming likes for profit... Are there any good articles that talk about this practice? Seems like that could be interesting...

pshin45 14y ago
Not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but it's a good read nonetheless - For just $68, the author was able to create a 100% fake Twitter celebrity (a tech and social media guru) with tens of thousands of followers and a "verified account" checkmark, as well as his own Wikipedia page, personal website, etc. http://qz.com/74937/how-to-become-internet-famous-without-ever-existing/ http://qz.com/74937/how-to-become-internet-famous-without-ev...

noonespecial 14y ago

IFLS is to science as lol-cats is to feline veterinary medicine.

scotty79 14y ago
I think it's very true and flattering. Lol-cats among other things teach public why veterinary medicine is worth the fuss. It's because cats are so cute!

endgame 14y ago

See also: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

TeMPOraL 14y ago
I second this, and generally, the entire page. While calling the way Maddox writes as "extremely offensive" would actually be a very nice thing to say, he usually does have a lot of really good points. Personal favourite: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=math http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=math.

jimzvz 14y ago

This image[1] pretty much sums up why I can't stand pages/websites/blogs like i fucking love science. [1] - http://i.imgur.com/OAGFxOJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OAGFxOJ.jpg

Pwnguinz 14y ago
What do you exactly disagree with? On first blush, that seems mostly agreeable--mostly. Is it the tone that gets to you, the underlying message, or the overly idealistic picture it paints?