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>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 othe
by jacoblyles 13y 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 13y ago[deleted]
- iamdave 13y 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 13y agoWe'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 13y agoThese 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 13y agoIt 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.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoYour point was very nicely expressed in this xkcd: http://xkcd.com/397/ http://xkcd.com/397/.
- jckt 13y agoIgnorance is fine -- it is an unfortunate fact that nobody can learn it all. But to think that one is "engaging" in science -- I suppose most fans of the Page think they're somehow engaging in it (anecdotal) -- is, well, wrong. As much as I'd like it to be true, looking at a bunch of .gifs about quantum mechanics and astrophysics plastered with white majuscules does little for one's understanding of science. In other words, IFLS is to the scientific community as r/atheism is to the religious-sceptics community (not the best analogy...).
- illuminate 13y agoThe problem here is willful ignorance, what a person does when confronted by fact. There's probably a lot of antivaxers new-age woo believers and homeopaths who enjoy the fashionable "quantum" quips but have zero interest in doing anything but republishing the images. They ape the language, but don't understand the mindset.
- qu4z-2 13y agoI agree. It seems like supporting science through ignorance is missing the point.