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Whenever something becomes mainstream it's because it has been stripped of deeper context to appeal to the consuming masses. Pop Science will inevitably piss of

Whenever something becomes mainstream it's because it has been stripped of deeper context to appeal to the consuming masses. Pop Science will inevitably piss off scientists just like art critics will scoff at inexperienced amateurs or public commentary. Bite-sized feel good scientific content fashioned for larger audiences can come across more concrete than it should - you're right on that. If it comes at the expense of a more "scientifically minded" public, i'm fine with that. We're better off in the world of TED than we were before it.

wellpast 11y ago
I think a better world would be one in which TED talks were nuanced and full of maybes and the audience loved the lack of certainty, saw it as opportunity, and many of them were even prompted to labor and take their part in resolving those uncertainties.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Are we really? The social patterning is the religious revival meeting, and that's precisely the wrong way to frame science if you want to give outsider a realistic impression of what it means and how it works. Pop-sci has a terrible flattening effect. It gives the public the mistaken impression that their opinion is worth as much as a professional's, because it's not so hard really after you've read about it in a cheap paperback. It's the mindset of "evolution of just a theory" and "climate change scientists are only in it for the money" and "my opinion of string theory is just as valid as that of a PhD working at the Perimeter Institute of Princeton - and what is a perimeter anyway?" I'm not suggesting we should return to the happy era of pipe-smoking public science paternalism of the 40s and 50s. But the alternative meme - that's it's all just a point of view - is just as destructive and stupid. Gladwell, Godin, TED, and the rest are enablers of that mindset, whether or not they agree with it personally.
sukilot 11y ago
There should be a word for pop science that teaches people to think rationally and run good experiments in their own lives, separate from the junk Psychology Today or Gladwell vomit out.

wellpast 11y ago

I think a better world would be one in which TED talks were nuanced and full of maybes and the audience loved the lack of certainty, saw it as opportunity, and many of them were even prompted to labor and take their part in resolving those uncertainties.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

Are we really? The social patterning is the religious revival meeting, and that's precisely the wrong way to frame science if you want to give outsider a realistic impression of what it means and how it works. Pop-sci has a terrible flattening effect. It gives the public the mistaken impression that their opinion is worth as much as a professional's, because it's not so hard really after you've read about it in a cheap paperback. It's the mindset of "evolution of just a theory" and "climate change scientists are only in it for the money" and "my opinion of string theory is just as valid as that of a PhD working at the Perimeter Institute of Princeton - and what is a perimeter anyway?" I'm not suggesting we should return to the happy era of pipe-smoking public science paternalism of the 40s and 50s. But the alternative meme - that's it's all just a point of view - is just as destructive and stupid. Gladwell, Godin, TED, and the rest are enablers of that mindset, whether or not they agree with it personally.

sukilot 11y ago

There should be a word for pop science that teaches people to think rationally and run good experiments in their own lives, separate from the junk Psychology Today or Gladwell vomit out.