This book worth reading?

>>8400464
yes of course it fucking is

>>8400464
no of course it fucking isn't

>>8400475
>>8400477
ok thanks

>>8400464
If you watched the series that Sagan did, of the same name, then I'd say no. It recycles an insane amount of what the show did, pretty much word for word in many instances.

If you haven't watched Cosmos, try to seek out an older print of the book, as newer prints of this aren't that great. The first edition in 1980 is a personal favorite of mine.

>>8400477
my old nemesis
we meet again

>>8400464
(To be fair, I'm a physics grad student, so I have a bias against pop science.) I'd say it's not worth reading, it can cause misunderstandings.

>>8400546
How can it cause misunderstandings?

>>8400546
>I'm a physics grad student
whoa there stephen fucking hawking
let the rest of us just bask in your glow for a moment

>>8400565
Not him, but pop-sci is notorious for its extreme generalizations, misleading analogies, and reifications of concepts that may have no real physical significance. You're better off reading a philosophy of science intro than black science man or weed smoking tv guy if you want to learn about science, its aims, and what it has to say about anything

>>8400492
This.
Read Pale Blue Dot instead.

>>8400475
>>8400477
a bit more detail perhaps

>>8401832
Maybe it is, who knows?

>>8400594
popular science used to have a huge media presence and undoubtedly influenced generations of STEM fags. sad that we have reached a point now where people like yourself have to grow into the profession with basically no icons or even a moderately generalized cultural context.

>>8402792
Electrical Engineering phd student here, bumping for this.

Content like OP, Godel Escher Bach, ViHart, etc are an embarassment to our society

>>8400464
It has beautiful prose.

>>8402792
>>8402844
Curious Humanities shmuck here, just how similar is the actual STEM environment to pop science (outside of the metric fuckton of actual work that goes into it)? And when I say pop science I mean mention of things like
>Schrodinger's Cat
>Newton's apple
>Meme scientists like Tyson/Hawking/Sagan

>>8402981
The answer is not even remotely.

Popsci is to the STEM environment as the hippie interpretation of zen is to the traditional monastery environment Zen Buddhism.

>>8403024
Is there a noticeable portion of kids who got goaded into it by the popsci meme thinking it's going to be Reddit: The Degree, who end up getting completely eaten alive?

>>8403037
I don't know if there are a lot of them, but I am one of them. I graduated from a top university with a 2.2 gpa in physics. I'm now an alcoholic neet who reads all day and mows his dad's god damned lawn for beer money.

>>8403037
>>8403061

I'm not the guy you asked, btw. Forgot I'm not on /pol/

>>8403037
Yes, and it occurs at many stages.

First, many are filtered out when they fail an elementary stem class like calculus, and they realize they cannot pursue stem.

Then there are many people like >>8403061 who barely graduate with a stem degree, and the market has no place for them.

Then there are those who majored in something practical like engineering, perhaps got a Masters in Engineering, and go into industry. This is the majority of undergraduate stem people, and what they do is not science.

The very best undergraduates in science may pursue a PhD to become actual scientists. These are individuals who earned close to a 4.0 and probably took graduate classes as an undergraduate. In mathematics, if you haven't begun taking graduate courses by age 20, you're probably not cut out to be a mathematician.

This cream of the crop then attempts to earn their PhDs — and one isn't even qualified to be a scientist unless they have a PhD. And you know what happens to this cream of the crop in their PhD programs? Half of them drop out. They get eaten alive.

>>8401832
ask a more detailed question then

>>8402844
thanks for your valuable input
come round and fix my hallway light

>>8400464
There's a meme in society of some kind of entrepreneurial post-capitalist industrial-scientific "productivity" thing, and they are expressing the meme because they are demi-conscious memebuoys floating on a slurry sea of currents you can only see if you zoom out.

It's exhausting even trying to give an answer to this question. You need to like phenomenologically bracket every single word and write a book explaining that they aren't even people. They aren't even conscious. They aren't even having "opinions". STEM people are like robots with human skin stretched over them. To say "they are dismissive of the humanities" is implicitly to admit I think there's a "they". STEM people don't even fucking exist. They are a statistical gaseous nebula of random particles wafting across continents and periodically expressing junk they picked up along the way. Why would you even talk to them?

Talking to a STEMfag is literally like being some kind of Buddha, ascending reality, then coming back down and talking to bees who were dudes in past lives. I'm sure these bee niggas can be saved or whatever, but let's just wait until they're back in human form. Don't walk around going "BEES, STOP BUZZING, PUT DOWN THAT POLLEN, LISTEN TO ME ABOUT HOW EVERY CONCEPTUAL CATEGORY YOU HAVE FOR EVEN THINKING OF THINGS WAS SHAPED FOR YOU BY AN UNCONSCIOUS SLUDGE OF MEMETIC POLYALLOY THAT FLOWS IN PREDICTABLE CURRENTS FROM YEAR TO YEAR THROUGH THE HIVE IN WHICH YOU WERE CONCEIVED"

>>8403248
your pasta is cold

Is this the book about the meat planet?