Why is PopSci so popular?

Why is pop music so popular?

>>8133282
I mean, the alternative is for society to think you're stupid nerd for doing actual science.

A little popsci is an acceptable alternative.

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>>8133282
> Why is PopSci so popular?
It's popular because we live in a culture of impatience, where instant gratification rules. PopSci allows people to get a dose of instant gratification and illusion of knowledge without doing any hard work.

>>8133285
Because it says "pop" in it. People see that and then they know "oh this must be popular, I should therefore like it."

It's a way for people to feel smart about themselves

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>>8133282
Because real science can't be digested within the 5 second attention span glowing rectangles have ingrained into us.

It is popular by definition.

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/neil-degrasse-tyson-black-hole-sucking-fun-universe/

>>8133290
>>8133295
This. I'm a layman and I can confirm that's the reason. I can get away with learning a tiny little bit of SCIENCE BITCH XD with zero effort.

Just watching a Veritasium or a Numberphile video makes me more illuminated than my brethren except for my cousin's boyfriend who put two satellites in space (true).

There is not one day I don't regret pursuing a STEM career but at the same time I am so pathologically lazy that it may be for the better. So, I'll just settle for less and live a life of scientific illiteracy, lurking /sci/ and listening to mainstream scientific popstars like Dawkins, Nye and Tyson.

I'm so sorry.

>>8133447
numberphile is at least actual math, but with less rigour or terminology.
Most pop-sci is popular because it does not require you to sacrifice tons of time and potentially money to expand your knowledge, which is what actual science forces you to do. Of course, some pop-scientists actually do help get funding for scientific fields and encourage people to enter them.

>>8133459
What do you consider a cancerous science Youtube channel? I may be suscribed, I am a big time tryhard wannabe

>>8133413
This.

Why debate a definition?

>>8133282
It makes people feel intelligent without putting in any actual effort

>>8133476
scishow
asapscience

>>8133459
But isnt it good, that people can at least understand something without years of efforts?

PopSci doing good work. We would have lived in a terrible world without it, couse we would have even more people, who think that climate doesnt changes or that GMO is surely bad.

>>8133282
Because most laymen don't have certain things that are necessary to get a proper understanding of the science being presented. They are afflicted by a deficit of: Time, or patience, or willpower, or intellectual curiosity. Most people aren't scientists, and don't have one or a combination of the aforementioned things necessary to become one, so they have to make do with what scientists or science communicators can simplify for them.

>>8133970
I watch SciShow only for its entertainment value. Hank is really funny when he's not a faggot (vlogbrothers)

>>8133979
Most celeb hate images are frustratingly stupid, that one's pretty good.

I mean, Numberphile, Minute Physics, Veritasium, and dry ice videos are a lot better than BuzzFeed pseudoscience. I'm happy as long as people don't shove it down my face. Besides, its a great platform to get the younger generations interested in scientific careers, as explained in yesterdays popsci thread.

>>8134002
>believing everything you are told about a highly politicised science such as climate change
It's like you want to encourage ignorance.

>>8134320
I'm with you. I am disappointed when channels like Veritasium and Minute Physics are lumped in with general pop sci, as many of these people are trying quite hard to make as few errors as possible while being accessible to teens that haven't been exposed to this material and are still deciding what they want to learn. That's quite different from condensing new papers into a clickbait title and spewing bullshit that might excite the general public and keep short attention spans in their readership.

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>>8133282
Nye and Sagan?

>>8133282
> sagan
>>8133290
>>8133979
Black science man BTFO

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>>8133282
Why are the other boards on 4chan so full of popsci faggotry?

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Bill Nye looks like Mr. Lahey.

I have to admit that I don't know shit about science really but I only come here to see you guys talking about space 'n shit

I'm only here for the aylmaos

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>>8133286
>stupid nerd
nice desu senpai

>>8133282
people like to know shit that sounds sciency, is that so bad, you unstoppable autist?

or would you rather have them living in utter ignorance just so you can feel smarter than them?

>>8134348
I really disliked it though when the veritasum guy compared his channel to khanacademy. The two serve totally different purposes, one gives you a broader picture about things, and it's mostly for entertainment, while the other teaches you actual theorems and math stuff, like a textbook.

That's how Propaganda disperses. PropSci is more fit.

>>8134316
Why?
>omg we are actually leaping in time!
>Nigger Tyson:picrelated
>Matt Groening: Tyson BTFO!

At least post the other pics, fag.

>>8133282
They draw out the fun and magic of science to the surface level so that the common person can understand it.
The common person doesn't even have an understanding of Newtonian physics. So to them, all science is magical if you show them in a way they can understand. Or at least suspend their disbelief.

>>8133970
Hank is so fucking annoying with his attempts at endearing/quirky humour.

>>8135141
But, thats what he siad though wasn't it? That his stuff is more for giving a very broad overview of fun things, and khan academy tries to be a university but is bad at it and is only good for repeating what you already know.

>>8135230
This is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8
tl;dw: people were asked a basic physics question, were made to watch a video, then had to answer the question again. There were two different videos: one just explained what is happening, while the other also explained why other solutions are wrong, so it debunked people's misconceptions. The score of those who watched the first video barely improved, however they got a lot more confident in the correctness in their answer. On the other hand, the score of those who watched the second video improved significantly. So his point is that a good science video must show why people's misconceptions are wrong.
My problem is that he's talking as if his and Khan's videos were in the same category as his, and while he has a good point, bringing up Khan academy in this context might give a bad impression about it to those who are unfamiliar with it. He just chooses a random basic phenomenon, like what happens to the bottom of a stretched spring when you release its top end, while Khan makes a series of videos covering different topics, and most of the time there are no misconceptions to disprove, like you can't have a misconception about eigenvectors or matrix multiplication, because you've never even heard of them before, so there is nothing to disprove.

>>8135332
*a series of videos covering an entire topic

>>8133459
>with less rigour or terminology
You wouldn't want to beat poor kids into submission with mathematical language.

I don't mind popSci the same way I don't mind Mythbusters (My background: I did a masters in Physics, about to do doctorate at ETHZ)
If people like Brian Cox, NDT or Bill Nye (for example) didn't exist, people would be even less interested in Physics or Maths. In many people it may just be a "oh, that's cool" reaction, but for every 1000 who are just happy having learnt some new bit of cool information, there's at least 1 person getting inspired by that shit and motivated to become a ground-breaking theoretical scientist or something along those lines.

It's easy to hate on PopSci channels because they make other people feel smart, but I think it's a good thing. It's the same reason that Stephen Hawking has so many books and tv shows aimed at the masses ("Brief History of Time" is downright trivial).

A reality of life is that most people will always hate maths and physics and it'd be downright foolish to deny that. At the end of the day people should do whatever makes them happy and what they're best at and a medium like youtube definitely has the potential to reach many people and make them aware that Science might JUST BE the thing the could be the best at.

Don't hate, guys. For us there are always text books to read and brilliant lectures to watch.

>>8135368
The idea behind popsci might be a good one, but one can always criticize the execution (e.g. when Nigger "Smoke deGrass" Tyson bends the facts about the relationship of the church and science in Cosmos).

what does /sci/ think about fermilab popsci videos?

>>8136455
Haven't heard of them before, but they are pretty good.

Kurzgesagt has beautiful visuals

You need to understand the general public wants instant results.
Popsci gives that to them, telling them the results of exciting scientific studies.
Although it proves to be meaningless in the grand scheme of things, it gives the general public a sense of progression.
>"b-b-but Popsci tells me we are going to mars in 2020 and sooner or later flying hover boards will be a norm"
Basically its science studies and their possible results.

>>8135181
>>>/pol/

>>8135141
>Actual theorems and math stuff

Kahn gives the most basic and intuitive ideas about certain msth stuff. He is great for engineers, but is too informal for an actual scientist/aspiring scientist audience. He's far from being "like a textbook".

>>8136972
>He's far from being "like a textbook".
I meant that after you watch a Khan video, you can actually solve problems and shit, like after reading a textbook, while popsci videos are like a popsci book, you get some general ideas about things from reading them, but nothing more.
Khan's videos may be lacking in depth, but they are pretty useful when you need to understand something.

>>8133282
i enjoy some popsci in fields i'm not an expert in. It's relaxing to hear something new without having to spend tons of work/hours digging into the matter. I'm always careful tough to repeat what i heard from popSci to others, because i mostly didn't check the sources myself. And i only dig deeper into the matter when i feel something i heard in PopSci is really fishy.

>>8134309
That's the problem with SciShow (and crash course). The shows are not separable from the people making it and the greenbrothers are incredibly fucking annoying in their sadly successful attempt to brainwash young adults that are just a bit interested in learning, so that they share the vlogbrothers world view. I mean the whole vlogbrothers thing is horribly biased
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI) and annoying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmEmvKaKt5A). Crash course history, economy and phylosophy might just be worse though, because here we have educational videos that are beatifully made yet so fucking biased it's infuriating to think that children interested in learning have no chance to form an unbiased opinion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XQXiCLzyAw). SciShow is no exeption to this btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdkt2qemNcQ

It's incredible how much hate two guys can produce when i think about it. I don't know how many people on /sci share my sentiment, but /his, /lit, /biz and /pol all want them dead.

>>8133447
Dude

Why

At least try in your free time

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>>8137024
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmEmvKaKt5A
that was a bit of a overreaction to being insulted in traffic. What a pussy

>>8133290
I've seen this image posted a bunch of times, but the analogy the ghost poster is making seems kinda shit to me.

A passport as a key to another country, is an understandable analogy, but it misses the point about national borders.

Borders between parcels of land are commonly artificial unless created by a natural characteristic of the Earth, such as a river or valley or mountain range. If you wanted to, you could simply walk across to your neighbors yard assuming there is no such physical obstacle.

Ultimately, if ego's could be kept in check and national/country pride could be maintained, allowing the ability to plan and zone the planet across prior national borders we could eliminate a lot of problems with food and water shortages, housing, and start gaining potential human resources from the untapped remaining population.

>>8133282
>Watch Zoolander 2
>science nigga pops out of nowhere
>twice
>uses the praise"science bitch"
I have nothing to say after this

>>8133413
>>8133523

Come on guys, you know what he meant.

>>8137441

What did he mean by this?

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>>8133292

Popsci has it's place. It's great to get people interested in science, from which they can work to develop a deeper, more rigorous understanding more similar to proper learning. Obviously it has issues (poorly written popsci books can easily fail to communicate the complexity of the topic at hand, giving people an overinflated sense of how well they understand it); It's the educational equivalent to swimming in the shallow end.

>>8137024
Yes exactly. I don't like the format of latest-news-with-a-bit-of-sciencey-stuff-in-them either. However my point was that I watch SciShow for entertainment purposes, but this could be because I had never watched a vlogbrothers video before that, so I didn't have that pre-concept (?) of Hank.

His brother John is one of the biggest faggots the universe could have created, tho.

>>8137032
>free time
I don't have much desu

>>8133476
minute physics

>>8137750
wut really

>>8137827
He's either bait or a turbo-brainlet, who can know.