"string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard"
"string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard"
Dr. Angela Collier plays the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and talks at length about what went wrong with string theory, and how that affected science communication.
It seems a little over-the-top to be angry at physicists from 30-40 years ago for being wrong.
Scientists aren’t priests, and science isn’t a religion. Expecting scientists to always be right, always be humble, and everything they add to “science” to be sacred and correct and immutable is a little silly.
This is how science works. It’s messy. It goes in delicious looking directions that turn out to be dead ends. Humans create ideas (with all the hubris and errors of being human) that other humans test (with all the hubris and errors of being human.)
I was struck by how angered she was by physicists thinking they were right and saying “we’re doing something real”. They were doing something real: they were exploring and testing an idea. Without that work, the idea could never have been proved wrong.
(My personal “string theory” is that string/cordage is humanity’s greatest invention, and my user name is a joke.)
Not sure if you are serious? If so, I think you probably didn't understand why she is angry. As she clearly states, studying string theory in itself is totally valid. But the way they presented their ideas or let their ideas be presented is the reason she is angry.
Yes, I’m serious.
They presented their ideas the way every excited scientist does. Being angry at them for that is kind of silly. Should I be angry that I was taught the “fact” that animals and plants migrated between stationary continents via land bridges? That scientists were excitedly drawing up complex bridges and timelines? That they told everyone about their fabulous revolutionary bridges? Nope. It’s just one funny step in a funny dance humanity does.
Angrily putting up a picture of herself as a child in the 90’s who was excited about string theory and saying she was betrayed by later work? I don’t get it.
I didn't see it as her being angry at the ones 40 years ago, but the ones who continued the hype even though it was obvious string theory wasn't falsifiable
The ones who were human and were full of hubris and errors and didn’t want to give up their pet theory?
Being angry at humans for being human is kinda futile. Humans have always done this, and always will.
And the excited physicists didn’t destroy science communication any more than Stephen Jay Gould did. People can be wrong. People can cling to things they cherish and that they poured their heart and years of effort into.
People are people, and this too shall pass.
I do think this is more an issue with science communication broadly than string theory specifically - every field has its own examples, and medicine is notorious for it - but she is right that scientific researchers (the subject matter experts) have a responsibility to accurately communicate their work when speaking to the public.
Its one thing for an enthusiast to inadvertently oversell a concept to the public as fact because they are excited and only understand at only a basic level. It's another entirely for someone who's been researching that concept for 30-40 years, with the express intent of proving or disproving its validity, to oversell it as fact when they're whole job is to be intimately familiar with its shortcomings. They, of all people, should know better - and that means they have a responsibility to do better.
Science does get messy, by design, but it is the duty of those who communicate their science to be honest about that messiness, not mask it by unfounded statements to sell their ideas to people that don't have the research expertise to spot the falsehoods.
I think she leaned a bit too heavily onto the notion that string theorists, as a whole, were lying. I think more likely they genuinely thought they were on to something. They may have been wrong but they didn't think they were wrong. A lie is deliberate misinformation, not simply being mistaken.
Like, ok, at first? Sure, I can go with "it's not a lie if you actually believe it," in 1985 or even 1995. But by 2010? Come on. And then in 2020, to be like "Well, I mean, I never specifically said I believed in it, just that, you know, it was a thing..." is so gross. It's like some shit my ex-wife would have said after a three-day-long running argument about some basic fact of the universe.
That's 1 string theorist, Brian Greene. It is absurd to call all string theorists liars. Are all psychologists liars because they had a reproducibility crisis?
This was a half-cocked and not through rant that others and blames a whole group of hard working physicists just because they were wrong. This kind of rant has no place in the scientific process or science communication.
Back in the late-80s or early-90s, I remember OMNI Magazine ran an interview with a researcher of veracity in science publications as a topic, don't remember anything but a whopper of a quote in which he said that around a third of science papers fudge the numbers, even if just a little bit, to make them fit the hypotheses.
science is a liar sometimes
@FaceDeer @interolivary What is this in relation to? I am still trying to figure out mastodon
@admin I'm viewing this thread from a kbin instance, not Mastodon. It's a threaded discussion in the style of Reddit. https://kbin.social/m/science@beehaw.org/t/91867/string-theory-lied-to-us-and-now-science-communication-is should show it as I'm seeing it. The community is actually on beehaw.org, so it's posted via Lemmy.
I know that Kbin and Mastodon interact, but honestly I'm a little unclear on the details myself. I thought I had to go to the "microblogging" tab for the Mastodon stuff.
Found my new favorite science communicator, she did such an awesome job here! I'll have to check out the rest of her videos because she seems to cover a lot of different science topics.
I've been watching a lot of her videos lately! I found the one on Gell-Mann amnesia to be really interesting and linked it here the other day; maybe a good one for a next watch if you haven't picked yet.
Same. I really like the way she presents ideas.
I've seen this one and the Michio Kaku one, and they were both great.
Angela is great! Love her passion and how she phrases things.
Sure the videos could usually be half as long without losing much in the way of her argument but I enjoy her personality so I don't mind.One of my favourite videos I've watched recently. The sheer skill to beat Binding of Issac and explain an entire lecture's worth of info about science communication is great.
I didn't watch this video but I suspect the sentiment is similar to Sabine's (I highly recommend her channel)
I love Sabines channel. Fantastic communicator of advanced ideas and you wouldn't necessarily expect it from the tone of her voice while she talks but her humor is top notch too
Then I regret to inform you that Sabine has some not so great views on trans issues
"Science communication is hard so I'm going to play a game while explaining science, cuz that's not distracting at all."
It just wasn't for me and I lost interest after a few minutes
I always had doubts about scientific theories on atomic particles and space but they were theory for a reason. Theory is what the word means, it is based on many assumptions. Like the big bang is a theory, It leads scientist to explore it from multiple angles through validation and verification (because science is hard). They are never put out as a fact. So I don't even know what point she's trying to make.
Theory in science generally means something much more stringent than it does in vernacular. From Wikipedia:
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be (or a fortiori, that has been) repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled conditions in an experiment.[1][2] In circumstances not amenable to experimental testing, theories are evaluated through principles of abductive reasoning. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge.
A scientific theory differs from a scientific fact or scientific law in that a theory explains "why" or "how": a fact is a simple, basic observation, whereas a law is a statement (often a mathematical equation) about a relationship between facts and/or other laws.
So when something is being put forward as "A Scientific Theory" it is meant to be taken as the best possible explanation we can make of why the universe is the way it is, backed by exhaustive tests using the best methods currently available to us.
In science, when something is just a theory in the way you mean, it's called a hypothesis.
In grad school I audited a few classes of "The Physics of Evolution," and there was one quote from the professor that stuck with me. It was, loosely, "Some people claim evolution is 'only a theory,' but they have it backwards --- evolution is a fact, but it's a lousy theory!"
@On @interolivary the point she was making was that her job is harder because some people are actively dishonest and that creates distrust towards her entire profession, not just the individuals.
Big focus on the how it happened for this case of string theory.
Like gravity is a theory. Or germs are a theory.
I didn’t lie! Slander! Slander, I tell ya!
She seems to know more about both physics and Binding of Isaac than I do.
I watched her video about silicon-based life recently and thought it was very well explained and super interesting. She's a good communicator.
Thanks for this, liked and subscribed immediately!
That was very interesting viewpoint and as a representative of the"Public" - some of the finer intricacies of academia have escaped me, but I largely agree with what she's saying.
I know fuck all about physics but that was interesting! She was great
Really? Lied to you?
@interolivary she's cool.
Im about 20 mins in. Seems interesting and knowledgeable but why the game? Is it a quirk of her or do ppl like to watch it? Is this what twitch did?
She made a comment about it early on. I think it's to distract her a little so she doesn't just spend the next hour talking in detail about maths.
Yeah. I've seen her do other videos and she doesn't play a game. I think it might just have been a way to keep the tone conversational. Near the end, as she got the complex stuff, the game got harder and her presentation suffered a little. I'm hoping she doesn't stick with this format: not my favority.
Is this the difficulty in communication she's referring to? That she has to play video games when discussing scientific topics like she's Sam Bankman-Fried?
I love BOI. What a fun combination!
I don't normal watch YouTube (especially for this long) and I especially don't watch people play games, but... Ive been wondering why I don't hear about String Theory any more... and I've owned Binding of Isaac and have yet to play it. So I thought, why not!?
I was actually surprised by how interesting I found this. Dr Collier communicated some things I've been curious about while also teaching me several new things. The game added a fun element, but I'm afraid it's probably going to remain dormant on Steam for a long while longer now. 😁
Anyway, thanks for the share.
Interesting take, but super surprised to find it paired with an Isaac run!