this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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Who died and made this goofball the official spokesperson for science and astronomy? It's getting annoying seeing his face on my YouTube feed all the time. Along with that other dude, Michio Kaku.
In case y'all got the wrong idea, they're still cool guys, and fuck Elon. It's just that I'm past the teenage stoner documentaries of people being "deep" when explaining the science. That's who Dr. Tyson seems to appeal to.
For some no-nonsense, no fluff science content, I'd recommend Sabine Hossenfelder and the PBS Spacetime series.
I prefer thunderf00t
I really love our German equivalents: Harald Lesch and the show TerraX. Had the privilege of seeing him live in a guest lecture in my uni about the anthropocene. He feels so much more genuine and less arrogant than Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If you know German and don’t know him, check him out. Both on TerraX and his YouTube presence. There are even some full lectures on there, similar to the one I saw life.
PBS spacetime is great, but fuck Sabine Hossenfelder, she loves to pretend to be an expert about things she isn't qualified to talk about. Like how trans people don't exist. Or getting basically everything wrong about neurodivergence. She can fuck all the way off
I feel like the quality of her videos is way down but I am ND and found that video pretty neutral.
I skimmed a transcript just now because I wanted to understand why people are so disproportionately mad about it. She mentions Autism Speaks and does not immediately condemn it. Is that it? I wouldn't say that counts as being wrong on everything.
I'm tired of (especially internet) discourse where shouting which camp you belong to is most important. One good example is when people accused Amnesty of siding with Russia because they reported on Ukrainian warcrimes. Nothing is truly neutral but I much prefer information or thought experiments over the virtue signaling that has taken over the internet.
You will not convince people to change their mind by shouting in their faces that your point of view is correct. Granted, you usually wont change people's mind online anyway, except entrenching them deeper into their existing beliefs. I don't think that is a good thing regardless of the side they take. It leads to seeing fellow humans as monsters just because they are wrong about something.
https://youtu.be/URpE-xZnQnk?si=fFR3jP5t9rjB3pbw
Yeah she's very opinionated and extremely obnoxious.
Don't forget about the sucking up to Musk
Scott Manley is good on factual space stuff.
Yep, for literally anything in space or aerospace he is my go-to. I also like Angela Collier for physics, she makes great content.
Oh yes, how could I forget. I followed him getting his whole pilot's license and everything.
Honestly, Neil D. Tyson comes off as an arrogant douchebag, same with Bill Nye.
I was in my university's Society of Physics Students, and some of the members got to have dinner with NDT after a talk he gave at the school. Reports confirm he is a self-centered, arrogant douchebag
Just him talking about why he doesn't use a phone case, you can just feel the arrogant better than you additude.
https://youtu.be/vvFeqL86JBk
Re Sabine, there are so many non transphobe people to watch
That's unfortunate and I didn't know that about her if true, I admit I only watch her videos every so often and didn't see anything like that when I watched her channel.
I've been through the same. I was so sad to learn this. This is what personal growth looks like, you learned a thing today. Be proud of yourself
PBS Spacetime is one of those golden nuggets of a shitpile thats youtube.
Youtube keeps pushing Sabine, but I don't agree with her on many things relating to quantium stuff. But yeah, you definitely won't find any new age quantium mystic crap on her channel.
Sabine Hossenfelder can fuck ALL the way off. She sucks man.
Care to explain why?
Well there's the stuff I personally dislike. Like the Elon cringe skits she does, or the super weird uncanny valley face filter.
But the biggest issue is she didn't stay in her realm of expertise. She might know a lot about certain things, but then also talks about other stuff with the same level of authority. No caveats, no this is my opinion, she present it as fact. But the fact is she is really really wrong about a lot of shit. And just mixing and matching shit you know and shit you don't know is a big no-no in science communication.
One of the most egregious thins she did was make a video about trans folk and talked about it like it's a fad or even a disorder. She was not only factually wrong, she was spouting anti-trans propaganda. When called out she kept the video up and didn't do anything like a follow up, correction or apology. She has some really boomer views about a lot of things and then presents it like it's fact. Another panned video was the one about neurodivergence (autism) and there are more like that. There are multiple hour+ video essays about how she is wrong in these cases and they are worth a watch imho.
The annoying thing is, I don't really know what she actually does know. Because she mixes everything and doesn't stay within her knowledge base, now everything is suspect. So even the videos about physics where I think she does know what she's talking about, I can't trust. And even in physics it seems like she's very hit or miss, I spoke to somebody at a party once that did his PhD on one of the physics topics she covered in a video. He said she was like 10 years behind the times and was wrong about several key facts. Some of these were just wrong because of simplification, which might be excused given the format, but others were plain wrong. Now I don't know enough about the subject to make a judgement, but the dude I spoke to seemed to know what he was talking about.
Science communication is really really hard and it's a skill not a lot of people have. Look at how big the teams of researchers at for example Kurzgesagt are and even they mess up once in a while. But when they get called out, they go back and delete the video or better yet post a follow up or recently even a replacement video. And they qualify things with sources and caveats, mentioning which parts are fact, consensus, speculation and opinion. They also make it very clear at the beginning of the video what a viewer can expect. That way we can qualify the information and know what in what light to put the information presented. Now I realize Kurzgesagt may be one of the best channels when it comes to short form YouTube video science communication out there and it isn't fair to hold everyone to that standard. But there needs to be at least some level of due diligence involved imho.
I'm sure I left out some other stuff, there is a lot to find if you look for honest critique. I'm sure there's also a lot of unwarranted hate out there, but also a lot of stuff that's warranted.
That all sounds pretty fair. I haven't watched many of those videos you've mentioned but I certainly have noticed times where it feels like she is stepping outside of her expertise. And totally agree on Kurzgesagt. I feel like they are one of the more reliable science channels on the platform.
Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan died.
Literally true.
Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle -> Alexander
Sagan -> NDT -> ?
Fortunately we are alive to see the original and the successor. Unfortunately NDT has become a greatest hits jukebox and hasn't produced anything new and noteworthy in a long time. I'm looking forward to the next generation. I'm definitely cautious of what the generation after that does.