this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

That's more religion than pseudoscience. Pseudoscience tries to pretend to be science and tricks a lot of people into thinking it is legitimate science, whereas religion just makes proclamations and claims it must be wrong if any evidence debunks them. Pseudoscience is a lot more sneaky, and has become more prevalent in academia itself ever since people were infected by the disease of Popperism.

Popperites believe something is "science" as long as it can in principle be falsified, so you invent a theory that could in principle be tested then you have proposed a scientific theory. So pseudoscientists come up with the most ridiculous nonsense ever based on literally nothing and then insist everyone must take it seriously because it could in theory be tested one day, but it is always just out of reach of actually being tested.

Since it is testable and the brain disease of Popperism that has permeated academia leads people to be tricked by this sophistry, sometimes these pseudoscientists can even secure funding to test it, especially if they can get a big name in physics to endorse it. If it's being tested at some institution somewhere, if there is at least a couple papers published of someone looking into it, it must be genuine science, right?

Meanwhile, while they create this air of legitimacy, a smokescreen around their ideas, they then reach out to a laymen audience through publishing books, doing documentaries on television, or publishing videos to YouTube, talking about woo nuttery like how we're all trapped inside a giant "cosmic consciousness" and we are all feel each other's vibrations through quantum entanglement, and that somehow science proves the existence of gods.

As they make immense dough off of the laymen audience they grift off of, if anyone points to the fact that their claims are based on nothing, they just can deflect to the smokescreen they created through academia.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

There's really only failing, then learning, then death

My kids have me listening to way too much Disney music lately....

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

To make this meme work I am assuming pseudoscience are your flat eathers, anti-vaxxers, anyone who publishes bogus papers to push an agenda. Their experiments are replicated, produce completely different results to contradict their hypothesis and these pseudoscientists simply refuse to accept the data produced after sound methods are used and verified. They end up becoming zealots about it too.A hypothesis being wrong is not bad at all but their own personalities prevent them from accepting it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

"boy i wish anyone bothered to even skim my paper to make sure i didn't make an obvious math error"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I really don't like this "no true scotsman" flavored meme, the profit incentive destroys valuable research by limiting resources to replications of past experiments (as soon as something is profitable, you must not disprove it for a fear of retaliation from companies promoting said something), this is systemic, not an individual level problem, get rid of "bad scientists" and more will be propped up.

I do like the sentiment of the meme though, more more replication is needed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

We need to push more for good science because a lot of times there is a ton of pressure to produce research and go along with the current established theories instead of being able to challenge them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Mistress has failed more times than the student has had chances

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

*If you challenge my ~~feelings~~ profits, I'll sue.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Eric Weinstein has left the chat in tears.

[–] [email protected] 111 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

if someone cared enough about my research to even replicate it let alone disprove it I'd be losing my shit

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

silly lil algae :3

(tbh it's been a good decade since i was working on projects leading to publication. I've been stuck in manufacturing/industry hell. send help)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

I'll find it and put it on your doorstep.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Ideally? Yes

But a modern scientific environment puts a lot of pressure to present your results better than they really are.

It damages good science a great deal

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In my opinion, the obsession with being able to measure everything with numbers is the cause. And those numbers are inevitably converting d to units of money, because capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

There was a rule of sorts. All metrics become goals or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

This is why p-hacking and searching huge databases for anything with a correlation to a desirable (or undesirable) trait are simultaneously so prevalent, and so damaging.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

over fitting, but people

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