Science Memes

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[–] fizzle 4 points 3 months ago

It's a meme.

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[–] meekah@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago*

there are 2 answers depicted under the option you claim to be correct. one of those answers is indeed correct, but it is not really clear which one from your comment.

clear answer

it is the straight diagonal.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 15 points 3 months ago (48 children)

Don’t support Veritasium

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[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 3 months ago (35 children)

What's the story? What'd they do?

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[–] Djehngo@lemmy.world 40 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I hate this so much,

Someone is mentioned on Lemmy and there is always a drive by comment saying don't support X or X is a bad person with no context whatsoever. No mention of what specifically they are accused of doing/saying, no way to figure out if that clashes with your values or not, no documentation etc.

And subjectively it feels like half the time I research why this might be true it's debatable at best, I assume because if there was compelling evidence the person doing the drive by would have linked it.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

Don't support u/Agent641

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[–] sheepishly@fedia.io 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

I should start replying to random shit with "don't support X" with no context or followup

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 3 months ago

Also, create a thousand accounts in advance at random days, never use them and make this comment their only, but when account is not fresh. That way it would look like it's a legitimate reader that was just once so outraged they decided to comment and then shut up forever

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[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Lemmy sometimes feels like one big ball of barely seething social outrage.

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[–] sheepishly@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago

That's most of the internet these days

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[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

So many didn't grow out of their "I'm so special and unique, I don't follow the mainstream" teenage phase and it really shows.

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[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Don't support Djahngo.

(Kidding. Kidding.)

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[–] turdas@suppo.fi 46 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Sold out to some venture capital firm.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 17 points 3 months ago

I didn’t know he did that. He was shit long before that. Here’s my comment:

He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.

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[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 8 points 3 months ago

Dont know if theres anything else, but I've seen the criticism covered in this Tom Nicholas video. I still watch Veritasium though.

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[–] LytiaNP@lemmy.today 22 points 3 months ago

Personally I've noticed topics covered by smaller content creators, explaining almost the exact same thing (minus maybe a few details like some random guy's age), uploaded a few weeks before, and then suddenly Veritasium decides to cover the topic with basically the exact same info over a longer time span.

Not to mention the clickbait titles and thumbnails, less focus on the technical side of topics and more on the emotional/personal side, and the whole selling out to private equity thing.

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[–] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 6 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I know they've been wrong a couple times. Take anything the channel says with some salt.

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[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 3 months ago (1 child)

like you hopefully do with all things you see online, right?

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[–] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 2 points 3 months ago

Right right. Point being they've been proven wrong.

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[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

Now its company owned the quality has picked up a lot. Recent videos are much more likely to be correct

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[–] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 1 point 3 months ago

Nothing like a good old corporation to make sure everything is tip-top, right.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 10 points 3 months ago (17 children)

He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.

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[–] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 23 points 3 months ago (7 children)

According to Wikipedia

In 2004, Muller graduated from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Physics. Muller moved to Australia to study film-making; however, he instead enrolled for a PhD in physics education research from the University of Sydney, which he completed in 2008 with the thesis, Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education.

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[–] Renohren@lemmy.today 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

He is correct: Having a Bachelor in science does not make one a scientist unless actively pursuing research. He has a solid science background but like many others with science diplomas, he's not a scientist. He is an entertainer, like all YouTube science channel figureheads unless their daily job is at a lab ( and even then: they are not necessarily talking about subjects they know well, science is a wide area of knowledge).

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[–] Zagorath 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

He is an entertainer

I'll preface this by saying I don't particularly like the direction the channel has gone. He's sold out big time, as described by many comments above (both literally, by selling the channel to VC, and metaphorically, by selling out whole videos and the integrity of their content to advertisers as the Tom Nicholas video explains). And his ties to grifters like Colin Grey and Philipp Dettmer (of CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt fame) definitely don't work in his favour.

But that said, I think this comment you made is a bit reductive. He has a PhD in effective science communication. He can legitimately claim expertise in communicating science to the public via YouTube in a way most popsci content cannot. Obviously not the same as doing scientific research himself, but he also doesn't claim to be doing that.

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[–] Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Kurzgesagt are grifters?

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[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

you yourself said he is an art or business major, so, you know, fuck off and stop trying to spin your lies.

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[–] turdas@suppo.fi 10 points 3 months ago (8 children)

To be fair some wet wipes are flushable (as in they disintegrate when flushed), the problem is that not all of them are and there's no standard they have to adhere to, so even the ones that shouldn't be flushed are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 12 points 3 months ago (6 children)

No that’s literally the experiment that Derek did. He “showed” that the wet wipes “disintegrated”. What they actually did was break apart under a large weight he put on top of them. That’s not what happens in a sewage system. Along with that, unless they completely dissolve they will still cause issues as the broken up strands.

Unless you are a civil engineer you should not be deciding what goes in a sewer. And no one making wet wipes are civil engineers.

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[–] turdas@suppo.fi 4 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I haven't seen his experiment and don't really care what he did. Other independent experiments have shown that some wet wipes do disintegrate. The reason authorities recommend against their use is what I said: there is no standard for what constitutes "flushable" and the industry is rife with false advertising.

Here's some plumbing YouTube guy testing a bunch of them and finding some that do disintegrate while others do not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVijZZ2yAtc

Of course the best option is a bidet, but this is as of yet unknown technology to most Americans.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 13 points 3 months ago (4 children)

So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.

Let’s cover some of the bad science:

What is this 24 hour time limit for these wipes sitting in water? Clogs happen in sewage systems immediately, not 24 hours later. And it doesn’t even take that long for sewage to move through a proper system anyway, so any clogs would happen at the processing facility where they are worst, not in “twists and turns” like this guy says
He literally hides what happens to the toilet paper when he flushes it, but he didn’t hide it very well. You can see in later shots (like at 8:26 in the top right) that the toilet paper literally broke up by the time it made it to the concrete. That is how it’s supposed to work. The rest failed by the time they hit the concrete.
He shakes the mason jars before opening them, then claims it is to “simulate the twists and turns”. This dude is just lying out his ass. Do you know the number of turns before you get from a toilet to the street? It’s like 3. I think every toilet in my house actually only has 1 or 2, depending on which floor. Shaking these up is so badly messing with the experiment. And guess what! They’re still completely intact! But the toilet paper one he barely shakes and yet it’s completely dissolved.

And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.

Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.

Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Based fact-checker

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Thanks lol. People being wrong on the internet sucks, but people deliberately spreading misinformation that all experts agree is misinformation is infuriating to me. Just cause some fucking YouTuber said something doesn’t make it true. I’ve stopped watching so many YouTubers because of the bullshit like they make up.

On a topic similar to this though, is plastics recycling, which experts agree that plastics manufacturing hid how difficult it was to recycle for years. But experts say it’s infeasible, while there are companies like Trash Panda disc golf recycling things into disc golf discs hundreds of times. So really the moral is, think critically.

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Yeah usually it's a question of does this pass the smell test, "every expert and sanitation workers who actually see it firsthand are saying one thing, but we tested it and they're all wrong!" is like hmmm....

I would be wary of things that purport to be plastics recycling, as the two main issues are 1. It's still cheaper to make new things rather than recycle 2. The recycled plastic is generally less versatile, which is why you'll see it in things like Frisbees and knick-knacks.

Not to say it isn't something we should be doing when it's feasible, but it's sort of like going from ICE cars to electric cars, where we're putting a band-aid on the problem instead of switching to something that isn't as destructive.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 point 3 months ago

Yeah usually it's a question of does this pass the smell test, "every expert and sanitation workers who actually see it firsthand are saying one thing, but we tested it and they're all wrong!" is like hmmm....

Exactly

I would be wary of things that purport to be plastics recycling, as the two main issues are 1. It's still cheaper to make new things rather than recycle 2. The recycled plastic is generally less versatile, which is why you'll see it in things like Frisbees and knick-knacks.

It completely depends on the product. For example aluminum is vastly easier to recycle than to make new. For plastics it depends on the plastic, but there is always a way. For example, trash panda managed to recycle Crocs, which are an expanded foam plastic. It was not recyclable on its own, it wouldn’t melt down into an injection moldeable plastic, but they managed to use it as an aggregate, kinda like concrete. I don’t agree that it’s less versatile. It’s just more work that companies don’t want to do so they say it’s not possible.

Not to say it isn't something we should be doing when it's feasible, but it's sort of like going from ICE cars to electric cars, where we're putting a band-aid on the problem instead of switching to something that isn't as destructive.

The thing is, plastic isn’t going anywhere. It’s embedded into every part of our lives, both bad uses and good uses. We need to find a way to stop making more of it. It’s wild that we bury so much trash instead of trying to recover it.

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[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 3 points 3 months ago

There's no standard they have to adhere to, but there are certifications you can look for that guarantee they break up properly.

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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (10 children)

And why would that be?

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[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 3 months ago

Personally, I just don't like the guy and his vibes. But I wouldn't tell random people online to avoid him, he's not that bad.

There was also that self-driving car video which turned out to be really scummy.

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[–] athatet@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago

That’s the number not the company.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 5 points 3 months ago

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[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 months ago (5 children)

people are annoyed that he sold to a venture capital business

but then not realizing that so far, their quality improved, while also releasing more videos

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[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago

i liked his older videos far more, so quality is definitely subjective. it was one guy's channel about physics with specific vibe, now it is just general channel about everything, indistinguishable from all the other science channels...

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[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 2 points 3 months ago

production value increased, quality took a nose dive.