Hot take: Popular science reporting is a good reason to distrust science. If you randomly sampled some articles at any point in the past twenty years — having never read any popsci before — you'd assume we're weeks away from hot fusion, cold fusion, jet packs, and a cancer cure.
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For some (speaking on behalf of myself anyway) it's a weird type of inspiring. Technological optimism is a wellspring of hope in the face of the overwhelming failures that naturally accompany discovery. But for others it's more like "none of you know wtf you're talking about."
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Replying to @generativist
For decades now, I've held the unpopular opinion that "pop science" is ultimately harmful to the population, when done to the volumes and Hollywood aesthetic that we do.
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Replying to @pwang
Yea. Like scicomm is great. The stuff on PBS is my favorite example. But how much popsci feels like that. I’m not sure where I would draw the boundary but it’s got something to do with the communication of uncertainty...maybe?
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Replying to @generativist
I think one can diff high quality content like classic PBS, BBC stuff vs newer things on several planes: - aesthetic: narrative voice, authority vs curiosity, etc - topic: everyday accessible world, or inaccessible theoretical domains - call to action: how is viewer changed
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Replying to @pwang @generativist
A lot of the popsci I detest ends up feeling like communications from High Church of Theory. The feeling it tries to induce is primarily one of "inaccessible wonder", eg "this shit is so complicated, worship the brainiacs that think about this all day".
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Yea. My ideal is *accessible* wonder. (PBS does a good job of this, imo.) I mostly get frustrated with popsci that is barely indistinguishable from a press release. Company/Person X is a GENIUS REVOLUTIONARY who thinks HIS [unoriginal] effort will change everything. [no dissent.]
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