/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12948803]

What exactly is wrong with pop-science?

[Anonymous No.12948888]

It's the equivalent of substituting Wikipedia summaries of great works as the real thing

[Anonymous No.12948901]

[Anonymous No.12948903]

It promotes the pretense of knowledege while still fully submerged in ignorance.

After reading pop-science people wrongly believe they have increase their knowledge, but nothing has changed except their opinion about themselves.

It's like self-help for "I am very smart" people

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12948973]

>>12948803
It scares the spiritualists that casuals are learning facts before they can convert them to their particular god-club

>>12948903
>It promotes the pretense of knowledege while still fully submerged in ignorance.
It's introductory
> but nothing has changed except their opinion about themselves.
So it's closer to philosophy

[Anonymous No.12948992]

>>12948973
>It scares the spiritualists that casuals are learning facts before they can convert them to their particular god-club
Facts you can't properly explain have no more value than mystical beliefs. You have replaced one spiritual word by a scientific word, while still being ignorant of what lies behind - in both cases, spiritual or scientific, believing there is some truth in your meaningless name-dropping.

>It's introductory
it doesn't work as an introduction either. Too vague to learn anything besides useless name-dropping. "Knowledge" that can't be used to solve problems has no value at all.

The first chapter of any physics textbook is introductory, and the readers are then able to solve elemental physics problems. Every pop-science book leaves the reader in no better standing than before.

>>12948973
>So it's closer to philosophy
Yes, closer.

[Anonymous No.12948997]

>>12948888
>>12948903
What should I read then if I want to learn about science?

[Anonymous No.12949002]

>>12948997
Textbooks ye mad brainlet, what do you think

[Anonymous No.12949010]

>>12948997
Depends of the science.

In biology, students' introductory book is Solomon's Biology.

[Anonymous No.12949019]

>>12948803
people got too into the whole "dumb it down for plebs and sell a lot of books" aspect of it

[Anonymous No.12949063]

>>12948973
Please let me suck on your toes you disgusting piece of shit tranny.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12949179]

>>12948992
>Facts you can't properly explain have no more value than mystical beliefs
The meteorologists tells the little boy it’s going to rain tomorrow. According to you this is mystical belief

[Anonymous No.12949190]

>>12948803
It is generally simplistic and lacking in proper scientific rigor. That said, you will probably learn more from it than most philosophy or literature textbooks,

[Anonymous No.12949195]

>>12948997
>go to libgen
>leave search on textbooks
>put in literally any subject you want to learn

Its just that easy!

[Anonymous No.12949280]

>>12948992
you almost certainly can't explain gravity properly, but i bet you walk out of your front door rather than a top-floor window

[Anonymous No.12949281]

>>12948903
that's a lot of assumption. Unless you have proof of your findings?

[Anonymous No.12949344]

>>12948803
It encourages reading people for their conclusions just on the basis of their authority instead of using reason to struggle with the complexity of the world as it actually is

[Anonymous No.12949397]

>>12949344
>using reason to struggle with the complexity of the world as it actually is
give an example of when you have ever done that
i.e. without using any knowledge previously gathered by anyone else

[Anonymous No.12950409]

>>12949397
Does it matter if I'm the first to think something if the idea is novel to me? If I come to the same conclusions as people before me, but I am unaware of their knowledge, does that somehow invalidate my revelation?
Ex. Going to college for a feminist interpretive dance therapy degree isn't worth it. I don't need to be told this, it is something that holds no value and I came to this conclusion based on the number of job positions available for this degree specifically. Finding a job in STEM might be worth it if I find value in being a desk junkie. Humanities might be worth it if I can find good people to associate with and the skills I've learned transcend textbooks (properly selling myself by playing word games for example). Surely I'm not the first retard to figure this out, but I certainly didn't read it from a faggy book.

[Anonymous No.12950560]

>>12950409
>I want to work for others, the purpose of my life is being a worker
So this is the intellectual level of people who dislike pop science? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[Anonymous No.12950578]

nothing really
the pop/polemical politics books are cancer

[Anonymous No.12950689]

>>12949344
Depends on the subject, right? In the case of OP's pick, go away and learn some theoretical astrophysics is not really a reasonable claim

[Anonymous No.12950759]

>>12948903
I can tell you don't work within a science discipline. Pop-science while not as academically rigorous as reading peer review sources directly can be an incredible resource for explaining complicated topics to lay people or people who work within different disciplines but still need/want some basic conceptual information within the specific field the pop-science work covers.

The main issue with pop-science is that often when multiple studies are aggregated to try and analyze/explain a complicated macro-phenomenon there is more room for bias, but that is the case with even academic publications which aggregate data from multiple different studies to try and explain a macro-phenomenon.

Basically, it's fairly obvious pop-science doesn't give you the same sort of depth of knowledge that a textbook or lectures will but if you're not someone who is looking to operate in a professional capacity in the field, pop-science can be a fantastic way to be introduced to some of the broader concepts a field looks to explore.

[Anonymous No.12950768]

Brief History of Time really caught my interest as a 14 year old and made me jump ahead of my classes in math and physics until I got bored and started reading philosophy instead

[Anonymous No.12950770]

>>12949344
I'd say if anything pop-science is less guilty of that then the people who get incredibly pedantic about peer review sources when a significant proportion of the peer review system is basically garbage.

[Anonymous No.12950821]

>>12948803
A lot of unproven theories with little real life worth that science spends extra ordinary amounts of money defending. Perhaps?

[Anonymous No.12951101]

>>12950759
>I can tell you don't work within a science discipline

I do, and I still don't like pop-science. People don't a highly simplified version of a scientific topic. They can read a textbook, in which case they would gain a more solid knowledge on the topic, or they can read SOME very decent scientific magazines, in which case they will find all the concepts with no in-depth explanation.

Pop-science books I've read are, for the most part, filler.

I'm sure there are a few good ones out there, but I held my view that most of them are not worthy of anyone's time.

[Anonymous No.12951890]

>>12950560
Nice strawman, faggot

[Anonymous No.12951909]

Nothing, except for the late 2000s Reddit atheism wave

[Anonymous No.12952425]

>>12951101
People barely "read" textbooks in a serious fashion when they are actually stem students, and textbooks often are fairly terrible as a resource if they are not accompanied by either some form of lecture or an actual incentive to really engage with the material.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of popular science and scientific literature, and the boundary between what is pop-science and what is "legitimate" scientific literature (generally books that aggregate and explain studies in terms people who are not intimately familiar with the esoterica of the particular subdiscipline will understand) is not so clear.

For example many would call a book like the Blank Slate by Steven Pinker popular science for its target audience even though his bibliography is massive and includes primarily peer reviewed sources.

Popular science is not supposed to be a replacement for a textbook, it is a means of having a cursory understanding of the concepts involved without necessarily needing to go as in depth as a textbook would and they often serve completely different purposes. A pop-science book about the development of communication systems technology is not a substitute for undergrad courses on electrical engineering but it may be enough to give people a better appreciation for why we pursue science.

Basically tl;dr you're autistic. Obviously pop-science is not a replacement for a textbook or actual lecture but it's not supposed to be. It serves a purpose that is generally good, and while it's an imperfect field of literature anyone who is arguing that it carries no value has no clue how little the average person has either the capacity for or the interest in pursuit of actual science on an academically rigorous level.

[Anonymous No.12952441]

>>12949179
It effectively is. You likely have very little practical understanding of how the computer/phone you post on works on a real fundamental level. It might as well be magic to the lay person and that's exactly why pop-science isn't a bad thing. It's a way for people who have little ability to engage in the way an actual scientist does, to either develop a basic conceptual grasp of the field even if it is significantly below the standards of most undergraduate students.

[Anonymous No.12952531]

>>12949179
>Implying meteorology is not a vague guess at what the whether is Gina be tomorrow

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12952555]

>>12952441
No, dear. Science is not magic. That's from some scifi/fantasy pop-lit.

I believe introductory knowledge to how our world/universe works, is far better than being buried in the crypt of superstition that demands you believe its horrible lies with all your heart.
A little "pop science" is fine. A little religion, that shit kills people.

[Anonymous No.12952562]

It promotes scientism.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!/qKRybJPyoB No.12952571]

>>12952562
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDfrrgqy_Eo

[Anonymous No.12952664]

Salinger?

[Anonymous No.12952677]

>>12952555
>A little religion, that shit kills people
If you're including Islam then you racis.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12952684]

>>12952677
This is (You)

[Anonymous No.12952883]

>>12952555
Edition how religion kills people

[Anonymous No.12952903]

>>12952555
science i completely amoral and will always be like that if you submit to it you cant even say what good or bad

[Anonymous No.12953645]

>>12952555
It seems that you're fairly blind to the religious convictions that you have. Science produces defined categories of study that in general are just as poorly understood by the general population as religion was prior to the industrial revolution. Most people (including yourself if you're being honest) take most of the developments we lump under science on faith and at best have a basic understanding of how to interact with them.

Science produces fundamentally incomplete understandings of aspects of reality that are in constant need for improvement and there are many ideological convictions that come with what many would call science that are fundamentally questions of faith and civic religion rather than directly related to the scientific method as a specific epistemological framework, and that is necessary. Science is only equipped to address is questions, and requires other frameworks of ought questions (which are fundamentally religious/ideological) in order to orient science towards the is questions any particular scientist/lab looks to address.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12953665]

>>12952903
I don't submit to some pseudo-religion you imagine science to be. They theorize till they find proof. Nothing more to it.

[Anonymous No.12953914]

>>12953665
Still does not change the fact that science can't help you with morals. Or fundamental questions about our existence and suffering.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12953938]

>>12953914
>morals
Nor can it walk your dog
>Or fundamental questions about our existence and suffering.
It assists in a proper perspective

[Anonymous No.12953973]

>>12953645
>religions make claims
>science makes claims
>therefore science is a religion
gonna be a yikes from me sempai

[Anonymous No.12953979]

>>12953938
I can walk your dog tho.
Yea it's completely useless on its own. It can help you for a material problem but anything belyond that will be aways out of reach.

[Anonymous No.12954524]

>>12953973
You need help with your reading comprehension. That's not at all what I was saying.

[Anonymous No.12954542]

>>12949019
you just described basically every cultural medium

[Anonymous No.12955055]

Pop science like A Brief History of Time is totally fine and a great benefit to help laymen understand scientific concepts.
However-
HOWEVER
Oftentimes in "pop-sci" the authors like to sneak in normative ideological claims or interpretations in between the facts, and the vast majority of laymen cannot identify the difference between an opinion and a fact. Begging the question is ridiculously common in pop-sci and it's seriously idealogically dangerous

Tl;dr pop-sci isn't bad in and of itself, but it's very commonly used to maliciously manipulate people who don't know better

[Anonymous No.12955130]

>>12948803
Literally nothing. Nigga textbooks, equations, papers n shits all fucking boring. Why would i want the boring parts of science when I can have the fun parts only? its not like im gonna do rocket science anyway so whats the fucking use in chewing mathematics n shit

[Anonymous No.12955144]

>>12948803
Inherently nothing, but usually everything. Hawking is a good example of good popsci.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12955374]

>>12953979
What do you mean by “beyond that”?

>>12955055
Yeah. Everybody does that. Can’t be helped I guess.
My cure for malicious manipulation is to end state capitalism with democracy in the workplace and a non accumulative currency. Maybe Nietzsche was right and there will always be simple fools. So the best we can do is cushion lives... or maybe he’s wrong. (I’m sleepy)

[Anonymous No.12955589]

>>12948997
start with the greeks

[Anonymous No.12956594]

>>12948997

[Anonymous No.12956671]

>>12948997
Textbooks, monographs, Wikipedia (for occasional references). It can be pretty hard at first and depending on the science, it can take literally months to become fluent in the technical vocabulary of the field, but its certainly possible. Just make sure you do at least a few exercises in each section, takes notes on things that are confusing/key ideas, and if youre struggling with a conept slow down and review the material, but ultimately move on if you're having way more difficulty than usual.

[Anonymous No.12957760]

>>12955374
You think life is only about material persuits and having more stuff=better life?
feeling emotions good bad evil divine are all mysterys to science and will always be that, inb4 brain chem, don't bother if that is you answer.
A men can't live by bread alone, is a good enouf summery of it.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12957818]

>>12957760
I wish to facilitate a more optimum life for everyone in order for people to grow in whatever direction they can. The current situation is beyond horrendous. We’re on a suicidal train ride.
Why is all that is not real more important to you than all that we evidently have?

[Anonymous No.12958305]

>>12948901
I laughed

[Anonymous No.12958371]

>>12957818
Fist off don't you see the self contradiction in your word's?
>Optimum life
>Grow in whatever direction they can
>Suicidal train ride
You can't save what we have with more materialism when that is the cause of the train ride in the fist place(I'm not saying science is inherently bad). When you abandon natural order logos God common sense or whatever you want to all it, you get decay and untatural world.
You can't get back on track without that and if you can't see there is something beyond this world than how can you tell anyone else how to do thing. If there is no guiding principles in life why even bother stepping out of the suicide train ride
>Not real
Come on now when you call our morals for not real how do you expect people to grow when there is no suck thing as growth

[Anonymous No.12958388]

Because most people that hate popsci are still fairly young and have to define themselves in a completely new environment. Their definition is usually with what they study, and they take a lot of pride in it. A contribution also comes from defining yourself via that which you aren't, the usual "us against them". And popsci is a welcome target because how dare you enter my sekrit cluhb.
You'll see that the attitude towards that kind of literature changes over time: the older people in your field get, the less they give a shit about popsci.
>TL;DR young people bitching about not being special

t. chem grad student

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12959317]

>>12958371
>contradiction word's?
No.
>more materialism
That's where we live. there's no "more" about it.
>materialism ... is the cause of the train ride in the fist place
It isn't. Are you talking about money=materialism? That shit is strictly spiritual. A spook.
>if you can't see there is something beyond this world than how can you tell anyone else how to do thing
Firstly; nonsense. Secondly; I'm not telling anyone. I want to show a better way, a functional way.
>If there is no guiding principles in life
More fictions. We're following –and breaking– faulty guiding fictions. Changing them, duh, changes things.
Your last sentence is indecipherable. You have an infection in your brain.

[Anonymous No.12959366]

So you have nothing to offer the world, functional living is just as much of a spook as any other idea out there there is nothing to back it up except your opinion.

[Anonymous No.12959393]

Nothing. Plenty of great popsci writers: Feynman, Yuval, EO Wilson, Dawkins, Sagan, Hawkings.

Lambasting them for being wrong with certain details is dumb when nearly everything in science is wrong after a few decades.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12959398]

How is living in peace or at the very least a little more harmony, a spook?
You're the one who has nothing to offer. Your way leads to extinction. You accept that? You like that?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12959403]

>>12959393
>when nearly everything in science is wrong after a few decades.
Wrong. Theories are tested till proven or disproven.

[Anonymous No.12959414]

>>12956594
>most atrocious meme chart yet
>topped off with a Facebook boomer-tier fake quote
stop doing this

[Anonymous No.12959432]

>>12959398
How is it not peace is a spook if I don't own everything.
Why woude I seek peace why I enjoy destruction.
Why woude I care about when o don't get a direct benefit.
You can go on like this and you telling me you like peace l, who cares what to you like lol.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12959468]

>>12959432
Most everyone naturally likes peace.
Read the damn book already, ya ninny.

[Anonymous No.12959491]

>>12959468
Sounds like a spook to me

[Anonymous No.12959497]

not only the butterfly is a woman, but also materialistic antiteistic marxist one
wow what a great person to be held on /lit/, for sure the god and religions that try to interpretate it can easily be disproven (despite he exist outside of our material world), and we should fight globalization with more nationless acultural globalization

[Anonymous No.12959539]

>>12959497
>dude god totally exists
>no you can’t see him lol he lives outside the world
>no dude shut up he’s totally there just trust me

[Anonymous No.12959582]

Pop sci is great for me because the general public's very loose understanding of my field is bringing in the grant dollars. The "dude, I fucking love science" crowd may not read real studies, but they help fund them.

[Anonymous No.12960617]

>>12959539
im saying he cannot be proven or disproven, you absolute mong, so any disputes regarding his existence are pointless

[Anonymous No.12960742]

>>12959539
Your view of how intellectuals view the concept of God appears to be very limited. Is the concept of some transcendent order to the material universe in which we can sometimes grasp small pieces of it but never in its completeness such an unreasonable thing for someone to believe?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12960905]

>>12960617
Harry Potter is real.
You can't prove he isn't. Mong

>>12960742
No matter how many words you use, it isn't going to breath any more life into the thing.

[sage™ No.12960957]

>>12960905
can something come form nothing ?

[Anonymous No.12961170]

>>12960905
except i fucking can, as our world doesnt hold such phenomenons as magic, as they are simply excluded by science, and by probability i can say for 99.9% that no such thing exists. thats true i cannot disprove it for 100%, but im operating on common sense and ockham razor

with higher beings, on the other hand, as they should exist of our material plane, which we have no tools to examine, we can never say for sure if something exists nor doesnt there. do you seriously fucking think that the almighty, the greatest of everything would just lay down some facts so that his existence can be easily (or even hardly) found? no such thing, its only a matter of belief, a simple question do you believe of any realms other than ours

[Anonymous No.12961190]

>>12959403
That's not completely true. Further investigations on a certain topic are made under the assumption that one or more things are true. You have to do this if you ever want to make any experiments.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12961214]

>>12960957
I'm an atheist already. You don't have to convince me.

>>12961170
>Proves my point
>"[W]ith higher beings, on the other hand..."
>Fails to dig him and his god out of the grave they're buried in.
Funny funny.

[Anonymous No.12961215]

>>12959403
thats why newton's law of universal gravitation was held for over 200 years, just to be proven wrong and being replaced

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12961265]

>>12961190
The point is that they are challenged results. Something pops up in the fossil record and we alter our views of what species did this or that and when. If a a theory isn't called into question in a timely manner, some start to accept it as facts. But eventually it may be challenged. There's a lot to know.
Science proper is not a religion. When something is proven wrong there are no adherent clerics to defend it with calls of heresy, no wars or fistfights between bald heads and long-beards. They simply must accept the facts.

[Anonymous No.12961276]

>>12961214
>lalalalala i cant hear you i cannot grasp such things as unreachable and unknowable
if i said that parallel universes are never to be reached by mankind, would you say that they cant be real no matter what, or would you say well never know

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12961326]

>>12961276
I know where these "unreachables" come from, fool.
If your god is in a jar way up on the top shelf of a kitchen in your mind, he has no purchase in the real world –till you speak of him. Nothing more.

>Parallel universes
This is a wild theory of science. Not proven yet. Not a faith. Not a church. Something to ponder, not pray to.

[Anonymous No.12961352]

>>12961265
>When something is proven wrong there are no adherent clerics to defend it with calls of heresy, no wars or fistfights between bald heads and long-beards.
There might be no wars, but there are enormous discourses within the scientific society everytime a big discovery is made or challenged. The more abstract the field, the more apparent this is.

[Anonymous No.12961362]

>>12961214
>has not answer
good job man you are making a complete foul of yourself here

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12961416]

>>12961362
Harry Potter is real. Not yhwh/jesus.
Where's your argument?

[Anonymous No.12961443]

>>12961416
not the poster you replied to, but i think this question was already answered

[Anonymous No.12961472]

>>12961416
i can easily give you historic sources outside of the church for the existence of Jesus.
For example: Tacitus, Lucien Thallus
But take a step back and go to the begging of the universe and tell did nothing exist and how it became something ?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12961483]

>>12961443
Which is why he and all notions of gods are buried and dead. He wants his unreachable and unknowable Yhwh/Jesus to exist but proves he does not.
Break the spell. Wake up.

[Anonymous No.12961654]

>>12961483

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.12961683]

This all you have left?
Not even a fat guy with a trilby?