that dark matter video aged like milk

[@LordBeefrius]

Dude, if 60% of PEOPLE understood, you would have failed to communicate. In your case, 60% of KZbin COMMENTERS understood, which means you've actually performed a miracle.

[@DuckDodgers69]

😃😂🤣😎

[@feronanthus9756]

if you can get 60% of people to understand a science topic you've performed a miracle. If you can get 60% of youtube comments to understand... that's just beyond comprehension.

[@skinnee]

hahahahahah holy shit for real tho

[@WhizPill]

Can’t lie you made a great point

[@thatsunpossible312]

Yeah KZbin comments are not insightful. Including mine. When I worked in retail we used to say “people are idiots”. Those people, the idiots, won’t lower themselves to participate in KZbin comments.

[@Humorless_Wokescold]

This woman read all the comments... My god. She suffered so much for our sins.

[@alyssahallister]

Sadly, I feel it's highly likely that the reason for a lot of those comments can be summed up by 'this woman'. There are SO many men who hear a woman explain something that conflicts with what they think is true and then they tune everything else out and are now just focused on how they're going to mansplain all the ways that the woman is wrong. Their higher thinking turned off as soon as they identified that a woman was saying they were wrong, and so the whole rest of the video had no chance to convince them.

[@ghostD0C]

All this is just more evidence showing the youtube comment section is an objectively terrible place.

[@michaelblacktree]

Yeah, I feel bad for Angela. Hope she has a good therapist.

[@caesarinchina]

Angela is our Jesus. Name is a hint. 😅

[@MTd2]

LISAN AL GAIB!

[@Ekce]

The comments may not be representative of the viewership. Personally, when a video is well argued and I have nothing to add I'm far less likely to leave a comment than when I disagreed with something in the video or felt there was something to add.

[@stuntmonkey00]

Astrophysics is to adults what dinosaurs is to kids... it just attracts people who like it because its interesting, but which have no educational tools to dive into it more deeply. This is the reason why so many dude-bro influencers cite PBSSpacetime as a worthy channel to watch, but they have no deep comprehension of what Matt is actually talking about.

[@tjeales]

Came here to say this. Comments are not a random sample of half a million people. It’s self selected and will be biased towards people who want to disagree.

[@differentbutsimilar7893]

I'd love to see analytics on how many people commenting watch all (or even ANY) of the video.

[@qwerty11111122]

Sampling bias, people comment because they want to argue lol

[@davidjohnston4240]

@@differentbutsimilar7893 I watched the whole video and it made sense and I didn't comment. So n=1 and assuming the contrapositive ==> Proven.

[@macronencer]

43:30 I didn't realise that some people think "published papers must be correct". It actually makes sense of quite a lot of confusing statements I've seen online.

[@blist14ant]

Professors at universities will inform you of that.

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

Published papers are *more* correct (or rather, more likely to be correct) than 'stuff I pulled out my butt,' but some people take a very binary view of accuracy. And probably haven't heard of meta-analyses.

[@dosadoodle]

"Published papers must be correct" is the motto of the news media. Never mind that some papers contradict other papers -- the most recent one is always correct.

[@BluestCheese]

I love the idea of someone sitting at home thinking "This PhD physicist is so silly. Good thing I, a KZbin commenter, am here to set things right!"

[@Professor_Brie]

It’s so goofy

[@rafaelchargel8151]

I have a similar problem when I make statements about AI or Machine Learning at parties. Oh, please tell me why you think your computer is a sentient being. Please note: it is not. Also, I don't have a PhD, but I do have 25 years working professionally in this field.

[@lissythearchitect]

Even moreso in this case - this is not a PhD Physicist talking about a Physics field she has little knowledge of. She is a former expert in this very field.

[@andrewcapra7153]

"Maybe this PhD physicist has never heard of the fifth grade science textbook definition of what a theory is, I should definitely correct her on this!"

[@iwannabethekid34xc]

This is a huge problem in itself, this comment. The truth of the matter is that anyone, no matter their educational attainment level, their track record, their various accomplishments, is still a human being at the end of the day. We are human beings, not human doings. We are not our careers or our jobs, we have individual identities which are unique, and very prone to human mistakes. No one should be above criticism.

[@Delaterius]

I would argue that making 300,000 people understand anything about astrophysics is an incredible success

[@samiirai]

lmao that point of view

[@ahgflyguy]

Yeah. Does anyone else just want to give her a hug? Or is it just me? And say something like “Angela, you’re not a failure, you’re just trying to teach complicated physics to a bunch of people who are failures. You can’t save them all, because they won’t let you. They’re not ready to listen. It’s not your fault.”

[@ecco256]

Yeah that was my first thought; a 60% score of explaining physics to the general public sounds wildly successful to me.

[@multivariateperspective5137]

@@ecco256 she has a selection bias to her 2 variable analysis… what is the subset of viewers with the intellectual hardware to truly understand physics? MOST people don’t really understand calculus or statistics or multivariate analysis. So of the populations, perhaps only 40-50% CAN understand (being generous here)… so from that view she did an awesome job. And on top of that both videos are incrediably funny.

[@thelonelybolter8245]

this

[@mostermand]

I have theory: many of the people who claimed dark matter is a theory, didn't watch the video.

[@sysop073]

I have a theory that all the comments on here talking about how brave it is to admit your failures also haven't watched this video yet

[@Knowyourbody]

lol….MOND?

[@dstinnettmusic]

DoN’T yOu mEaN hYpoThEsIS?

[@jackham8]

Thats actually an observation /s

[@LadyMorrigan]

@@Knowyourbody not MOND please, I had a crazy professor at uni who was the only guy alive who believed it lmao

[@rosenbaummilton7720]

I started the video assuming that MOND was the best theory of dark matter. I left the video surprised that the evidence was so weak, and aware that there were so many things that MOND fails to explain. I didnt comment, but your video definitely reached me!

[@f_add_mebowshot5677]

Same. Like I liked MOND (just cuz) but damnnn was I wrong

[@RSmeep13]

I think that KZbin comments should show what % of the video was watched by the commenter.

[@ghostrecon3214]

With bots and AI, i really wonder how many comments are even actual people.

[@jacobash5904]

This fr​@@ghostrecon3214

[@ion1984]

*read title* / *opened video* / *typed comment based on title* / *left* - I guarantee you that is over half of comments. not worth the weight she is giving them.

[@MirdjanHyle]

This simple tweak alone would break the internet. Probably for the better.

[@ElyonDominus]

​@@ghostrecon3214 My guess would be very few of the comments she highlighted were actual people stating their actual thoughts. You don't even need AI, mostly because it doesn't exist, for this. I could make a simple tool in an afternoon to spam comments with a collection of messages to create variety. That she read comments on a science video is insane. The amount of anti-intelligence people that exist and the organizations interesting in ensuring science is ridiculed are absolutely insane.

[@Cas987]

Remember that a large percentage of people are very skilled in the art of hearing what they want to hear, regardless of what was actually said.

[@tettettettettet]

Awe thank you for saying I’m very skilled in art that’s nice of you :)

[@MrSamwise25]

Do you think they just read the title and thought it was the same as when people say "evolution is not a theory"?

[@ryanmcgowan3061]

So you're saying dark matter is a conspiracy theory in an attempt to control the minds of the masses, right?

[@duroxkilo]

so much depends on the algorithm, like where does a video land, where does it get traction... if it's served in a 'certain side' of the internet, the feedback will be pure garbage but if it somehow lands in a sunny place the reactions are just lovely.. and anywhere in between... i've built and maintained a few forums in a previous life, some users are unsalvageable given the available tools :) (a bit offtopic, there are a few videos on yb that i am aware of where all the comments are gold. some are older than a decade. it's both magical and a testament that we can partially 'control' things as 'a colony'. but a colony can only assimilate a max number of outsiders per unit of time before it 'loses its mood'... and that's why i won't post links :):) )

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

Its more like they are enthralled with her face and tone so much they leave her on as background noise, read the comments for a summary, leave her on in the background, and dunning kruger a point she makes to feel smart, then lose intellectual interest while still letting her talk.

[@UndergradPhysicsUPenn]

Your video was the basis for a very successful lecture I gave at the University of Pennsylvania about how our current situation with Dark Matter is analogous to Electrical theory in the 1800's. Electricity was an empirical phenomena without an explanation. It went over like gang-busters and I give you full credit for that.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

man.. I think electricity is scary now, but imagine how terrified they were back then!

[@Rywen]

Would love more detail on that if you’re willing/able to share. Historical context makes physics a lot more fun and digestible.

[@0sm1um76]

​@Rywen You know Maxwell's equations right? Well prior to him, there were scientists and engineers across Europe conducting experiments documenting electromagnetic phenomenon. A lot of them you've heard of(Ampere, Faraday, Coulomb etc), but many of them you haven't. Tons of other "natural philosophers" conducted experiments similar to the big famous ones and measured forces and induced rotations and came up with theoretical explanations and equations which described the motion they observed. Non scientists often say "Oh Maxwell didn't even invent his own laws, he just ammended stuff other people did" as like some sort of burn. But what a lot of people fail to realize is nobody had any way of knowing which of the dozens of laws and ways of describing the same phenomenon were the most fundamental. Out of dozens of laws of electricity or magnetism that explained how certain experimental appratuses moved, he discovered that he could use 4 of those laws to derive every other law that every other natural philosopher published. If you want a more detail on what type of experiments I'm talking about, read up on the experiment where Coulomb's law was derived, Faraday's law, and Ampere's law were derived. And imagine how jank those original experimental setups were since they were made in the 1700s and 1800s. EDIT: Also peer review was much less of a thing. People who had decent reputations or good writing/oratory skills could just publish any old stuff. So scientists/natural philosophers also had to be able to read about other people's experimental setups and diagnose possible issues with them or try to replicate them at home. Because many of these electromagnetic laws proposed were also caused by flawed experimental setups. It's not a coincidence the ones with the best contemporary reputations were the ones who devised the simplist experimental setups/the most easily verifiable results.

[@maconcamp472]

The Big Bang Theory!! 🐘 🐾 🥁 Each thought represents a bang❗️Higher vibrational thoughts 🐝🐝🐝 will create bigger bangs‼️ Pebbles And Bam Bam!! 🧊 🦕 🧊 🦖 🧊 🦣 🧊 Each grain of sand or pebble, a building block for planets or dark matter!! 🪨 Dark energy aka consciousness, creates the bang!! Supernovae!! 💥 Super Moons!! Flowery moons!! 🌹 Saturn a flowery moon!! Representing the 6th dimension!! More energy!!🪐 🛸 We control it!! 🧞 We’re stars!!✨ Hi, Hey, Hello!!🦜 The more G’s, the better!! They’ll reflect our minds, technology, and more!! G strings!! 👙 👙👙👙 Our brains look like gum!! 🧠 Juicier the better!!!🍏🍋‍🟩🫐🍍🍎🍌🍈🥥🍐🍉🍒🥝🍊🍇🍑🍋🍓🥭 Love everything until it loves you back!! Mosquitos too!!🦟 ❤ Each of us and each galaxy would represent a cell!! 🦠 We’re stars putting ourselves back together again!! Like Humpty Dumpty!! 🥚 🐓 The sky is blue because we’re meant to imagine it as a diamond!! The auroras then create the rest of the spectrum!! 🌈 💎 A purple sky would reflect the heart of the ocean!! An opened mind!! 🤯 The earth purring more!! Purrrrrple rain!!☔️ 🐈‍⬛ 🧶 Each thought to me is a solar flare, which shifts us into parallel worlds!! It’s hard here!!! I’m a peaceful dude, yet my life here has been super difficult!!🥹 Alpha Centauri represents a shift in consciousness!! Dog planet!! We’re riding the alpha waves!! Woof woof!!🐶 🐾 This is our world peace and enlightenment for the world and universe!! All is one!!😇🥳🥰🤩 We’re each a mini universe!!🌌 The 3 Body Problem represents our gut brain, 🍱 heart,❤️ and mind!! 🧠 The moon is a black hole!! 🕳️ A neutrino!! The planet is a colonized moon!!😇🌍👽 The sun is a shapeshifter!! 🌞 Are you and I sculpting together as a team or as individuals??? 🧑‍🎨 Using the moon as a tool!!! 🪨 The Sun is the eye!!👁️ I love the tool/word grinder!!!😮 We’d be Bumping and Grinding!!😂 The Earth is like a refrigerator and the atmospheric pressure is melting or defrosting the stars above, as if they’ve been in the freezer!! 🥶 It would also reflect us krystalyzing and becoming diamonds in the sky!! 💎 💎💎 Lucy becomes Maisie!! 🐒 👽 We could be stars from above aka heaven, melting everything from above, as well! Like a River Running Through It!!! 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 Gravitational waves or our thoughts raining down on us!! 🌧️ Unlocking a Secret Garden within and outside of us!!🤫 An Oasis!!!🏝️ 🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️ Flowing!!! It helps a lot to flow!!!🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 Letting go, so we can concentrate more and work on our project!! Heaven On Earth!!🌍 👼 Flowers!! 🌺 🌸 💐 and Flow-Ers!!🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 I know energy is still impurrtant!! 😻 And of course imagination!!! Love!!!💗 🐶 🎾 🧶 🐈‍⬛ To create heaven On Earth, the galaxies collide!! 🌌 Twin flames connect!! 🔥 🔥 We’re creating quantum entanglement!! Ghost particles merging, becoming more like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!!👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻 The universe is still the Earth!!⭐️🌍⭐️ We’re seeing it from the insides!! 🕵️ Like we’re inside a volcano 🌋 or wishing well!! The stars and galaxies are like coins!!🪙 The Goonies vibes!! 💀 We’re treasure!! Antarctica is treasure island!! 🐧🇦🇶 Unlocking antimatter!! 🐜 Booby and booty traps exposed!! Planet X!! Hubba Hubba!!🥰 Everything and everyone has been our teacher!!👩‍🏫 3D is like the murky bottom of a bong or volcano!!🌋 The fourth dimension, representing Mars is like the stem of the bong or the volcanos vent!! 👽 Experiencing higher dimensions is like the smoke or magma reaching our mouths 😋 and then circulating through our bodies!! We are the Earth!!🌍 👼 The road less traveled!!!🧳 🌹 Straight up!! 🎈 🎈🎈🎈🎈We’d be super condensed or extremely packed neutron stars!! Like Rigel!! Blueberries!! Antioxidants!! Betelgeuse has evolved into a neutron star!! 🍊🫐 Our long winding road, exploring different dimensions, finally straightening out!! I’m getting Pee Wee vibes!! Large Marge sent me!!🚴😂 We’re vaporized, as if we’ve been smoked or roasted!! 💨 The smoke representing again those compressed neutron stars climbing the higher dimensions of the universe like a chimney!! I’m Mary Poppins, y’all !! ☂️ 🧞‍♀️ It would also represent us as a comet traveling through a wormhole!! 💫 Who me, I’m just a worm!!🐛 🫖 Solving a labyrinth!! 🦉 Solving amaze!!! 🦋 Different energies tell a different story!! 📚 We’re storytellers!! Artists!!🧑‍🎨 We’re energy first!! 🐝 A 12 inch boner is like receiving a foot of snow!!⛄️ 😂 When powered by neutrons and a magnetar energy field, one is like the energizer bunny!!🐰 They’ll keep going and going and going!! 🐇 🐇🐇🐇🐇 If you’re destined to have more than one twin flame, you’re like Frogger, playing leap frog!! Lucy is a sucker for Lillies!! 🐸 🍀 🐸 🍀 🐸🍀🐸🍀🐸 G Force!!!🥳👙🥳👙🥳👙🥳👙🥳 Dorothy’s Ruby red slippers!! ❤❤ Something here in 3D land has to change, yes, mmmmm! Dark Crystal Series!!😍 🧚🏼 We need to get this show rolling!! 🎥 We need our second moon!! Two moons!!! Two Mercurys!! Two black holes!!🕳️ 🕳️ They’ll need some color!! 🌈 Two blood moons!! 🩸 🩸 Two Ruby red slippers!!🥿 🥿 We have to die and become reborn!! Dye!! Dye those slippers red!!😮❤❤😂 Makes complete sense!! 🤯 There’s no place like home!! Home is where the heart is!! Jupiter and the 5th dimension!! 🐸 🍀 Clover Field!!👽 🛸 Time speeds up real fast once we’re there because seeing is definitely believing!! We get excited, hearts start pumping!! 💕 Minds start to open up!! 💜 Oxytocin pumping through our blood!! A love signature!! ✍️ Removing our writers block!! We’re storytellers!! 📚 The two blood moons also like draculas fangs!! Or the fangs of a snake and spider!! An anti venom!!🐍🕷️😳🩸🩸 My story just gets juicier!! When is it juicy enough for you, I guess, is the question!! Strawberry Hill!! Cherry Blossoms!!🍒🍓We even got hills named after chocolate!!🍫 Purrthquakes!! 😻

[@UndergradPhysicsUPenn]

​@@Rywen I don't want to bang on and on here, but there are a few dates that put perspective on things. 1740's: Leyden Jars could store charges. 1800: Volta makes chemical batteries. 1821: Faraday made the first electric motors. 1827: Ohm's Law is written. 1880's: Tesla and Edison have the Current Wars. 1890's: Electrons were discovered.

[@classica1fungus]

Maybe instead of dark matter and dark energy it should be called the gravity problem and the energy problem, because calling it dark matter makes it sound like it's a physical thing that exsists, people aren't dumb for misunderstanding it, the name creates the confusion.

[@alexfright8217]

Agreed

[@MsSonali1980]

As most time with physics. Either something has the name of some dead dude or it is so highly abstract named with a word that has already a well defined meaning in the public. Maths does the same but physics is worse, since physics tries to explain the reality around us.

[@Samantha_yyz]

I disagree, I've understood dark matter since elementary school watching science channel and just being like whoa space big and cool and so so so big there are still things we straight up don't understand. Dark matter, weird weight we can't see with our cameras but can tell it's effect. It's as intuitive as it is unintuitive, I would say the root of the problem is a mix of, lack of scientific literacy, an inability to wholly engage with a "lecture" (as in they don't really listen to the video but rather just take away what they decided she Would say), and ppl commenting real early in the video to show how smart they are but not edit there comment after finishing the video

[@MsSonali1980]

​@@Samantha_yyz With all due respect, not everyone did watch content about dark matter as a toddler. There was no public internet when I was young and we only relied on TV for entertainment and additional education. I was always scientifically inclined and watched sciences programmes, that doesn't change, that words have a colloquial meaning. And before telling people they should edit "there" (sic) comments you may should stop throwing stones in glass houses. I get where are you coming from, and yes, people that comment without having finished the video are annoying, but your comment is more focused on yourself and how smart you are in comparison to others. I think it is a valid criticism that "dark matter" sounds like one single thing instead a collection of problems. Idk if changing the wording would stop people to assume something else and go to mansplain in the comment section of YT-videos. It's more a sociological question than one of physics. But the really interested people would maybe not have such a hard time to wrap their head around certain concepts (I don't even talk about Dark Matter here).

[@karuki5791]

@@Samantha_yyz TL;DR The words dark and matter imply a non visible particle which forms matter, which isn't a good description. The thing is, almost all videos about dark matter describe it as a form of matter that we don't know yet, which then causes there to be additional mass which we can't observe directly but we can observe it's effects. The very word 'matter' implies that it is a particle. With all due respect, I don't believe that you genuinely understood dark matter as just a collection of discrepancies between observations and the standard model, rather than just a weird form of matter we can't see. Mond for example just can't be described with the same terminology, which is why people think it is a separate theory or outside the realm of dark matter theories (regardless of how effective it is). Also the word dark describes something we can't physically see, but implies that there is a something which you can't see, you wouldn't exactly describe something like gravitational waves as dark, but if a particle you couldn't see existed, you would.

[@nik90001]

I came away from the last video thinking "dark matter is the name of a problem." You were the first person to clearly articulate that to me. Thank you.

[@Uzotrups]

yes. that

[@bookshelfhoney]

I came away thinking dark matter what is it? Do we need it? How much

[@GSBarlev]

​@@bookshelfhoney_Do we need it? Do we need it? Do we need it?_

[@Kosmokraton]

I think this is in part why people are so thoroughly confused on the subject. I don't know if it's the scientists themselves, or just a product of pop science, but I suspect dark matter is fully equated with particle theories of dark matter in the mind of almost everyone without a physics Ph.D. I was also unaware of the distinction. I was aware of the set of observations, and (a few of) the competing theories which are attempting to explain it, and also that none of the theories are widely accepted as complete settled answers, even by their advocates. Even knowing all this, I didn't know that "dark matter" most properly relates to the set of observations as opposed to particle-based explanations. Of course... watching the video helped clear it up, so that's not a good excuse for a comment missing the point. But it might be a good explanation.

[@kevinpiala6258]

Same. Even if I was loosely aware that there was no theory of dark-matter(generally), my mind had not crystalized on the subject - I would have been unprepared to get in an argument about it. Nothing said was truly revolutionary, but it was said in a way that really helped me digest a bunch of separate facts into a coherent view.

[@TheKerfufffle]

Angela: People don't find me fun actually. Us: _Wow what a fun science communicator_

[@ghostcrow_202]

I actually laughed out loud like 3 times while watching this video.

[@annaairahala9462]

I actually consider her one of the best science communicators on youtube

[@iandoesallthethings]

The same people who don't find her fun also don't find me fun and are therefore not worth listening to sooooo 💅

[@billyt8868]

….its fine. its fine.

[@piedpiper1172]

In her recent Q&A she said she didn’t think she was a science communicator. So we generally disagree with her on two points: She is fun She is a science communicator

[@lainlly1]

Angela curled in a ball rocking back and forth in the corner of a dark room muttering "Dark matter is not fudge factor, it's an open question, and it's exciting and fun..."

[@EinsteinsHair]

33:30

[@AG-el6vt]

There is always a subset of people watching online content (especially videos) that, even when it is obvious they didn't sit through the whole thing, feel entitled enough to type down comments that show how they obviously did either not actually watch it, or did not pay enough attention to it to grasp what is actually being shown. They're not there to interact with the content, like learn something new, or give feedback, or provide anything useful to anyone. They're there to shout at the content creators. As such, I do not think there's going to be any positive outcome from considering their opinions.

[@DavidPumpernickel]

I got an ad for Grammarly on this video that started with "Explaining complex topics can be challenging"

[@frogonlilypad]

apparently simple concepts are too : )

[@AlexDoesYouTubes]

why are you not using uBlock Origin?

[@WizardofoOZeAU]

Then there were the thousands of us who did not comment and just nodded in agreement.

[@JilynnFurlet]

Yup, that's me. I found the original presentation clear, concise, and informative. So much so that I have to tamp down my impulse to think of the ones that didn't grasp her points as unintelligent, bad listeners, bigoted, or afflicted with some other mental impairment. Without meeting and talking with them that would be overbroad and in some cases untrue. Some cases.....

[@cyberdemon7694]

Yeah exactly, the people compelled to comment are either the ones who disagree, or just want to state something in particular about it. Or make a joke. It's hard to measure of course. But I suppose it'd be different if you got "ratio'd" where it's huge dislikes and way more comments, like half of all views or something, and most disagree etc. 900 comments seems like a lot but out of 500000 views it doesn't seem like a lot. Again, hard to know. But I'm guessing people don't watch a video like this many times over. But perhaps multiple partial viewings also count as views? If you make some huge assumption that say 1 in 3 views is a unique person, then it's 166k people, and 900 comments got written (maybe 1 per each person, again can be different) and the rest agree, that still massively in your favour. But you can't know I guess.

[@frasercain]

If it's any consolation, I thought your original video was one of the powerful pieces of science communication I've watched in years. Your title was absolutely perfect, and the "it's a list of observations, not a theory" was a Eureka moment for my conception for how to communicate it. I reference this video to people all the time.

[@aelolul]

If only we had a video explaining how Lagrange points work ;)

[@badwolf8112]

i didn't watch it because i thought the title was clickbait with the word 'theory' used to mean 'speculation'. to people like me (pedantic people jaded with clickbait?) it might've been better to change 'theory' in the title to 'scientific theory'.

[@IntrinsicExternality]

​@@badwolf8112 wouldn't that be superfluous? It's already in the context of science so of course she's talking about a 'scientific' theory... And if you didn't watch the video, I also hope that means that you didn't comment based on that assumption or that you're trying to excuse people who might have done that

[@hipser]

I'd like to ask you about the Nancy Grace Roman telescope sir..

[@BenWS]

​@@badwolf8112 I watched it because I was curious in the other direction, like "oh? Did they finally figure it out? It's definitely some kind of particle mass and not MOND?" because I was thinking dark matter and MOND were competing theories to explain the observations. I think think a good video title would have been "Dark Matter is real (we just don't know what it is)".

[@linetap]

Hi Angela! I discovered you through your recent Picard video, which I completely agree with. As a TNG superfan, I naturally gave Picard a shot, but it didn’t quite resonate with me. As a side note, I ended up rewatching Voyager, and it was incredibly satisfying. Despite its faults, the CGI holds up, and the series has a great spirit. Another side note, if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend The Expanse. After watching your Picard video, I couldn’t resist diving into your other content, dedicating hours to exploring your channel. I stumbled upon some silicone aliens, realized you're a doctor, and eventually landed on your “Dark Matter is Not a Theory” video, which I just finished watching a few minutes ago. Initially, about 5 or 10 minutes in, I thought, “What? What’s the clickbait hell is this?” But as I kept watching, I quickly realized the depth of your content and finished the full 55 minutes. I don’t think you failed at all. I believe the scope of your video was to show that dark matter itself isn’t a theory but rather an observable issue. And there's a quite a few theories to explain that observable problem. Maybe the issue lies in the name itself-perhaps it’s “dark,” maybe it’s “matter.” But either way, I think you were clear in your message. Of course, this is the internet, so there’s always a group of armchair physicists seeking validation-myself probably included, lol! But I digress; I love your videos and the depth with which you explore the subject matter!

[@billfleming9329]

The connection between dark matter and MOND is very easy to explain using violin plots based on string theory. My AI, which definitely exists, is going to write a paper on this as soon as it finishes building my space elevator, which we can and should use.

[@obansrinathan]

Does it also involve how the scouring of the shire was both boring and unnecessary in the books and should have been in the movies?

[@phil6419]

If you need my net positive commercial fusion reactor it will be ready tomorrow.

[@wraithwrecker_]

I love this comment. This og shit.

[@johnclifford4185]

@@phil6419 I can have it ready decades ago if you throw in my time machine!

[@perkinscurry8665]

You can power your space elevator with anti-matter because it falls up.

[@KevinDay]

I am 100% convinced that there is an enormous contingent people who see a title and thumbnail, and assume they must already know everything you are going to say, and so they can comment as if they have watched the video without actually taking the time to listen to it. There's almost nothing you can do about these people while keeping titles and thumbnails interesting for the Algorithm.

[@killyosaur2018]

I feel like she could have titled this "Dark Matter is the name we give to the collection of observations explaining a problem with the Standard Model's predictions of the universe" and still had people claiming either she doesn't know what she is talking about or making further comments about Mond and the like. At some point no amount of further explanation is going to convince anyone to actually watch the video and comprehend the statements therein.

[@takanara7]

@@killyosaur2018 I actually once had that happen in a comment thread, lol. I explained what the term "Dark Matter" actually meant and a bunch of people who just knew about it from like pop-science articles said I was wrong. Pretty annoying.

[@katiekawaii]

Yes, that's exactly what happens.

[@dabwiso784]

Least favourite thing is when an interesting video has a question as a title and most comments are just answering the question instead of commenting on the content of the video.

[@markolson4660]

@@killyosaur2018 I completely agree. I did not watch it because the title was clearly wrong -- it appeared to be click-bait. "Dark Matter" in common understanding *is* a theory explaining a set of observations. (Perhaps among specialists "Dark Matter" is a label for the set of observations, but a science communicator needs to avoid jargon when it will confuse.)

[@WithSquared]

a 1 hour video of pure deadpan sarcasm is exactly what i subscribed to this channel for, thank you

[@WithSquared]

also, the amount of people making serious comments trying to make her feel better, though heartwarming, is perfectly ironic given the premise of the video is that people are commenting before watching the video lol

[@insertwittyusername9615]

@@WithSquared wait its sarcasm? i watched the whole video and didn't fully. huh.

[@pulykamell]

@@insertwittyusername9615Yeah, it’s hard to tell because it just seems to be her natural cadence and tone, so it’s sometimes hard to tell when it is actual sarcasm and when it’s just her style of speaking. (Though, to be fair, the two may be one.)

[@stuntmonkey00]

@@pulykamell It's not hard to tell, it's only hard to tell if you you aren't actually listening. It's like how people think that "Born in the USA" is a patriotic song or "Hey Ya" is a happy song, but "y'all don't wanna hear me, you just wanna comment"

[@lux-co3nl]

Wait, so yo mean she hasn't failed as a science communicator?

[@comedyman4896]

I've been binging Star Trek TNG and I literally just watched the Tam Elbron episode like an hour ago, it seriously threw me for a loop when you brought that up out of the blue

[@ultimaIXultima]

Lol my mind was like "that empath dude who talked to the living space ship?" And then I thought "wow I watched way too much TNG in my life..." 😅

[@GoldenMinotaur]

"I wanted to lead the audience to a conclusion by presenting all the evidence" Your optimism warms my jaded soul

[@matthewwalker6805]

“Dark matter is not a theory but a set of observations” is burned permanently into my brain now so I think you were very clear about that. I realise you are being hard on yourself for comedy purposes but it’s a bit hard to watch: you’re doing great, Angela! Just bear in mind people like me who watched the video, went, “huh, interesting” using their interior monologues and didn’t comment. I guess you could say we’re the KZbin dark matter! (We might be neutrinos.)

[@matthewwalker6805]

Oh so maybe the universe is the analytics mechanism for a social media platform beyond our abilities to comprehend, and the observable universe is comments and gravity is views. Dark energy was paid marketing in the early days of the platform resulting in hyperinflation. This explains everything. 😁

[@GSBarlev]

I will be forever grateful for her introducing me to the Dark Matter Rap.

[@scribblescrabble3185]

I certainly have more mass than a neutrino, maybe I should try oscillating too.

[@maconcamp472]

The Big Bang Theory!! 🐘 🐾 🥁 Each thought represents a bang❗️Higher vibrational thoughts 🐝🐝🐝 will create bigger bangs‼️ Pebbles And Bam Bam!! 🧊 🦕 🧊 🦖 🧊 🦣 🧊 Each grain of sand or pebble, a building block for planets or dark matter!! 🪨 Dark energy aka consciousness, creates the bang!! Supernovae!! 💥 Super Moons!! Flowery moons!! 🌹 Saturn a flowery moon!! Representing the 6th dimension!! More energy!!🪐 🛸 We control it!! 🧞 We’re stars!!✨ Hi, Hey, Hello!!🦜 The more G’s, the better!! They’ll reflect our minds, technology, and more!! G strings!! 👙 👙👙👙 Our brains look like gum!! 🧠 Juicier the better!!!🍏🍋‍🟩🫐🍍🍎🍌🍈🥥🍐🍉🍒🥝🍊🍇🍑🍋🍓🥭 Love everything until it loves you back!! Mosquitos too!!🦟 ❤ Each of us and each galaxy would represent a cell!! 🦠 We’re stars putting ourselves back together again!! Like Humpty Dumpty!! 🥚 🐓 The sky is blue because we’re meant to imagine it as a diamond!! The auroras then create the rest of the spectrum!! 🌈 💎 A purple sky would reflect the heart of the ocean!! An opened mind!! 🤯 The earth purring more!! Purrrrrple rain!!☔️ 🐈‍⬛ 🧶 Each thought to me is a solar flare, which shifts us into parallel worlds!! It’s hard here!!! I’m a peaceful dude, yet my life here has been super difficult!!🥹 Alpha Centauri represents a shift in consciousness!! Dog planet!! We’re riding the alpha waves!! Woof woof!!🐶 🐾 This is our world peace and enlightenment for the world and universe!! All is one!!😇🥳🥰🤩 We’re each a mini universe!!🌌 The 3 Body Problem represents our gut brain, 🍱 heart,❤️ and mind!! 🧠 The moon is a black hole!! 🕳️ A neutrino!! The planet is a colonized moon!!😇🌍👽 The sun is a shapeshifter!! 🌞 Are you and I sculpting together as a team or as individuals??? 🧑‍🎨 Using the moon as a tool!!! 🪨 The Sun is the eye!!👁️ I love the tool/word grinder!!!😮 We’d be Bumping and Grinding!!😂 The Earth is like a refrigerator and the atmospheric pressure is melting or defrosting the stars above, as if they’ve been in the freezer!! 🥶 It would also reflect us krystalyzing and becoming diamonds in the sky!! 💎 💎💎 Lucy becomes Maisie!! 🐒 👽 We could be stars from above aka heaven, melting everything from above, as well! Like a River Running Through It!!! 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 Gravitational waves or our thoughts raining down on us!! 🌧️ Unlocking a Secret Garden within and outside of us!!🤫 An Oasis!!!🏝️ 🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️ Flowing!!! It helps a lot to flow!!!🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 Letting go, so we can concentrate more and work on our project!! Heaven On Earth!!🌍 👼 Flowers!! 🌺 🌸 💐 and Flow-Ers!!🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 I know energy is still impurrtant!! 😻 And of course imagination!!! Love!!!💗 🐶 🎾 🧶 🐈‍⬛ To create heaven On Earth, the galaxies collide!! 🌌 Twin flames connect!! 🔥 🔥 We’re creating quantum entanglement!! Ghost particles merging, becoming more like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!!👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻 The universe is still the Earth!!⭐️🌍⭐️ We’re seeing it from the insides!! 🕵️ Like we’re inside a volcano 🌋 or wishing well!! The stars and galaxies are like coins!!🪙 The Goonies vibes!! 💀 We’re treasure!! Antarctica is treasure island!! 🐧🇦🇶 Unlocking antimatter!! 🐜 Booby and booty traps exposed!! Planet X!! Hubba Hubba!!🥰 Everything and everyone has been our teacher!!👩‍🏫 3D is like the murky bottom of a bong or volcano!!🌋 The fourth dimension, representing Mars is like the stem of the bong or the volcanos vent!! 👽 Experiencing higher dimensions is like the smoke or magma reaching our mouths 😋 and then circulating through our bodies!! We are the Earth!!🌍 👼 The road less traveled!!!🧳 🌹 Straight up!! 🎈 🎈🎈🎈🎈We’d be super condensed or extremely packed neutron stars!! Like Rigel!! Blueberries!! Antioxidants!! Betelgeuse has evolved into a neutron star!! 🍊🫐 Our long winding road, exploring different dimensions, finally straightening out!! I’m getting Pee Wee vibes!! Large Marge sent me!!🚴😂 We’re vaporized, as if we’ve been smoked or roasted!! 💨 The smoke representing again those compressed neutron stars climbing the higher dimensions of the universe like a chimney!! I’m Mary Poppins, y’all !! ☂️ 🧞‍♀️ It would also represent us as a comet traveling through a wormhole!! 💫 Who me, I’m just a worm!!🐛 🫖 Solving a labyrinth!! 🦉 Solving amaze!!! 🦋 Different energies tell a different story!! 📚 We’re storytellers!! Artists!!🧑‍🎨 We’re energy first!! 🐝 A 12 inch boner is like receiving a foot of snow!!⛄️ 😂 When powered by neutrons and a magnetar energy field, one is like the energizer bunny!!🐰 They’ll keep going and going and going!! 🐇 🐇🐇🐇🐇 If you’re destined to have more than one twin flame, you’re like Frogger, playing leap frog!! Lucy is a sucker for Lillies!! 🐸 🍀 🐸 🍀 🐸🍀🐸🍀🐸 G Force!!!🥳👙🥳👙🥳👙🥳👙🥳 Dorothy’s Ruby red slippers!! ❤❤ Something here in 3D land has to change, yes, mmmmm! Dark Crystal Series!!😍 🧚🏼 We need to get this show rolling!! 🎥 We need our second moon!! Two moons!!! Two Mercurys!! Two black holes!!🕳️ 🕳️ They’ll need some color!! 🌈 Two blood moons!! 🩸 🩸 Two Ruby red slippers!!🥿 🥿 We have to die and become reborn!! Dye!! Dye those slippers red!!😮❤❤😂 Makes complete sense!! 🤯 There’s no place like home!! Home is where the heart is!! Jupiter and the 5th dimension!! 🐸 🍀 Clover Field!!👽 🛸 Time speeds up real fast once we’re there because seeing is definitely believing!! We get excited, hearts start pumping!! 💕 Minds start to open up!! 💜 Oxytocin pumping through our blood!! A love signature!! ✍️ Removing our writers block!! We’re storytellers!! 📚 The two blood moons also like draculas fangs!! Or the fangs of a snake and spider!! An anti venom!!🐍🕷️😳🩸🩸 My story just gets juicier!! When is it juicy enough for you, I guess, is the question!! Strawberry Hill!! Cherry Blossoms!!🍒🍓We even got hills named after chocolate!!🍫 Purrthquakes!! 😻

[@michaelmicek]

And thank goodness she didn't title it that or we never would have gotten this video.

[@JohnnyKelly]

Maan, the *snark* of this video is so beautiful to behold. Repeatedly saying, "I probably should have said..." Cutting to the original video with you saying *exactly* that thing and then saying, "It's my fault for not saying it in the original video. I'm a bad Science Communicator."" This is chef's kiss level snark. And the amount of people now commenting on THIS video trying to give you reassurance that you shouldn't feel bad for not saying it... It's... Beautiful.

[@asmodean3387]

I was thinking this the whole time watching the video and laughing so hard. This video was a wolf dressed up in sheep's clothing as in pretending to say she is bad at communicating while actually just giving her chance to dunk on those commentors while appearing nice about it. And I loved it. You can see it when she ends the video with her anecdote of not caring about the opinion of the guy who called her a liar to her face, aka the commentors. 😂

[@creepylookingtree]

maybe dark matter is actually all the salt emanating from this video? though obviously to make it work we'd still need a slight modification to the laws of gravity at large scales.

[@GSBarlev]

​@@creepylookingtreeIf that's true, I really want to visit those galaxies with the super high densities of DM. I would finally find my home in the universe.

[@altrag]

@@creepylookingtree MOdified iNternet Debate to the rescue.

[@Professor_Brie]

I’m surprised that no other comments seem to be noticing this

[@ericbornhorst9847]

I don't comment on videos much, but just wanted to let you know, I watched your previous video on Dark Matter with basically no knowledge on Dark Matter and I thought your explanations that it is not a theory it is a problem that we don't have a perfect answer for yet, was very clear and I am not sure how people did not get that. Thank you for all of the work you put in to explain it to people like me, who just want to watch/listen to a video on something interesting that a creator cares a lot about.

[@michaelprozonic]

60% but don’t worry, we are grading on a curve so you still get an A-

[@Rabcup]

Accurate to my experience in physics during undergrad

[@terranosuchus]

A galaxy rotation curve!

[@Tysca_]

... Maybe I should go back to finish my engineering degree after all.

[@LaPrincipessaNuova]

@@Rabcup My first undergrad physics exam I got something like 42/100 and I was devastated because I’d never seen a curve that ended up changing things by more than 1 letter grade. Then the professor congratulated me on getting the highest grade in the class.

[@rog2224]

The curve I was graded on for maths in 1981 had a 4% difference between an A and "why did you turn up?" grade.

[@shpoafphy2568]

The phrase "I can only explain it to you, I can't understand it for you" comes to mind.

[@KarlMarcus8468]

for sure, I also feel as though this seems to be a particularly obvious example of the majority of that 90% didn't put in even the bare minimum effort to try though. It will never not blow my mind seeing a hoard of dudes rushing to smugly tell the fucking theoretical physicist how wrong she is about physics with just no self awareness on the radar. It's like they're compelled to shout to the entire internet that they're a real life version of a walking and typing dunning kruger effect and they'll be damned if not every single person on youtube isnt fully aware of that at all times.

[@mathemagician26]

College math teacher here. I feel The Doubt™️ after almost every single lesson. I find the most important points I want to drive home, I come up with memorable ways to communicate them, we practice examples together and I comment on student work, then they turn in the same six algebra errors on every assignment for the semester 🤷🏽

[@charlemagnesclock]

There may be a research opportunity here on something to do with our assumptions about human reasoning and learning abilities. Maybe "The Doubt" is merely the left end of a normal distribution curve that has some reasonably consistent values across many fields including physics and math. If so, then the premise of this particular video of Angela's is simply wrong because of too much focus on that end of the curve. That's a question, not a theory.

[@JohnTyree]

The dejected resignation of "then they turn in the same six algebra errors on every assignment for the semester 🤷‍♀️" has me cracking up. I can just picture it so clearly. It's beautiful. It's like an article from the Onion.

[@BasedKungFu]

The retention is HORRENDOUS

[@hedgehog3180]

Tbf an error is at least teachable so you haven't failed completely.

[@billyalarie929]

Demoralizing 😔

[@wetsidedown]

I love your videos! Thanks!

[@fabiolean]

“I don’t wanna shit on the three people doing MOND” Just savage

[@philipstuckey4922]

I love me some damning with faint praise

[@calmkat9032]

Blud is starting kayfabe with Sabine Hossenfelder.

[@calmkat9032]

Kayfabe might be the wrong word. But it's the kind of thing a drama KZbinr would hop on if any of them watched stuff like this.

[@JohnKane1996]

I understood it as "Stuff falls down isn't a theory. Why they fall down is."

[@SRocinante]

The problem comes when you describe stuff falls down as "the gravity problem". You are blatantly invoking the name of the theory while claiming to only be talking about the problem. Dark matter is a theory. The problem is "large scale gravitational models don't work properly"

[@tonybalinski2398]

@@SRocinante​​⁠kind of true. The dark matter problem, expressed as such, favors a particular hypothesis in its name. But that’s just a shorthand. Maybe the “gravitational discrepancy problem” would be a better name, actually pointing out where the problem lies, but, as Angela points out, she didn’t give it the name.

[@pepsakdoek1029]

@@SRocinante This PHD in physics says repeatedly (like 20x or more) in this video: "Dark matter is not a theory". Why are you saying it's a theory? Please rewatch the video. It's not a theory...

[@IronCakeN]

@@SRocinante ehh yes and no. The dark matter problem is a good name for it regardless (at least within science), because the whole issue is that our observations are that everything is behaving as if there is a load of extra matter that we can't detect. That doesn't mean there is this extra matter, but just that any theory needs to explain why it looks like there is extra matter. It's the same as calling it the stuff falls down problem. I'll grant you that the name is probably really confusing to a layperson since it really does sound like it means there *is* this extra matter, but that's just a misunderstanding. It's called that because we need an explanation as to why galaxies behave as if they have a bunch of invisible matter, whether that matter is really there or not.

[@spurdosparde5345]

@@tonybalinski2398 As if that doesn't point to mond.

[@albertjordan3249]

56:34 "I have sent it to all my dark matter friends." Saddest kind of friendship. You can't even be sure they're real, they might just be a fudge factor or a modified form of gravity. (In case you are compelled to do another statistical analysis of your comments, and it's not obvious, this is a joke. Dark matter is a collection of observations, much like friendship. We know its real, but we can't always explain why people or particles put up with us enough to stick around.)

[@mannygee005]

Dark matter friends are not a theory.

[@Procoffeiev]

I think dark matter friends are made of dark matter. (This reply is summarising the comment as a reply for the algorithm or something, nobody understands how the algorithm works, it's just a theory).

[@xHomu]

Maybe the real dark matter is the friends we made along the way.

[@Kosmokraton]

Maybe the friends we made along the way are the real dark matter.

[@PwnationMastr77]

For what it’s worth, I think much of the confusion around 20:52 about it not being a theory comes from conflating the problem of dark matter with missing particle theories, which I know I personally did before watching the previous video. I think it is more common in pop-physics spaces to use dark matter as a term not for the problem caused by the observations, but for specific theories about about novel particles to explain the problem

[@Cheyne_TetraMFG]

Honestly, “dark matter is not a theory, it’s a series of observations” is such a helpful mantra to begin to understand the nature of dark matter, and it was so helpful to me that imo if anyone didn’t get it, that’s their own fault. But I truly admire your ability to self-crit as an educator myself as well.

[@peterkapinos277]

I think the mantra is great for starting into any line of inquiry. "What data do we have, and do we need more before making any hypothesis about it? If we put it through a type of analysis, does it NEED a hypothesis even still?"

[@Brendakye2468]

Now I ain't no academic but an old adage that I feel applies to this is "you can lead a horse to water." You didn't fail, you got a 60% success rate in a world where people have a very strong anti-science sentiment when trying to explain a relatively complex topic. You did amazing and ended up educating a lot of people.

[@gemstone7818]

sure but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, the anti-science people would only comprise of a small percentage of the fail rate, and angela talks about the many ways she could have helped communicate the core video idea better

[@Brendakye2468]

@@gemstone7818 she also highlighted the number of people that commented while prefacing their reply with "I haven't watched this yet" which shows that there is only so much that could be done. No matter how much work she put into improving the video there would still be a large population that simply wouldn't care to engage with it enough for it to do anything. Improve it. Be self critical. Still isn't a failure.

[@gemstone7818]

people commenting before watching a video is quite common but that doesn't say much about how many of those people did watch the video but still left the comment, and it isn't really as though the people aren't willing to engage with the video, they simply have the wrong idea for what a counter point to the video would be, and its not really true that the amount of work put into a video doesn't matter, a more entertaining, concise, well communicated video is going to be more well understood by more people, like vsauce or kurtzgesagt for example, and it is after all the nature of science to change minds, if people are unconvinced then there is more work that can be done to help that

[@Brendakye2468]

@@gemstone7818 I agree that the amount of work put into communication can have positive effects but you must consider that communication is a two way street. I can say one thing but if the recipient has the bias that I am wrong and they refuse to challenge that cognitive bias then no amount of effort will ever improve the outcome. To tie this in, anecdotally I used to work as a social media analyst and the team I was on would guage the response to our content. No matter how we perceived the quality of the content ourselves we would always have people that came in with extreme biases that no amount of evidence and no quality of work would change. There were also people that we had very good suspicion didn't ever actually read or watch the content beyond the title but would still argue. Yes we could improve but when we put out an article and video on vaccinations (pre-covid mind you) we were flooded with this. At the end of the day, science communication is really hard. A positive feedback rate, even if it can be improved upon, of 60% (or rather a negative feedback of only 40%) is amazingly good. That means that a majority of people walked away either the same or smarter. Dr Collier is one person, one scientist. Her work has resulted in people learning more about a topic that is often a misrepresented and, amongst many groups of people, quite devisive topic. It's not a failure, it's not perfect (never will be), but it's movement in the right direction. It's an amazing accomplishment that even teams of people that specialize in the field of communication struggle to achieve.

[@iyziejane]

I'll just point out the irony of you equating skepticism with "anti-science." The real decline of science our world is experiencing is a decline of skepticism and critical thinking! Dark matter and cosmology in general is a fun story, but name calling and brow beating people into accepting assertions with little evidence or understanding, that's anti-science.

[@brenatevi]

The problem with communication is that you expect people to listen, but quite often they aren't listening, but waiting for you to shut up so they can give their opinion.

[@Tim3.14]

I wonder how many of those commenters watched even half way through the video

[@xBINARYGODx]

This - videos that clearly explain why MOND is one of the worst explanations, comparatively, are just loaded with comments from mond people who are complaining about others being religious about science when really its them and the people like them that are being "religious" about mond.

[@rodneytopor1846]

I've heard that the definition of a conversation is when two people take it in turns to wait for the other person to stop speaking so that they can speak!

[@jell0goeswiggle]

>waiting for you to shut up so they can give their opinion. That describes the big bang denial guy perfectly. I'd give 10:1 odds he's a fundamentalist Christian who had no intention of ever believing a naturalistic explanation for the beginning of the universe.

[@zynga726]

The video is 1 hour. I don't have that luxury anymore. I read comments to get the gist of the video and that's the problem. If the video were 15 min or less I would watch them.

[@csxcatgirl9896]

I just think it's funny that Angela once decided to gatekeep the knowledge on how quickly water boils.

[@orterves]

It's not gatekeeping if the gate is wide open and you're free to walk through, but you just can't be bothered and want someone to carry you like you're a petulant child

[@verrigo]

@@orterves I don't know who you are, but I love u :D

[@ColonelMidi]

sooo.. this was on my frontpage without context and now ive spend the last few hours watching this channel while having no background in physics whatsoever. great times

[@erenjaegersrightbicep63]

Welcome to the Angelaverse XD

[@CatFish107]

Counterpoint to "that screen will rot your brain."

[@HighFlyActionGuy]

thats how most of us got here, albeit at different times.

[@syntext]

My introduction was the spider video, welcome to the club.

[@bogdiworksV2]

so what's your stance on MOND?

[@asherael]

It sounds like people are so hung up on "evolution is just a theory" arguments and got a bit lost in the sauce because of arguing with creationists and flat earthers. They expect "[thing] is/isn't a theory" to mean something EXTREMELY specific

[@JamesHawkeYouTube]

Evolution isn't scientific and Earth IS a measured level horizontal plane. Get used to it.

[@Alphabunsquad]

Yeah that is clearly what’s happening. They need to go listen to NdGT explain it again. They know creationists are wrong but they are wrong about the way creationists are wrong. A theory is an explanation of a well observed fact. A theory about dark matter is an attempted explanation about the fact of existence of dark matter. A theory of evolution is an attempted explanation of the fact that evolution is observed. The theory of evolution by natural selection is incredibly substantiated and you could even argue that it is itself now an observable fact, but that doesn’t stop it from being a theory because you can’t upgrade a theory. Hence why you have the law of gravitation and the theory of gravitation.

[@AWildBard]

I think you are correct.

[@jessewoellhof6843]

The concept of a hypothesis is so important to how my whole brain works it's like body horror imagining what goes on in these people's minds without it

[@MsSonali1980]

@@jessewoellhof6843 That's on the educational system. The first time I heard of the concept of hypothesis vs. theory was at Uni. Which is sad. I have the same opinion about basic psychological and sociological concepts. The interaction of people with each other could be less aggressive and misunderstanding if schools took an effort. Here in Germany, there is a saying, that if you try something and it isn't realistical or didn't work, you say "In Theorie sollte es funktionieren/funktioniert haben" (this should work/should've worked in theory), which describes the definition of hypothesis but uses theory as word. So, theory and hypothesis converge to the same meaning. This results in misunderstanding of, fe. Theory of Evolution. In physics they throw formulae at you, you have to memorise but don't provide (mathematical) background for them. So, your understanding is flimsy at best. You have to calculate speeds and velocities without ever having heard of a derivative and what it means. In maths they make you use definition and value areas and use the R symbol, without telling you what a set is. You learn functions, but don't learn what relations are...

[@Ninjapig789]

Hey Angela, I just wanted to say that as a High school Teacher, your frustration with people having the point of the lesson go over their head is super common. Don’t beat yourself up about it too hard. You’re doing the right thing that any good educator would do when faced with this reality, reteach 👍

[@KarlMarcus8468]

I think that was a very sweet comment to make but I think if the extremely subtle sarcasm I managed to pick up on from this video is any indication, she's not to worried about it. I almost just would have missed it until around the 12th time where she had read comment from that prior video, then played a clip of herself from that very same video where she had already clearly stated the information which would have directly addressed the commenters objection with the phrase "what we have here, is a failure to communicate" written with a rather large font on the bottom entire half of the screen. you know, blink and you'd miss it. say uh, what subject do you primarily teach there at that High school Teaching job you've got? I'm hoping it's not English, that is.

[@user-vg7vr7kh7i]

Angela, as a professional physicist with around 22 years of experience, I must say, perhaps a large part of the problem is the label itself: dark matter. This implies the existence of something, i.e., an answer, not the lack of any theory for unexplained observations. Once quantum mechanics was on the horizon, did anyone suggest a label like "dark matter" or "fuzzy matter"? No. Isn't it a bit strange to put such a label on observations that do not fit any (well-accepted) explanation? It is all-too-often the implicit assumptions that sink our best efforts at communication.

[@radadadadee]

Exactly! It's such a cunning trickery to conflate the missing matter problem with dark matter and call the latter "not a theory"

[@64hdr0m3d4rY]

so true

[@jonnyoneplate]

As a professional you should provide at least one suggestion to solve the problem you point out, even if its a half assed suggestion. A chef telling a cook "this doesnt taste good" isnt very professional; if they'd said "it needs more salt" that would be better. Do better

[@gonzola3k214]

​@@jonnyoneplateI didn't read that as a criticism of Angela, but just wanting to note another possible contributor to that common misunderstanding. Just as a long time curious layperson whose opinion holds zero weight, I agree, the name "Dark Matter" makes it easy to assume it's more of "a thing" than "a problem." I think we have 30-40 years of pop-physics to blame as well. It's a scary name, so some crap CGI with spooky music and a shit explanation is the norm for every cosmology documentary. I don't think either prof here has it within their power to rebrand dark matter. That cat's out of the bag.

[@allenkwan8310]

If only this was 4 hours and there was a Porg costume.

[@MrAgamble]

Two sides of a coin. Two genres of one person.

[@GSBarlev]

Last time she -threatening us with- promised us a six-hour video of Mrs. Robinson Stokes. I'm trying to figure out what Patreon level unlocks that.

[@allenkwan8310]

@@GSBarlev She needs a monthly ramble tier.

[@horsemumbler1]

I want a crossover now.

[@vivianbombycilla9142]

@@allenkwan8310 there *is* a monthly ramble tier. just sayin’

[@411bvRGiskard]

“I don’t want to shit on the 3 people doing mond” is the coldest burn.

[@rawnet101]

It cracked me up too. It’s one of the things I love most about this channel. 😂

[@411bvRGiskard]

@@rawnet101 She is ruthless…with a wry smile

[@SpenceReam]

*For real!* I freaking died… 💀

[@411bvRGiskard]

@@richardnicholas2957 1) No shit there are prob more than three. It was her jab at a wholly incomplete hypothesis that gets more air time than it seemingly deserves. 2) Well by all accounts, it’s a poorly conceived alternative that doesn’t fit observations without convenient synthetic twists.

[@dustindude4995]

Who among us has not burned themselves with dry ice or liquid nitrogen?

[@foobargorch]

two confounders to keep in mind, people who watched and understood but didn't comment, and people who commented but didn't even watch

[@FridgidIdgit]

Definitely some selection bias in this study's participants

[@scottbrower9052]

100%

[@kbm2055]

I believe there is a segment of commenters who use KZbin as a message board only (on some types of videos anyway). I find it aggravating when posters mention something that the video already pointed out as if they are enlightening everyone.

[@Nyocurio]

I would guess that if a video presents something you disagree with, you're much more likely to comment overall, the same way you're more likely to leave a (bad) review on amazon if something went wrong.

[@foobargorch]

@@Nyocurio well this video, at least to me, convincingly makes the point that they didn't actually disagree, i.e. they are strawman disagreements that are presumptuous what the older video is about

[@AWildBard]

So dark matter isn't like epicycles, but it is like unexplained retrograde motion of planets.

[@debrucey]

That’s a pretty good analogy

[@decaydjk8922]

And much like epicycles, which did have functional and predictive value, any replacement theory for (the Standard Model|GR, which are epicycles in this analogy) has to be just as powerful *and* have new effective features.

[@TheAgamidaex]

43:39 "Dark matter disproved Ottawa university" now that's a headline! A whole university cancelled by dark matter.

[@SamGarcia]

So what I'm getting from this video is that MOND is the best and most mathematically rigorous

[@davidevans2810]

Nope

[@dorianleakey]

It is humour, the main focus of the video initially was on how people commented on her last video that Mond was mathematically rigourous, so they repeated that, which is funny. Hope this helps.​@@davidevans2810

[@emptycloud2774]

Nice bait.

[@DundG]

carefull here, in the internet not everyone is at the time of reading in the state of mind to understand it as a joke.

[@ankitk236]

Mond aged like Almond milk

[@MIKAEL212345]

it's pretty simple. people see the "dark matter is not a theory" and their brain instantly goes into tribalism mode cause they've seen a similar sentence used in the evolution "debate" where creationists say "evolution is just a theory"

[@timothyfuller683]

A Game Theory! Sorry, I had to....

[@takanara7]

I think the comment she highlighted, the person was being pedantic about the definition of "theory" as opposed to "hypothesis." Like, I remember learning that definition of "theory" vs "hypothesis" literally in like elementary school. But like, using those pedantic definitions if it's not a hypothesis then it can't be a theory either, so the comment was illogical.

[@RobinOttens]

@@dob6074 The name is so bad. "Dark matter" sounds cool and mysterious, sure. And it is a decent name for the observations; "something" that sorta behaves matter-like that is invisible. But calling it matter also just makes it sound like a tangible, physical thing to most people. Not something you still need theories to explain what you're even seeing.

[@__christopher__]

​@@RobinOttensmaybe it should be called "excess gravitation" instead. After all, gravitation is what's actually measured.

[@mal3diction]

@@RobinOttens It's not invisible, it's dark! I honestly don't know what the distinction is here but I picked that one up through repetition.

[@devinrichards8250]

OK I was losing my mind for the first half of this video because it seemed obvious to me that the confusion was purely coming from the fact that most people assume "dark matter" inherently implies that there is, you know, matter. Which isn't really how you would characterize MOND and other theories. And since, as you mentioned, MOND is over represented online, people are primed to see the title "dark matter is not a theory" and think you're saying "it not a theory, it's a fact." Which, since they think that "dark matter" is an umbrella of all the theories that assume the measurements are explained by matter that is dark, they believe excludes MOND. To be clear I'm not one of these people, and even if I was I think your video makes your true meaning clear enough, but the first half of this video makes it seem like you hadn't even considered how confusing the name is to the lay person, and then around the 40 minute mark you actually talk about that? Saying "if you don't like the name fine but I didn't make the name". Ok? But the people being confused by the name don't know they're being confused by it. They're not taking an issue with you using the confusing name, they just think you're saying something you're not saying BECAUSE of the name. I mean you have this whole bit of going "I should've said that in the video" and then showing the clip of you saying it in the video, but ironically the one thing that probably would've cleared up the confusion would've just been acknowledging that the name sometimes confuses people. Not that you have to do that, your video was clear enough in my opinion. But you did make an hour long video that just barely touches the edge of what people are actually getting confused on. I actually think the epicycles are close to a decent metaphor BTW. Like, imagine how difficult it would've been to support the heliocentric model if the name for "the observation that a planet goes backwards in its orbit" was just called "epicycles". Like, imagine copernicus being told "well heliocentrism is actually just one of many explanations for the epicycle problem". It's counterintuitive.

[@smob0]

"They're just leaving the thesis of the video in a comment, which I don't understand." I like to think they summerized it to help cement the ideas in their minds. Your video was so cool they assigned themselves 2 minutes of homework to help remember it.

[@Qazqi]

Growing up, my anecdotal experience was that most people reacted positively when other people (it's me, I'm the other people) said the same thing with different words. Then at least you're "contributing" something and getting validation, feeling useful, etc.

[@anonymes2884]

At an earlier stage of my physical and emotional development, I discovered in a personal, non-systematic fashion that a majority of my fellow humans gain satisfaction when others say similar things to them but exhibiting linguistic variation. If I can provide anyone with that same satisfaction then I feel like i'm offering fulfilment and a useful service.

[@dindindundun8211]

@@anonymes2884 exactly. "Stating known information" is common and valid in conversation, so by extension that strategy is a social one, as well. I think people arrive at this video and engage with it in a social way, not so much an analytical or rational way as Dr. Collier may have expected. (I just realized the joke)

[@antonliakhovitch8306]

​@@anonymes2884When I was but a wee lad, I sniffed out that my homies were hyped AF when yours truly picked up what they put down and threw it right back at 'em with a touch of pizzazz. That's how they know you a real one, that you ain't cappin, that you aren't a wet fuckin rag.

[@z-beeblebrox]

This is a valid assumption to make, but let's not forget the other more horrible possibility: LLMs are extremely good at taking information and summarizing it, often verbosely but at the very least in their own words. It's not out of the question that spammers are deploying LLMs into comment sections as a form of engagement farming.

[@tonghands]

If dark matter turns out to be made of fudge it's going to be very confusing

[@Asiago9]

A very tasty confusion at least

[@Snow_Fire_Flame]

Could be important provisions for deep space trips in the far future... all the people in cryosleep can be kept on the fudge diet.

[@XDarkxSteel]

If that's the case this video will definitely age like fudge

[@ncpolley]

The perfect solution

[@byrnemeister2008]

Ok, this is the winning comment so far. Did actually laugh out loud.

[@z-beeblebrox]

Listen, if every educational youtube channel decided to grade themselves based on the percentage of users who understood their videos...it would be a massacre out here

[@culwin]

Angela should make some How-To videos, I think.

[@oliviapg]

I think PBS Spacetime, one of the best educational channels out there, would be at about 2% lol

[@Astro2024]

​@oliviapg I absolutely agree. They really jumped the shark

[@oliviapg]

@@Astro2024 I disagree that they jumped the shark. Their content simply goes into a lot of depth for their video times, and assumes a pretty high level of prior knowledge.

[@dutubsucks]

@@oliviapg They do a lot of speculative science information though and do a pretty poor job at actually separating established well grounded science with speculative papers. I feel like they've run out of the basic stuff and have been increasingly done stuff that is mostly speculation, so imo they have jumped the shark.

[@jessesinclair4734]

If it makes you feel any better, I am one of those people who has always been very innately resistant to Dark Matter as a concept. I'm not a scientist, and my math skills are laughably poor. It's why I am an artist. Most science communicators rely on complex math to justify DM. You were the first person to get it across to me in a way my artist-brain could really grasp without the math. You made it click for me, for the first time. So while your video might have missed the mark based on what you wanted out of the video, I do think you are a very good science communicator. Lastly though, It's really funny to me that in your Star Trek analogy, you left out Klingons. Which are, at least in my experience, the majority of Trekkie cosplayers.

[@MCArt25]

As a teacher, if 2 out of 3 students understood what I was talking about, I consider that a smashing success and a sign I did my job well.

[@thelonelybolter8245]

truth

[@BrianFedirko]

haha, that may explain the deep-seated problems here. 2 or 3? woah. wow. I can't even comprehend that. please tell me you taught 5 students. haha

[@manumaster1990]

this alone expains why the educational system we have is bad. btw you really did not get the sarcasm of this video didnt you lol

[@badwolf8112]

what if i'ts 20 out of 30 or 200 out of 300?

[@russelltaylor535]

60% is 3 out of 5, but point taken.

[@Necrotoxin44]

Sometimes something is communicated poorly, but sometimes people just didn't listen.

[@andrewiglinski148]

And sometimes it’s just a lazy hypothesis that’s inevitably going to be proven false.

[@danielvandijk8229]

​@@andrewiglinski148 what hypothesis? Dark matter is just a name for a set of observations. The peculiarity these observations have in common is that the observed gravitational force is higher then that our current accepted models predict. The name is just a historical artifact. Come on, this is the second video Angela made about this.

[@badwolf8112]

@@danielvandijk8229 I wasn't a "dark matter denier" but I didn't watch the original video and I only reached the 3 minute mark of this video on a whim. before that I didn't know what she meant by "it's not a theory". maybe if she made that statement a 1-3 minute video more people would reach. to be honest, it took her less than a minute to explain, from about 2:20 to 3:00. I also originally thought 'theory' was used in the title as clickbait, so maybe if it was 'scientific theory' more would watch/listen. I like physics but im not gonna start watching a 20+ minute video like i have unlimited time and couldn't be doing something else. mind you, I hugely like long form videos. just saying, slightly more precise wording and starting out with the point might've made a difference.

[@stephenskocpol]

Don't worry Angela, there are many people that exactly love your format!

[@andrewiglinski148]

@@danielvandijk8229 In what way is the blind prediction of a real, physical 'thing' not a theory? 'There are noises in the woods' is an observation. 'Those noises come from a monster' is a theory. All this is is trying to be on both side of the fence at once so you can claim to be right no matter what happens, yet still feeling the need to avoid saying 'I don't know'.

[@matthewnewton8812]

“I don’t want to sh*t on the 3 people doing MOND.” Lmao

[@andrewcapra7153]

I just got a video recommendation about Dark Matter after watching this video and it was someone arguing that there was like, some cabal conspiring against MOND because nobody in physics is actually working on it 😂

[@deithlan]

​@@andrewcapra7153😂😂😂

[@vast634]

Laws of nature are not decided by popular vote. There are plenty of string theory researchers working for decades on their theory, with not much to show for. Popularity doesn't mean they are right. And there is no matter found yet that is behaves like the hypothetical dark matter. Its all still a theory, and a bunch of observational data.

[@deithlan]

@@vast634 off you go to the green slice

[@paulg1256]

@@vast634WATCH THE VIDEO… or RE WATCH THE VIDEO. …or, maybe you should suggest there is something wrong with our model Lmao 😂😂😂

[@jimmyjam358YT]

Thanks! I seriously loved the realization "that you should have said that in the video" I jest, I should not have to state that but, I don't want you to group me with those other people who comment without watching the video, hope you get this, you should I think..... but thanks.

[@michaelbellecourt3875]

For a hot second I thought that Angela legitimately thought she was a bad communicator. Then the snark burst through like a raging storm. The fake out will age like a fine wine.

[@GH-oi2jf]

That's it.

[@fghsgh]

yeah i mean seriously i was feeling bad for her

[@l_a_h797]

I thought she really did communicate badly in the earlier video, and was encouraged that maybe she had the humility to listen to feedback and realize she should have done better. That would be a better outcome in my view than "I couldn't have actually communicated poorly, so all these people are wrong and it would be great to post a snarky video saying how dumb they are and how right I was."

[@annodomini2012]

A new plot to show what percentage of viewers understand jokes is incoming

[@trevorsharp460]

​@@l_a_h797I can never tell whether it's that I dont understand her, or that she doesnt understand normal people. She's this like, cloistered expert with hyperspecific knowledge, and I kinda know what that's like, but I also kinda dont. She has a lot of thinly veiled contempt for stupid people who by and large cant help being stupid. I'm still working out whether or not it's justified or if "ivory tower elitist" isnt a fair label for her

[@mikebresnahan8682]

I have a BA with a major in Physics, haven't done any Physics in 30 years, but still have an above average understanding of it IMHO. When I watched the video some time ago I was confused at first because I thought dark matter was a theory about a particle that interacted with gravity but not electromagnetism that explains why general relativity doesn't fit some observations of the universe. I had also heard of MOND, but I thought that was an alternative to dark matter. The video made me realize I had a misconception and felt I learned something that day. I 'm sorry I did not leave a comment that day. Thank you for the video.

[@eudyptes5046]

You didn't have a misconception, it's one of the problems that it is used in both ways, as the obervations and as actual particles.

[@devinvagt7914]

Alternate hypothesis: most commenters watched a few minutes of the video, posted a comment, and moved on. Your explanation was adequate.

[@eclipseslayer98]

Dark Matter came from all the socks I lost in my dryers and washers over the my many trillions of millennia washing clothes.

[@kxjx]

60% of people understanding anything is a spectacular achievement

[@billyalarie929]

It’s a spectacular achievement that she got me, a FLORIDA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DROPOUT, to understand (relatively) what was being talked about in that one.

[@alyssaskier2656]

"60% is a failing grade" is a strange thing to hear from a physicist.

[@BuffMyRadius]

60% is a loooong way away from 5 sigma!

[@Tysca_]

... Maybe I should go back to finish my engineering degree after all.

[@Trip-x1i]

@@Tysca_ real

[@YaBoiKeith]

I nearly had an emotional break down when I got a 58% in E&M (~50% of the class fails every year and the professor is a hard ass) until a friend told me that 50% is a passing grade.

[@JoJoModding]

​@@YaBoiKeith Doesn't it say "you passed" usually right next to where the precise grade is shown?

[@tmzilla]

Aged Milk! Do we need it? What is it. Where is it. How Old? Do we need it? Do we need it? Do we need it? Do we need it?

[@rsm3t]

Quantum quantum quantum? Quantum quantum quantum quantum!

[@mal2ksc]

So old it has turned to cheese.

[@chrisl6546]

@@mal2ksc Maybe it's not the moon that's made of cheese, but dark matter! It would make interstellar travel much easier if we could always count on finding cheese.

[@tmzilla]

@@rsm3t quantillus 😂

[@jimmyjam358YT]

I didn't watch the first video, however, by 3 minutes in, I feel your description of dark matter is by far the best I have heard, and analyzing it as a problem makes better sense than most descriptions so +1 for you yay🎉

[@amedeacatpaw5987]

That dark matter video was the first video of yours I watched, and I found it really helpful! I’ve been the little girl in the NASA shirt, and now I’m the teenager with a JWST pin badge, and I just wanted to tell you how valuable it’s been for me to be able to see women doing science. You’ve convinced me to keep doing physics no matter how much I hate transistors (why are there always questions on them in exams???) because you make everything sound so fun and interesting. I think that’s the most important thing, because you speak with such enthusiasm that you’ve made me want to do more physics, even if I’m one of the only girls in my class. Thank you

[@dermusikman]

If it’s helpful, I’d misunderstood “observation“ to mean “fact.” So, I left your initial video interpreting the message to be “We don’t have a working model of it, but dark matter is undeniably true.” And, as a layman, I further misunderstood that to mean that my limited conception of “dark matter“ (invisible particles) was established scientific consensus. Having now watched this video, I realize the error in my interpretation. Thank you for it! I enjoyed AP science classes through high school (quite a while ago now) but have no real education beyond that, for context.

[@IlIIlllIlIlIIll]

Most Laypeople, like you and me, also have this idea that theory is solid fact (stay with me, here), when actually not all theories are backed by the same level of fact and so are not all built the same. “Facts” come in levels. In fact, how fact a fact is depends on how high quality study design and methodology is and other parameters. And with the replication crisis, which has even touched physics, distinguishing between good study and bad study is extremely difficult for well-informed laypeople, and has even tripped up professionals in the field at least to some degree. And it’s way, way worse in the social sciences. As a layperson, I watch good faith debates about a topic between to major figures in that field who hold opposing views. Honestly, this informs me of the size of the discussion even if I don’t understand the discussion’s minutia. And understanding the size from experts who disagree with each other is nothing to sneeze at because it immunizes you from the black-and-white cure-all rhetoric of the pseudoscience peddling, fake-expert, clout chasers on TV and social media. And the popscience pushers.

[@sock2828]

I mean that's understandable since the observed anomaly gets called "dark matter" even though what causes the anomaly is still an open question

[@totallysanebean]

Yes I think that was the main problem in the video, I probably would have thought the same thing when watching her video if I didn't already know the main point she was trying to make (that it's a bunch of observations that clash with current models and physicists are in the process of developing explanations to them in one way or another)

[@jyrinx]

The attraction of MOND to the layperson is probably similar to one reason why people like conspiracy theories: it's very flattering to think you have the answer that's eluding all these smart people, and people understand MOND (at some level anyway) and they know it's an underdog, so they _want_ it to be true.

[@RoyWiggins]

it's a LOT easier to be a MOND enthusiast than an axion enthusiast or whatever. for the latter you probably want a PhD, but for MOND you just need to say "pah, these scientists REFUSE to simply add a little extra term to their theories of gravitation, what dogmatic losers" and then mumble something about Occam's Razor

[@jyrinx]

@@RoyWiggins Exactly, yeah. And being a spectator means never having to confront the data.

[@thimkful]

That may be true for the general public. It is not true for Pavel Kroupa, Stacy McGaugh, and others. MOND wasn't created, and doesn't continue to exist, for no reason. .

[@jyrinx]

@@thimkful Oh, for sure. I only meant to address the question “why is everyone so into such a niche idea?” Serious researchers have serious reasons of course.

[@hedgehog3180]

You basically see this in every field, theories that are simple appeal to the general public who isn't familiar with the data that either disproves it or makes it unlikely. Like Guns, Germs and Steel became really popular for that reason, the average person just knows that the Americas were colonized and that Europeans had guns and indigenous Americans didn't so the theory makes sense to them, they don't know the actual details of the Spanish conquest. Same thing with military history, the average person can't understand the complexities of logistics, tactics and so on but they can understand big gun and thick armor so they'll focus on that. There are countless examples from other fields but it just happens all the time and it's kinda predictable.

[@kevalan1042]

1) tell them what you're going to tell them, 2) tell them, 3) tell them what you told them

[@adityakhanna113]

4) wait for them to tell you something stupid and blame you for never having told them anything

[@codemakeshare]

There seems to be a connection to your "crackpots" video... The idea that there's a "last big unsolved problem in physics!!" with the promise of eternal fame for whoever solves it just attracts a lot of attention, and just statistically the vast majority of people don't have the level of understanding needed to realise that their "simple trick" is not going to be the answer. And it's sooo tempting to be the underdog who wasn't taken seriously until they showed it to the "establishment"...

[@anonymes2884]

It's _so_ incredibly far from the _last_ "big unsolved problem in physics" - if only :). (but yep, one of the great puzzles of the modern internet to me is the number of people that seem to genuinely believe they have a worthwhile physics theory to contribute when just reading their comment demonstrates they've almost certainly never even cracked open a textbook - kind of makes me jealous tbh, I _wish_ I had that level of self-belief :)

[@MattMcIrvin]

"There's something out there that all these big-brained Einsteins don't understand! My two-line qualitative explanation I just thought up seems like it wraps it up immediately! I guess I'm just smarter than all of them combined--wow, that makes me the smartest person in the world!"

[@pileofcheese5017]

The reason MOND is so popular is because it hits that perfect spot of being revolutionary, but familiar. Going: "There's all of this mass everywhere that we can't see" is a boring answer that makes no sense to the public, since things generally aren't invisible. Going "Actually, our understanding of gravity is wrong!" keeps it familiar, because all the pieces (gravity & normal, visible, mass) remain the same, and it presents this complete upending of our understanding of "the least understood of the four fundamental forces". Give the public a reason to go "these scientists were completely wrong for decades" and they'll run with it. We're still making jokes about the four humours!

[@TweenkPL]

IMO it's the same reason why the "alkaline diet" was a popular fad. It references something scientific that laypeople can understand, but applies it in a context where it doesn't make sense

[@GSBarlev]

Small nitpick that Angela herself made early in the video: we *can* see Dark Matter-or, at least, as much as we can see _anything_ in a cosmology that's transmits information inside the visible light spectrum. WMAP; gravitational lensing; the Bullet Cluster-all "direct" observations of dark matter. The question is not "is dark matter?" but "WHAT is dark matter?"

[@insidetrip101]

@@TweenkPL Look. I don't think "alkaline diet" makes sense. I don't think the health benefits of "alkaline water" makes sense either. However, I've heard people cite some studies. I just have an undergrad degree in the humanities. I've studied sciences more than my humanities graduates, but I still know that I don't really have the expertise to understand what these papers are trying to say or what problem they're actually trying to explain. Usually its just a lot of statistics and math that is like ... ok . . . I can probably whip out my old calculus and statistics textbooks and figure most of this shit out, but I don't do it on a consistent basis like many of you might. How am I supposed to actually understand answers to these questions . . . its almost like in general one side is interested in giving me info, and the other side couldn't really be bothered to present a counter argument. Usually this is because of some sense of disdain for the other person because they're rude, industrial, immoral, or the like. But, if they actually didn't have an argument for engagement, would they actually admit this though? Honestly, like I said, I think I consider myself scientifically minded and wouldn't agree with nonsense in MOND or the "alkaline diet/foods". But why is that? I bet you if I started arguing with those dudes, they'd ask me a bunch of questions that I didn't know how to answer. But honestly, is that such a bad thing? Once those questions are out there they can be answered, and then the answer will be out there too......

[@andrewcapra7153]

A lot of arguments for MOND basically boil down to an Argument From Incredulity: "You think there's some *new invisible matter* that is causing the problems in our observations? How silly!". No real arguments, just the vague implication that gravity working differently in every single galaxy is inherently more plausible than particle theories of dark matter

[@blue-pi2kt]

​@@andrewcapra7153I am by no means a MOND person but given the failure of existing theories to produce clear verifiable predictions, scientists producing theories which are closer to the physical world we've already got with clear(er) predictions are not a bad direction to move in. Ultimately, MOND feels real and intelligible in a way strings or wimps never will. It's simultaneously a problem caused by pop-science communicator thing and mouth breather/well-intentioned amatuer thing - both need to do better.

[@brookswift]

Angela revisits her previous video on dark matter summarizing all the ways that commenters completely misunderstood what she was trying to communicate and discusses several kinds of misunderstandings in the comments. She also expresses confusion about comments that just summarize the thesis of the video.

[@nicholasevangelos5443]

Commenter @brookswift provides a capsule summary of the video Angela has just presented, correctly re-stating Angela's concern about the communicative effectiveness of her online work. Hilarity ensues.

[@rebeccachiba5674]

yeah but maybe there is a problem with the model.

[@kennyb3325]

This hour old comment aged like milk. (To be fair, I'd probably drink milk that has been sitting out for an hour...)

[@ChristopherSadlowski]

​@@kennyb3325 it's fine.

[@patkohler9695]

I see what you did there

[@CharaViolet]

I love when she mentions something she felt she should've included in the video... and then shows a clip of a part of the video where she says that thing.

[@NewBossaNova]

"I'm a wimp guy" is definitely how I introduce myself to people.

[@SleepyHarryZzz]

Oh yeah?! Well I'm a MaCHO guy

[@puffthemagiclepton7534]

The virgin WIMP vs the MACHO Chad.😂

[@Merlandese]

We held a cheese night once. Made a poster for all of our friends: "CHEESE NIGHT, BRING SOME CHEESE!" and it had pictures of cheese on it. A dozen STEM friends, a night of tasting different cheeses, what could go wrong? Well, no one brought cheese. They brought everything BUT cheese. Chips, soda, ice cream, dates... you name it. One person made homemade bread. They all came to Cheese Night excited to try different cheeses and no one brought cheese. Angela, the problem is not the communication, it's the audience.

[@ProfBoggs]

This.

[@chequeplease]

You should have an 'everything but cheese night'

[@MsSonali1980]

The one time I told my (now) ex-boyfriend that he can buy anything but minced meat for dinner and he came back with minced meat.

[@kaori8208]

the fact that you’ve even made this video makes you better than 90% of youtubers so i think you’re awesome

[@johnreiland9180]

When she started the analogy about the Star Trek convention, and midway through it the shape of the analogy became apparent, I got so excited and my mind was like, "who's she gonna name?? What's the MOND-surrogate character she's going to have everybody cosplaying as? Neelix? Will it be Neelix?" But no: Tam Elbrun!? Of the Ghorusda Disaster?? Wow, is that ever---- killer reference, btw ---- Wow, is that ever obscure. Is THAT how not-popular MOND is among physicist? I thought it was merely a Tuvok or maybe an Ezri.

[@widnyj5561]

I'm a dumbo when comes to physics - but isn't the problem the name itself? Dark matter implies a physical thing rather than an idea, this whole thing should get named ike idk, "gravitational discrepancy" or some crap. "Dark matter" implies that the explanation would be based in some type of matter, which is not true

[@vurpo7080]

Dark matter is an abbreviated name of the question, the full question being "what is the cause of all this weird stuff?"

[@johnwalsh9839]

Just said the same thing in the comments myself. I'm just a regular dude that likes science stuff and I didn't figure it out until these videos

[@volbla]

Maybe. But there are lots of bad names in science that we're just kinda stuck with. Like "planetary nebula". Hint: it has nothing to do with planets, but the people who first observed them didn't know that.

[@johnwalsh9839]

​@vurpo7080 that's true but honestly I had no idea it was abbreviated at all

[@milesmartig5603]

What would you call it? The problem is called the dark matter problem because it would be weird to call the dark matter problem the “our different ways of measuring matter all say that there is more matter in the universe than what we can see with out telescopes” problem. If every way we measure matter other than visually is telling us that there is more material in the universe than we can see with our telescopes, the question to ask is, “what is the cause of all this matter we can measure but not directly see?” A very out of the box approach to answering this question is to say, “actually, it’s not matter”. This is a hard thing to justify because you would have to explain why our other ways of measuring matter in the universe all say there is more matter than we can see with our telescopes.

[@nickschmucker8836]

I would say that 40% of comments isn't 40% of viewers. If I see a video and understand it and agree with it I'm not likely to comment. Whereas if I disagree with a video (either because of a misunderstanding or not) I would be much more likely to leave a comment saying as much

[@GoldenMinotaur]

The comment spread can still give you an idea of the absorption rate. It's not an exact measurement, just an approximate for the sake of communication

[@eudyptes5046]

Your comment is a hypothesis, test it.

[@Flobby99]

There is definitely a Reddit effect with these things. A well produced video or article does a really good job of overselling something to a lay audience and then loops back around over and over again, picking up new adherents each time. One notorious example is an old article about NASA having a working plan for warp drive. People keep referencing that article like the only thing stopping Star Trek ships is budget and politics. Then you look at the article and it basically says "we could totally do this if we discovered a magic rock that had infinite energy."

[@CaptainXJ]

I mean to be fair, "budget and politics" keep us WAY behind where we should be.

[@williamcastonzo138]

​@@CaptainXJ This is both super true and the heart of every batshit insane conspiracy theory ever conceived. You gotta parse.

[@xBINARYGODx]

@@CaptainXJ yes, thats why its compelling, but that doenst stop it from being just as stupid

[@MattMcIrvin]

and it's NEGATIVE energy, that makes the rock even magicker. It's one awesome rock.

[@kucher7778]

Most people only "understand" what they "like". Not your problem. 60 percent is good low part

[@seijirou302]

That's really cool of you to revisit a concept that you feel like you didn't communicate well. I'm probably jaded, but I feel like so many would be thrilled about 500k views and could care less if it was received as intended. So kudos to you Dr. Angela!

[@anonymes2884]

Agreed, very commendable. Anyone that can sincerely accept and address their past failures is obviously only going to get better at whatever they do.

[@michaelmicek]

Did you notice how over and over she says, "I should have said..." and then inserts a clip from the original video of her saying exactly that?

[@culwin]

I'm wondering if she communicated this video well enough... maybe you didn't watch it before commenting?

[@seijirou302]

@@culwin whether she did or not is irrelevant to my point, and yes I did watch it first and yes I did pick up on her sarcasm, but did you pick up on her veracity? Maybe you should watch it twice before commenting?

[@culwin]

@@seijirou302 tldr

[@ravenlord4]

The MinutePhysics channel had an issue like this some time back. It was a cool video that about half the people didn't understand, despite its simplicity. Henry even made a followup video addressing his surprise called "Confessions of a KZbinr". So don't feel bad Angela, you are in very good company. Dealing with the average KZbin viewer can sometimes be more challenging that it seems. But It's Fine ;)

[@CatHerderCam]

"Its not a theory, its an observation" keeps repeating on loop in my head.

[@BrightBlueJim]

Except that you missed the whole point of BOTH videos, because you missed that it is a SET of observations. That is, multiple galaxies/galaxy clusters, each of which has this missing matter to a different degree.

[@Rubashow]

I spend the last 4 days binging your videos and I think you are a great, charming science communicator.

[@Turnkey_BM]

"I don't want to poop on mond" Proceeds to talk about how laughable mond is for 15 straight minutes lol

[@MichaelG485]

And the cycle continues.

[@douglascodes]

🎵🎵It's the circle of MOND!🎵🎵

[@FranciscoSeoane]

lmfao on this ahahaha

[@oliphab7468]

The 3 people who do MOND working on their diss track.

[@hisham_hm]

imagine if three people do MOND and one of them happens to be Kendrick Lamar

[@mattwilliams7454]

The venn diagram of these misunderstandings all overlap at "didn't watch the whole video"

[@cabra500]

Like, isn’t Sabine Hossenfelder responsible for this (and many other) misconceptions? I’m an engineer and got into fundamental physics stuff through her videos (I even read her book) and I kinda of… just took every view she had on physics? And this dark matter/mond equivalence is something I remember seeing from her. Now that I see other physicists talking about fundamental physics research I see that many things that she “defends” are kind of iffy.

[@stuntmonkey00]

Sabine is 100% the problem. You can basically see it in the auidence she cultivates, a lot of people who effusively praise her without actually discussing the topics that she is presenting. She's basically amassed a following of non-scientifically literate people who follow her because she's the image of what a smart person looks like to somebody who didn't study the sciences. And when being contrarian and snarky is your persona, you attract people who are like that. You build the audience that you cultivate. Notice the comment sections in Brady Haran's Deep Sky/60 Symbols videos in contrast.

[@SkorjOlafsen]

The problem is terminology. Angela is using "dark matter" to refer to the problems. But "dark matter" is also used as shorthand for a group of particle-based cold dark matter theories, so it's ambiguous. Sabine and others (including Don Lincoln) have used it in the latter way. So you'll see headlines from well-informed people like "what if dark matter is black holes" (former meaning) and like "Could MOND replace dark matter?" (latter meaning).

[@drmaybe7680]

I feel Sabine is tending more and more in the maverick direction because she needs to earn clicks and needs some gimmick to counteract her incredibly wooden style. If Sabine could communicate with the ease and humour of Angela she might have conquered the universe by now. 😄

[@jameshart2622]

She's an interesting case because she does have the needed background to talk about a lot of it more coherently than most contrarians. This makes her critiques and positions more meaningful than random KZbinr #247. Despite that, I feel she sometimes is a contrarian for the sake of it, and that slightly distorts the positions she takes. When it comes to her opinion on String Theory, that turned out to be useful, although I should note that you shouldn't listen to just her on the subject. Other trained physicists have opinions on it as well, and are not in perfect agreement. I definitely am not. So...what you are now seeing is real science by real scientists. She's trained and disciplined well enough to take "colorable" positions, but tends towards the edges where fewer people want to live. And like most scientists (and people) she presents her own or absorbed ideas more favorably than the others. This isn't unusual, nor is it remotely new. It's how real science debates happen, and we aren't likely to get rid of it any time soon. It's just...you are learning that real science is being done by real, flawed people and there is a reason we go for consensus rather than holding up individuals. No, not even with Einstein.

[@drmaybe7680]

@@SkorjOlafsen absolutely this, but 'is not a theory' is also ambiguous, because it can imply 'is rock-solid certain, why are you bozos even questioning it.' It is clear to me now that Angela is using the phrase rather to mean 'calling this issue a theory is a category error, "Dark Matter" in the sense I am using it in is a question rather than an answer.' That's too long to fit in the vid banner, I guess.

[@monolithiccelestial9636]

The next time I see Michio Kaku, I'm going grab him by the lapel and yell, "Where are the missing baryons!"

[@kolinpauli5862]

"You wouldn't believe me anyways" was probably the best answer you could have given lol, it teaches that guy some social etiquette and that is definitely a question you can either think through, test, or google.

[@echo.1209]

Imagine having a PhD in a subject and being mansplained to by KZbin comments that are basically agreeing with you

[@joed180]

Basically the life of any expert who says anything on the internet.

[@rjrmonkey]

Look, I know you have like, a PhD and everything, but I've watched like, at least 10 physics videos. We're basically the same. Have you considered that the model is wrong? I'll take my Honorary PhD now please.

[@Trucmuch]

The whole "I failed, I'm so bad" has a strong "and Brutus is an honourable man" vibe

[@RoboBoddicker]

yes, I think the lady doth protest too much

[@jackfrosterton4135]

Matt O'Dowd: "Hold my beer."

[@jacobwikowsky3535]

It's EXTREME OWNERSHIP #Jockopodcast

[@avradio0b]

It's the same energy of a parent telling a kid that the parent let them down if the kid broke the law or did something else bad- massive guilt tripping XD

[@kadmii]

Tam Elbrun is such a great choice to compare MOND to your video didn't fail for me! it really helped me understand the depths of the Dark Matter problem and HOW the WMAP data fits into that, your video was really cool! all I knew before was the rotational speed issue. I would be very interested in an exploration of the different theories and where they each are incomplete/off also using the dark matter rap as your section transition was wonderful

[@Wolf_Avatar]

I just keep laughing about "ONLY 60% of people understood it." Personally, I think that's amazing. I mean, especially as a woman, there are so many people who will PURPOSELY misunderstand you just so they can try to tear you down. I think you did great. EDIT: Right after I left this comment, you say you'll get a lot of comments like this one. So it's good to know I'm predictable.

[@LBitner99]

Thanks for this! At various points while watching I kept saying to myself "nooooo Angela! the internet is just full of people who ONLY want to argue.. you're basing your conclusion on data from bad-faith actors" only to be glad by the end of the video that she basically calls exactly that out! *whew*

[@stephendurtschi9873]

I didn't leave a comment on the original video. However, it was a tremendously helpful video for me. I had always thought, "How can they say there is dark matter, what if it is just a problem with their math?" And you said, "There are some obsevations that say there are problems with our models. We call those observational problems 'dark matter'." And I said, "Oh, I have never understood what this is about. It is an open question. It is a problem that needs to be solved." Then, I updated the model in my head.

[@RuthlessDutchman]

You can lead a cow to a lecture theatre, but you can't make it listen

[@supercheetah0]

You might if it's a perfectly spherical cow.

[@sprink88]

This is one of the most enlightening videos I've seen for years, THANK YOU. I've been telling my undergrads for YEARS now that the term "aged like wine" was from the off-camera speech by Marcus Wallace to ageing prize-fighter Butch Coolidge encouraging Butch to throw a fight. I've just now learned that the term Wallace used is not milk but vinegar. Wallace also says 'ass' a lot but I think that's a fudge factor.