No, Sabine, Science is Not Failing

[@natrotho1855]

I am an academic researcher focused on molecular immunology . There are a lot of issues in science, especially around publications. Though it isn’t perfect, we mostly just go to work and try to do a really good job. For people who aren’t academic scientists, it is important to understand that our work must stand to scrutiny because scientist actually disagree a lot. We aren’t just sitting in a room congratulating each other on being smart and devising plans for faking results to benefit big pharma. If that was true I wouldn’t have all these student loans.

[@OceanusHelios]

This is the most underrated comment of the entire comment section. I hope Dave boosts it.

[@damedusa5107]

Molecular immunity? Not important stuff apparently now we have anti vaccine kook in charge of health. Going to be interesting. And horrifying.

[@williambranch4283]

Medical Industrial Complex?

[@Arcessitor]

And yet there is plenty of that going on.

[@deepstariaenigmatica2601]

​@@Arcessitor like where? show it.

[@aayushkumar7774]

in India this situation is way worse , and trust me its gonna get way worse, the last time i heard anything scientifically accurate said by a politician here was never , its all about religion and old culture now nothing about future

[@KateeAngel]

Same here in Russia. During covid so many people turned anti-vax. And with our government neglecting education it is going to get worse.

[@mr.t107]

Looks like it's happening everywhere then....

[@KateeAngel]

​@@mr.t107 yeah, post-truth, anti-science ultra-right wing, authoritarian shift. It is worldwide. A name is a bit long, but covers all parts of it

[@macon8638]

@@KateeAngel Please tell me if im wrong but i did hear some pretty dodegy things about the russian covid vaccine back in the day

[@KateeAngel]

​​​@@macon8638it was approved way too early. But it was a normal vaccine. It worked. However the problem isn't skepticism towards this specific vaccine, problem is it turned many people into being more generally anti-vax. Many just denied Covid. Half of people didn't wear masks even in metro even during the peak of the pandemic

[@Scinquisitor]

Career academic computational biologist here, and also a science communicator from Russia. I enjoy most of Sabines content but I agree that statements like "science is failing" or "I don't trust scientists" are unfortunate click-bate that can have undesirable social consquences and fuel science denialism, which is allready a great problem for the world. Science communicators have a responsibility to accurately represent the state of academia. Thank you for bringing up the same issues that have been troubling me.

[@KathrynElizabeth-j7y]

So you're an academic... and a science communicator... who can't understand the problem with her enough to admit you can't like her garbage anymore?

[@VSerge_]

​@@KathrynElizabeth-j7y that is not what he said. There are still educational videos on her channel. He has issues with the clickbait science is bs videos. Which dave is talking about in the video

[@drdrowland]

@@KathrynElizabeth-j7y practice reading before typing

[@Maxidemt]

Alexander I did not know that you too watch Professor Dave! Long time fan of both of you guys. Wish you luck in your endeavors

[@9308323]

​@@KathrynElizabeth-j7y Dafuq did you just type?

[@blackdragon3699]

"He might put RFK in health deapartment" That aged like wine and it was only 8 days ago

[@lhumanoideerrantdesinterne8598]

It wasn't really a surprised if you followed the news, RFK had been coveting this post for a long time.

[@blackdragon3699]

@lhumanoideerrantdesinterne8598 but trump did put alot of people in his cabinet who are dead loyal to him

[@TheSnoeedog]

​@@lhumanoideerrantdesinterne8598 You've confused your cause and effect here....whether you're following the news or not, what RFK fantasizes about is irrelevant to who the orange outrage appoints. Captain Combover was going to appoint whoever he was going to appoint, even if the person had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the post. Since when does he factor other people's feelings into his decisions?

[@Rio-un5jl]

OK but as if the leaders of the FDA were good or even decent so that now you can be angry at RFK being put into that position? The the american people are the fattest in the world and some of the most unhealthiest because of what they eat, the FDA are the scum of the earth, and RFK will hardly NOT make improvements in its functioning, even if he was as bad as Dave makes him out to be.

[@IridescentKySoul]

Vid is 30 mins long, uploaded 14 mins ago, people already post comments agreeing/disagreeing. Video creator complains about people not watching the video first in the early minutes of the video. Is anyone actually here to listen what he wants to say or just for drama?

[@tiggerbane4325]

Just here for drama myself to be honest. But I have no dog in this.

[@daveg-Vancouver_Island]

I always thumbs up on Dave’s videos before I watch it! 🤷‍♂️

[@ChrisBreederveld]

Well, he _did_ put the summary in front...

[@KathrynElizabeth-j7y]

​@@tiggerbane4325 yes you do

[@Conqoo]

Just drama.

[@jun7865a]

Carl Sagan’s foreboding of an America, a quote from my favorite book “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

[@MikeStoneJapan]

I love Demon Haunted World and this quote lives rent free in a fully staffed, central park facing 2000 sq ft loft in my head

[@markhackett2302]

Or Clarke's "There is a feeling that someone's ignorance is worth as much as an experts' knowledge".

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

Holy fuuuuuck was that prescient.

[@SethTaylor-d1t]

Man I need to reread that book. It’s amazing how accurate he was predicting the uprising of the anti-science and anti intellectualism movements. That book and Richard Hofstadter‘s anti-intellectualism in American life are some of the best books to understand the modern right wing science denial.

[@normalhumanbeing6066]

He died before 1996 too when he said this, so yeah he was probably onto something

[@TheGhostOfJohnTyndall-t1w]

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov

[@Sib1204]

Are you sure it's not Carl sagan?

[@JosGeerink]

Pretty sure it was Washington.

[@TheGhostOfJohnTyndall-t1w]

@@Sib1204 He wrote something similar but I think this quote is Asimov. Happy to be proved wrong if I am.

[@fr57ujf]

If anyone bothered to Google the quote you would see it was Asimov.

[@TheGhostOfJohnTyndall-t1w]

@@fr57ujf It's possible that I did and didn't entirely trust Google. Thanks : )

[@bill_benjamin]

My father is non-academic, sensible and intelligent man. I am a Zoologist. I was having a conversation with him about Climate Change the other day and he used the phrase “so called science” and went on to say that for every scientist saying that climate was an urgent issue there was one saying the opposite. I had to explain that the scientists saying that climate change was urgent were producing evidence and testing models with reproducable results and that the climate deniers were just pointing at that and saying it was wrong without actually producing any science to the contrary. And that these people were outnumbered by the thousands. This is how dangerous the hyperbolic nonsense that people like Sabine and most politically driven news outlets are. A normal man does not know what the truth is.

[@PrinceCezar27]

People like your father are the problem. Stop treating people like that with kid gloves as they are DANGEROUS.

[@patricklincoln5942]

@@Pedro_Paulo_Castro: I disagree. The fossil fuel industry has funded a MASSIVE disinformation campaign that works, because they can make more money selling fossil fuels when their is doubt about climate change being a real problem.

[@patricklincoln5942]

Interestingly, on exactly the topic of climate change Sabine is sounding the alarm worrying that the situation is likely worse than as is stated in the IPCC for example.

[@alexicon2006]

​@@Pedro_Paulo_CastroAny evidence that points to a massive majority of the scientists in question communicating their messages condescendingly or...no? Aight.

[@bill_benjamin]

@@Pedro_Paulo_Castro I agree that science communication needs to improve massively

[@ChristianIce]

Clickbait is destroying KZbin. Next you know Sabine will start talking about AI being Woke, or something

[@peanutsveryepicchannel8699]

"AI is the woke autistic gay agenda of DEI in failing science." -Sabine in 2026, or sooner

[@dedalomusic]

Evviva Gesù...

[@piereligio_ds]

​@@dedalomusicGGGGESÙ

[@piereligio_ds]

Yup. It was an issue years ago, it seemed like Google steered the algorithm AGAINST clickbaits. But feels they turned back on that decision... I really wonder why 😂

[@fcandfm3000]

Don't give her ideas 🤣

[@idmckenzie76]

I’m a scientist. I implant radioactive particles into materials to understand their behavior at the molecular level. From that understanding we can efficiently design new materials with desirable properties. I’m studying lithium ion diffusion in battery materials, betavoltaic batteries, and tracking drug molecules interact with model cell membranes. All of these things are not BS. The same is true of my colleagues work whether they are working in organic synthesis or nuclear astrophysics. I completely agree with Professor Dave calling out Sabine Hossenfelder for the irresponsible and untrue things she says about science.

[@FunkyDexter]

Sabine clearly refers to the foundations of physics in her video, and always has been. Then she stated that she fears the mechanism which brings about lack of progress in that area will eventually creep into other fields. What is so hard to understand. It's not a personal attack on your niche of research.

[@neoqwerty]

Your job sounds cool as all hell. Also I never heard of betavoltaic batteries before so thank you for sending me into a new research rabbit hole to fuel my sci-fi writings!

[@saucemaster6452]

@@FunkyDexter Did you not watch the same video I watched? There are so many clips interspersed about how every single aspect of science is dying. That there is added nuance to her statements later on does not retract her irresponsible blanket statements about all fields.

[@Stegibbon]

@@FunkyDexter oh look, someone that didn't watch 2 videos! 😂

[@FunkyDexter]

@@saucemaster6452 I watched both videos, and I keep by my statement. Sabine is (was) a particle physicist. She works in the foundations of quantum mechanics. That's all the context you need. Besides, I can confirm her fears by personal experience. I'm a chemist, and you can not understand how much shit research and papers that are churned out by the day. Reactions with falsified yields, falsified data, you name it. And they mostly come from china.

[@eugenegubbard4017]

If you want to see what REAL academia criticism is, watch Angela Collier. She CONSTANTLY talks about very serious and widespread issues with academia, and yet she still finds it within her to respect the only framework we humans have ever devised to accurately understand our world.

[@ThePresident001]

Science is not unique to academia Be careful not to mistake one for the other.

[@Sangeetha-Persnl]

Thanks I was only searching for a comment like urs dude.. I m truly confused as to whom should I follow being a student who really is interested to do science in academia myself

[@hunni2968]

Yup she’s awesome. Somehow she is able to explain problems in academia and within specific fields of science without fueling science denial it’s almost like they aren’t mutually exclusive something Sabine doesn’t seem to understand

[@PhysicsPolice]

@@eugenegubbard4017 Angela is so funny! I love her channel. I don’t always agree with her but at least she is reliably respectful of people and institutions, even behind her deadly sarcasm.

[@Ntwolf1220]

Angela feels like a real person who makes KZbin videos. That’s missing from a lot of the discourse in general I think

[@katiecat9353]

The universe doesn't owe us frequent paradigm-shifting physics breakthroughs

[@frankwitte1022]

Indeed ... in fact, there's a reason why Kuhn calls the non-paradigm breaking science "Normal Science" ... it's the unrewarding but crucially neccesary hard work that goes into thoroughly testing and exploring the implications and limits of a new paradigm. If anything, the "normal science" is what gives science its solid foundations, no matter how tedious and repetitive it may seem.

[@steveng5370]

Wow thats brilliantly put, I hope I remember this in the future

[@Zazu1337]

Her point is not about that there is no paradigm-shifting breakthroughs the problem is time and money is wasted on a larges scale on stuff that doens't progress humanity or science. Do you also have a catchy saying for that?

[@madshorn5826]

​@@Zazu1337 Yeah, but she is barking up the wrong tree when she presents this as a _science_ problem and not a problem with our economic model. Science should be publicly funded, not a rat-race to please rich people whose metric is "Am I getting richer as a function of the dough spent". That narrative is pushed by religious types and extremists who are being exposed by science and don't like it. And Sabina is going fully in on the wrong side here

[@steveng5370]

@@Zazu1337 you just didnt watch the video did you

[@CASTSTONE]

Leave Sabina alone, she's just trying to get on Joe Rogan Podcast.

[@NinjaMonkeyPrime]

She's probably hoping to get on the show with Graham Hancock so they can both bash academia.

[@phangkuanhoong7967]

First Joe Rogen, next Prager U! Woo-hoo!

[@phr3ui559]

@@NinjaMonkeyPrimeJeez dude you are everywhere, get a life.

[@NinjaMonkeyPrime]

@@phr3ui559 Kind of ironic that you seem to be obsessed with my habits while claiming I need to get a life.

[@daveg-Vancouver_Island]

@@phr3ui559harsh!

[@nubiannerd]

Her video on autism was so uninformed and downright dangerous. She defends Autism Speaks but has ostensibly done little research into the organization and seems ignorant of the significant harm it has inflicted on many of us on the spectrum. One can unwittingly promote a great deal of misinformation when one makes confident (and often dismissive) pronouncements on a topic outside one's area of expertise with only a tertiary amount of research. As someone with her own area of expertise (which she took years to acquire) she should know better.

[@Gliccit]

Dave did explicitly exempt her branch-out videos from criticism in the original video, which i think is one of his biggest mistakes.There isnt much to say about her physics content

[@shinywarm6906]

@@Gliccit Yes, her off-topic videos are invariably awful. The ones on autism and transgender were bad; the one on capitalism so filled with gross misunderstanding I no longer trust anything she has to say on any topic

[@Slaaneshy_Concubine]

It seems that she considers herself an expert in any field just because she is one in physics.

[@atarisidequest]

Same with her video on Transgender people. She's a problem when she speaks outside her field.

[@SpydrXIII]

i'm autistic, and it's why i stopped listening to anything she has to say. she's a crank.

[@gunspy]

you claim science is not failing. yet my car, which i named science, is starting to fail. curious.

[@Burkesworth]

MANY SUCH CASES

[@ivandjordjevic6025]

many such cases...

[@juhaxz5579]

Have to look into this🤓🤣

[@alchemist6819]

"Interesting"

[@CrabRangoonSortaGuy]

Currently looking into this

[@invancouver691]

I am a PhD student at UChicago. This is probably one of the most, if not the most, relevant and important KZbin Channels!

[@KsThe20]

(currently 1/3 through the video) But that reminded me of a youtuber called BobbyBroccoli. He makes awesome (and quite popular) videos exposing some failings of science. He manages to do it without sensationalizm, sweeping generalizations, clickbait titles and defeatist narratives. So it's possible to criticize science in an honest way without deliberately pandering to the anti-science crowd.

[@heavymetalpancake1133]

Bobby's movies, dare i call them that, are great. Tell an engaging story and narrative and get into the science just enough for the viewer to understand the story being told.

[@Kai-vj8vx]

I love Bobby so much, I wish he published more often but quality takes time I guess

[@que3no085]

BobbyBrocoli is a must watch , great channel

[@andedom]

@@KsThe20 so, is everyone acknowledging that Sabines underlying points are valid but they are upset that she says things like “science is failing “? I don’t think that is worth hours of content to argue about. It’s almost like arguing over semantics

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

Bobby's videos aren't about the failings of science, rather, People who use their reputation as scientists to take advantage

[@VincentGroenewold]

I was one of those "but actually" people on the last video. I did watch the entire video and I think a lot did, but it likely hit a nerve with many and me, specifically because we all know all too well what some of the issues, that actually influence the science, are, as we all worked in academia. And some of Sabine's communication does hit that as well. But you're totally right that the nerve that was hit, missed the actual point and I'd like to apologize for that, there is a big difference between being critical of some of the issues (that science communicators never seem to address either btw) and actual damaging titles/rhetoric. Also, let me just subscribe to you, I unsubbed from Sabine's channel a few years ago basically because of the same point.

[@VincentGroenewold]

@@insu_na Thanks, well these are also from personal experience, but things that are issues in other areas outside science as well. I was just kinda disappointed to find out scientists are people too. :) Many communicators only talk about the cool stuff, which I love, but never about less-cool issues which likely people don't click on either. I'm on the autism spectrum and have always worked as a hardcore fundamental scientist, I couldn't imagine that management, egoism, falsifying of results due to ridiculous pressure and some getting papers published easier due to previous work (which also shouldn't be a thing, issue there is that fields aren't as big always and peers know the work of "competitors"), were things that could happen. They don't happen all over academia and everywhere, but way more than should be the case. In my workplace this was happening and I kinda lost it when the top management decided that fundamental science wasn't worth the money and pushed for practical science. The influence just a few people then have on the entire process in a department is just not right in my opinion. Not to say this made me hate science by itself, not at all, but the practical implementation can be improved.

[@Atrigraphy]

Takes a big person to apologise in public. You have my respect. 😊

[@thomassby7139]

Props to you. Much respect! Cheers Bro!

[@Wuwux244]

Respect

[@Vishanti]

Top-tier comment, should be higher🔥

[@PragmaticPhysicist]

Hey Dave, undergraduate astrophysicist here. I was really disheartened when I watched her videos about how science is failing and how it’s impossible to make it in the research field. I know there are problems but wanted to say that your videos were a great and necessary reminder that there is still so much left to discover and that scientific progress is a worthy goal on its own. Cheers and keep up the good work!

[@techienate]

I don't think anyone ever said there wasn't more to discover. Even lunatic flat earthers say that lol.

[@adamsmasher9769]

​@@techienate you would be surprised.

[@minhuang8848]

I mean, any physicist also kind of tuned out when she was talking about anything else. It's not really like she ever demonstrated a great grasp beyond just pushing her awful brand. Everyone in the know has known that she is a hoax-pony pretty much since the beginning - for more than one reason.

[@andrzejostrowski5579]

I think that many people don’t understand that not all science yields groundbreaking results. She’s been complaining about the string theory being incorrect, and quantum computing being a scam. Maybe these areas of research won’t yield a breakthrough. This doesn’t mean that it’s all bullshit. Taking up a hypothesis, testing it, and coming up with “this doesn’t work” is science. And it is worth pursuing, even though it wouldn’t change the way we see the universe. It definitely doesn’t mean that this is all useless. I’m a mathematician by education, I could say that A LOT of modern math is useless - there’s no direct applications of many recent discoveries. Does this mean that it’s all worthless?

[@l0rf]

I'm working for the Max Planck research institute. We are utilising techniques that didn't exist 20 years ago to discover genetic regulatory processes nobody had any idea of 70 years ago. Science marches ever onward. Don't listen to people who had one bad experience taint their view of all Science everywhere.

[@afcyewtoob]

I don't see any other comment yet naming the technique that Sabine is (rightly) being criticised for here, so i'll share a link to the Wikipedia entry on it, the motte-and-bailey argument/fallacy. TBC "all science is failing" is the "bailey" and "i only meant theoretical physics" is the "motte": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

[@pskocik]

To a lot of physicists, physics is the only natural science (with math being its abstract brother) and the rest is stamp collecting.

[@Jakob_DK]

Thanks that is really usefull

[@KenLieck]

I don't know how you managed to sneak a link past the KZbin guards but yeah, thanks.

[@zray2937]

It's not even theoretical physics, it's the corner that looks for theories beyond the standard model. Btw, the standard model is consistently not failing.

[@lucasrinaldi9909]

Sabine does not argue that "theoretical physics alone" is failing. The DATA shows that the scientific production/scientific impact ratio as a whole is falling, which was not even predicted and much less desirable. Based on this criterion, yes, science is failing.

[@borisbauwens7133]

In a popular Creationism facebook group, I recently saw one of the deeply scientifically illiterate members try to make a case for science as a whole being bullshit, actually. Posting a video by... Sabine as illustration of his point. This is my non-surprised Pikachu face -_- In my opinion you carry responsibility for the way you communicate and how you're interpreted, and when you notice a part of your audience, that is not your target audience, weaponizes it unfairly, then you should speak up and explicitly address them to back off. Mary Schweitzer (of T. rex soft tissue fame) did this very well.

[@geraldmerkowitz4360]

"you carry responsibility for the way you communicate" absolutely "and how you're interpreted" well, no, how does that work in real life? You can't control people's delusions "then you should speak up and explicitly address them to back off" how are you supposed to know that one of your video was posted in a creationism facebook group? Social networks don't provide creators any tools to map where their work has been deployed

[@borisbauwens7133]

@geraldmerkowitz4360 of course, you can't mindread, and trawl the internet for misuse. But you can control the ambiguity of your words and preemptively mention what you don't mean when there's a risk. You can also avoid clickbait thumbnails and titles, that's 100% under the creator's control.

[@Trixy98]

@@borisbauwens7133 every researcher worth their salt knows wording is always key. Knowing how entrenched she is in academia, I'm pretty sure she knows what she's doing.

[@borisbauwens7133]

@rickmorty5215 can you give a good example of a video of her? Ideally with a timestamp where she explicitly addresses science denialist viewers that are not her intended audience. I'm not familiar enough with her work, true, so I would appreciate your help. (Genuinely, by the way.)

[@shilasarkar6003]

There is a non surprised Pikachu face?

[@StretchyDeath]

The fallacious type of argument she makes is called the "Motte-and-Bailey". In it, a claim has two interpretations: a broad, indefensible one, and a narrow, defensible one. A casual listener will typically hear the first, but when challenged, the arguer can claim they intended the second.

[@DrPonner]

Very sneaky

[@charlesleroq932]

Yes. it is a classic alt right pipeline 'plausible deniability' tactics. There is something cringe and pathetic about a science communicator positioning themselves adjacent to the RFK/Rogansphere like Sargon of Akkad and all that crowd did with neo nazis, a decade ago. She'll eventually tire of dogwhistling at some point, and go full Weinstein.

[@elderscrolls8442]

ty 4 ths

[@jestes7]

Good analysis

[@Rovsau]

It seems odd to me how you can claim that it is 100% certain she is doing it on purpose. What convinced you?

[@pireltv1523]

An engineering student from indonesia here. Thanks for this video. For people like sabine and many other who have enjoyed living in a country with strong and institutionalized academic culture, such anti science rhetoric might only seem like the cynical deep end of realpolitikking to revitalize such academia, but for people like me and many others in developing countries, anti scientism often lead directly to religious demagogue adopting it to strengthen their propaganda. It is not just an ethical mistake, for many people it is also a sociopolitical mistake. I really really hope people like sabine here is aware of the power she hold, small bias slipping out unintentionally from her can be twisted into a general and often dangerous conclusion. (you should see what our "ulama" (islamic religious "scholar", but really they often are just an opporrtunist) can do with vague word.)

[@desperadox7565]

I'm afraid she isn't really aware of that. She just likes to be a bit edgy with her criticism.

[@jonwesick2844]

Antiscientific rhetoric has the same consequences in America, too.

[@koperturtle]

Genuinely cool perspective, thanks for sharing!

[@owlmuso]

Well said

[@PaulKentSkates]

This may be at risk of happening in the USA and where I live in Canada. Religion before knowledge is scary. It really helps control people.

[@alanjackson1015]

I watched 1 of her videos years ago, but her videos were constantly in my feed, even thought I wasn't watching them. Her click bait titles made me not want to watch them, but her highly aggressive advertising turned me off to the point where I had to tell KZbin to not show me her videos again

[@anotherelvis]

Click on the three dots to the right of the video thumbail and choose: Not interested. That helps.

[@NotAUtubeCeleb]

I gasped when she said "...well the science deniers are right to not trust academia". That's like saying "there are difficulties in having a harmonious multicultural society" then following it up with "well the racists are right to be concerned".

[@riseofdarkleela]

word!

[@gronki1]

The idea of sarcasm makes you gasp?

[@hobojoe9717]

@@gronki1​​⁠ Sabine wasn’t being sarcastic when she said “science deniers are right not to trust academia.” What are you even talking about?

[@David34981]

@@gunt-her That's not a strawman. Are you saying that the claim that science deniers are right not to trust academia is true, though?

[@MensHominis]

@@gronki1 “Sarcasm”? My man, I think you should stick to the natural sciences since the study of communication doesn’t seem to be your field of expertise.

[@deedrabbit]

Conspiracy theorists don't just vote. They run for president and even get elected.

[@pranays]

Only because of Neo liberals running on right wing Austerity policies.

[@QT5656]

Good point.

[@jannor321]

Mmmm 🍿

[@ysy_y]

America is when felons can’t vote but a failing-upwards felon gets elected

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

Or get appointed to run DHHS.

[@bloodwraith729]

Please god, do not stop making this content. So many people don't see the real damage of misinformation and science denial. It's society's greatest threat. I cannot express how much I appreciate you.

[@bloodwraith729]

Wont let me comment, I appreciate you.

[@SandyNiki]

Someone's gotta do it. I feel like I'm the only sane person some days. Which by definition means that I'm not the norm. Sad times.

[@mightyhorsey]

Thanks Dave, please continue to be a voice for the sane!

[@Robert-er5wq]

I think his incendiary rethoric and personal attacks are exactly what is going wrong in the US today. It's like watching Trump just in the academic field - just absolutely uncivilized and insufferable. I think we need to look at arguments and not at the source - this is an extreme problem in the US' public discourse - and Dave tries to implement the top-of-the-loungs tire-screeching mode of discourse in science communication. It's wrong and not how science and scientific discourse should be conducted.

[@David34981]

Why are you calling Dave "god"? I mean, he's a nice fellow and all, but... :)

[@jenaf4208]

Shes going full blast on the "science is failing" clickbait now

[@TimwiTerby]

Fun fact: biologists did, in fact, “invent” (more like predict) a species of moth in Madagascar based on the discovery of “Angraecum sesquipedale”, a flower with an extremely long spur, which would require a moth with an extremely long tongue to get to the nectar. That moth was later discovered and is now known as “Xanthopan morganii praedicta”.

[@brianvernaglia9449]

Agreed 100%. Many discoveries are made by "inventing" (aka predicting as you say) something and then looking to see if it exists. It's actually literally part of the scientific method. Hypothesis and then experiment. You hypothesize something exists or functions in some way and then test to see if it does.

[@sutfolsemaj]

​​@@brianvernaglia9449we invented the literal planet of Neptune before we observed it! Almost every discovery begins by theorizing what might be out there to discover at all. We didn't find it by noticing it, and we probably still wouldn't have noticed it for another 30 or 40 years, because a planet multiple AUs away from us is such an incredibly tiny portion of our field of view. We needed to know where to look to find it, so we needed to have concluded that something like it was or likely was in that spot, we couldn't just scan the entire solar system, certainly not with the technology that was present that long ago. It's okay for a field of science to be at a point where it's figuring out "where to look" to find our answers, that's actually a pretty crucial step. Edit to clarify: I know that's your position too, I'm just adding on a little, don't want to come off argumentative

[@s1nd3rr0z3]

Even the "dark areas of the periodic table" example she used as an analogy is actually pretty similar to how new elements were/are discovered.

[@gabrielreinalter2269]

It is almost like the very foundation of science is coming up with an idea, systematically collection measurement data and coming up with a more and more robust theory using falsification or verification. Eventually the theory becomes powerful enough to predict certain experimental results that have not been measured yet (either because these results have been assumed so far or as a consequence of their cations) which further fuels falsification or verification. The fact that a fellow physicist of Hossenfelders caliber is seemingly incapable of understanding the very foundation of the scientific method is truly unsettling.

[@Sableagle]

@@s1nd3rr0z3 Maybe one day we can manufacture tiny quantities of some new element in whatever's down below the actinide series, which'll turn out to be stronger, harder, denser and more corrosion-resistant than anything in the main table, and we'll finally have "adamantium." Odds are it'll be used for trillionaires' cutlery rather than for the common good.

[@robsengahay5614]

I am in no way a scientist. In fact academically I’m a nonentity. I left school at 16 in 1977 and have had zero formal education since. The thing that these academics, critical of Dave, didn’t understand is that Dave is communicating to people like me. As a teacher he understands that you start off with a class of people that know nothing of the subject so you communicate at that level. And that is what a good science communicator has to do. My only critique of Dave is that he has a tendency to speak too quickly. Many academics, I imagine, can’t grasp how limited the understanding of science and academia in general terms is amongst the majority like myself. And nor do they comprehend the inbuilt desire to reject what they can’t comprehend. Sabine has turned much of her content into clickbait memes for those who are steadfastly anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, anti-science and she is clearly ignorant (willful or otherwise) about the capacity of those people to extract any nuance from her content.

[@ceeerson1]

yeah I think Dave nailed it when he called out how people in academia are not in the same headspace as most people due to being adjacent to the problems in academia, but not comprehending the magnitude of the effect that their language and opinions have on the public further away from academia, especially given the current context of rising authoriarian, anti-science and anti-truth factions. Like the massive effect that the public's understanding of science has on policy and public health probably warrants that any presentation about a scientific topic to the public should probably need like some sort of review by educators or something before being able to be published. Kind of like a peer review.

[@Sh3rrr]

Yes, I agree, it's important not to assume that people already know a lot about a topic. There are people who didn't have the opportunity to learn information on different topics before, or some time ago, who can use the help and guidance of people who explain things from the basics. Your point about a lot of academics being unaware about some of their knowledge not being shared knowledge with everyone outside their field is something I've also seen mentioned about a geologists and their knowledge of rocks. But I also think people with good everyday life skills can have gaps like that, some people only discovered later how to do some life skills more effectively because they weren't taught some practical ways to do them because that was assumed basic knowledge. There are a lot of topics where I think more explanations for a learners audience would be beneficial for everyone.

[@programmernerd3803]

Yeah looking at this more I agree. Like I like watching Sabina physics content but I am someone who is very academic and someone who isn’t has high chance of taking the wrong message. When she talks about problems of string theory or so on people may equate that will all of physics. To do so is a massive over generalization. I also think that both creators here are taking very extreme sides. Like Sabina has lots of clickbaity thumbnails and comments but I doubt that the majority of her fanbase is science deniers nor does most of her content go over / make as charged statements regarding academia(it def still is a lot though)

[@robsengahay5614]

@@programmernerd3803 Another problem is the way that the algorithm works. Those clickbait thumbnails seem to attract hundreds of thousands of views whilst the others only attract a fraction of that so KZbin starts to recommend those videos particularly to people who inhabit the anti establishment, pseudoscience space. It doesn’t take long to attract a whole new audience of science deniers just for those videos. I used to enjoy a lot of her content but much of it is cringeworthy now as she chases views and money over intellectual integrity.

[@apgmk1970]

@@robsengahay5614 Yeah, the thing is that I haven't found a bank that takes intellectual integrity for mortgage payments. She's a KZbinr, not some intelectual giant or saint. She makes her living getting views... We aren't her customers, the advertisers are.

[@cavemandanwilder5597]

I had to stop watching Sabina a few months ago. She always used to have a unique but well-informed perspective on cutting edge physics that I could simply either take or leave as appropriate. Now she has abandoned any pretext of participating in the scientific community/process and has instead positioned herself firmly as an antagonistic outsider. Truly sad to see.

[@bobsnead1153]

Me too!

[@mightyhorsey]

There’s more money in it…

[@cjkenney]

i have a feeling she started her channel from a mostly positive place, wanting to put to use the knowledge she gained while studying. but as her channel started to grow in subscribers, she slowly adopted practices to grow her brand that eroded her ethics. clickbait. sketchy ad reads (betterhelp). misleading language in her videos. and i feel she justified every slip of her morals by letting her bitter experience in academia fuel her as the subscribers started pouring in.

[@alfa_kenny_body]

Guess which videos do better she's a KZbinr after all and what do KZbinrs usually do about hood doing videos....

[@SP-qi8ur]

*pretense

[@vladinosky]

I watched your first video about her, and I admit I started commenting about the fact that you made an amalgam about her statement being outside the scope of theoretical physics. But I then followed up the trail and I must admit I was wrong and she indeed unapologetically denies Science as a whole without solid basis for it and doubles down on it without much further development... It's actually quite sad.

[@cortical1]

My neurosurgery residents are practicing writing titles to become KZbin stars. Let me know what you think of these titles: "The crisis in physics is real: My opinion means science doesn't work at all anymore." "This specific surgical technique doesn't work for this specific kind of stroke: Neurosurgery is failing." "The crisis in physics is real: I don't trust atomic particles." "There's a crisis in a tiny area of theoretical and particle physics that doesn't have any real impact on most other areas of basic and applied science: Science is failing." "The crisis in physics is real: It's because scientists are shady people not because physics is hard." "The crisis in physics is real: My opinions apply not only to physics but to all areas of science, especially botany because I don't trust plants." 😃Cheers.

[@damienearl8302]

@@Th3EnterNal Let me guess, this is a string theory thing? *yawn*

[@fakelector]

So good. 👌🏻

[@damienearl8302]

@@Th3EnterNal Even then, yawn Those two are the only things people like you can bring up as counterarguments anymore "b-but string theory, but dark matter..." As if those encompass enough of the overall scientific world to justify her making the kinds of claims she upholds, and the clickbait thumbnails and titles that're at the center of those claims

[@literacypolice]

You just don't get it, man! All of academic scientific research is bogus and scientists are not to be trusted because she's not happy with the pace of progress in an area of physics in which she does not currently make her living or conduct research! LOL!

[@shivermetreason7592]

If I make a video called "The Crisis In Kung Fu Is Real: Martial Arts Are Worthless For Fighting In The UFC" I have made an absurd overgeneralization that cannot be denied. By Sabine's silly defense argument, I'm only saying there's a problem in kung fu not in martial arts as a whole. THAT IS NOT WHAT THAT TITLE MEANS, FFS.

[@ZoranDekic]

I found Sabine's response to your first video deeply disappointing. While she's right on so many things, and yes, academia isn't perfect, she simply and utterly refused to see what the message was.

[@jakkmcknight2933]

There was a response?? Where??

[@fka-Kaya]

@@jakkmcknight2933 She (or someone from her channel) replied on his last video and later deleted the comment

[@ChrisMissal]

No doubt she's doubling down now. Dave revealed how her BS is giving her more clicks. As if she didn't already know.

[@ZoranDekic]

@@jakkmcknight2933she made a response video on her channel. Didn’t mention Dave, but it was a response to his first video.

[@RandomNooby]

Power corrupts....

[@SophiaTheAll-Knowing]

I miss youtube before monetization. The motivation to lie for money is too coercive.

[@unholycrusader69]

Double edged sword. It also drives some creators to make better content (not in this case unfortunately)

[@amarug]

I agree, but as soon as there are bigger audiences, money comes into play, no matter what. Because there is always someone offering to pay for ads in some capacity.

[@KathrynElizabeth-j7y]

​@@amarug simple, outlaw advertising. The entire world will begin to heal.

[@Teqnifii]

​@@unholycrusader69 this assumption of meritocracy is clearly unfounded, as can especially be seen here

[@84dariustwin]

I would say that money is the root cause of many of our societal problems.

[@Krn7777w]

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Issac Asimov

[@samuelbanstan]

lost all of my respect for her when she made that video about trans people. it was the last straw for me. I’ve watched her channel for a long time, and seeing it gradually spiral into nonsense was painful and sad. she’s dangerously wrong, and I’m so glad you’ve taken the time to call her out

[@cortical1]

Career academic neuroscientist here from a medical school. Thanks, Dave. As usual, you have accurately called out her irrational and illogical gross overgeneralizing and the straw men responses of her science denier supporters. Keep up the great work. 🧠☀️

[@LaurentCassaro]

"Science denier supporters" 🤦‍♂️

[@latinajoseph]

Whats the issue? She denies science, they support her? Idk if her supporters would even have an issue with the label. Would you rather free thinker or anti-establshment? 😅 you're one or the other if you support her ​@LaurentCassaro

[@FreakGUY-007]

@@latinajoseph she denies the trend to trust modern academic scientists.. Many scams took place and why trust scientists? You have evidence.. you are good to go .

[@fakelector]

​@@LaurentCassaro It's hilarious that you got triggered by a perfectly straightforward and fair descriptive term. 🤣👌🏻😂👍🏻

[@literacypolice]

​@@LaurentCassaroWhat on God's flat earth is your issue with this phrase? Anyone who believes the objectively untrue statement that science is dying is a science denier and they support her. Are you speaking English as a second language, honest question?

[@hnglftz3827]

I think the problem is that Sabine never worked outside of academia. She sees all the problems in science/universities, but what she doesn't see is how thinks are outside of academia. I'm sure Sabine would get a heart attack if she would work at some big company and would see the realities there. If someone thinks that the average paper is garbage, that person should read a few patents and see the insanity there.

[@alfa_kenny_body]

This! Science denial is a big factor in e.g. the corp world. We just care about profits, not some labcoat scaring away investors. After one week of how science is treated in the corp world she'll do the full apology-, clarification video and channel sweep combo 😂

[@MitchellPorter2025]

Is there a KZbin channel like "The Patent Critic" that talks about this?

[@sthed6832]

Between my first set of patents and my second set, the patent office stopped even trying to screen the applications. Let the lawsuits decide. But they aren't papers.

[@fakelector]

@@hnglftz3827 Yeah, when money and profits alone drive science, it's a shit show. Most academics turn down three times the income to have the ability to study what they want and be independent about their conclusions.

[@colamity_5000]

Solid point. Also most papers are shit. Especially in small subfields past their prime you'll see a lot of tenured profs pumping out useless garbage. That's just facts, but that has basically no bearing on the public conversation about academia.

[@kaet.r8281]

why is science always hated on, i love science

[@simonwatson2399]

Because science is based on evidence. If you don't like what it says, you can't beat it with more science (unless you cheat) so instead you have to make science itself the target to beat.

[@WokeandProud]

Because science deals purly with empirical evidence letting reality speak for itself and doesn't allow subjectivity to freely reign. Alot of folks don't like that since it shows their views of reality are wrong.

[@lesfreresdelaquote1176]

Old AI scientist here. As I said in a previous post, I was a little bit surprised by how Sabine spoke so confidently about AI, when she obviously knows nothing about it. I'm 60 and in my field, I went through two major transformation. I started studying symbolic linguistics, then the field moved to machine learning, and now the field has been completely re-founded with the advent of deep learning and transformers. Scientists can be wrong and dogmatic as anyone else. BUT and this is a big BUT, science is a self-repaired system in which errors eventually get corrected. It might take time, you might have to fight some established people, but they eventually retire, or are proven wrong, and since authority figures in science only last at most the time of a human career (about 30 years) their vision eventually falls into oblivion and is replaced with a more refined and less error-prone version. Even established theories such as evolution went through different stages, when more fossils were discovered and when genetics became widely available. To finish my rant, I want to remind a very small fact to people around. When I started my research back in 1990, less than 10 countries participated into publishing papers, mainly the US, Canada, Australia and a few European countries such as England, Germany, France and Italy. Today the whole world participates in the game.

[@damienearl8302]

It's kind of sad too, because I feel like this is at least a not-insignificant amount of evidence that she's still on the lower end of the Dunning-Kruger scale, where she doesn't yet know enough about subjects outside her own to realize that she doesn't know nearly as much about them as she thinks

[@aBoogivogi]

Her examples of where the AI focus was a misstep was also very cherry picked and she barely touched upon the examples where it's more or less destroyed conventional programming. She didn't mention image recognition. I don't work in the AI branch of things, but 10 years ago when I was doing my computer engineering degree it was still becoming pretty apparent that a tailor made image recognition could never reach the precision of a well trained neural network. And today I'm sure even better approaches falling under the AI umbrella is available. A few months ago AI image recognition was implemented to detect fractures in X-rays in some Norwegian hospitals. We still have humans to look over said images, but the truth is the statistics show doctors make more mistakes then the image recognition software. There just isn't any legal framework in place that can allow the auto diagnosis of AI. It can't detect everything off course so an initial examination is still needed, but a leg fracture sustained while taking a tumble or falling on your ass while skiing rarely masks a lot of other problems if the patient made his way to the hospital on his own and is complaining solely about a pain in his leg :p The one area where I would argue she has a point is the general overestimation on what AI can be used for. Don't get me wrong ChatGPT is impressive, but if anyone looking to use AI for anything would need months in a server farm to build their model then the technology is worthless as there are only a few companies around that can even fund an attempt to produce a good model in the first place. An AI boom will require technology that allows a small to medium sized company to try out new things. Only then will we see surge of interesting AI tech appear at an exponential rate. That said this overactive reaction is not a new thing. Move back to the turn of the century and the innovation was focused on new interfaces, alternatives to SQL databases and web pages transitioning from static content to web applications. Go back 4-5 years and everyone thought that soon everything would be an IOT device. Decision makers with money to fund new ideas are always drawn to all the things something can do and not what it does, and the newer it is the bigger the focus. This is true for every field, but if it is a failing of anything it is just human nature. We have always flocked to the ideas that have the highest initial traction and the inertia of it all means it takes a while before we come back down to earth. PS: I truly hate the term AI. Given the plethora of examples of a true artificial intelligence from science fiction (that predates machine learning and it's derivatives) it's painfully misleading to call what we now have AI. It causes idiots to use ChatGPT and assume the thing is thinking. It's just leaning on a model that has analysed insane amounts of text and associated meta data with an efficiency and depth that no coder could ever accomplish with code written by hand. To make an analogy to humans what you are left with is; The most knowledgeable human alive that is utterly unable to learn new things through interaction. For something to be a true artificial intelligence it does not need to start out with a ton of knowledge but it has to be able to learn through interaction. A child managing to shade it's eyes form a bright light, turn on it's belly or crawl for the first time has more intelligence than ChatGPT

[@duckymomo7935]

Sabine aside the fact that AI won physics means that AI (or computer science is encroching onto other fields)

[@Ghostrider-ul7xn]

You said science is "self-repairing", but what you conveniently ignored is how many people are directly or indirectly impacted before science recognizes its mistakes. Lot of people throughout history, has lost jobs, families and their own lives, in defending ideas that scientific community was vehemently against at that time, but also which later turned out to be true.

[@damienearl8302]

@@Ghostrider-ul7xn To be fair, what you're describing sounds like people sacrificing their livelihoods in defense of ideas that didn't have enough evidence in favor of them to be considered proven And fittingly enough, you've decided here to paint this as science being...what, dogmatic or something? But you've conveniently left out any examples of this being the case or why people's livelihoods would be sacrificed in favor of those ideas

[@chriscurry2496]

This video is fucking based. She’s been heading down this path for a while now, and her carefully cultivated fans are rabidly defending this notion that “science and/or academia are failing”-or really ANY opinion she espouses, and I just recently caught on that it’s probably for click money. Great job on speaking up! When some of us try to do this and we don’t have the clout we just end up getting firewalled by her cultish fans or even get called “unprofessional” (with incredibly irony) by colleagues :(

[@Gliccit]

Are you sure thats a valid assessment of people on sabine's side? Pretty broad, uncharitable generalisation.

[@chriscurry2496]

@@GliccitWell, I certainly don’t believe I said ALL her fans behave like this-because yes, that WOULD be a generalization. But here’s the thing, I’ve counted myself until recently as a fan of hers. until I noticed that there’s a significant portion who behave exactly like the anti-science crowd that Dave here alleges she caters to and attracts.

[@piotrd.4850]

Your logical fallacy is: "x doesn't support Ukraine, therefore x supports Russia".

[@VonJay]

what’s crazy is that I used to click on her videos ALL THE TIME, and more and more I noticed how cynical and flat out click baity she became. It came to the point where i’d just read the thumbnail without clicking any more. Then dave drops the last video a few days ago and I was like, “wow, so it isn’t just me” lmao. I unsubscribed to her channel about halfway through his video and didn’t need to watch the rest. He hit every point I made to myself and more.

[@boredom2go]

This video is fucking bullshit. He literally does the exact thing he accuses Sabine of doing.

[@ominous-omnipresent-they]

Can we just a moment to appreciate this guy's unwavering commitment to empowering a knowledgeable, well-informed society?

[@dingai]

Sabine: make an explainer on the psychological phenomenon of "audience capture" by which individuals gradually transform their own thinking in response to positive and negative feedback from their audience. You have a long list of public figures you can use to illustrate how people start, how they gradually evolve, and where they end up and how almost inconceivable it is that they would be saying such crazy things now, considering how measured and reasonable they used to be. You could finish by looking at the case of yourself, doing a thorough mea culpa, and restoring your integrity. Now that would be impressive!

[@chuck7473]

I've been feeling frustrated and angry for the past couple of days, and this video is inspiring me to channel my anger into something positive and productive, rather than laying down and giving up. Thanks.

[@crazyman-t1b]

I woke up that morning and just screamed, spent the entire day miserable, but despair is useless. We must resist. We can only hope now that there's enough good people in their way, and be those people if we can. Stay strong, don't let them take our hope.

[@bomberfox5232]

Sabotage may be the only form of resistance.

[@uncreativename5736]

your comment makes me imagine you watching ragebait to motivate yourself into constructing an Ikea cabinet lmaoo

[@Liahs333]

Well said. I have felt the exact same way. Forcing myself not to consume more garbage yet seeking inspiration still

[@readyok8230]

I've been away from reddit for the last few days, trying to find a way to feel hopeful. I feel ya.

[@BollyWonka]

The fact you have to explain this is incredible. Incredibly sad.

[@IRGeamer]

"I don't have a real problem with ignorance. We are all ignorant about a variety of subjects we are not currently aware of. The real problem is when that ignorance is wilful, baseless and used as a weapon against anyone who disagrees with you, or anyone who has the nerve to present facts you don't want to accept." - anyone who actually cares about verifiable reality

[@GurraDesu]

Great video! I have been getting increasingly frustrated with "hip" science channels trying to find some cool middle ground between science and popular opinion, and it has been getting increasingly evident that clicks are more important than truth. Definitely will be subscribing!

[@the0ne809]

I started to follow her a few months ago. I'm not a scientist but a science enthusiast. She has some great videos but I noticed then in some of her videos, she injects her own opinions (nothing wrong with that) but she makes it sound like those are facts. She starts to generalize and say things like this video describes. I was confused because how someone this smart could be saying stuff like this. I'm glad this video was made. She needs to be called out for her click bait titles and some of the stuff she says. I think her brain is getting cooked by the people who she surrounds herself with. You know those "free speech" absolutists but only for themselves.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

Hipsters: "religion and science are both wrong"

[@eddieray]

Cause they want money. Hungry little money wh0res. They want a wider audience so they can get more views and more money. If you sit on the fence with legs on both sides as a content creator you'll be rich in just a few months.

[@juanmendoza5236]

Just curious why you enjoyed this video?

[@kel-A-3414]

I don't think it's a coincidence. Her takes on gender and capitalism, Fields she has no expertise in, is akin to Jordan Peterson thinking he's a philosopher Guru on everything just because he has a "PhD" in psychology.

[@BriarLeaf00]

Yep some of her videos are completely off the rails and sometimes flat out bigoted, or relying on bigots for "data"

[@imarandomperson761]

I've never watched a single video of hers so when I saw videos with thumbnail and titles referencing trans people and others saying "capitalism is good" and "I don't trust scientists" I had an idea of what her thoughts were, seems like I wasn't wrong lmao

[@billburnsbrown9798]

Dave you should get really jacked and do these videos with your shirt off, then everyone will suddenly understand.

[@pranays]

Or claim he learned it on a mushroom trip when he spoke to Einstein's spirit.😂

[@keeferChiefer]

He needs to get on 1.5g of Tren and eat raw liver while making these videos. Only then will I understand

[@Yordleton]

Does he have to get an HGH gut too?

[@jannor321]

@@Yordleton He doesn't have to show his waist

[@500subswithoutvideos]

If Natural Hypertrophy were a science communicator:

[@RandomNooby]

Thanks for covering Sabines mid-life crisis....

[@bobsnead1153]

She seems more of a spurned lover to me ...

[@pjc_7]

You got it

[@danie-v2o]

😂😂

[@nestorlovesguitar]

LOL

[@Barnaclebeard]

She has always seemed genuinely unwell to me

[@terrimartin5663]

I'm not a scientist; I'm a teacher. I'm not even a science teacher, but I can see how dangerous Sabina's ambitious dishonesty is, shown in sad proof through Trump's reelection. Please continue to broadcast the truth and to call out these charlatans. Our society needs you, now more than ever.

[@boonheeliew2488]

I enjoy watching both of their videos, Dave and Sabine. I learnt a lot from them. no one is wrong, both of them are contributing. we are mature enough to analyse. how nice if one day, they both become couple.

[@naborukharat198]

​@@boonheeliew2488 no one is wrong, it is like not watching the video. When someone says a wrong statement, he is wrong, that is how life works. When someone says most academic research is BS, he is wrong, let alone the burden of proof being on him, we know and can show how science and academia are not failing. They are not perfect because of money, because of religious dogma trying to blunt it, but they are not BS.

[@n0gulag]

I love science and KZbin knows it. I had recently subscribed to Sabina’s content after getting a few recommendations. After a while I started having nagging doubts about her, and your last two videos clarified why I felt she was off somehow. I suppose now that she is turning off people like me who are genuinely interested in science, she will probably spiral further off into the arms of her growing science-denier audience, which is a shame. Anyway, thanks for doing this work.

[@MOKAPOT_T]

One of the most saddest comment I saw below her "science is failing" video was from an innocent Science student saying he really lost his inspiration to continue his science career after watching the video. He's afraid learning science is becoming useless for his future career. I felt so bad reading that.

[@S-L-J]

@@MOKAPOT_T that is exactly the worst effect that she is causing as alleged "science communicator" and that is a subplot of Dave's criticism too. Your and the original comment should be upvoted if you ask me.

[@qwqeqrqtqz]

I was quite disappointed with her video response. It didn't address any of the criticism and doubled down on the harmful rhetoric. I wasn't exactly surprised by that but part of me still hoped she would do better

[@red_ben3487]

Which is exactly what I said she would do

[@fcandfm3000]

Saying that "you cut out context" is such a popular excuse these days. I see countless people use it to defend the straight up BS people they like say.

[@MindForgedManacle]

Much of the time I see the context claim they basically just want them to reproduce the entire argument before saying anything. It's a time wasting tactic oftentimes.

[@Flexy59]

and it works so well because there are indeed many cases where this behavior is problematic, so people are primed to believe that anyone would do it

[@mattm8870]

@@Flexy59 actually I think it more the case these people believe everyone would take stuff out of context etc because that what they would do.

[@neoqwerty]

@@mattm8870 Accusations being a projection 101.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

It's a refuge of the scoundrel. What else are quotes, if not out of context? :D Absent malicious distortion (or even accidental) it's a ridiculous charge.

[@BurritoVampire]

Something I'm learning this week is most people don't think about anything.

[@Krugis]

The US election was 99% about buzz words, slogans, and short-form platitudes. Up to 50% of the population lacks an internal dialogue. Essentially every dissenter (and Sabine herself) responded to Dave's video without actually consuming it. Don't think too hard about how little people actually use their gift of sentience.

[@relwalretep]

Thinking is overrated. Or at least I think it is. Maybe.

[@sussysenpai1712]

"I love not thinking!" ~ koishi

[@costakeith9048]

It seems more that people don't think about anything but politics, even most scientists put politics before science. This entire criticism of Sabina is effectively, "I don't like the potential political consequences of this."

[@Krugis]

@costakeith9048 Science denial is a societal issue though, not political. Science denial is a forefront political position in a single Western country, and certainly doesn't belong there I think Dave's main complaint is that an academic is providing degree -backed ammunition for people who demonstrably erode society with science and knowledge denial, completely outside of specific political ideology. With that said, Dave also makes his own position (on US politics) known here, so who truly knows

[@GarbagedLord]

I am not a scientist in any way ( I work on video games) but doesn't being a science communicator entail that you actually have to be good at communicating? "Science is dying" seems to have a clear message and no amount of back tracking and explaining "well, that's not what I meant" is going to change what she is actually communicating with it

[@k1ng401]

“Is science dying?” is not the same as “science is dying”. Which did Sabine actually say?

[@edwardanthony8929]

Part of the problem is diminishing returns, and the fact that 90% of efforts don’t produce remarkable results, but you cannot have the 10% without 90%.

[@brianvernaglia9449]

I think sabine wants a major break through at the level of Newton or Einstein every few years in physics. Science doesnt work on timelines set by anyone.

[@Nxck2440]

13:30 Thanks for bringing up PubPeer. Guys, whenever you see one of those sham creationist papers that occasionally manage to get published in legit journals, that's where you can report them. I recently found one titled "Biological evolution is dead in the water of Darwin's warm little pond", published in "Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology". Dennis Noble (evolution drama pot-stirrer) is on the journal's editorial board.

[@Thelma7361]

She’s deeply irresponsible.

[@curiositycloset2359]

So was saying "follow the science", while giving people untested gene therapy drugs. Then complaining people don't trust you.

[@hitokiribattousai111]

This is the best description of Sabine's vids highlighted here.

[@costakeith9048]

She's a scientist. Whether we should be ruled by a fascist or communist or liberal regime isn't a scientific question, it's a philosophical one, she's right to be indifferent to it.

[@OneDerscoreOneder]

@@costakeith9048 Absurd. As a scientist she should avoid giving misinformation about science to the masses.

[@DanielKang-t6v]

perfect description of Sabine

[@digidevil4]

She did a video a while back "Stop blaming fossil fuel companies - Climate Change is our own fault", that just ignores the fact that those companies have put so much effort into prevent the world acting on climate change. About 4 months ago, I feel like thats around the time I started noticing the quality of her channel dip and the clickbait titles started becoming more common.

[@AbundantChris]

It is 50/50: fossil fuel companies only produce what they do because there is plentiful demand for gas powered vehicles, airplane fuel, ship fuel, home energy use, etc.. They aren't digging out fossil fuels out of a love for digging out fossil fuels. If society switched to a non-fossil fuel consumption world, fossil fuel companies would no longer exist or would completely alter their business plans and sell something else. Some fossil fuel companies are already doing it.

[@gabrielfonseca1642]

OK, I watched your first video. I don't know, maybe Sabrina is just misguided- Sabrina: "What I say fuels the fire of science deniers. But that's because science deniers are right" WHAT???

[@anamerican5585]

out of context. they are right about some things, wrong about others. when it comes to there be something wrong with academia they are right

[@gabrielfonseca1642]

@anamerican5585 I'm more expressing my shock at the fact she actually said that

[@anamerican5585]

​@@gabrielfonseca1642 She said, and I actually watched the whole video so I can (correctly) quote her: "Some scientists don't want me to mention this because they say it fuels the fires of science deniers. It does. But that's because science deniers are right when they say that academia has a big problem. Ignoring this problem won't make it go away." If you get shocked when things are taken out of context and you are easily gullible then you are the prime target audience for this video.

[@gabrielfonseca1642]

@@anamerican5585 I know what she said. To be honest, it's not much better with context

[@anamerican5585]

@@gabrielfonseca1642 no it really is though. whats actually wrong with what she said?

[@N0lukc]

7:51 This is the same problem with archeology! I seen a pseudo-archeology video a few months back with a little over 1 million views and a very enthusiastic comment section. If that can't influence the course of archeology, science, etc. You need to take a harsh reality check. That is over 1 million impressionable people that could of got misinformed on a topic they know nothing about. Yet we are seen as crazy or are told we are getting paid by the Smithsonian if we speak out against false information. It's very appalling. Now, I might not be a archeologist (but I am a geologist), and you can imagine how much conspiracy theories are made around topics in geology.

[@SuperAwesomestness]

There's all of young earth creationism to deal with on the topics of geology and archeology.

[@N0lukc]

@SuperAwesomestness absolutely argee with you, but I guess that is our problem to deal with, not everyone else's. lol

[@SuperAwesomestness]

@@N0lukc That's just it, it is everyone's problem because the disinformation isn't confined to the field. Mostly those versed in geology (or other specialty) may so inclined to defend it, but idiots predisposed to conspiracy theories can come from any walk of life. It's easier to popularize denial that it is to fight for the truth when Education and School Curriculum are generally under attack. It takes an education and the capacity to educate and a willing student base to fight off this monster. It's easy to be stupid and lazy, so all it takes to incite science denialism is to invent a boogie man. And now we have flat earthers, anti-vaxx, young earth creationists, anti -evolution, and many others, all brought on by inciting or displacing mistrust in institutions, each with their own imaginary boogie men keeping people from learning the "Truth." What I personally see out of all of this conspiracy nonsense is it's use as a litmus test in information warfare. And the results show that the people are ready to believe whatever you want them too, a social environment ripe for fascism. It's an existential threat to us all.

[@Big-Papa-Smurf]

We can no longer afford to take science denialism lightly. Unfortunately, these types of people now pose a legitimate threat to the society, which means that academia will soon follow.

[@boredom2go]

Academia caused this problem. Academia isn't interested in fixing it. So sit down.

[@vintinoo1924]

So mad ​@@boredom2go

[@Oh-fr2nv]

⁠@@boredom2go academia is the only reason mouth breathers like you are able to freely share their opinions. you’re the town idiot no one takes seriously, but your voice is amplified because of the countless advancements made by people that actually get shit done. western society is crumbling because there will always be a surplus of worthless cromagnons like you, and the voices of the small percent of people pushing humanity forward are being drowned out because of the technology they put in the common idiots hands.

[@datacoderX]

Since the dawn of ages there have been science deniers. If academia lowers it's standards even more and paper mills and AI produce not only thousands of mediocre publications a day, but a tenfold using AI, just to survive in the points of citations regime, that isn't helpful. Shutting from the rooftop doesn't help. If Academy would be fine and dandy, we wouldn't have this discussion.

[@Mallchad]

If you do that you will find out interesting new studies like how de-population is the answer to climate change. And everybody will accept it because you silenced the concerned. Don't do that.

[@jackalantlers]

thank you for emphasizing the importance of responsible science communication. i've only discovered your channel just now, but voices like yours are going to be so valuable moving forward these next 4 years 😬

[@PunmasterSTP]

I hope Elon and Vivek can do a decent job of streamlining government agencies in a way that reduces bias/doesn't introduce more bias.

[@AJ_Meyers]

@jackalantlers - Agreed. America is in for a very rough next few years, with the Magas and their hatred of expertise in charge of things. Let's all hope they make it through with some semblance of a democracy.

[@PunmasterSTP]

@@AJ_Meyers For what it's worth, I support Trump but don't hate having people with expertise in charge of things. I think it's more an issue with how the system operates as a whole, and I hope it can get shaken up and talented people can do good work.

[@Throwaway-p2p]

the replication crisis is very real, but its scope has been blown completely out of proportion. Not only that, but the way science has responded to the crisis has actually been very promising. The "crisis" largely affected psychology, but the burgeoning field of behavioral economics also relied heavily on that research and so was also affected. This isn't the end of the story, as lots of the research has been thrown out, and a new field of science, "meta-science" has risen to specifically check research. The replication crisis, and the response from the scientific community, would make for a great video.

[@riseofdarkleela]

I love this. It’s 100% meat, no bone. Meta-science for the win (okay, more like for the slow, gradual, two steps forward one step back, hard won progress).

[@eniettelia8698]

that sounds super interesting!

[@niblick616]

Could you provide a single example of what you are claiming?

[@zameize]

I think I can speak objectively here as a particle physicist just like SH. Most of us in particle physics, astroparticle physics and related subjects knew that there is not yet any advancement since the discovery of Higgs bosons. We want to find signals from beyond standard model either in the form of new structures (particles, fields, strings, etc) or additional effects on established phenomena (correction on W mass, muon g-2 etc). The sign from BSM will greatly eliminate a lot of models we have proposed to the BSM and will help us construct the correct structures of the BSM. What we are doing right know is to keep performing experiments with more sophisticated tools (building detectors, telescopes, etc) in the hope of we are able to get beyond the SM scale. In the theoretical side some people working on the mathematical foundations of BSM models and some working on the simulation, phenomenology of such BSM in terms of its effects and predictions on our current equipments capabilities. I am in the latter side. That being said, there are a lot of people working in this side, meanwhile the money grant is limited or even reduced. That is the reality. For someone who is pursuing a career as a theoretical particle physicist, it is hard to get job in the field and also grant. And when you do get the job, you are required to produce research results (papers) certain amount in certain time. This will make most of the physicists to make a “mediocre papers” that in principle containing hypothetical new BSM proposal and its possible sign of detections in the current experimental level. I do that, my colleagues do that. I think this is what her frustration all about. That is why she said no progress since 100 years or so. I mean if you compare to the discovery of relativity and QM, that may be true but that is misleading. A monumental discovery does not happen very often. It requires pre conditions which all points toward the intending discovery. Einstein would not had invented relativity if at his time there was no debate about ether, or problem in electromagnetic. That goes also for the QM. We are in the phase of reaching the next pre condition for the next discovery. Yeah it is now not so clear because we still not be able to produce a signal from our ever expensive toys but that does not mean, all the efforts all useless. A lot of scientists are trying to balance doing honest good research with limitations of budgets, grants, and in a stagnant climate. We all working based on what we have, what is available for us and in balance to work as scientist (where we also need money to eat!). In conclusion, I agree with you Dave. SH is frustrated and blowed it out of proportion which now looks like anti-science. This will do harm to people in general.

[@idkusernameeggatron4652]

So your telling me therotival physics has a tech tree where you need to get science points for a big discovery? My respect of theoritical particists has increased.

[@nostur4984]

@@zameize theoretical physics isnt the only field of science there is and has no practical benefit to anyone. It doesnt need grant money like sunrays to a plant as Sabine seems to think.

[@zameize]

@@nostur4984 technology in your laptops, smart phone exist because the concept in Quantum mechanics which is a theoretical physics

[@famenpamendetsroy]

​@@nostur4984 To brush off theoretical physics is to brush off human nature and everything thats gotten us here and further

[@nostur4984]

@@famenpamendetsroy i dont brush it off. I merely point out the hypocrisy in how Sabine and others brush everything else off. And you're wrong. What got us here was philosophy, social scientists and engineers mainly. Theoretical physics wouldn't have kicked off to begin with if post-medieval thinkers didn't kick away Scholasticism and Church authority.

[@LaddTr0n]

‘This is how the public interfaces with reality now, stories.’ I’d submit that humanity has and will always value stories. Even the scientists. I mean, we spend shit tons of money on stories and have been doing that for a loooong time. Also, stories can inspire and develop scientific discovery and understanding. Narratives have a lot of power and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a human thing.

[@Sweeti924]

The story “science is dying”

[@billbill6094]

Sabine is the only genuine STEM channel that I had to make sure I'm no longer reccomended, I actually don't understand the point of her channel. Every vid of hers seems to be taking a new interesting study or enterprise and framing it as bad, greedy, pointless, power-hungry, ego affirming on behalf on the researchers. All with zero basis to do so beyond her own general skepticism. It seems all she does is try to hand wave new science while saying if it's not up to her snuff new research shouldn't even be done. As if new science is a pointless endeavor and we shouldn't even bother doing it; if it's not a massive brealthrough on the scale of Einstein that can explain everything we don't know its meaningless junk. I think she can be really funny at times with her remarks but I'm not sure I ever actually learned anything from her channel, which is strange from a PhD physicist and science communicator. Also, notice how every example of scientific failing brought up in _this_ video is complimented by scientists and the scientific community actively reporting it and fighting against it, to the point of shutting down big papers or quitting their jobs at certain publications. That is what science is, it's a self-correcting process. This is what "repeatability" and "peer review" do. This narrative that scientists are just blind sheep congratulating each other for having brilliant minds for writing things in a paper they can't prove is just that, a narrative. You know when any field of science goes wrong or when they don't know something because they _tell you_ in depth. In that way people are weaponizing knowledge they gained from scientists against them for supposedly being unknowledgeable. She uses the scientists are sheep narrative to push another one, that she is the lone expert reporting on these failings and therefore outside of the bad ignorant mainstream academia, basic science denialist rhetoric. "Science is bad, I know because I'm the only one scrutinizing it, forget that scrutinization is built into science because that means I'm not a special truth beacon and scientists do what I say they don't."

[@DanielKang-t6v]

I saw Dave’s first video about Sabine, I felt disillusioned by a lot of comments claiming themselves as "scientists or whatever" and saying "she’s got a point, Dave" Her sycophants claiming themselves as "I work on academic" or "I’m scientist", well I don’t know it is true or not but I don’t freaking care. What was so disillusioning about the comments were those such "sophisticated scientists" haven’t even watched the first video entirely. Well me, I’m not defending Dave, but those such "sophisticated" people mislead the whole point of the first video and attack straw man. I doubt that if they are actually real scientists or whatever.

[@Luan-RT]

I agree. It was really funny seeing all the "scientists" coming out of the woodwork.

[@evanbrown2594]

Science is gradual and boring until it’s exciting people need to get used to that.

[@Monsterhunter16]

Science isn’t boring, it’s beautiful.

[@juannaym8488]

@@Monsterhunter16 nah it's boring 90-95% of the time It's a process that's tedious and slow, with a great payoff

[@Monsterhunter16]

@@juannaym8488 then maybe you aren’t interested in that field of science because for me, no matter how much I learn in any field of science it feels like I am closer to the universe. I can’t get enough of it. I will admit the only boring thing is the part of doing work(I’m lazy)the interesting part is learning.

[@zachrichardson5581]

​@@Monsterhunter16 you're not understanding the main point here though. He's talking about the perspective of people who aren't innately intrigued by the mundane learning part of science. Mainly the general public. They don't care for or find interest in the day to day things scientists do that are important in the long term. Most people only care when attention grabbing headlines are put out there and then they feel like it's cool and important.

[@Monsterhunter16]

@ I understand most people don’t care for science because it’s boring, I was just saying I find it interesting.

[@freddan6fly]

Long before your video on Sabine, I was really upset with the way she spoke almost like a science denier. She uses language she shouldn't and I did unsubscribe because what she said in her videos made me angry at her.

[@anxietyfox4322]

I found Sabine relatively late in her youtube career and I was immediately put off by her content and the way she worded things. Back then she wasn't as bad as she is now, but something about it just felt wrong to a layman like me. In hindsight I can see that she was already on her way to full science denial and dropping hints about it, like she as testing the waters to see how it would take off. I never subscribed and left her channel alone for a long time... and when youtube recommended her videos to me again I took a look. Full blown science denial. To me Sabine just seems like a bitter ex-scientist who couldn't make it in her field, didn't produce anything useful much less the major breakthroughs she's crowing about now. Now she's taking her revenge on "the establishment" by calling it all bullshit, but not offering any kind of alternatives herself. Because she can't. It's just sad to see a real scientist devolve into yet another pseudoscientific scammer. It seems to me that the only thing that sets her apart from Answers in Genesis, Electric Universe, and others like them is that she is still using her ex-scientist status to veil herself in legitimacy. It's particularly galling to me that someone who never produced any sort of major breakthrough in science, or much of anything else from what I can tell, is now attacking the entire scientific community for the same thing.

[@staceyboomboom8031]

I'm neuro-divergent and suffered undiagnosed without treatment for the 1st twenty something years of my life, due to the amount of misinformation that was out there .Had it not been for the amazing work and care of clinical psychology ,and treatment thanks to the science of medicine I would not have lived the 41 years I have. So imagine my anger when I came across an article by someone who seemed to say my AdHd And everything that comes with it DOESN'T exist. Their credentials? Well it said "counsellor". No PhD . No name of where they worked or studied to explain how they came to this assertion. This is where the internet becomes EXTREMELY dangerous, by undoing the progress that affects real lives.

[@nathannakoski2881]

Okay some clearly evil charlatan wrote an awful article. Let's shut down the internet ASAP! How does that even affect you? Turn off your screen bruh. BTW, the psychology PhDs 60 years ago would also say that ADHD isn't real and that you just need to be punished via electric shocks or something since they believed all of human existence came down to their unfalsifiable behavior conditioning quadrant. And the PhDs of 160 years ago would say that we need to cauterize girls' clitorises to improve moral hygiene... oh wait our country continues this depraved practice TODAY except on boys. PhDs aren't immune from the human evil. I love the internet to death. You can filter through the BS, and even the BS contains truth about the person writing it.

[@l-l]

@@nathannakoski2881you missed the point of the video and their comment. It matters because it's now a common conception in the public. Science disinformation is becoming alarming successful since covid. Especially in the US. I've met people in their 20s who think adhd and other disorders are not real.

[@Tretas.]

​@@nathannakoski2881It's as if, and try getting this because it ain't rocket science, such misinfo spreds fast in growing antiscience circles and that's why you end up with a climage change denier as president??? 🤯 Imagine thinking the freaking internet of all things exists in a vaccum and it wont affect irl social discourse, won't shift public perception nor even affect policies if one simply shuts her screen off. Bozo.

[@nathannakoski2881]

@@Tretas. You may as well be railing against the printing press. The internet has been overwhelmingly positive, just like anything else that aids communication and access to information. People suck, not the internet. The internet has certainly had a positive effect on science literacy. What do you think people consumed before the internet? Talk radio and TV. And have you not seen how many horrible books there are? How about the religious fundamentalist child-beating manuals? Give me a break man!

[@nathannakoski2881]

@@l-l People believed tons of insane stuff before the internet. Guess how I had my creationist bubble popped--the internet! I don't think you understand how much the internet has helped.

[@PinataOblongata]

"This is how the public interacts with information now: stories." This hit me pretty hard, it's obviously true. People have been trained by their social media feeds to seek narratives that either outrage or pander to confirmation bias. We used to seek news that held it as a value to convey facts as accurately and dispassionately/non-partisan as possible, and now it's the absolute opposite. We want to be entertained by all our information, we can't just consume some facts and supporting evidence and maybe some discussion that looks at all sides and which might not have any satisfying conclusion. We want the villains to be obvious, we want to be the good guy/hero (or we want our tribe to be) and we want everything dumbed down and abbreviated to the point where the actual reality of the situation is barely discernible. I have no idea what it's going to take to drag humanity back from this state of affairs, besides a great reset and a shit-ton of suffering.

[@Dan_Campbell]

Truer words, Pinata. It's one of our cognitive flaws, and one of the reasons AIs are going to be way smarter than us. Also, as Daniel Kahneman pointed out several times before he passed away, AIs deal with Noise much better than us.

[@PinataOblongata]

@Dan_Campbell we put on place representatives who do not listen to the best academics in their fields, so why would the implement any policy based on what an AI has to say? Smart/moral people keep making the mistaken assumption that those with wealth and power want progress for humanity - they do not, they simply wish to increase their wealth and power. I hope that AI can continue to revolutionise protein folding problems and drug discovery and perhaps give us novel materials and such, but I do not expect it will solve the more salient problema inherent in our dominant social structures and the bad incentives therein.

[@Dan_Campbell]

@@PinataOblongata I do believe there's a chance that AIs will do more than just replace jobs. I think they will design entirely new economic systems which don't fit the Capitalist-Socialist dichotomy that we like to debate about, and insult each other about, ad infinitum. And they will be able to prove that their models will work. But yes - our leaders don't want this. And even many of us want to continue our delusions. So it can go either way, especially since some of the AIs are proprietary. There's reasons for both Hope & Fear, when it comes to artificial thinking entities.

[@Disentropic1]

@@PinataOblongata I think you're correct in some important ways, but I also want to point out what I think you may be underestimating. We _need_ to interpret reality narratively. Even though science continually reveals that the complexities of reality are too nuanced to be completely described by any narrative, we simply cannot draw conclusions without interpreting the data. I think it's consistent with this fact that your own comment concludes "I have no idea what it's going to take." In other words, to the degree that you insist on objectivity, you increasingly risk deriving nothing actionable. It is not for nothing that people have split into different camps of data interpretation, and it isn't as inherently foolish as standard critiques of 'tribalism' and "internet bubbles" make it out to be. Taking various perspectives on our problems has often been a helpful solution strategy for humanity. When you have a large population, varied specialization, even at the expense of introducing somewhat arbitrary biases, generally promotes survival of the group. In order to derive useful courses of action, we need to put all the relevant information we have into a coherent whole, not merely to assess that fact A corresponds with theories X, Y, and Z at respective proportions 20%, 60% and 90%. Trying to make the facts fit your worldview isn't entirely a product of irrationality; it's driven by the need to end up with something coherent _and_ actionable, even knowing that it will inevitably be a flawed approximation of the truth. So, while I agree that this division of biases seems to be causing some very big problems, we should critique it with a strong comprehension of what motivates it and what about it has such salience that it persists in the face of usual critiques. With a more thorough and charitable understanding of the problem, we may stand more of a chance to solve it.

[@PinataOblongata]

@@Disentropic1 Thanks for your thoughtful reply, but I must respectfully disagree with most of your points. Firstly, it is not true to say that objective information inherently has no actionable value: If you want to know how to build your vaccine, then the object data of of the sequences of the virus' coat proteins will tell you how to go about it. You don't need it wrapped in a story. If you want to know if people are dying from hunger in a particular area, you need that binary information wrapped in a moral tale of whether they supposedly deserve it or not - if they are, then it tells you you need to send aid, that's it. If you want to know whether maybe you should stop pumping CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere because perhaps you're warming it too quickly, the objective and dispassionate results of a bunch of non-narrative science will tell you in no uncertain terms the answer to that question and what actions are appropriate. No, we do not need all the bullshit narratives attached. Science gives us data to answer our questions about what's going on. If we were all operating with same basic values (i.e. evidence is required for any claims, science is the best way to produce it, the results should inform policy, policy should be for human and social betterment, rather than corporate and billionaire wealth increases) then it would be a very simple, narrative-free pipeline of information gathering and policy formulation based directly on that information. Secondly, we do not have two camps of interpretation, we have people interpreting science and complete science deniers. We have people who want the best for humanity and people who want the best only for themselves and their bank account and access to power. We have people with an evidence-based epistemology and people who can't even spell epistemology, who don't know why evidence is required and can't critically evaluate any information that comes their way or recognise whether a source is credible or not. I would happily debate with anyone who is actually looking at the data and has a slightly different idea about what we should do about it. I might even concede to them from time to time, because if the arguments where actually that constrained, the differences in what we would be proposing would be minimal. But his is obviously not the situation we are in. Lastly, While I agree that an understanding of cognitive and behavioural psychology is important, the project has been underway science the ancient Greeks and we already know everything that is salient. We have a great list of logical fallacies that are almost never taught in schools and everyone falls for every day and never actively tries to train themselves to spot, baring a few scientists, atheists and academics. We already know about this love of narrative - the great Terry Pratchett placed it centrally in his Discworld novels and Death gives a speech about it in the Hogfather (IIRC) concluding that humans need stories, just as you have, but as much as I adore those novels, I disagree we NEED it. It's just a feature of our brains that we seek it, and like every other base impulse, like raping any women we lust for or bashing any competitor over the head for their food, we have the capability to suppress it for the betterment of the whole. Understanding and accepting that I am a human prone to cognitive biases makes me just a little less susceptible to them, and if I orchestrate ways to cut my biases out of my investigation of the world, like using the scientific method, then I can be even more free from them. Reality is not narrative. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Kids get cancer and it's just not fair. Everything does NOT happen "for a reason", just a chain of random causation. If our sense-making apparatus is not giving us workable output, we need to abandon it for a better one - this was what the natural philosophers discovered and honed into the scientific method and the enlightenment. Unfortunately most individuals don't realise how enlightenment values and concepts are butting up against their primal flaws, and how they need to be rising above the latter to embrace the former for a better quality of life.

[@dingai]

Thank you for being as mad as you SHOULD be, and we all should be! The tendency to pull our punches and use hedging language and weasel words is one of the reasons that people with no restraint have such an easy time manipulating the general public. There are so few people like you who actually speak your mind not only with the content clearly and directly expressed, But the real emotions that so many of us actually feel but never see expressed!

[@rabbit.of.the.moon_]

PLEASE do a video debunking RFK 😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@kemicalhazard8770]

+1 on this one

[@TheHunterGracchus]

There are some videos doing that. IIRC, Dr. Wilson made some very good ones.

[@keepyourbilsteins]

Robert Evans on his Behind the Bastards podcast did a multi-parter on him earlier this year. It is jaw dropping. RFK Jr is absolutely insane.

[@0cgw]

The channel "Debunk The Funk" run by Dr Dan Wilson has made a series on RFK (specifically his book) if you are interested.

[@NicolasEmbleton]

That would be good, indeed.

[@scotchfaster]

I used to enjoy Sabine's videos. I saw the clickbait and her anti-establishment leanings, but I shrugged it off and felt I'd learned something after watching her videos. But I completely see how she is adding fuel to a fire in a world that's already too hot, and all to attract viewers.

[@dreamcyberium]

I subscribed to her for only a couple of months because she seemed cool. Then she posted a video about how trans people were wrong to exist and tried to play herself as a ""centrist"". I unsubbed from her very quickly.

[@IsomerSoma]

Where did she ever claim this?

[@gsp6517]

It's pretty interesting of you to spread misinformation on a video about the spread of misinformation. How ironic.

[@pretty7545]

Thank you for calling her out, it's really about time.

[@drustvism2029]

You’d think the fact that scientists change their positions upon new information would be a point of praise. Nobody is perfect the first time around, and even if one aspect of science proves to be a dead end that does not mean it’s worthless and taught us nothing. A lot of Freud’s ideas are considered nonsense nowadays but he still founded the field of psychotherapy

[@neoqwerty]

Hell, Lamarck got his concept of genetics wrong but then he got somewhat vindicated because we figured out epigenetics are similar to his hypothesis. Dude was lost in the potato field, but he intuited a pattern that turned out to be there on a different scale.

[@Biga101011]

Yeah we moved on because he is dead. It's astonishing how people think scientists change their minds so easily. Usually the shifts are more generational than individuals changing their minds. Scientists are probably better than the average person, but wouldn't overestimate their ability to put their biases aside.

[@kMegalonyx]

@@drustvism2029 these people start with the magical thinking of religion and since education was never great and has been largely gutted, they dont comprehend the process of science on a basic level, to them it is just an institution beyond their comprehension like any other. The discourse is hard to notice if you dont expect it and somewhat specifically obscured so the same critical thinking wont be applied to their leaders. Its their solution to the kids getting turned woke by school. And they dont seethe connection to all of technology and all of the conveniences we have and all the ways we *dont die*. Which, ofc, proves its works.

[@mutawi]

Her criticism is that they don't change their position after spending decades trying the same thing with minor variations. Further that this is caused by certain buzzword theories being more fundable. And that getting grants for research has become the primary determinant of employment success in academia.

[@drustvism2029]

@@mutawi but, they do change. Scientific change is gradual and soemthing that a lay person is not going to see. Can you name me one specific aspect of a theory in any field of science that has been repeatedly disproven beyond a reasonable doubt that scientists hold on to? No you cannot

[@nikitaelizarov7444]

Dave and Sabine having a face-to-face conversation would have made great content for both and would have been very educational. But now it seems all the bridges have been burnt.

[@TomKron]

Hi Dave, I commented on the last video, defending Sabine from the perspective of her experiences with science and her, let's say "frustration" with science, as I could understand them very well as of my personal experiences. But I totally missed your point about the thumbnailing subject and I have to admit that you were right about (consciously or unconsciously) feeding the lesser educated public with slogans of mistrust in science and giving rise to what happened in the elections just a few days ago, though there is a problem in scientific advancements, I think. Debating this issue should be much more "objective" and of course not using misleading slogans in the headlines, although explaining them afterwards, as this can and will be used to build up uncritical minds to be manipulated into conspiracy theories. As we have seen after the election in the United States, too many people do not use the "critical thought" (as Kant develops in his epistemology) and vote for populism, even though they know or at least "feel" they have been lied to. This trend is happening also here in Europe and we have to fight against it. Sabine is wrong when saying that a bunch of "conspiranoids" doesn't matter but all the influenceable, non-critical audience (and potential voters) really do matter. So, I have to apologize for not having understood your first critics on Sabines take on her video's thumbnailing but after watching the recent tendencies in politics and growing populism in USA and Europe, we have the responsibility to work against this desinformation from "hard-lies-telling and conspiracy-theory-using manipulators" who want to rule our world.

[@Hank254]

Part of the problem is that the less-critical thinkers of her audience will read the thumbnail title and go into the video listening for that message... totally ignoring any points to the contrary. Much of her content is subtle confirmation bias for deniers... but she adds just enough real material to use as an excuse that confirming deniers wasn't her intent. Even if her supporters are correct, that it is simply her German 'style' to make videos like this, it is totally uncalled for in the growing atmosphere that considers science as 'bad' and the uneducated as the 'new top thinkers' of the world.

[@TomKron]

@Hank254 I honestly think that she is not a denier but she is fed up with science as of it works today from her experiences. And the way she is saying it is simply too uncritical and too "sensacionalist" (sorry, I don't know the right English word for this) for the bigger crowd to be misinterpreted.

[@DrBear-rk4qb]

Thanks for being a warrior for science, Dave!

[@robertputneydrake]

Lol

[@chris8535]

This is the same tribal bullshit science advocates pretend to have grown beyond.

[@nima3633]

KZbin comment mechanism is absolutely broken! There is no way to make a useful comment 1 min after a popular video is released, because tons of useless and empty comments obstruct the way! Don't make comments if you have nothing to say, or you just want to agree/disagree

[@SunRa-w9i]

OH MY SCIENCE!! Thank you professor Dave for saving academia from these evil right-wing grifters. Praise Fauci.

[@FourFourTwo123]

@@nima3633couldn’t give a toss mate

[@LouigiVerona]

It is important to point out that a lot of her videos on physics are also problematic. I have a degree in physics, but even if you're into popular physics (which, really, is where I'm at currently cause I never ended up working as a physicist), so even if you are at the level of popular physics, you will immediately see how sensationalist her videos are. Her shtick is to take some scientific but very obscure hypothesis and then blow it out of proportions. She will position it as this very viable alternative that "no one is talking about", while downplaying what it lacks. She also constantly leaves out reasons for why the mainstream view is what it is, creating an impression that all physicists are idiots. In reality, mainstream theories have very good reason to be mainstream. Even the string theory that's now fashionable to dunk on has very rational good reasons to continue to be taken seriously. Another thing that Sabine does is take some point that is debated and claims that it is not and, again, "nobody talks about it". For example, she really likes pointing out how there is no evidence that the overall entropy of the Universe is increasing. Yes, we know that. It is a hypothesis based on what we know. We understand that this is a hypothesis. We also think it's a reasonable and helpful one. This is not controversial by any means. But that's her shtick. That's how she's making money, and that's how she had been making money long before she began talking about failing science - she talked about how everyone in physics is an idiot and she alone knows the truth, then reciting some obscure theory that no one is hiding but which has little evidence to support it.

[@Super-id7bq]

I'm glad you made this follow up. I've felt this way about her content for a long time. I noticed a trend where she was trying to give a more objective view on vaccine scepticism and 5G technology which I still feel was a good thing. As a data analyst it's absolutely wild to me to see a science influencer (of all people) talking in such demonstrably unprovable terms such as "Science is Failing". That seemed to be come a turning point where it was obvious just how much traffic she was getting from people who were taking what she said and ran with it into the territory of supporting full science denial and she seemed to consequently lean more into catering to that audience while (maybe naively) underestimating the harm she was doing in the process. I'm not suggesting Sabine herself is a science denier but I do think you only have to look at a content creator's audience to get a fairly good idea of what that person's content has become, and there sure are a lot of science deniers in there. I think she needs to remember that she might be speaking from an industry point of view, but she's talking to many people who aren't in that industry. She may not be spoon feeding them claims which counter scientific research but she's 100% acting as a door to which leads to all kinds of more harmful content.

[@GreatAsclepius]

Making laymen understand that the good work put in by scientists outweigh the occasional bad ones, is the most important thing. Good presentation 👍

[@TokraRoch]

I've been an academic researcher for nearly 30 years, and have held NIH-funding for all of my career (molecular biology; basic and translational). I "used" to be a fan of Sabine, although physics is out of my expertise, I find it very interesting. After she posted these rants of hers, I unfortunately had to unsubscribe from her. Most certainly the research I do, and most of my colleagues do, is NOT bullshit. It's offensive. Sabine has let her personal experiences color her whole worldview of science.

[@anonimo6603]

Did she specifically mention your work? I watched her video, and I can't understand how you could take it so personally.

[@naborukharat198]

​@@anonimo6603 so much lying and pretending. If I were to say most or all of humans are dumb, it does not mean I meant you by your idiotic perception. What is so hard to understand "most of academic research is BS", his field is contained in that statement, and all other fields that she knows about as much or less than any of us do.

[@anonimo6603]

@@naborukharat198 In Italy, most restaurants serve terrible food (I am Italian, I can confirm this.), but the restaurant below my house serves excellent food. Did I say something contradictory? In "most restaurants," do I necessarily have to include the one below my house? And if it is included, is it a problem? There is a context and it is part of a discussion. It seems to me that there are issues with text comprehension, simple functional illiteracy. People who listen to a speech but fail to comprehend it.

[@naborukharat198]

@@anonimo6603 the pathetic part about your analogy is you knowing fully well that the statement you said about restaurants is acceptable. The problem is, the normal state per your example would be bad restaurants and the exception is that one good restaurant under your house. In the example about scientific fields, most of them or most of what happens in them is good science except for the minority, and you dare pretend you get to include most in an often, while giving an example that contradicts reality. An example that shows you can't speak about the whole when it is the minority that is the problem, maybe you understand things backwards.

[@artsbyoba]

1:37 This is exactly my problem with her.

[@ravisir3062]

I'm so glad someone else is talking about Sabine! I've been recommended and watched a few of her videos and they've definitely left a bad taste in my mouth :/

[@SteelRainz1]

I doubt youll see this comment, but thanks for the video. I've been consuming too much anti-establishment information and while i think its valid, this helped bring me back. If you dont reach anyone else, you reached me.

[@tysonely]

When I first came across Sabine she was less problematic. At some point she started sounding like a conspiracy bro. I unsubscribed soon after that but I couldn't really properly say why. I'm glad Dave has made some videos articulating those reasons.

[@asad-ullahkhan2368]

One thing that also really irritates me about "physicists inventing new BS particles" is that the parallels drawn to biology and chemistry are true! Biologists have hypothesized and found animals or evidence of animals thought to not exist. Chemists hypothesized the existence of numerous elements before they were found, that's HOW we found them; we already knew what we were looking for. Rejecting this process is equivalent to rejecting the fundamental first step of all science: a hypothesis. Enormous amounts of science throughout human history happened simply because someone thought up some "BS" and then tried to find evidence for it. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they didn't. Doesn't make the process inherently flawed or corrupt

[@sillygoofygoofball]

yep, 100% sabine is so in her own bubble she couldn’t see this Brilliant comment

[@betaorionis2164]

Even the planet Neptune was hypothesized (due to gravitational alterations in Uranus' orbit) before it was discovered.

[@canibanoglu9643]

Physics also has many examples like that. Higgs boson was first theorized and they had to build the world's biggest scientific experiment to confirm its existence. Her own field has such a glaring and well publicized example of theory leading experimentation and she still pushes the same rhetoric.

[@vf1923]

Yes. The periodic table of elements existed before people realised why the periodic table of elements existed. The search for supposed "intermediate" animals emerged from concepts of evolution. As a general concept, using patterns to predict facets of the world is a pretty solid scientific technique and far from an outlier. Whether it's become an outlier in certain disciplines in the contemporary world may be another question, but "inventing imaginary animals" is zero percent a weird thing to do if you have good reasons to believe they might exist.

[@geoffroydelaitre5966]

I think you don't understand the critic developped by Sabina. Making predictions is fine, but it is never based on nothing. Generaly a prediction is based either on an established theory (the theory of evolution to predict a intermediate species, the standard model to predict a particle, the Hückel theory to predict a new molecule, etc...) or an observation that demonstrates the need for something new (the UV catastrophy leading to quantization, the alteration of Uranus orbit leading to Neptune, etc...), and often a combination of both (the maxwell equations and the absence of aether demonstrated by the michaeleson interferometer leading to special relativity, etc...). Sabina is totaly fine with such predictions that are not based on esthetics but on established theories or exprimental measurements showing deviations from the established theories. For exemple she is quite interested in the search on dark matter or MOND theory that are trying to adress experimental results showing a deviation from expectation. She is also fine with the Higgs Boson that was predicted from the standard model that was already well established and very successfull (contrary to what Dave seems to assume, the theories that she questions are not part of the standard model). When she speaks about a "dark sector in the periodic table", she is not making an analogy with dark matter contrary to what Dave assumed. She reffers to the "dark sector" of quantum fields that are hypothetical particles that do not belong to the standard model, like axions. And there is a fair point that Sabina makes that the predictions for such particles are not realy motivated by measurements, nor from an established theory, but rather from esthetical considerations. Let's develop the case of the axions as ean exemple : the standard model contains a fondamental constant "theta bar" that could have taken any value from 0 to 2pi. As a matter of fact, the value of this constant happens to be very low. You can ask yourself "why does that constant take that low value and not another value?", but it can be argued that this is rather a philosophical question than a scientific one. It is that question (that actually holds for any constant of physics) that the theory of axion is trying to adress. It is a new theory, an addition to the standard model, not a prediction of the standard model. And it is not motivated by any measurement that would show a deviation from the standard model and thus justify the need for a revision of the standard model. It is purely motivated by esthetics, as some physicist find inelegant for the theta bar constant to take a low value for no reason whatsoever. I don't think asking why a constant takes a value and not another is stupid, but one can seriously question the developpement of an entire theory made up entirely to give a more estethic model, that isn't a deduction from the sucessfull standard model, that is not motivated by any observation that would not be predictied already by the standard model, and that have been leading to 50 years of predictions of deviations from the standard model that were all invalidated by measurements. And that is what Sabina calls "BS particles", it can hardly be compared to the examples you gave for biology or chemestry. Quasycristals (that have been a controversial topic in the 80s until proven to be real) were not postulated from thin air for esthetical reasons but because we observed five fold symetry diffractograms incompatible with periodic order that called for a new type of long-range order structure. Research in the fondation of physics has been relying a lot on esthetical arguments to try to improve the standard model for 50 years, with not a single result so far, and I think it is a fair criticism to question that method.

[@Raptorman0909]

I'd noticed her shift into click-bait some months ago and it's now apparent that KZbin is her only source of income and she's now pumping out nearly a video a day -- 23 videos in the last 28 days. I'd also like to say that I detect a strong indication that Sabine is suffering some form of depression and that is being worked into her content. As she get's more depressed her content is more depressing and that makes her even more depressed -- rinse, repeat! It is my guess she is nearing a flameout and I hope she's able to survive and recover.

[@hasheeeesh]

This guy helps me learn molecular shapes and lets me laugh at science deniers. Gigachad professor

[@xmathmanx]

calling people deniers lets everyone know what you are

[@matsiv5707]

Also throwing the word denier around is pretty stupid

[@Wtfytsy]

@@xmathmanxthe rational one? Lmfao

[@TheFlamimgFox]

@@matsiv5707but they are *denying* science, what word would you use? Conspiracy theorist also works I guess

[@TheFlamimgFox]

Also your professor sounds incredible

[@MyWorldIsSquare]

The future is so goddamn bleak... Thank you for doing what you do Dave, and please never stop fighting against these anti-intellectuals.

[@Slowhandclap]

Calling Sabine anti-intellectual is pretty nuts tbh

[@iansantiago6526]

It's always been bleak, we're just more exposed to it and weak willed. And there are legitimate concerns around the social sciences as well, but people who don't trust natural sciences are frankly, morons indeed.

[@jonovens7974]

At least it's not going to be bleak for long.

[@brewtalityk]

it's really not bleak at all. Life, as a whole, is improving universally

[@iansantiago6526]

@MyWorldIsSquare Cool another deleted comment, I love this platform

[@mirai9562]

Dave, have you seen her latest video? "Science is in trouble and it worries me."

[@briannong9363]

The way she uses clips of Fox news to prove her point💀💀💀 Everybody knows what Fox news is known for💀💀

[@travis5732]

​@@briannong9363Sure, ignore all the other data points that prove her point. You can argue that the last century of advancements were an anomaly and that this is how science works in general, but she's right in that breakthrough discoveries have considerably slowed down.

[@orion2544]

@@travis5732 and how does that imply that science is dying or in trouble?

[@zjaeriqsanders1731]

@@orion2544never said it was dying, and that is clearly problematic what?

[@Sweeti924]

@@travis5732slow doesn’t mean dead, that’s stupid, and also just because it slowed doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be trusted, science is best method we have to discovering anything.

[@Jay-xw9ll]

I'm so happy you did this. Sabine is particularly dangerous as she does know some science. Unfortunately that doesn't prevent her from dishonest content.

[@PokeySoggybottom]

I really enjoyed this. A very important and remarkably clear criticism on Sabine's harmful, bs clickbait. You da man!

[@FaustCrowley]

It's insane that we have Young Earth Creationists, flat Earthers, antivaxxers and then someone who actually works in science who is effectively supporting such aggressive stupidity.

[@davidbutler1857]

Just look at most of the 'news' articles you see these days on science and history and other areas. All clickbait, most of it lies built upon other lies, and speculative fiction. You can't click on anything these days without having to sift through disinformation and misinformation.

[@Wndnb]

So true! You'd think we already abandoned these things centuries ago, but no, people just love being stupid 🤦‍♀️

[@michael-4k4000]

Been a flater since I seen Dave debate the formidable Witsit. Wow, that man is so well educated. He proved Einstein wrong in a sentence. I still watch Dave, but I never miss WitSit now. Ironically I only know WitSit because of Dave. Lol 😆

[@halloola3636]

Being against experimental mRNA does not mean "anti-vax", but I guess you don´t feel any need to be exact about this...

[@davidbutler1857]

@@halloola36361. It’s not experimental. Clinical trials had long been ongoing with mRNA before Covid. 2. Every Covid vaccine since ‘21 has had full FDA approval

[@vernonkroark]

Second comment: Thank you, Dave. Thank you for carrying this torch. This is exactly what we need to hear. Please keep doing what you do.

[@muscovyducks]

Sabine's "response" video was so weak I didn't think it really warranted a response, but wow, you really laid it out here