That Veritasium video is one of the most controversial educational videos I've seen. I think one of the issues with it is that it's a bit pedantic, but also ignores other issues, that invites other people to be pedantic about it.
Sure. Here's a video critiquing one of Veritasium's videos I had issues with. Check this[1] thread for further details about it from me and some good rebuttals from another commenter.
Anecdotally, as a novice, I was left really confused by Veritasium’s video, whereas after watching this video I feel (hopefully accurately) like I basically understand the situation. If people are missing the point of Veritasium’s video, maybe that’s because it didn’t make its point very clearly…
When the Veritasium video originally released I was similarly disappointed by the presentation of the video which used his very relatable Veritasium communication style to present some strongly facts while ignoring or dismissing others.
I think these are great responses to many of the points and simply shows that Tom is also a hypocrite. But being a hypocrite really only hurts his overall high-road image of wanting truth more than money/attention. It doesn't null out all of his argument and if you concede all of these points from Veritasium I think Tom is still making a lot of good points about self-driving capabilities and about Veritasium presenting information disingenuously.
Something not addressed by Veritasium's counters is how all 5 of the YT videos used the 94% human driver statistic without following the source or thinking it through. I found this use of statistics especially egregious because Veritasium is one of the people who helped me understand Bayesian statistics and how easily they can fool people!
I'm a believer in the Uncle Ben principle whereby the more power you accrue, the more responsibility you also take on. I am genuinely upset by the main point about how educational Youtubers are being incentivized to sell their authoritative power to corporations who have a vested interest in promoting their products as social good. I've spent quite a bit of air lauding educational Youtube as one of the best places on the Internet.
Imagine Bill Nye being sponsored by Facebook in 2011 to talk about all the benefits of social networks to mental health by showing how Grandma is never more than a click away from pictures of her Grandkids and Facebook Groups connect like-minded individuals allowing them to collaborate to create good in the world and everyone is connected to all the news across the world, making them far more informed and better able to engage civically...
Today we would view that as a betrayal knowing that even in 2011 there were indicators that social networks and social media may not be the great good in the world that Facebook was claiming.
Disrupting complex systems has unforeseen consequences, I think we would all benefit from some some humility when assuming that planned positive benefits of a major disruption will outweigh any unforeseen negative consequences, especially considering the scales we're working with.
Veritasium is always 100% clickbaity title, even more clickbaity thumbnail, and when you then watch the video, it is only like 80% (sometimes less) true.
This might be tolerable for a consumertech/entertainment/cooking/etc channel, but Veritasium is supposedly about science and such. And the name claims to be "the element of truth". Uggggghhh.
(Accordingly, I stopped watching him, so I can't judge this specific video. But in general, I feel he is insufferable. YMMV.)
Agreed. I’m especially disappointed with Veritasium because Derek’s originally PhD thesis was how these sort of “controversial,” clickbait-y popular science videos are actually really terrible at teaching anything.
I think the controversy is because that while being technically correct (bar a couple of mistakes) there are two main issues:
1) To get the result presented heavily depends on the experimental setup and this appears to be hand-waved away (or for the cynics: deliberately obscured) as it would detract from the impact of the video.
2) The definition of "ON" in the video is not what anybody would reasonably define as "ON". This is not discussed in the video therefore potentially comes of as deceptive.
As an electronic engineer I actually initially found the video confusing. I wasn't familiar with Veritasium before and I will admit my initial visceral reaction was "Oh he's just one of THOSE YouTube's and needs his clicks".
It wasn't until I went back through to understand Veritasium's unspoken assumptions, simplifications and a couple of medium mistakes that I could say: yes this is technically correct.
Personally I think with some better choice of wording the pitchforks wouldn't have come out as they have.
sorry, veritasium is not / no longer the channel you think it is.
they are not out to teach first.
teaching became second at some point. making views became first and more important. it is totally understandable. (they talk about the team, paying people, etc.) i personally appreciate the honesty. the video they did around the subject should still be around.
> I think one of the issues with it is that it's a bit pedantic, but also ignores other issues, that invites other people to be pedantic about it.
I think the video is intentionally misleading. He got a taste of how "successful" a controversial video can be with the "Wind powered car going faster than the wind" thing, and he's leaning into that. I just don't see any other explanation for how he chose to frame the problem.
Veritasium has an entire team and releases 1-3 videos a month. Perhaps the lesson in this is that more should be invested in making education more engaging.
Dr Varshavski can project charisma but i don’t know how well that translates in one on one interactions as his patient. He also doesn’t really seem to be at the top of his field in knowledge and skill, maybe in bedside manners.
It probably reflects my personal tastes, I understand he's a kind a Youtube star or something, but I find the Veritasium presenter too attention-grabbing distracting, so much that I can't even concentrate to what he is talking about. There is no visible presenter in the Science Mag video, ad I like that, and there is another presenter appearing in the Georgia Tech video (Laura Cadonati, a professor), but there I definitely don't have that "WTH the presenter is demanding more attention than the topic" effect, even if she has an accent.
I surely in this case react just like a "mom" from this comment: "Showed this video with amazing science discoveries about the universe to my mom and all she said was : "this guy likes orange decorations"?." I also just see the guy, his appearance, his body movements and his room decorations etc and I just have this "look at me" impression. I can imagine that helps his personal popularity on that medium, and I guess he optimizes for that, but it obscures the actual content, at least to me.
So I don't have energy to analyze it further, but I have had an impression that the videos I've suggested contain some information that doesn't exist in the Veritasium's video, and that the level of the information is better suited for those who need short summary. Maybe there is a target group which, like I, better responds to the videos I've suggested.
For those who are really interested in the details, I think there's no substitute to reading the main scientific paper, written by 4600 people(!):
It is much more accessible than you'd imagine, it starts with:
"Over 80 years ago Baade & Zwicky (1934) proposed the idea of neutron stars, and soon after, Oppenheimer & Volkoff (1939) carried out the first calculations of neutron star models..."
(Yes, it's "the" Oppenheimer, who later go to be called "the father of the atomic bomb." Fritz Zwicky was apparently "the first astronomer to propose the existence of dark matter, supernovas, neutron stars, galactic cosmic rays, gravitational lensing by galaxies, and galaxy clusters.")
Reading the original sources further, the first map of the potential area on the sky and the first trigger that set everything in motion is:
"On 2017 August 17 12:41:06 UTC the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM; Meegan et al. 2009) onboard flight software triggered on, classified, and localized a GRB." My understanding is that it was therefore never technically necessary for Virgo to reject the second (lower) LIGO area on this image:
Our video definitely was geared toward a lay audience, but we tried not to use buzzwords and bullshit and to explain the science in a more accessible way. I'm curious to know what what bothered you about the video and we will try to communicate better - at least for me, conveying scientific ideas in an understandable way has been pretty challenging and I had hoped we did a good job in the video.
I did like the impossible to measure the speed of light one, even though it has Smarter Every Day.
Ok that one has something I can identify clearly: The way Justin (Smarter Every Day) seems to be just badly hamming up the whole "this is so weird and hard to visualize" as though to pander to the audience who are expected to be baffled by the idea being presented. That was Justin though not Veritassium.
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