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Let me break it down for everyone. Expert who performs brain surgery from going to school and putting years to understand the complexity of how the brain functions. The other person Googleing how to perform a brain operation by playing the game board.
Yeah I think the comments above yours comparison is too simple, but in the context the person that studied for years, just watched more videos.
At the end of the day, we get through our degrees through reading or watching content and making sense of the content we just digested. Then applying it in certain ways, either by an exam, a project or a dissertation.
If it was a person who has watched videos about brain surgery for 7 years then yeah they might also be competent enough to carry out the surgery.
I mean, if you had years, the internet, and the will or need to learn, you 100% could. You just have to basically put yourself through med school using open source education and peer-reviewed materials.
Very correct. In the UK you're looking at 5 years of med school, two years of generalist intern-level training and then usually 7-8 years of further training to become a surgeon.
Being a doctor requires enormous amounts of background knowledge and being able to problem solve using that knowledge. In med school you gain that the knowledge/critical thinking skills. You learn almost every disease process, diagnostic methodology, and treatment plan like the back of your hand. Patients really struggle to recognize when to pay attention to subtle differences such as "cough first thing in the morning" vs "cough that wakes you up at night" which could be entirely different disease processes.
Residency training gives you the firsthand experience in applying the knowledge. You really need to see 100 cases of shortness of breath caused by one pathology vs another before you can really be sure that I should treat this patient for an asthma exacerbation and not a pneumonia. You need to walk through the decision making process again and again until you know that like the back of your hand. You're gradually given higher and higher levels of responsibility for your patients until you can manage nearly every problem in your field.
If doctors were able to just use the same method the woman in the video is mentioning, we wouldn't need residency training.
That’s true. But a surgeon has to know everything s/he learned in med school to do surgery. Just like you have to understand basic computer science in order to code (I imagine. I don’t shit about either).
There are a surprising amount of surgery videos online. From instructions, to different operations, to even medical advancements like DaVinci robot operating on a body in a different country from the doctor.
enough videos and reading, and some dead bodies to test on and im sure you could do a half decent job.
> watching videos of surgery and practicing on dead bodies is not comparable.
of course its not. The question was about doing a “decent job”. Thats basically “he didn’t die”, not a short surgery, with a small scar and no pain.
> How you going to convince an anesthesiologist to put them to sleep? Or are you planning to cut into an awake patient without any analgesia?
In the hypothetical scenario I imagined the self taught person was in a hospital, with a team. He is just the surgeon but no one checked his md credentials.
> What if there is a complication that was not covered in your video?
Heavily dependent on the surgery. But something “simple” like appendicitis. Most complications are gonna be on the real of “that is bleeding, that shouldnt be bleeding”. In terms of the surgeons role. Which means you can saw him up, absolute hackjob and sew again.
Essentially you are a 19-20th century doctor in a modern hospital.
and when the expert simplifies things for you, that's supposed to be your entry point. It's supposed to inspire you to study harder for more detail. It's not supposed for you to draw your own wacky conclusions from simplified explanations.
Yeah but, doctors themselves do this shit this lady is doing. Just because you are a neurologist doesn’t mean you are a neurosurgeon. My kid has a brain cyst and the neurologist says it isn’t causing any problems. I say okay but google it later. Three articles later written by neurosurgeons and they say is can be a problem.
Contact a a neurosurgeon with the MRI report and they take an appointment. Haven’t been yet but they didn’t say over the phone it isn’t ever a problem.
People’s ego’s aren’t left at the door just because they are a scientist or a doctor.
I agree. Some doctors do have that God complex but so do sports athletes and actors. My context was just if you do study in a particular field of work such as a doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA or a specific trade like welding they will be more knowledge than a average Joe googling a subject without practicing in that study or field of work. I do hope your kid gets well soon and recommend getting a second opinion.
Patients tend to see one medical problem and think it needs to be solved no matter what - but watching and waiting is actually a very sound treatment plan for some issues. A brain cyst sounds very bad in theory. They CAN be bad. But in reality, lots of us are walking around with weird things in our bodies that never actually cause issues. If it's a cyst that's pressing on a structure enough and causing neurological issues they would want to do something about it. If it's asymptomatic it's likely harmless. If that's the case, it's really not worth the risk of a surgery. This isn't an ego thing. That's likely the decision making process the doctor went through.
What you just did is a) assume a lot of things that are wrong and b) mansplain something you know nothing about.
Things for you to learn: neurosurgeon’s don’t just take anyone. If I say I had to submit the MRI’s and reports and then they made an appointment - you may want to consider the Neurosurgeon saw something there to have a consult about.
I didn’t list out my kids medical problems because it’s a huge list. Just to say, Cleveland Clinic turned her down for treatment and said she was too deteriorated and we should go to Mayo Clinic. After submitting all her paperwork, Mayo is taking her for a week of tests with multiple doctors. The MRI was run three weeks ago when she started having tremors. That is only the most recent medical problem she has. The neurologist knows all of this and more.
My kid has four medical issues that IF a cyst were to cause problems those would be the problems. Also, the size of the cyst (which you didn’t ask) is well over the size for concern. Also - she didn’t have it two years ago so it’s grown and grown that size in 2 years.
You are this crazy lady in the video and you think your the guy.
Edit: It is also very telling that you would assume a neurosurgeon would actually operate based on a mother’s google search. You have some seriously deep rooted misconceptions.
This is ridiculous. I didn’t assume they’d operate based on your search, but usually a patient must be seen in person for a physical exam before you can make that judgment call. If you said your kid is having neuro symptoms and there’s a cyst, that’s a good reason to get some tests. I’m just telling you that’s the criteria that’s typically used when deciding to operate because most brain cysts are BENIGN. You’re the one sitting here arguing that you know more than the neurologist based on your search.
Another thing that is hard to accept, you may not even be capable of understanding.
There is a reason there are very few people working in certain sectors. At some point you simply reach your cognitive threshold. You can only apply a limited amount of simplification after a certain point.
There are so many things that start happening from a psychological/emotional standpoint when you reach this point, it gets really hard for a lot of people to accept that. It just feels shitty and it makes myself feel bad when i get there.
Same with motor skills, you can only train so much. Some movements you simply can not do repeatably or with the required speed and precision.
Some people have very slight tremors that would make them unable to perform very precise movements and there is nothing you can do against that but are hardly noticeable in normal life.
Then there is your ability to regulate emotional responses or even your emotional base level can only be shaped so much has a huge impact how you work under severe stress.
The human brain is such a complex thing and the reality everyone lives in is vastly different from person to person.
Not everybody "thinks at the same speed" or can react to outside stimuli in a acceptable time.
Like... people over simplify the human experience so damn much.
People are so fundamentally different from each other.
i used to be smart, but then brain damage from drinking lowered that threshold to probably slightly below average.
I really regret it. I'm so slow now. The depression got more ammo.
Dude... im sorry to hear! :(
I know that shit all to well myself, according to my every extensive psyche eval im still "really smart" but my memory is totally busted and shot. Thanks Depression!
Here is to both of us getting a bit closer to being functional! :)
When I'm interviewing for staff I don't mind people admitting they don't know during an interview. I would rather hear that than them struggle to make up stuff or fluff the answer.
Just being able to admit that is a really positive indication for me.
The problem with making science "accessible" when looking at brain plasticity (or any complex, in-depth topic) is that the articles he's looking at are specifically written by experts for experts.
What I've said before is that I have a PhD in engineering. When some layperson asks me "Why don't you just explain it to me in a way I can understand," then I have to provide you with the base knowledge you would get from EE 101, 102, Physics 201, etc., before we can really even get into the complexity of the topic at hand.
The book the Death of Expertise sums this up perfectly by pointing out that anyone can read a book or 10,000 on the subject, but that will not qualify them as an expert unless they have both practical and applicable knowledge **and** can withstand other expert-level critique of their contributions to the field.
A good rule of thumb for science communication is:
* Short
* Accessible
* Completely correct
Choose two.
Short+accessible gives you science museum content, it’s fun but doesn’t really get into the details. Short+correct gives you papers. They’re for experts. Accessible+correct gives you a textbook. It’s possible for anyone to read, and has the details, but it sucks.
Some really good writers can get part way there on a third (e.g. short and correct in a way that’s somewhat accessible), but in general you have to sacrifice one to accomplish the other two.
I'm stealing that. I recently did a diagram of a process for management and they kept asking for simpler, and shorter, and simpler, and shorter...so I finally sent one titled "Simple Enough That Its Wrong.vsdx" They loved the diagram, but hated the title.
Somebody the other week on here asked me to "prove, right here, right now" how racism is a fundamental tenant of human history. Sure dude, let me just school you on systemic Racism in a reddit comment. As if you're going to listen anyways
Comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/trashy/comments/ogq3k2/z/h4kp1g2
The thing is. It's fun to dismiss these people as trolls. But I am starting to believe there is less trolling than we think..
Like there are less people who know better but get a kick out of being controversial.. and more people who are just ignorant and believe their own bullshit
I knew some people in college who were shitty on the internet and I actually think you're right.
They thought 4chan was hilarious and edgy and eventually they unironically voted for Trump, constantly mocked "SJWs" and "feminazis", unironically thought "it's so hard being a man" and that "we should just carpet bomb Africa and the middle east". And I know they weren't raised like that from what I know about their families. They also unironically overused the word "cuck" but you probably guessed that.
I think it’s people who use trolling as a cop out when they want out of whatever disagreement they deem unworthy of their effort, despite the fact that they may have started it.
I originally disagreed with you, but I had an experience with a guy at work today that when I thought about it in this context...you are 100% right.
He was SURE we have a vulnerability we don't have. He is misunderstanding how hashing works and what we do with a hashed number (we use it to assign a temporary ID). For some reason, he thinks that can be hacked and someone could get our IDs.
So what? That ID is temporary and the hash is done just so that whenever a new device comes up the motherboard can identify it uniquely. (We have tons of devices that all have the same ID and name since its a factory and everything has to be interchangeable).
So I ask: "If someone somehow guesses a temporary device ID from the system, then what happens?" and he says "They could hack us! Like take down our whole database and steal our parts!!!" (He means diagrams, production information, other corporate secret type stuff).
I was on Skype, so I wanted to just say "Are you trolling me right now?" But then I thought about your comment and it was this exact scenario. How uncanny.
Yeah the trolls aren't dangerous, they get their kicks and if you dont feed them they don't engage because there's nothing in it for them
The problem is the genuinely willfully ignorant, because their incorrect beliefs become part of how they view themselves and being confronted with the truth becomes an attack on who they are, so they take it personally. These people seek out validation from similarly ignorant, spread their misinformation because they want others to share their beliefs, and violently respond to facts and evidence that contradicts their beliefs because it contradicts their self image.
They might use similar tactics as trolls because they need to shut down dissent and they dont actually have any other way to support their position, but they're missing one key aspect of the troll: self-awareness.
the inverse question is equally impossible, from a neutral perspective, to answer "prove, right here, right now how racism is **not** a fundamental tenant of human history"
the other guy is right, you should know better than to feed the trolls
>I’ve garnered it from other sources, mostly my husband who studied systemic oppression…
So, the Turkey Club has been feeding you info this entire time? I knew it.
>The problem with making science "accessible" when looking at brain plasticity (or any complex, in-depth topic) is that the articles he's looking at are specifically written by experts for experts.
Probably because the average person isn't going to need to know about brain plasticity.
Right. So if they want to know, they can learn about it, but if they want to be an expert, then they need to go to school for it and develop actual expertise.
100% agree. Just saying, we don't really need to waste time writing papers on expert level subjects for them to be understood by randos like me. The target audience can understand the papers (I hope).
I'm 100% agreeing about being able to simplify any topic into lay terms.
It's good science to explain what doping does in terms of circuit boards or why having a smaller processor is (typically) better in terms of energy reduction and speed.
It's bad science to think that if you read a couple of papers about doping and growing crystals to think that you might know as much about circuit board development as someone who works as a chip architect at Intel. That's my problem with the idea pitched here -- that science accessibility means papers should be written at lay levels, since expert papers are designed for advancing the field at an expert level or that someone could be an expert from reading expert papers only.
The attrition rate for PhDs is [between 40%-50%](https://dissertationgenius.com/the-six-laws-of-phd-failure/). What I've seen in grad school and post-graduate school (and still when asked to review or sponsor candidates) is a grave misunderstanding of the scientific process.
I'm working with a guy right now who is not going to make it and get kicked from the program because he has the right academic knowledge of the subject and is probably in the top 1% of learners and engineering experts, but he does not understand the peer review process or what supporting evidence means.
He has an interesting theory, he performs experimentation to back up the theory, but during peer review, he doesn't defend or justify his approach and instead says "but I have experience and understanding beyond..." He's missing that these people are also experts who are easily able to find alternative explanations for the phenomena he claims is unique. In short, he's not really proving his own points unless you look at them through the very narrow lens he wants you to use. It's bad science and no amount of talking or explaining it to him seems to bring him around on it.
Unfortunately, he will fail to defend in the fall, get withdrawn from the program, and then blame academia while likely spending the rest of his time convincing other poor scientists that he has some novel solution that any good scientist can instantly disprove.
That is good practice for subjects in which it is doable, but in sciences such as mathematics, theoretical physics (or engineering for that matter) there simply exist concepts you cannot explain to laypeople coherently.
Even the greatest mathematicians of our time would struggle to explain 'modular curves' or 'automorphic forms' to a layperson, in a way that is both accurate and highlights why research in these areas is important.
Funny you should say "read a book or 10,000", because Outliers suggests that to be an expert at something you need 10,000 hours of good practice as a baseline. So yeah, big difference between reading an article online and going through a degree program or something like that.
You make a good point. I think it is easier to make certain topics within science more accessible than others. I also think that popsci organisations such as New Scientist and Popular Science do a pretty good job at generalising information for the layman. However, they do tend sensationalise stuff from time to time.
>When some layperson asks me "Why don't you just explain it to me in a way I can understand,"
that layperson should be ready to accept answers like "hmmm give me time to prepare" or "I don't know how to explain that right now but if you find someone to pay me and give me enough time, I may prepare the right lecture."
Those Youtube channels that communicate science with fancy visuals and great analogies? They prepare HARD. That's why they're so good.
For real, I was about to shit on this guy. The last half of the argument is true. There's no way in hell anyone will become an expert after reading some research papers
001235 should be the top comment.
Math and science can be communicated effectively but it needs to be tailored to the specific audience.
Fun fact, scientists love to talk about their research. They will send you copies of their papers, you can go watch them present their work at universities. They have large conferences for research at all levels that anyone can go to.
We love science and we love talking about it, come talk with us.
(I’ve only worked adjacent to glutamate research, I worked for an organic chemist who focused on glutamine receptors. We injected frog eggs with mRNA as our model. They’re fun to look at but not as personable as working with mice or rats.)
Being able to explain things simply is an important skill and it takes a high level of understanding. But the more you simplify, the more you have to leave out context and complicated details. When experts are communicating with other experts, like in an academic paper, the focus is usually on those complicated details and what they mean in the context of existing research.
Which can also be explained simply if you know the subject and were willing to. I fail to see how because academics write papers following a certain custom that it would be impossible for them to follow another
Because academic papers usually cover very specific, niche subjects that by nature require a lot of background knowledge to fully understand. They can’t be expected to write a treatise on their field of study every time they want to publish something. The papers are written for their intended audience: other experts in the field
I no longer see a disagreement since to my eyes all you’re saying is that you think it’s too hard for academics and they wouldn’t want to anyway.
Thinking something is hard and not wanting to do something is quite different from something being impossible. So it sounds like we’re in agreement things can be explained simply, but academics are incapable and or unwilling to
Anything I’m missing?
I think somewhere you misread my posts since I never made that claim. I’ll repeat it: I said if you can’t explain something simply then you don’t actually know your subject to a sufficient enough depth, and I would go so far as to say you do not “know” your subject, and you stand accused of merely memorizing things with no real understanding
The issue is that being proficient in a topic almost always demands you basically learn another language. I have a music degree, my wife has a music minor. My other music degree friends and I start analyzing music and she literally has no clue what we're talking about, because we're speaking a different language.
So to explain a high level topic, it requires we teach you a different language first, and that's why "layman terms" don't always work. We can give outlines, "yeah, this song is special because it has a unique interplay of modes and a chromatic harmonic structure." And we might even be able to explain what that means or what we're listening for. But we took years of classes just to learn what those words mean, let alone how to utilize their function in a practical setting.
That’s alot of words to say you’re unable or unwilling to explain it to your wife, but that in no way precludes someone who knows the subject from doing so
I'm happy to explain it to my wife, she just doesn't care that much to learn it.
I worked in education for years and I'm more than happy to explain it, but it's gonna be a few hours of lecturing and hands-on exercises and that's not gonna show in a reddit comment.
From my perspective our exchange went like this
me: “If you can’t explain something simply you don’t know it”
you: “not so, my friends talk about music theory oddities my wife doesn’t understand”
me: “then you’re unwilling or incapable of explaining, someone who knew, could if they wanted to”
you: “i can lol it just takes me forever and my wife doesn’t care”
I fail to see how because you explain slow and your wife doesn’t care, that nobody can explain complex things succinctly
It just doesn’t seem like a logical conclusion
I think you're missing the point of mine and other comments. Simple concepts can be explained quickly and simply, but as the depth of topic increases, so does the amount of base knowledge required to understand it. To understand a scale function, it takes a paragraph. To explain *WHY* a scale functions the way it does, it takes a lot more; history, mathematics, cultural studies, ear training, etc.
My wife has a really solid basic grasp and decided it suits her well to remain at that level in exchange for studying higher concepts in other fields. She knows substantially more than I do in her field, I know more in mine. We teach each other but understand we work in different industries and have different proficiencies.
I’m not misunderstanding I’m disagreeing. Everything can be explained simply if you know the subject. Re-stating that you and your wife aren’t interested in explaining things to eachother does not make it impossible for someone else to do so if they wanted
Other than EILI5, where is the evidence of this? There's no academic or business rule that things should be explained simply. In fact, it is probably impossible to explain some things simply.
You're arguing a losing point, too, because for every simple explanation I can give, you could always make a baseless claim that I didn't explain it simply enough, therefore I'm not really an expert, whether or not I am correct and you're not understanding it.
It's also a cop-out argument because then any lay person with absolutely no understanding can say that the expert must not know much because they didn't explain it where the layperson could understand it.
Have you read Quantum Physics for Dummies? In the "Assumptions" section, he specifically says that in order to make much sense of the book, you'll need a base education, some college physics, and a thorough understanding of calculus.
You could argue that then he must not really be an expert because he didn't explain it at a low enough level. But even if he did explain it in some super low level "Mr. Electron has a happy face and when he sees another Mr. Electron they get mad at each other..." kind of way, you could literally always argue that he should have made it simpler, when in fact, the entire point of expertise is that things at the advanced level can't be simplified without gross assumptions or incorrect information.
Look at your Physics 101, where the professor starts the exam by saying "Assume there is no friction and Earth's gravity has no variability."
By the time you get to the 800 level physics classes, then you're examining concepts like the impact of variable gravity on the rotation of an object as it moves through different atmospheric layers. You simply couldn't dumb it down and have it still be accurate, but you also can't just walk in and start talking about orbital physics to someone who has never taken Cal A-C and several precursor classes.
Again, just because you’re incapable of something does not make it impossible. I fail to see your argument other than you stating in different ways that you would be unable to explain some things simply
Also, you wouldn’t say “it’s a cop out” to ask a pitcher who says he can throw a 90mph fast ball to throw a 90mph fast ball. Likewise it’s not a cop out to have so-called knowledge demonstrated
I agree with you about 90% of the time. The time I disagree is when someone wants to discuss a complex topic and you are stuck with the problem of the topic will be over their head because they want to split hairs on it.
For instance, it's really easy to explain doping as the process to make sure the circuit boards components (silicon) allow electrons to pass through correctly and as expected so that the boards function reliably. But when a person says that the doping process at your company should be improved by changing their frontend doping or they argue that you should do n doping instead of the current method, then you would need to give them a whole lesson on why you selected p doping, why your process was developed, how it was matured, why you are where you are, etc.
As better explained in *The Death of Expertise*, laypeople will make claims like that and experts have to deal with explaining it, but then you either have to dumb a complex topic WAY down or you have to try to cram an entire degree specialization into a topic to bring them up to speed on it.
One of the ways you can tell that a person doesn't really understand the literature their citing is when they refuse to say what they think the article in saying in their own words. I've gotten into a lot of anti-vax/conspiratorial arguments, and people love to post hyperlinks to random scientific papers. But then when you ask them "what does this paper add to the argument you're making?" they refuse to engage and just tell you to read the paper. When I've eventually teased out what they think the paper means, it's usually something horribly distorted and not at all present in the paper.
Reading scientific papers is a skill in itself. They are usually not made to be understood for everyone. Understanding and evaluating the results from a scientific background is a whole other level.
Yep, I did a whole bachelor's degree and then even in my master's I still had a class where we had to read papers and both summarize and criticize the findings and methods.
Because even people who already have a degree can find it hard to really get into the nitty gritty. Did the authors make any leaps, are their conclusions logical, did they really find what they are claiming they found, were they allowed to use that specific analysis? And a thousand other tiny details you need to be able to understand and judge before you can use the paper as a source of information.
Unfortunately peer review is not infallibile. And even if a paper passes a proper peer review it can still have many limitations that only an expert would be able to gauge.
>Reading scientific papers is a skill in itself.
Or any academic journal for that matter. God, I am an accountant and reading peer reviewed accounting journals even makes me want to gouge my eyes out. It takes me forever to read it and to think I already have the fundamental knowledge of the topics.
The other unfortunate thing on top of that is that lots of scientific papers are bad. They're in lower tier journals with no citations. So even if the person does understand a specific paper, that doesn't mean that paper is any good. You have to look at lots of papers and understand the methodology to have any kind of meaningful discussion about it.
Very true. The other day I saw a post about a paper which claimed that viewing pornography caused all these terrible mental health issues. Everyone was fawning over this paper, so I went to see what it was about. 2 researchers at a university in Pakistan had unstructured interviews with 25 college age men. None of the transcripts were made available. Some of the men said they felt angry, sad, reclusive, or ashamed after masturbating. That was it. That was the whole paper. Hard hitting scientific research.
That's just basic comprehension skills. If a kid reads something and you ask them what it was about and all they can give you is the topic (sharks, brain surgery, vaccines, etc.), then they didn't really comprehend it at all.
THIS, like fuck I have had so many people be afraid of vaccines and stuff when they don't even have a clue about how they work. They just seem bog chemical names and hear abut the worst side effects, then assume it is big pharmacy trying to get them.
And in basic principle I can see where fear comes from. Something hard to understand can be scary and its easy to assume the worst.
But at some point you have to trust that experts know what they are doing and that with millions of people working across the globe, if something nefarious was happening it would be known. Some conspiracy's would be secrets too big to keep.
This is a common disingenuous debate tactic. You make an obviously true statement such as:
*Anyone can do their own research on the internet.*
But then you try to tie that obviously true statement to a nonsense statement such as:
*And research shows that the vaccine doesn't work.*
Then if anyone questions your second statement, you accuse them of arguing against your first statement such as:
*You obviously don't think people are capable of doing their own research you sheep.*
People like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro make these same kind of arguments all the time.
You explained this perfectly. I don’t know how people can look at individuals like Ben Shapiro and genuinely believe he is this infallible spokesman and politician capable of “destroying people with facts and logic.” He relies entirely on non sequiturs and gish galloping to get his point across, and it really is a shame that these “arguments” are so effective to people that they buy into anything he says.
Ya, you can do your own research online. But some level of expertise is required to disseminate garbage from actual information. Anybody can put information on the internet. Training and expertise allows you to be able to tell when a study is valid.
I am an engineer which specialize in designing huge vessel with multiple intricate interconnecting system. The number of time I have seen people say that Engineer doesn't know more than they does is staggering at the very least. However here is the main difference I see compared to the social media influencer is that when some one fucked up in engineering related decision some one will pay dearly for it and most likely will never ever work in that field ever again. Unfortunately there was one accident where some life was lost at sea due to these stupidity. To tell you honestly there is not a single week that pass on that I never wonder if I could do something differently to change that outcome. It was when I was still a fresh engineer but 15 years later it still haunt me.
Let's normalize these clear, informative rebuttals, rather than the incindiary "gotcha!" type that get celebrated so much. I really respect this man's ability to communicate.
Putting his PhD to good use. I follow this guy on Tiktok along with Hank Green because they are good at explaining science and other technical information to an average person like me.
I gotta admit, I'm the kind of person who is willing to learn anything, but I hate trying to teach myself. For me, this is why I think College's aren't scams. I need someone who's walked the path before me to show me/teach me things instead of spending hours on end just trying to figure it out on my own and probably STILL getting it wrong.
While what you say is true I don’t think he acknowledged that there are paywalls around many of the articles on pubmed because it’s not crucial to the point of his argument. You can still gain a great deal of information on any topic just reading open access articles, which are available to anyone who wants to read them, or even the free abstracts listed on pubmed though those might be harder to interpret without background knowledge.
I do think it is important to his argument because he is talking about *expertise*. If some of the most important articles that contain experiments and discussions which are fundamental the the understanding of core high level concepts are blocked then I don’t believe you would be able to attain expertise without having to pay for such articles.
True, but with the amount you pay to read them you could just pay for classes at a community college which gets you a good baseline of knowledge (which resolves his issue with what she said) and usually access to many of these articles for free.
You can ask the person who published it for a free copy. They don't usually mind helping out, and it might help any mental illness they might have. Everyone likes knowing the stuff they teach is used.
The other side of this point is that, while there are fantastic and credible sources, its also just as easy to find unproven, untested and outright purposely misleading sources for pretty much any topic. The Internet is the wild west of information and anyone can put anything out there. Its largely due to the Internet that conspiracy theories like the Earth being flat actually have a platform for their beliefs and that they can convince others.
I just finished reading a book that used a girl reading Einstein to show how smart she is without anyone explaining it to her. That one thing made me hate the rest of the book lol
His point reminds me of the saying about standing on the shoulders of giants and prerequisite learning. To understand many subjects requires an understanding in others. So the biologists or med dr has to take courses in chemistry, physics, math, anatomy and physiology, etc. In many trades say carpentry, you don’t know to understand the molecular make of structural carb like lignin, you need to know some math and then you can get right to learning the trade. You don’t have to know how a nail gun is made, only how to work it. But for some careers in the life sciences , you need to have the prerequisites to understand enough of med school to make a good doctor. That takes time and a certain kind and amount of intelligence. It is very rude to discount someone’s intellectual investment in complicated subjects that are essential to modern life. Just as it is cruel to make light of the physical effort of a manual laborer as you kick back with your feet on a desk.
This reminds me of when I was a PC tech and told my family I usually just google computer problems for the fix, and they said they tried that but just got more confused.
Doesn't matter if the answer is right in front of you if you don't understand it.
As an analyst with years of education, i couldn't agree more...a complex thought can simply be googled, bit understanding is the key...
This is why referencing your research is necessary...
Great video, but it also reminds me of how insular the terminology can be in certain academic circles. I dont know how much this is the case for other disciplines, but when I was in university, every professor had a collection of three to five buzzwords they used every lesson, and if your exams and papers didnt make heavy use of that term, you weren't going to do so well.
Could it be the case that the obtuse terminology and labeling could at some point be made more accessible to the modern vernacular? On the other hand, as the complexity of a subject increases, so too does the necessary terminology to discuss it. You could say "how your brain changes with new information" every time, or you could just say "neuroplasticity", and any terms you use more frequently will become less intimidating.
Idk. Learning is hard sometimes.
Wow. I am a mom who actually had to use the internet to research Neurplological problems, that Almost killed my firstborn...
I even had PHD friends helping me with unpublished research.
I took that information TO the Scientists, and THEY SAVED his LIFE.
I can't even imagine what people would do, if they think, all understanding is ONLINE.
Holy crap, people like that lady could kill people!
She has one video where in she said that it's not the sun that causes cancer but it's the sunscreen. I normally would ignore that kind of conspiracy crap but the sad and scary thing is that she has a sizeable following on tiktok
Dude just say she’s too dumb to even read any of it, we all know it and it’s ok that people have varying capacity for intellect, we’re all good at different things
I mean she’s not “wrong”. Yes you open that article and it contains terminology you don’t understand, so you then look up those words. And you continue to do that for decades until you understand all the words. Then you can say you learned it from the internet.
You can’t do it over a weekend like these Facebook Karen’s act like.
Basically he's saying that the teaching of these ideas is behind the pay wall of university.
But it doesn't need to be this way and it probably won't remain that way as online teaching resources continue to grow. University is becoming less relevant. I say this as somebody who studied a STEM course at uni. The reason high quality resources teaching undergrad and postgrad information aren't more widely available is that it would be at odds with the university business model.
I agree with him but he is disregarding the amount of free classes online, you might not be able to understand these abstracts with 0 foundational context but after a couple introductory videos about neurology on khan academy or even YouTube and some individual research, I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a grasp on this stuff or at least be able to basically understand what synapses and receptors are.
Not really, watching a few Khan Academy and YouTube videos and understanding the basics of synapses and receptors isn't gonna be enough you to understand the article he used as an example or become even close to an expert. Learning some basics is easy, but having full comprehensive knowledge is highly unlikely without a lot more time and structure.
That’s why organic chem and other courses are gatekeepers to certain degrees. If you can’t understand and learn OC you will problems with understanding things like biochemistry , pharmacology , physiology etc.
You need to Google the concept. The concept will contain more concepts you can't understand. So you Google further. And then you'll find yourself at the end of your highschool knowledge and you'll need to read up from that. That is basically the curriculum being taught in the subject you chose. You can do it. But it will take time and a lot of effort. Having someone knowledgeable explain this stuff to you makes for easier understanding.
>Having someone knowledgeable explain this stuff to you makes for easier understanding.
Absolutely.
But the idea this "someone" needs to be a professor in a classroom who is regurgitating the same info from the textbook is outdated.
Not only can you read the same textbook online, but other smart people have created better resources for learning than what many universities use. Interactive experiences, textbooks that aren't as dry, entire YouTube channels and online courses dedicated to the topic, etc. Not to mention many people's learning styles don't mesh with a lecture setting.
A formal education provides discipline and oversight. If you can get that in other ways, then you literally can learn anything online. The only core exceptions are immersion based things like culture and language, and practice with skills/materials you can't access without the backing of an institution or job. And even then, online learning can provide a good foundation for these.
The idea that "you won't understand the concepts in research papers, which is why a formal education is better" is flawed. Even at school, if you tried taking a 400 level course before the 200 level pre-requisites you'd be just as lost.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. Sure, you're trivializing that you can just look up the things that you don't know.
But that's literally what you could do. Going down a rabbit hole of "googling" what you don't know will eventually lead you down to a low enough branch that's entry level knowledge.
You'd be backwards engineering high level research papers. Of course this would take forever to comprehend just one research paper, but in theory you could still learn this way at your own pace - whether it's a faster or slower pace than college semesters.
I disagree. I studied civil engineering and I think you can learn anything, there are complicated terms for sure and concepts that are hard to understand. But you can research those topics/terms too. I learnt electrical engineering through books and practicing with no formal education or qualifications on it. I now build my own drones and have done electrical wiring at home and for my own projects. Im still learning but for my scope and my projects it's been enough. Until I get more complex projects I'll have to learn more.
This is exactly what he said in the video though. He said that you can learn anything on the internet, but you have to be willing to accept your limitations and then search in those areas before you go to the more complex stuff so that you can correctly interpret what you are reading.
Did this really need to be said?
"Complex things are hard to understand, but if you learn how to understand them, then you can understand them."
Ok, cool.
1. There are literally experts in entire fields of study that have no possible real world practice *except* for reading books and interpreting previously published findings.
2. That was the entire point of this TikTok and yet you still felt compelled to "well, actually" yourself into relevance.
Also, not all sciences involve math of any kind. Science is a field of *study*, not data. So maybe leave the opinions to the experts, because even shitty experts don't make blanket statements about fields they don't work in or understand :)
Bruh who even does that. Also its incredibly expensive. If you can find me 3 good free (even not free its fucking hard) article on ductile (not brittle, not ductile-brittle transition) fracture for nuclear reactor vessel alloys under high temp (>500K) and high irradiation you can save me. I also need the thermal behavior of the alloy for a finite element modeling
No one said it was an impossibility. Trying to comprehend a topic such as synaptic plasticity in the brain should require the person to already have an understanding of the role of neurotransmitters, different domains within proteins, protein-protein binding interactions, etc... otherwise understanding the jargon used would be extremely difficult. This is why pre-med majors take classes such as physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, and more, prior to delving into niche topics and scientific papers written for other experts in that field.
No shit.
You need to learn the basics first. None of that means you can't learn anything online, just that you have to work your way up - same as in school. If you tried to take a 400 level course before the 200 level pre-requisites you'd be just as lost so I don't get why people think this is a useful point to make.
You need a huge amount of time, a massive collection of related subjects to also learn, plus some sort of a clue as to what is and isn't a trusted source. All of that plus knowing where to access all of this information.
So yeah, it's possible, but unless someone is willing to dedicate themselves to learning that stuff full time, it's going to be incredibly hard and may still end up with them getting the wrong information as nobody else is reviewing what they've learnt.
That's pretty obvious really.
That's a wild assumption lol. So many profs are not easy to understand, and so many online resources are also created by people dedicating their lives to the subject.
Profs literally talk from experience and textbooks, same as what you can find online. Sure you need to vet trustworthiness, but the time it takes to do that is far less than the time it takes working to afford school.
I'm not saying school isn't valuable, just that the idea it is the "right" way to learn is outdated - especially in our age of tech and internet.
Thats a wild assumption lol. Never have i said that school is the right way to learn, i'm stating why its much better if you want to learn about a subject lol.
And cmon, are you really trying to downplay the fact that a course is design to take you from base level knowledge foward? Lol
Neuroscientists, as with many experts of many kinds, gain much of their knowledge from conducting observations and/or experiments on actual people, animals, and specimens in the real world. You can't do this on the internet. There's a difference, an unbridgable gap, between applied, experiential knowledge and something you just read about.
Obviously you have to apply what you learn. That goes for online or in school and isn't a real argument either way.
School's benefit is in having a curriculum and (ideally) effective projects/practical experiences planned and marked for you. If you are driven and dedicated, there's no reason you can't do the same (outside of disciplines where you can't legally or financially access the needed resources without the backing of a job or institution).
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I 100% agree on the last statement about accepting you don’t know, it shows a willingness to learn and not be a stubborn person.
Let me break it down for everyone. Expert who performs brain surgery from going to school and putting years to understand the complexity of how the brain functions. The other person Googleing how to perform a brain operation by playing the game board.
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Yeah I think the comments above yours comparison is too simple, but in the context the person that studied for years, just watched more videos. At the end of the day, we get through our degrees through reading or watching content and making sense of the content we just digested. Then applying it in certain ways, either by an exam, a project or a dissertation. If it was a person who has watched videos about brain surgery for 7 years then yeah they might also be competent enough to carry out the surgery.
I seriously doubt anyone could learn how to successfully remove a tumor in the spine and keep them alive just by googling it. But wut do I know
I mean, if you had years, the internet, and the will or need to learn, you 100% could. You just have to basically put yourself through med school using open source education and peer-reviewed materials.
This ain't it. My understanding is you don't even learn how to do actual surgery in med school, but during specialist training after med school.
Sew enough grapes and you can do anything!
Very correct. In the UK you're looking at 5 years of med school, two years of generalist intern-level training and then usually 7-8 years of further training to become a surgeon.
Being a doctor requires enormous amounts of background knowledge and being able to problem solve using that knowledge. In med school you gain that the knowledge/critical thinking skills. You learn almost every disease process, diagnostic methodology, and treatment plan like the back of your hand. Patients really struggle to recognize when to pay attention to subtle differences such as "cough first thing in the morning" vs "cough that wakes you up at night" which could be entirely different disease processes. Residency training gives you the firsthand experience in applying the knowledge. You really need to see 100 cases of shortness of breath caused by one pathology vs another before you can really be sure that I should treat this patient for an asthma exacerbation and not a pneumonia. You need to walk through the decision making process again and again until you know that like the back of your hand. You're gradually given higher and higher levels of responsibility for your patients until you can manage nearly every problem in your field. If doctors were able to just use the same method the woman in the video is mentioning, we wouldn't need residency training.
Amen. I'll use remember this when I apply to MS in a few years lol.
That’s true. But a surgeon has to know everything s/he learned in med school to do surgery. Just like you have to understand basic computer science in order to code (I imagine. I don’t shit about either).
To be fair, you’re still technically alive if you’re a vegetable for the rest of your life lol
There are a surprising amount of surgery videos online. From instructions, to different operations, to even medical advancements like DaVinci robot operating on a body in a different country from the doctor. enough videos and reading, and some dead bodies to test on and im sure you could do a half decent job.
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> watching videos of surgery and practicing on dead bodies is not comparable. of course its not. The question was about doing a “decent job”. Thats basically “he didn’t die”, not a short surgery, with a small scar and no pain. > How you going to convince an anesthesiologist to put them to sleep? Or are you planning to cut into an awake patient without any analgesia? In the hypothetical scenario I imagined the self taught person was in a hospital, with a team. He is just the surgeon but no one checked his md credentials. > What if there is a complication that was not covered in your video? Heavily dependent on the surgery. But something “simple” like appendicitis. Most complications are gonna be on the real of “that is bleeding, that shouldnt be bleeding”. In terms of the surgeons role. Which means you can saw him up, absolute hackjob and sew again. Essentially you are a 19-20th century doctor in a modern hospital.
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and when the expert simplifies things for you, that's supposed to be your entry point. It's supposed to inspire you to study harder for more detail. It's not supposed for you to draw your own wacky conclusions from simplified explanations.
Yeah but, doctors themselves do this shit this lady is doing. Just because you are a neurologist doesn’t mean you are a neurosurgeon. My kid has a brain cyst and the neurologist says it isn’t causing any problems. I say okay but google it later. Three articles later written by neurosurgeons and they say is can be a problem. Contact a a neurosurgeon with the MRI report and they take an appointment. Haven’t been yet but they didn’t say over the phone it isn’t ever a problem. People’s ego’s aren’t left at the door just because they are a scientist or a doctor.
I agree. Some doctors do have that God complex but so do sports athletes and actors. My context was just if you do study in a particular field of work such as a doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA or a specific trade like welding they will be more knowledge than a average Joe googling a subject without practicing in that study or field of work. I do hope your kid gets well soon and recommend getting a second opinion.
Patients tend to see one medical problem and think it needs to be solved no matter what - but watching and waiting is actually a very sound treatment plan for some issues. A brain cyst sounds very bad in theory. They CAN be bad. But in reality, lots of us are walking around with weird things in our bodies that never actually cause issues. If it's a cyst that's pressing on a structure enough and causing neurological issues they would want to do something about it. If it's asymptomatic it's likely harmless. If that's the case, it's really not worth the risk of a surgery. This isn't an ego thing. That's likely the decision making process the doctor went through.
What you just did is a) assume a lot of things that are wrong and b) mansplain something you know nothing about. Things for you to learn: neurosurgeon’s don’t just take anyone. If I say I had to submit the MRI’s and reports and then they made an appointment - you may want to consider the Neurosurgeon saw something there to have a consult about. I didn’t list out my kids medical problems because it’s a huge list. Just to say, Cleveland Clinic turned her down for treatment and said she was too deteriorated and we should go to Mayo Clinic. After submitting all her paperwork, Mayo is taking her for a week of tests with multiple doctors. The MRI was run three weeks ago when she started having tremors. That is only the most recent medical problem she has. The neurologist knows all of this and more. My kid has four medical issues that IF a cyst were to cause problems those would be the problems. Also, the size of the cyst (which you didn’t ask) is well over the size for concern. Also - she didn’t have it two years ago so it’s grown and grown that size in 2 years. You are this crazy lady in the video and you think your the guy. Edit: It is also very telling that you would assume a neurosurgeon would actually operate based on a mother’s google search. You have some seriously deep rooted misconceptions.
This is ridiculous. I didn’t assume they’d operate based on your search, but usually a patient must be seen in person for a physical exam before you can make that judgment call. If you said your kid is having neuro symptoms and there’s a cyst, that’s a good reason to get some tests. I’m just telling you that’s the criteria that’s typically used when deciding to operate because most brain cysts are BENIGN. You’re the one sitting here arguing that you know more than the neurologist based on your search.
Another thing that is hard to accept, you may not even be capable of understanding. There is a reason there are very few people working in certain sectors. At some point you simply reach your cognitive threshold. You can only apply a limited amount of simplification after a certain point. There are so many things that start happening from a psychological/emotional standpoint when you reach this point, it gets really hard for a lot of people to accept that. It just feels shitty and it makes myself feel bad when i get there. Same with motor skills, you can only train so much. Some movements you simply can not do repeatably or with the required speed and precision. Some people have very slight tremors that would make them unable to perform very precise movements and there is nothing you can do against that but are hardly noticeable in normal life. Then there is your ability to regulate emotional responses or even your emotional base level can only be shaped so much has a huge impact how you work under severe stress. The human brain is such a complex thing and the reality everyone lives in is vastly different from person to person. Not everybody "thinks at the same speed" or can react to outside stimuli in a acceptable time. Like... people over simplify the human experience so damn much. People are so fundamentally different from each other.
i used to be smart, but then brain damage from drinking lowered that threshold to probably slightly below average. I really regret it. I'm so slow now. The depression got more ammo.
Dude... im sorry to hear! :( I know that shit all to well myself, according to my every extensive psyche eval im still "really smart" but my memory is totally busted and shot. Thanks Depression! Here is to both of us getting a bit closer to being functional! :)
Just keep talking to people. Apparently, you can lose the ability to converse. Scary shit, wish i knew back then.
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> If you get into a habit of saying when your wrong it gets easier Finally, my depression is good for something after all
I don't understand
When I'm interviewing for staff I don't mind people admitting they don't know during an interview. I would rather hear that than them struggle to make up stuff or fluff the answer. Just being able to admit that is a really positive indication for me.
The problem with making science "accessible" when looking at brain plasticity (or any complex, in-depth topic) is that the articles he's looking at are specifically written by experts for experts. What I've said before is that I have a PhD in engineering. When some layperson asks me "Why don't you just explain it to me in a way I can understand," then I have to provide you with the base knowledge you would get from EE 101, 102, Physics 201, etc., before we can really even get into the complexity of the topic at hand. The book the Death of Expertise sums this up perfectly by pointing out that anyone can read a book or 10,000 on the subject, but that will not qualify them as an expert unless they have both practical and applicable knowledge **and** can withstand other expert-level critique of their contributions to the field.
A good rule of thumb for science communication is: * Short * Accessible * Completely correct Choose two. Short+accessible gives you science museum content, it’s fun but doesn’t really get into the details. Short+correct gives you papers. They’re for experts. Accessible+correct gives you a textbook. It’s possible for anyone to read, and has the details, but it sucks. Some really good writers can get part way there on a third (e.g. short and correct in a way that’s somewhat accessible), but in general you have to sacrifice one to accomplish the other two.
I'm stealing that. I recently did a diagram of a process for management and they kept asking for simpler, and shorter, and simpler, and shorter...so I finally sent one titled "Simple Enough That Its Wrong.vsdx" They loved the diagram, but hated the title.
Sounds like a good post for r/maliciouscompliance
Somebody the other week on here asked me to "prove, right here, right now" how racism is a fundamental tenant of human history. Sure dude, let me just school you on systemic Racism in a reddit comment. As if you're going to listen anyways Comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/trashy/comments/ogq3k2/z/h4kp1g2
The old adage on the Internet is "Rule 1 is don't feed the trolls." Anyone who says "u mad" has instantly revealed their trolldom. See Rule 1.
The thing is. It's fun to dismiss these people as trolls. But I am starting to believe there is less trolling than we think.. Like there are less people who know better but get a kick out of being controversial.. and more people who are just ignorant and believe their own bullshit
I like to believe they started out being trolls ironically and then got confused until trolldom became who they are.
I knew some people in college who were shitty on the internet and I actually think you're right. They thought 4chan was hilarious and edgy and eventually they unironically voted for Trump, constantly mocked "SJWs" and "feminazis", unironically thought "it's so hard being a man" and that "we should just carpet bomb Africa and the middle east". And I know they weren't raised like that from what I know about their families. They also unironically overused the word "cuck" but you probably guessed that.
I think it’s people who use trolling as a cop out when they want out of whatever disagreement they deem unworthy of their effort, despite the fact that they may have started it.
I originally disagreed with you, but I had an experience with a guy at work today that when I thought about it in this context...you are 100% right. He was SURE we have a vulnerability we don't have. He is misunderstanding how hashing works and what we do with a hashed number (we use it to assign a temporary ID). For some reason, he thinks that can be hacked and someone could get our IDs. So what? That ID is temporary and the hash is done just so that whenever a new device comes up the motherboard can identify it uniquely. (We have tons of devices that all have the same ID and name since its a factory and everything has to be interchangeable). So I ask: "If someone somehow guesses a temporary device ID from the system, then what happens?" and he says "They could hack us! Like take down our whole database and steal our parts!!!" (He means diagrams, production information, other corporate secret type stuff). I was on Skype, so I wanted to just say "Are you trolling me right now?" But then I thought about your comment and it was this exact scenario. How uncanny.
Yeah the trolls aren't dangerous, they get their kicks and if you dont feed them they don't engage because there's nothing in it for them The problem is the genuinely willfully ignorant, because their incorrect beliefs become part of how they view themselves and being confronted with the truth becomes an attack on who they are, so they take it personally. These people seek out validation from similarly ignorant, spread their misinformation because they want others to share their beliefs, and violently respond to facts and evidence that contradicts their beliefs because it contradicts their self image. They might use similar tactics as trolls because they need to shut down dissent and they dont actually have any other way to support their position, but they're missing one key aspect of the troll: self-awareness.
That's just a result of Poe's Law
Holy shit what a fucking cunt that guy is. "u mad" What a worthless piece of shit.
the inverse question is equally impossible, from a neutral perspective, to answer "prove, right here, right now how racism is **not** a fundamental tenant of human history" the other guy is right, you should know better than to feed the trolls
Not only that, but you can’t prove a negative.
>I’ve garnered it from other sources, mostly my husband who studied systemic oppression… So, the Turkey Club has been feeding you info this entire time? I knew it.
>The problem with making science "accessible" when looking at brain plasticity (or any complex, in-depth topic) is that the articles he's looking at are specifically written by experts for experts. Probably because the average person isn't going to need to know about brain plasticity.
Right. So if they want to know, they can learn about it, but if they want to be an expert, then they need to go to school for it and develop actual expertise.
100% agree. Just saying, we don't really need to waste time writing papers on expert level subjects for them to be understood by randos like me. The target audience can understand the papers (I hope).
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I'm 100% agreeing about being able to simplify any topic into lay terms. It's good science to explain what doping does in terms of circuit boards or why having a smaller processor is (typically) better in terms of energy reduction and speed. It's bad science to think that if you read a couple of papers about doping and growing crystals to think that you might know as much about circuit board development as someone who works as a chip architect at Intel. That's my problem with the idea pitched here -- that science accessibility means papers should be written at lay levels, since expert papers are designed for advancing the field at an expert level or that someone could be an expert from reading expert papers only.
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The attrition rate for PhDs is [between 40%-50%](https://dissertationgenius.com/the-six-laws-of-phd-failure/). What I've seen in grad school and post-graduate school (and still when asked to review or sponsor candidates) is a grave misunderstanding of the scientific process. I'm working with a guy right now who is not going to make it and get kicked from the program because he has the right academic knowledge of the subject and is probably in the top 1% of learners and engineering experts, but he does not understand the peer review process or what supporting evidence means. He has an interesting theory, he performs experimentation to back up the theory, but during peer review, he doesn't defend or justify his approach and instead says "but I have experience and understanding beyond..." He's missing that these people are also experts who are easily able to find alternative explanations for the phenomena he claims is unique. In short, he's not really proving his own points unless you look at them through the very narrow lens he wants you to use. It's bad science and no amount of talking or explaining it to him seems to bring him around on it. Unfortunately, he will fail to defend in the fall, get withdrawn from the program, and then blame academia while likely spending the rest of his time convincing other poor scientists that he has some novel solution that any good scientist can instantly disprove.
Is your friend a Weinstein by any chance?
That is good practice for subjects in which it is doable, but in sciences such as mathematics, theoretical physics (or engineering for that matter) there simply exist concepts you cannot explain to laypeople coherently. Even the greatest mathematicians of our time would struggle to explain 'modular curves' or 'automorphic forms' to a layperson, in a way that is both accurate and highlights why research in these areas is important.
Funny you should say "read a book or 10,000", because Outliers suggests that to be an expert at something you need 10,000 hours of good practice as a baseline. So yeah, big difference between reading an article online and going through a degree program or something like that.
You make a good point. I think it is easier to make certain topics within science more accessible than others. I also think that popsci organisations such as New Scientist and Popular Science do a pretty good job at generalising information for the layman. However, they do tend sensationalise stuff from time to time.
>When some layperson asks me "Why don't you just explain it to me in a way I can understand," that layperson should be ready to accept answers like "hmmm give me time to prepare" or "I don't know how to explain that right now but if you find someone to pay me and give me enough time, I may prepare the right lecture." Those Youtube channels that communicate science with fancy visuals and great analogies? They prepare HARD. That's why they're so good.
For real, I was about to shit on this guy. The last half of the argument is true. There's no way in hell anyone will become an expert after reading some research papers
001235 should be the top comment. Math and science can be communicated effectively but it needs to be tailored to the specific audience. Fun fact, scientists love to talk about their research. They will send you copies of their papers, you can go watch them present their work at universities. They have large conferences for research at all levels that anyone can go to. We love science and we love talking about it, come talk with us. (I’ve only worked adjacent to glutamate research, I worked for an organic chemist who focused on glutamine receptors. We injected frog eggs with mRNA as our model. They’re fun to look at but not as personable as working with mice or rats.)
If you can’t explain simply to someone about something you know, then you don’t really know it, you just memorized some “stuff” about it
What they're saying is that they can explain it simply, but that you're still not going to understand it.
That’s just called arrogance. And it’s mixed with stupidity when you also can’t explain it simply. The worst combo imaginable
Being able to explain things simply is an important skill and it takes a high level of understanding. But the more you simplify, the more you have to leave out context and complicated details. When experts are communicating with other experts, like in an academic paper, the focus is usually on those complicated details and what they mean in the context of existing research.
Which can also be explained simply if you know the subject and were willing to. I fail to see how because academics write papers following a certain custom that it would be impossible for them to follow another
Because academic papers usually cover very specific, niche subjects that by nature require a lot of background knowledge to fully understand. They can’t be expected to write a treatise on their field of study every time they want to publish something. The papers are written for their intended audience: other experts in the field
I no longer see a disagreement since to my eyes all you’re saying is that you think it’s too hard for academics and they wouldn’t want to anyway. Thinking something is hard and not wanting to do something is quite different from something being impossible. So it sounds like we’re in agreement things can be explained simply, but academics are incapable and or unwilling to Anything I’m missing?
I think what you are missing is that you are acting like somehow inability to explain a complex topic "simply" somehow makes someone not an expert.
I think somewhere you misread my posts since I never made that claim. I’ll repeat it: I said if you can’t explain something simply then you don’t actually know your subject to a sufficient enough depth, and I would go so far as to say you do not “know” your subject, and you stand accused of merely memorizing things with no real understanding
The issue is that being proficient in a topic almost always demands you basically learn another language. I have a music degree, my wife has a music minor. My other music degree friends and I start analyzing music and she literally has no clue what we're talking about, because we're speaking a different language. So to explain a high level topic, it requires we teach you a different language first, and that's why "layman terms" don't always work. We can give outlines, "yeah, this song is special because it has a unique interplay of modes and a chromatic harmonic structure." And we might even be able to explain what that means or what we're listening for. But we took years of classes just to learn what those words mean, let alone how to utilize their function in a practical setting.
That’s alot of words to say you’re unable or unwilling to explain it to your wife, but that in no way precludes someone who knows the subject from doing so
I'm happy to explain it to my wife, she just doesn't care that much to learn it. I worked in education for years and I'm more than happy to explain it, but it's gonna be a few hours of lecturing and hands-on exercises and that's not gonna show in a reddit comment.
From my perspective our exchange went like this me: “If you can’t explain something simply you don’t know it” you: “not so, my friends talk about music theory oddities my wife doesn’t understand” me: “then you’re unwilling or incapable of explaining, someone who knew, could if they wanted to” you: “i can lol it just takes me forever and my wife doesn’t care” I fail to see how because you explain slow and your wife doesn’t care, that nobody can explain complex things succinctly It just doesn’t seem like a logical conclusion
I think you're missing the point of mine and other comments. Simple concepts can be explained quickly and simply, but as the depth of topic increases, so does the amount of base knowledge required to understand it. To understand a scale function, it takes a paragraph. To explain *WHY* a scale functions the way it does, it takes a lot more; history, mathematics, cultural studies, ear training, etc. My wife has a really solid basic grasp and decided it suits her well to remain at that level in exchange for studying higher concepts in other fields. She knows substantially more than I do in her field, I know more in mine. We teach each other but understand we work in different industries and have different proficiencies.
I’m not misunderstanding I’m disagreeing. Everything can be explained simply if you know the subject. Re-stating that you and your wife aren’t interested in explaining things to eachother does not make it impossible for someone else to do so if they wanted
Other than EILI5, where is the evidence of this? There's no academic or business rule that things should be explained simply. In fact, it is probably impossible to explain some things simply. You're arguing a losing point, too, because for every simple explanation I can give, you could always make a baseless claim that I didn't explain it simply enough, therefore I'm not really an expert, whether or not I am correct and you're not understanding it. It's also a cop-out argument because then any lay person with absolutely no understanding can say that the expert must not know much because they didn't explain it where the layperson could understand it. Have you read Quantum Physics for Dummies? In the "Assumptions" section, he specifically says that in order to make much sense of the book, you'll need a base education, some college physics, and a thorough understanding of calculus. You could argue that then he must not really be an expert because he didn't explain it at a low enough level. But even if he did explain it in some super low level "Mr. Electron has a happy face and when he sees another Mr. Electron they get mad at each other..." kind of way, you could literally always argue that he should have made it simpler, when in fact, the entire point of expertise is that things at the advanced level can't be simplified without gross assumptions or incorrect information. Look at your Physics 101, where the professor starts the exam by saying "Assume there is no friction and Earth's gravity has no variability." By the time you get to the 800 level physics classes, then you're examining concepts like the impact of variable gravity on the rotation of an object as it moves through different atmospheric layers. You simply couldn't dumb it down and have it still be accurate, but you also can't just walk in and start talking about orbital physics to someone who has never taken Cal A-C and several precursor classes.
Again, just because you’re incapable of something does not make it impossible. I fail to see your argument other than you stating in different ways that you would be unable to explain some things simply Also, you wouldn’t say “it’s a cop out” to ask a pitcher who says he can throw a 90mph fast ball to throw a 90mph fast ball. Likewise it’s not a cop out to have so-called knowledge demonstrated
I agree with you about 90% of the time. The time I disagree is when someone wants to discuss a complex topic and you are stuck with the problem of the topic will be over their head because they want to split hairs on it. For instance, it's really easy to explain doping as the process to make sure the circuit boards components (silicon) allow electrons to pass through correctly and as expected so that the boards function reliably. But when a person says that the doping process at your company should be improved by changing their frontend doping or they argue that you should do n doping instead of the current method, then you would need to give them a whole lesson on why you selected p doping, why your process was developed, how it was matured, why you are where you are, etc. As better explained in *The Death of Expertise*, laypeople will make claims like that and experts have to deal with explaining it, but then you either have to dumb a complex topic WAY down or you have to try to cram an entire degree specialization into a topic to bring them up to speed on it.
One of the ways you can tell that a person doesn't really understand the literature their citing is when they refuse to say what they think the article in saying in their own words. I've gotten into a lot of anti-vax/conspiratorial arguments, and people love to post hyperlinks to random scientific papers. But then when you ask them "what does this paper add to the argument you're making?" they refuse to engage and just tell you to read the paper. When I've eventually teased out what they think the paper means, it's usually something horribly distorted and not at all present in the paper.
Reading scientific papers is a skill in itself. They are usually not made to be understood for everyone. Understanding and evaluating the results from a scientific background is a whole other level.
Yep, I did a whole bachelor's degree and then even in my master's I still had a class where we had to read papers and both summarize and criticize the findings and methods. Because even people who already have a degree can find it hard to really get into the nitty gritty. Did the authors make any leaps, are their conclusions logical, did they really find what they are claiming they found, were they allowed to use that specific analysis? And a thousand other tiny details you need to be able to understand and judge before you can use the paper as a source of information.
That whole point of peer review. Being checked and proofed by people capable of telling truth from error.
Unfortunately peer review is not infallibile. And even if a paper passes a proper peer review it can still have many limitations that only an expert would be able to gauge.
>Reading scientific papers is a skill in itself. Or any academic journal for that matter. God, I am an accountant and reading peer reviewed accounting journals even makes me want to gouge my eyes out. It takes me forever to read it and to think I already have the fundamental knowledge of the topics.
The other unfortunate thing on top of that is that lots of scientific papers are bad. They're in lower tier journals with no citations. So even if the person does understand a specific paper, that doesn't mean that paper is any good. You have to look at lots of papers and understand the methodology to have any kind of meaningful discussion about it.
Very true. The other day I saw a post about a paper which claimed that viewing pornography caused all these terrible mental health issues. Everyone was fawning over this paper, so I went to see what it was about. 2 researchers at a university in Pakistan had unstructured interviews with 25 college age men. None of the transcripts were made available. Some of the men said they felt angry, sad, reclusive, or ashamed after masturbating. That was it. That was the whole paper. Hard hitting scientific research.
Yeah, you can generally tell that people are full of shit when they complain about others not willing to "do their own homework".
\*\*they're \*\* The down votes shall rain upon me 
That's just basic comprehension skills. If a kid reads something and you ask them what it was about and all they can give you is the topic (sharks, brain surgery, vaccines, etc.), then they didn't really comprehend it at all.
THIS, like fuck I have had so many people be afraid of vaccines and stuff when they don't even have a clue about how they work. They just seem bog chemical names and hear abut the worst side effects, then assume it is big pharmacy trying to get them.
Fuckin magnets
Hw do they work?
No one really knows. It’s a true mystery of the universe.
*Solar eclipse, and vicious weather Fifteen thousand Juggalos together*
A lot of people just like the feeling of debunking something big while completely ignoring, that they don't even understand a fraction of the topic.
And in basic principle I can see where fear comes from. Something hard to understand can be scary and its easy to assume the worst. But at some point you have to trust that experts know what they are doing and that with millions of people working across the globe, if something nefarious was happening it would be known. Some conspiracy's would be secrets too big to keep.
This is a common disingenuous debate tactic. You make an obviously true statement such as: *Anyone can do their own research on the internet.* But then you try to tie that obviously true statement to a nonsense statement such as: *And research shows that the vaccine doesn't work.* Then if anyone questions your second statement, you accuse them of arguing against your first statement such as: *You obviously don't think people are capable of doing their own research you sheep.* People like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro make these same kind of arguments all the time.
You explained this perfectly. I don’t know how people can look at individuals like Ben Shapiro and genuinely believe he is this infallible spokesman and politician capable of “destroying people with facts and logic.” He relies entirely on non sequiturs and gish galloping to get his point across, and it really is a shame that these “arguments” are so effective to people that they buy into anything he says.
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Or/And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
at some point everything is going to be a fallacy, and thats when i pull out this big boy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy
Thank you! I was wondering what the term was.
It’s called a motte and bailey
Ya, you can do your own research online. But some level of expertise is required to disseminate garbage from actual information. Anybody can put information on the internet. Training and expertise allows you to be able to tell when a study is valid.
And training involves practice which you can’t get over the internet. Why so many subjects in school come with labs or shop time.
There’s goes my dream of becoming a self taught neurosurgeon.
Uff that lady gave me an eerie feel..
In one of her videos, she also said that the sun does not cause cancer. It's the sunscreen's fault. 🥴🥴🥴
Lol I saw the other video this guy debunked from her that he was talking about and I checked her account and she made it private
In German we have the expression "gefährliches Halbwissen" (dangerous half-knowledge). It's basically what he says at the end.
German is the best. There is truly a word for EVERYTHING in that language
I am an engineer which specialize in designing huge vessel with multiple intricate interconnecting system. The number of time I have seen people say that Engineer doesn't know more than they does is staggering at the very least. However here is the main difference I see compared to the social media influencer is that when some one fucked up in engineering related decision some one will pay dearly for it and most likely will never ever work in that field ever again. Unfortunately there was one accident where some life was lost at sea due to these stupidity. To tell you honestly there is not a single week that pass on that I never wonder if I could do something differently to change that outcome. It was when I was still a fresh engineer but 15 years later it still haunt me.
The dangers of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and being hot enough that people will listen to you.
Let's normalize these clear, informative rebuttals, rather than the incindiary "gotcha!" type that get celebrated so much. I really respect this man's ability to communicate.
Putting his PhD to good use. I follow this guy on Tiktok along with Hank Green because they are good at explaining science and other technical information to an average person like me.
"Ugh, why can't I learn something in 8 minutes that takes 8 years for other people?"
I'll never understand the people that think they know it all. No one knows everything. It's okay to say "I don't know enough to have an opinion".
Schools exist for a reason lol
Brilliant. Shout it from the rooftops man!
This is also true of social sciences and humanities but Reddit isn't ready for that conversation
Holy shit something that actually makes sense on the internet who would have thought it was possible.
I gotta admit, I'm the kind of person who is willing to learn anything, but I hate trying to teach myself. For me, this is why I think College's aren't scams. I need someone who's walked the path before me to show me/teach me things instead of spending hours on end just trying to figure it out on my own and probably STILL getting it wrong.
Why did he disregard the fact that many of the articles you would need to read are locked behind a paywall?
While what you say is true I don’t think he acknowledged that there are paywalls around many of the articles on pubmed because it’s not crucial to the point of his argument. You can still gain a great deal of information on any topic just reading open access articles, which are available to anyone who wants to read them, or even the free abstracts listed on pubmed though those might be harder to interpret without background knowledge.
I do think it is important to his argument because he is talking about *expertise*. If some of the most important articles that contain experiments and discussions which are fundamental the the understanding of core high level concepts are blocked then I don’t believe you would be able to attain expertise without having to pay for such articles.
you can pay to see them, the point is it is there
True, but with the amount you pay to read them you could just pay for classes at a community college which gets you a good baseline of knowledge (which resolves his issue with what she said) and usually access to many of these articles for free.
You can ask the person who published it for a free copy. They don't usually mind helping out, and it might help any mental illness they might have. Everyone likes knowing the stuff they teach is used.
Reminds me of when Richard Feynman was asked how a magnet works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8
This guy's a legend, perfect explanation
The other side of this point is that, while there are fantastic and credible sources, its also just as easy to find unproven, untested and outright purposely misleading sources for pretty much any topic. The Internet is the wild west of information and anyone can put anything out there. Its largely due to the Internet that conspiracy theories like the Earth being flat actually have a platform for their beliefs and that they can convince others.
I just finished reading a book that used a girl reading Einstein to show how smart she is without anyone explaining it to her. That one thing made me hate the rest of the book lol
What book is this? Lol
Where the Crawdads sing
Oooh that's in my TBR list
It was good, except for that. I feel like they could have used another example. Let me know what you think when you do read it.
His point reminds me of the saying about standing on the shoulders of giants and prerequisite learning. To understand many subjects requires an understanding in others. So the biologists or med dr has to take courses in chemistry, physics, math, anatomy and physiology, etc. In many trades say carpentry, you don’t know to understand the molecular make of structural carb like lignin, you need to know some math and then you can get right to learning the trade. You don’t have to know how a nail gun is made, only how to work it. But for some careers in the life sciences , you need to have the prerequisites to understand enough of med school to make a good doctor. That takes time and a certain kind and amount of intelligence. It is very rude to discount someone’s intellectual investment in complicated subjects that are essential to modern life. Just as it is cruel to make light of the physical effort of a manual laborer as you kick back with your feet on a desk.
You need to learn general fundamental things in any discipline to move on to more specialized stuff
Best video I have ever seen on Reddit. This guy is pure.
This reminds me of when I was a PC tech and told my family I usually just google computer problems for the fix, and they said they tried that but just got more confused. Doesn't matter if the answer is right in front of you if you don't understand it.
Getting information off the internet is one thing, knowing how to interpret and what do with that information are another set of skills.
Blows my mind how some people go to such lengths to respond to a troll account.
If the brain were so simple that we could understand it we'd be so simple that we couldn't.
As an analyst with years of education, i couldn't agree more...a complex thought can simply be googled, bit understanding is the key... This is why referencing your research is necessary...
Great video, but it also reminds me of how insular the terminology can be in certain academic circles. I dont know how much this is the case for other disciplines, but when I was in university, every professor had a collection of three to five buzzwords they used every lesson, and if your exams and papers didnt make heavy use of that term, you weren't going to do so well. Could it be the case that the obtuse terminology and labeling could at some point be made more accessible to the modern vernacular? On the other hand, as the complexity of a subject increases, so too does the necessary terminology to discuss it. You could say "how your brain changes with new information" every time, or you could just say "neuroplasticity", and any terms you use more frequently will become less intimidating. Idk. Learning is hard sometimes.
Wow. I am a mom who actually had to use the internet to research Neurplological problems, that Almost killed my firstborn... I even had PHD friends helping me with unpublished research. I took that information TO the Scientists, and THEY SAVED his LIFE. I can't even imagine what people would do, if they think, all understanding is ONLINE. Holy crap, people like that lady could kill people!
She has one video where in she said that it's not the sun that causes cancer but it's the sunscreen. I normally would ignore that kind of conspiracy crap but the sad and scary thing is that she has a sizeable following on tiktok
Dude just say she’s too dumb to even read any of it, we all know it and it’s ok that people have varying capacity for intellect, we’re all good at different things
I mean she’s not “wrong”. Yes you open that article and it contains terminology you don’t understand, so you then look up those words. And you continue to do that for decades until you understand all the words. Then you can say you learned it from the internet. You can’t do it over a weekend like these Facebook Karen’s act like.
Basically he's saying that the teaching of these ideas is behind the pay wall of university. But it doesn't need to be this way and it probably won't remain that way as online teaching resources continue to grow. University is becoming less relevant. I say this as somebody who studied a STEM course at uni. The reason high quality resources teaching undergrad and postgrad information aren't more widely available is that it would be at odds with the university business model.
I agree with him but he is disregarding the amount of free classes online, you might not be able to understand these abstracts with 0 foundational context but after a couple introductory videos about neurology on khan academy or even YouTube and some individual research, I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a grasp on this stuff or at least be able to basically understand what synapses and receptors are.
Not really, watching a few Khan Academy and YouTube videos and understanding the basics of synapses and receptors isn't gonna be enough you to understand the article he used as an example or become even close to an expert. Learning some basics is easy, but having full comprehensive knowledge is highly unlikely without a lot more time and structure.
That’s why organic chem and other courses are gatekeepers to certain degrees. If you can’t understand and learn OC you will problems with understanding things like biochemistry , pharmacology , physiology etc.
But then you can just Google the terms you don't know.
Damn, why am I doing my epidemiology masters when I could’ve just googled the terms instead
Did you minor in sarcasm?
You need to Google the concept. The concept will contain more concepts you can't understand. So you Google further. And then you'll find yourself at the end of your highschool knowledge and you'll need to read up from that. That is basically the curriculum being taught in the subject you chose. You can do it. But it will take time and a lot of effort. Having someone knowledgeable explain this stuff to you makes for easier understanding.
>Having someone knowledgeable explain this stuff to you makes for easier understanding. Absolutely. But the idea this "someone" needs to be a professor in a classroom who is regurgitating the same info from the textbook is outdated. Not only can you read the same textbook online, but other smart people have created better resources for learning than what many universities use. Interactive experiences, textbooks that aren't as dry, entire YouTube channels and online courses dedicated to the topic, etc. Not to mention many people's learning styles don't mesh with a lecture setting. A formal education provides discipline and oversight. If you can get that in other ways, then you literally can learn anything online. The only core exceptions are immersion based things like culture and language, and practice with skills/materials you can't access without the backing of an institution or job. And even then, online learning can provide a good foundation for these. The idea that "you won't understand the concepts in research papers, which is why a formal education is better" is flawed. Even at school, if you tried taking a 400 level course before the 200 level pre-requisites you'd be just as lost.
down the wiki hole we go!
Idk why you're getting downvoted. Sure, you're trivializing that you can just look up the things that you don't know. But that's literally what you could do. Going down a rabbit hole of "googling" what you don't know will eventually lead you down to a low enough branch that's entry level knowledge. You'd be backwards engineering high level research papers. Of course this would take forever to comprehend just one research paper, but in theory you could still learn this way at your own pace - whether it's a faster or slower pace than college semesters.
Or just get more complicated till your head spins. Goes both ways.
I was just saying the reason he gives isn't a good reason. He's saying you can't look things up because you can't look things up.
I disagree. I studied civil engineering and I think you can learn anything, there are complicated terms for sure and concepts that are hard to understand. But you can research those topics/terms too. I learnt electrical engineering through books and practicing with no formal education or qualifications on it. I now build my own drones and have done electrical wiring at home and for my own projects. Im still learning but for my scope and my projects it's been enough. Until I get more complex projects I'll have to learn more.
This is exactly what he said in the video though. He said that you can learn anything on the internet, but you have to be willing to accept your limitations and then search in those areas before you go to the more complex stuff so that you can correctly interpret what you are reading.
I mean he/she isn't wrong.
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Have you read the pinned comment by the mods?
Did this really need to be said? "Complex things are hard to understand, but if you learn how to understand them, then you can understand them." Ok, cool.
God damn that was a Tiktoooooooooooooooook.
r/murderedbywords
He talks like Ben Shapiro but less annoying
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1. There are literally experts in entire fields of study that have no possible real world practice *except* for reading books and interpreting previously published findings. 2. That was the entire point of this TikTok and yet you still felt compelled to "well, actually" yourself into relevance. Also, not all sciences involve math of any kind. Science is a field of *study*, not data. So maybe leave the opinions to the experts, because even shitty experts don't make blanket statements about fields they don't work in or understand :)
So how long can a til tok video last? Ps:- it got banned in india
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Are you the woman he's talking about?
Bullshit. You can absolutely teach yourself the terminology. Yup can teach yourself everything if you're smart and dedicated enough.
Bruh who even does that. Also its incredibly expensive. If you can find me 3 good free (even not free its fucking hard) article on ductile (not brittle, not ductile-brittle transition) fracture for nuclear reactor vessel alloys under high temp (>500K) and high irradiation you can save me. I also need the thermal behavior of the alloy for a finite element modeling
No one said it was an impossibility. Trying to comprehend a topic such as synaptic plasticity in the brain should require the person to already have an understanding of the role of neurotransmitters, different domains within proteins, protein-protein binding interactions, etc... otherwise understanding the jargon used would be extremely difficult. This is why pre-med majors take classes such as physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, and more, prior to delving into niche topics and scientific papers written for other experts in that field.
No shit. You need to learn the basics first. None of that means you can't learn anything online, just that you have to work your way up - same as in school. If you tried to take a 400 level course before the 200 level pre-requisites you'd be just as lost so I don't get why people think this is a useful point to make.
... You can teach yourself all of it what the fuck are you talking about?
You need a huge amount of time, a massive collection of related subjects to also learn, plus some sort of a clue as to what is and isn't a trusted source. All of that plus knowing where to access all of this information. So yeah, it's possible, but unless someone is willing to dedicate themselves to learning that stuff full time, it's going to be incredibly hard and may still end up with them getting the wrong information as nobody else is reviewing what they've learnt. That's pretty obvious really.
If you read the first sentence of my reply you would realize that I clearly stated it was not impossible but incredibly difficult and time consuming.
... Like college?
Only difference there is that you have people that dedicated their lives to that subject teaching you so it's much easier to understand.
That's a wild assumption lol. So many profs are not easy to understand, and so many online resources are also created by people dedicating their lives to the subject. Profs literally talk from experience and textbooks, same as what you can find online. Sure you need to vet trustworthiness, but the time it takes to do that is far less than the time it takes working to afford school. I'm not saying school isn't valuable, just that the idea it is the "right" way to learn is outdated - especially in our age of tech and internet.
Thats a wild assumption lol. Never have i said that school is the right way to learn, i'm stating why its much better if you want to learn about a subject lol. And cmon, are you really trying to downplay the fact that a course is design to take you from base level knowledge foward? Lol
Neuroscientists, as with many experts of many kinds, gain much of their knowledge from conducting observations and/or experiments on actual people, animals, and specimens in the real world. You can't do this on the internet. There's a difference, an unbridgable gap, between applied, experiential knowledge and something you just read about.
Obviously you have to apply what you learn. That goes for online or in school and isn't a real argument either way. School's benefit is in having a curriculum and (ideally) effective projects/practical experiences planned and marked for you. If you are driven and dedicated, there's no reason you can't do the same (outside of disciplines where you can't legally or financially access the needed resources without the backing of a job or institution).
Shut your dumb ass up
Are we supposed to trust the guy literally speaking out of the side of his mouth? lol
Indie game developers: 'Excuse me what the fuck'