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  • Whoa, guys, I was just reading the news, and did you know the universe might be a hologram?

  • Humans originated as a hybrid between chimps and pigs? Everything you need to know about

  • popcorn but were afraid to find out? Could the Large Hadron Collider spawn a planet devouring

  • black hole? Squeezing breasts can prevent cancer? Alcohol more harmful than heroin?

  • Woman becomes pregnant in the mouth with baby squid after eating calamari? fast-lane to

  • autism: living near freeways. Science figures out how cats drink. Semen is an antidepressant?

  • Oh, quantum physics proves there IS an afterlife.

  • I know what you're thinking, those sound like something out of The Onion, but unfortunately

  • those are all real science headlines that I found, and I didn't have to look that hard.

  • Some of them are a bit over blown, and some of them are pushing an agenda, and some are

  • actually just complete BS.

  • Figuring out what's good science and what's bad science when you're reading science news

  • is one of the best skills that you can put right here in your thinking machine. It will

  • serve you for your whole life. With that in mind, I'd like to give you my tips for how

  • to read science news.

  • Is the headline of the article a question? This one really ruffles my feathers for some

  • reason. Although, it occurs to me that sometimes we do it for YouTube videos, but it's different

  • for the news! Don't start your article off with a question. I'm here to ask you questions,

  • I am the one who is wondering things, and you are the one who is going to give me the

  • information. It's really a very simple deal. When you start your article with a question

  • it makes me wonder if you even know what you're talking about. What's with all those weird

  • quotes people use in the headlines? Zebra stripes mystery "explained", like was it actually

  • explained or was it like "fake" explained or was it a fake zebra? I don't understand

  • the quotes.

  • After considering #1, maybe it's just best if we skip the headline altogether. Yeah,

  • skip the headline.

  • Do you know the difference between a press release and journalism? Really, do you? One

  • is hopefully fact-checked, and balanced, and analyzes both sides of the story, and the

  • other one, is well, it's marketing material. There's a lot of websites out there that package

  • press releases to look like real news and it's important that you know the difference.

  • Press releases aren't untrue by design, but it's important that you take them with a big

  • grain of salt. I mean you wouldn't go to a car dealership and take the salesman's word

  • for everything. You've gotta go home and do your research.

  • I just want to reiterate, because I see this stuff shared all the time, press releases

  • are not news!

  • Look for "warning words". there are the words that will tell you if there's bit of uncertainty

  • in the article or maybe they don't know quite as much as they're letting on. Link, correlation,

  • possible, study suggests, or my favorite, "scientists were baffled". Scientists are

  • baffled all the time, but they don't write research papers about it and they certainly

  • don't sit around with reporters going "you know I was just totally baffled right now,

  • do you wanna write an article about it?"

  • Is the scientific method being applied? Take tie to check if what you're reading has been

  • peer-reviewed. Or was it presented at a conference, or is this just some scientist talking on

  • a street corner? While far from perfect, our peer review system for publishing science

  • is far from perfect, it's worked out pretty well considering, and good journalists and

  • good writers, they'll treat a research finding like a hypothesis, and they'll scour that

  • work and the work of others for data that supports or refutes it. They'll look to outside

  • sources as sort of controls. Good science writing applies the scientific method.

  • Ask yourself, does someone stand to gain financially from me reading this article? If you're reading

  • that news on any commercial news website with advertising or subscriptions, then the answer

  • is yes, somebody wants you to read that. That's not necessarily a bad thing, people need to

  • make money to support their operations and pay their writers, but that desire had better

  • be outweighed by the desire to inform you.

  • Did the person who wrote the article actually do any research of their own. Are there quotes

  • from the actual researcher? Or did it say something like "according to the press release".

  • More importantly, are there quotes from someone besides the researcher? Now some science is

  • so complicated that it can help to have someone just explain it to you, and that's actually

  • my favorite kind of science to both read about and write about, but that should never be

  • all that they do, they should still apply a critical eye. Honestly, if someone just

  • rewords the press release, they are the WORST.

  • Is the story about a new breakthrough, OR is the story trying to scare you? The media

  • has always been obsessed with these kinds of stories because they know you're going

  • to click on them. But their ratio of truthiness to hype sometimes leaves a little to be desired.

  • Frankly, most stuff isn't as scary as it's made out to be. But some stuff is scary, like

  • antibiotic resistant bacteria, knowing to tell the difference between hype and reality

  • is pretty hard. On the other hand, breakthroughs are pretty rare, which is why we give big

  • awards for them and stuff.

  • Here's one: Possible cure for cancer found in mice. Now, curing cancer in mice isn't

  • the same as curing cancer in humans, so is that a breakthrough, ehhh? We've cured a lot

  • of cancers in mice, and unfortunately not so many in humans. Now maybe one day one will

  • lead to the other, but for a lot of cancers your best bet is to turn into a small furry

  • creature. Remember, when it comes to scare stories and breakthrough stories, just because

  • a lot of people have read something, doesn't make it any more true.

  • Does this story fit in nicely with commonly held beliefs or stereotypes? Ok, that's not

  • necessarily a bad thing, but does it fit in a little TOO well with commonly held beliefs

  • and stereotypes? Recently a paper came out about mapping brain connections in male and

  • female brains.And they found some differences, which is fine, but then they applied those

  • differences to things like men being better at reading maps, or women being better at

  • organizing the house or something. Be wary of papers that want to fit a scientific story

  • into a nice neat social construct, because that's not how science works. This also works

  • with science that challenges previously held beliefs and stereotypes, because a lot of

  • times controversy can make an easy substitute for accuracy. It's like that old saying "does

  • this sound too good to be true?" because a lot of times well, it is too good to be true.

  • But that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't true. You should approach every story

  • with a balance of curiosity and skepticism, as Michael Shermer says "you should have an

  • open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out".

  • The internet is big and its accessible, and its given us access to more information than

  • we ever thought possible, and that's clearly a good thing, but it also means that anybody

  • who wants to donate 2 cents can pop that in the piggy bank of human knowledge. As traditional

  • media continues to cover less and less science than ever before, this is clearly a very good

  • thing. Or it can be a bad thing, for all those reasons that I talked about before. Unfortuantely,

  • the S&%t flows uphill, as they say, and the more that writers, journalists, facebook pages

  • and tumblr pages get things wrong, then society loses trust in science as a whole, it's like

  • a modern version of the boy who cried wolf.

  • Chances are, you're not an expert, and journalists aren't experts either, it's just that the

  • good ones operate under a set of guiding principles that let them become temporary experts, and

  • find real experts when that doesn't work. Some people are way better at this than others.

  • I'm gonna put a list of my favorites down in the description, people who are good at

  • getting things right, pointing out what's wrong, and being entertaining while they do

  • it. Please feel free to leave your favorites down in the comments.

  • You know every science story should really end with something like 'Now we just have

  • a tiny bit more information about science, but we're gonna have to do a lot more experiments

  • to figure out if any of it's really true, and come to think of it, nothing in science

  • is ever really proven true, it's just continually supported by new evidence, and actually maybe

  • it's best that we don't draw any life-changing conclusions from all this and we just enjoy

  • the process. Yeah, let's do that."

Whoa, guys, I was just reading the news, and did you know the universe might be a hologram?

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科学ニュースの読み方 (How To Read Science News)

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    VoiceTube に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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