this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Science Memes

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A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



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If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"

Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.

Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

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[–] Abyssian@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

But it really doesn't.

You could replace number of data centers with total number of Taylor Swift songs released and get that same idea. Taylor Swift music existing causes dizziness, and it must be stopped.

Or you could replace number of data centers with "Sean Connery alive?" and decide dizziness has been going up since he died. He was somehow guarding the world against becoming dizzy, and we lost that protection when he passed. :/

Putting two random things on a chart like this doesn't actually show or imply anything, other than that the person who made it likely wants you to believe there's some kind of connection.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Eh...

It doesn't get anything similar to the same result.

https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=today+5-y&q=dizziness%2CSean+Connery+alive%3F&hl=pt-BR

You are trying to say it's a coincidence, and that's probably correct. But it's perfectly possible that the interest in datacenters leads to an interest in dizziness, or that they are related by some hidden variable.

[–] Abyssian@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

... You seem to be assuming Google search frequencies are the only reasonable metric to measure the increase of a thing in the world.