this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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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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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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See the pinned paper on Shitposting as Public Pedagogy if you want the academic case for why this works.
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Science is not the truth. Science is a mechanism for finding the truth.
And studies are scientific, but are not science itself. A study can be intentionally misleading in bad faith, but that doesn't mean every researcher in that field is acting in bad faith, just the author, publisher, and perhaps reviewing peers.
Anyone can right a paper. And if they right it on something obscure and bespoke enough, it can be difficult for someone to question their work. Doing so is the duty of peer reviewers, and sometimes these peers for whatever reason will fail to smell the bullshit or raise issue about smelling it. Then the honus is on the publisher to retract falsified papers.
This is why citations are like gold to postdocs. It's what builds their credibility, and that credibility is one of the most important aspects of the academic and scientific world.
What is truth?
If you take a materialist philosophical view, maybe you can arrive at some kind of understanding of the universe through the scientific method.
If you have other views things get far more complicated.
I’m a materialist atheist btw but delving into philosophy makes me less certain we can ever arrive at ‘truth’.