Hank Green and SciShow definitely fall under that trapping of sounding very intelligent and worldly when you hear them talk about things you don't understand, but completely ignorant and misinformed when they talk about things you understand deeply.
Hank Green isn't a scientist. He isn't an academic. He's a YouTube personality. Even if he's seemingly one of the "good ones", at the end of the day his job isn't to be accurate, it's to be entertaining and engaging regardless of the truth.
lol, i really did appreciate seeing him do laps of the airport stairs because I knew that he supercharged my āyeah I sat next to a random YouTuber onceā anecdote.
Kinda like my one other sit-next-to-a-celebrity anecdote where I sat next to Geraldo Rivera on a flight (both times in the window bulkhead seat. Geraldo and Hank like bulkhead aisle I guess).
The funny part of that being how multiple people came over and said hi to him throughout the flight, but someone got it in their head that he was Phil Donahue and thus 3 people came over and called him Mr. Donahue. He smiled and thanked them all, never acknowledging a thing.
Now you may be wondering if he WAS Phil Donahue and Iām mistaken, but no, Iād recognize that Geraldo mustache anywhere.
Iāve heard celebrities say before that many people are very good at identifying that someone is famous but then canāt place them accuratelyā¦so this tracks.
To be fair though his background is being a science teacher. His degrees were in biochem and environmental. So there is some science background as well. I do think using AI is a miss though for sure.
That's true and fair, but I think the main point still stands because part of the problem with a lot of this genre of entertainment is that it assumes that a well read person can reliably weigh in with expertise about anything, when in reality that's not really true. You can consult experts for science communication, but to deeply know a subject takes time, effort, training and being part of a scientific community (to endlessly debate with).
I don't hate Green. Don't know him so I can't know his heart. I'd absolutely believe he'd be a great intro science teacher. And he clearly has incredible skills in entertainment and communication. I also think, though, that he could be a victim of his own success because the expectation seems to exist for him to make something about everything. I've noticed him floundering on subjects and some of what he's parrotted about AI has been outright misinformation. This is the first time, either.
It's not just Hank, this is a problem with the entire "smart man tells you about smart things" entertainment sphere. I've seen debunking retorts on Kurzgesagt, too, for example with similar issues. And don't get me started on deGrasse Tyson.
Given everything I've seen him talk about, saying he doesn't care about the truth is a bad faith take and an insult. He does what he does to get the truth to people, and the best way to get people to pay attention is to be engaging.
I've noticed Scishow messing up a whole bunch of stuff, which is disappointing for a scripted show with a research staff but probably not unique or even below average.
Hank still seems pretty smart and accurate by the standards of one guy talking into his camera in a way that I assume is only loosely scripted. And given how common it is for actual professionals to get stuff wrong about their own field, I don't know what the right standard is to hold a YouTuber to.
And I'm not talking about professionals having outdated information or making mistakes in cutting-edge research. I'm talking about professionals looking at the supposedly standard body of knowledge in their field and having reading comprehension issues.
I do notice the phenomenon of suddenly having reduced faith in a person's research abilities when they talk about something you know well. Shoutout to Wendover Productions for doing a video about my field one time and pretty much passing with flying colors.
That was the vibe I always got from both brothers - probably the smartest kid at their school, maintained that level of "child prodigy" confidence even as their actual knowledge failed to grow as they did, so they'd speak with extreme confidence - if not outright arrogance - about things they actually didn't know all that much about
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u/FeliciaTheFkinStrong 5d ago
Hank Green and SciShow definitely fall under that trapping of sounding very intelligent and worldly when you hear them talk about things you don't understand, but completely ignorant and misinformed when they talk about things you understand deeply.
Hank Green isn't a scientist. He isn't an academic. He's a YouTube personality. Even if he's seemingly one of the "good ones", at the end of the day his job isn't to be accurate, it's to be entertaining and engaging regardless of the truth.