That nonsense post about tetrachromatism is going around again. Here’s a link to a “why that post is nonsense” essay someone posted two years ago as my tiny, futile effort to stop it!
I am a fan of dispelling misinformation and spreading actual science, so I’m passing this along even though the language is a bit stronger than I typically use myself.
Enjoy.
OH THANK GOD I spent all morning debating whether I should be correcting the damn post myself for the love of fuck your computer screen only produces RGB light
I’m not sure the RGB thing is a relevant point. But something that is worth noting is that the color gamut of most computer screens is crap regardless of which colors they’re producing.
It frustrates and fascinates me that we’ll never know for sure, that despite the best efforts of historians and scientists and poets, there are some things we’ll just never know. What the first song sounded like. How it felt to see the first photograph. Who kissed the first kiss, and if it was any good.
I’ve been seeing some posts that are basically “fuck Bill Nye he only has a Bachelor’s degree and isn’t a REAL scientist” and like… guys. That’s not what being a science communicator is about. I’m not just talking about Nye here.
Science communication is a whole field of its own. You can be the most brilliant, qualified research scientist on the planet and have no teaching skills whatsoever. The ability to synthesize complex information and then explain it in simple, accessible language is not easy, and the more you know about a subject, the more difficult it is. Making scientific concepts available to the general public is really important work – work that active researchers are rarely able to undertake.
Say what you will about individuals, but please don’t dismiss the entire field of science communication and start parroting conservatives with the “um you should have a Ph.D before you should be allowed to talk about science”. Accuracy is key, obviously, but don’t throw educators under the bus, jfc.
I am not a huge fan of Bill Nye, mostly just because I find his whole “saving the world” schtick grating (which is a matter of personal taste), but at the same time I have been working as a science journalist, science blogger, and science communicator for a number of years, and I only have a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (a “soft science”/”social science,” mind you I specialised in medical anthropology). I started doing this work as a passion project long before I even bothered to go back and finish my degree.
Now, I consult full time for a UN-accredited forestry research institute as a communications specialist. There is a huge need in any scientific research organisation to have people who understand scientific concepts well enough to communicate them to laypeople and “the general public” without being bogged down by the demands of research.
I work with a lot of research scientists who couldn’t write a blog post if their careers depended on it: my role often lies in making their work bloggable so that people without a PhD can read it, or even so people without a PhD can find out about it. Without effective communicators, their important work gets lost in research silos.
i always laugh whenever we have to centrifuge bacteria because imagine you’re just chilling in some broth with your buds and then someone comes along and puts you in a tube and spins you at fucking 14,000 rpm
Wow! I just came upon this insane example of injury recovery! Here’s the description provided by the original poster:
“How cool is this?? The deer had been shot by a previous hunter years before and the animal got away and survived. When Robert Stegall’s father shot this deer, he found a nice surprise in the ribs while field dressing the animal. Too cool!” – @hunting_worldwide on Instagram
Okay, that’s fine! You are actually not alone, I just fumbled through explaining this to some friends! I only just found this today so I may not be 100% accurate, if anyone knows better they can correct as needed!
Basically what the current theory of gravity (the theory of relativity) says is that gravity is a fundamental reaction. Gravity is what happens when spacetime curves around mass/energy- that curving causes two objects to move toward one another in space.
The problem is that the general theory of relativity doesn’t explain quantum physics. It cannot explain why the outside edges of galaxies goes zoom in ways they should not, unless there is an unknown factor. Until now, Science was like okay, what if Dark Matter and Dark Energy are a thing, where Dark Energy is what causes the universe to expand and Dark Matter is matter we can’t see, and actually haven’t even proved exists yet. Like, we’re literally making that shit up because nothing else we had made sense, and assuming that Dark Matter exists and is affected by gravity in ways which would explain the zoom allowed us to move on with theorizing things. Which was fine.
But then this guy, Erik Verlinde, comes along and is like okay but what if we go back and assume that our understanding of gravity is what’s wrong?
What if instead of gravity happening (spacetime moves and that movement causes gravity to happen), gravity emerges (the fabric of the universe has gravity stored inside its structure and spacetime and gravity emerge together from that structure). As its own thing, alongside spacetime (which is also a product of the structure of the universe), with its own behaviors and stuff.
And emergent gravity CAN explain why the edges of galaxies go zoom (I do not understand the math behind it I’m sorry!), without needing to rely on “idk let’s say Dark Matter and move on.” Already it’s allowed Verlinde to accurately predict the movement of stars on the edges of galaxies on its own. (of course, bear in mind that it does not explain EVERYTHING. yet. but it does bring physics and quantum physics closer to being able to work together).
Which makes all of this actually really cool, because it means that this huge assumption we humans have made and based a lot of stuff on for a while (dark matter existing) may be wrong, BUT we may have figured out WHY it was wrong, and that means we may be able to start doing things right, and that always leads to even more fascinating discoveries and advancements in science.
scientists have known all along that dark matter and dark energy were placeholder concepts, so this theory is a huge relief. it is MUCH easier to revise our understanding of gravity – which we never properly grokked in the first place – than to work around A Lot Of Stuff Which Is Totally Undetectable Except It Fucks Up Our Math.
just moving along like everyone else 