patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Anyway. My take on your video is that you're tending to view scientific papers as being aimed at science communicators, and it's probably best for stress-testing if they aren't. Ps. you know my mom. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Obviously disciplines vary-I think its fine if people want to be elbow deep in the cutting-edge research about life on mars because the stakes are pretty low. But I think it's probably for better for their health non-experts don't know about cutting edge medical or nutrition research. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026The job of science stress-tester and science communicator are different jobs. Scientific papers are inaccessible and bad on purpose. They are moves in a competitive stress-testing game. They don't contain things that non-experts should know about. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Besides, scientific papers are often wrong! The point is that they might be wrong! You don't want to spread their ideas. They are usually stupid ideas. That's what the discourse and stress testing is meant to surface. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026And broad appeals come with pernicious incentives. It's easier to appeal to a big audience if your research is about wellness, sex, and power posing than if it's about the biophysics of g-coupled protein receptors. 120
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026But the more you appeal to science hobbyists, the less expert stress testing gets done. You of all people know how hard and expensive it is to make accessible, entertaining, science education content for a broad audience. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026But there's a complexity now that you can get resources by attracting attention on the internet. Experts are rare and expensive. You can't make a buck by appealing to them. But you can get a big audience of folks who engage with science as a hobby or entertainment activity. 120
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026This reduces the quality of scientific stress-testing. Exclusionary groups like the Royal Society and paywalled journals exist not for nefarious reasons, but to manage the noise from the peanut gallery. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026If I have a paper showing good results for a new drug to treat triple negative breast cancer, that's a big accomplishment. But non-expert critique of it is not useful. There will be lots of people providing low-value discourse like "what about colon cancer" or "drug companies hate him." 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026One goal is to present ideas to be stress tested by expert critique. The other goal is to disseminate new ideas to a broad audience. You *can't* do both of these at the same time. Meaningful stress testing requires deep technical expertise. Broad dissemination requires accessibility. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026@hankgreen.bsky.social Hey! Saw your latest on scientific papers. I've done some stuff on Open Science and the consolidation of scientific narratives. One thing that struck me is that you are asking for two mutually exclusive things from scientific papers. 110
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 16/06/2026Second part of my review of "If Anyone Builds it Everyone Dies." A candidate for @ifbookspod.bsky.social. The book cites more Musk tweets than journal articles. I think this is really the pinnacle of woah-dude blog posts masquerading as scholarly work. open.substack.com/pub/howtoget...open.substack.comArtificial Super DumbnessWhy we don't see intelligence runaways 000
Reposted by @patrickdkwatson.bsky.socialNat Mesnard @natmesnard.bsky.social · 13/11/2025This cute little game I designed with @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social is out now! ✨ 032
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 30/09/2025Latest episode of the podcast is up! Katie McAllister and I discuss which parts of the brain are most like ChatGPT. open.spotify.com/episode/199L...open.spotify.comI, Robot. 010
patrickdkwatson.bsky.social @patrickdkwatson.bsky.social · 29/03/2025Since most of my follows are scientists, I thought I'd share this ecology game a friend of mine is funding. It's about creating a weird and fantastical ecosystem. Please spread it around to educators and ecologists who might be interested! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...backerkit.comAssemblage: A TTRPG of World Building & World BreakingTogether, become a weird ecology. When the world shatters, how will we survive? Assemblage is a science-inspired eco-fantasy TTRPG in which 2-6 players collaboratively build the story of an interdepen... 011
