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Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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Skeptic
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Not a bad guess. The moving picture medium has been around for a while though and complements the written word, rather than supplant it, as a tool for learning.
You want to learn how to get a garbage disposal unstuck?
Watch a YouTube video.
You want to learn to learn about psychological concepts in 25 minutes by watching a video?
Cool, it won't ever work but I respect your wishes.
But no smart person would believe just watching a quick video is actually learning anything more advanced then: there's a place for an Allen key under the disposal
It's an interview with an eminent scientist discussing some key ideas. No, you won't walk away with a comprehensive knowledge of the entire field, the format isn't designed for that.
So documentaries are garbage as well then? Anything using video as a medium? Do you attend lectures in person or do wait for the transcript?
As someone who has worked on documentaries, depending on your definition of "garbage," yes. They are. Because all of them, every single one, is not only edited to show the biased perspective of both the director and the producers, along with the editor themselves, they are also filled with things like added sound-effects, narration that misconstrues what is going on or just adds emotion when emotion is not warranted based on the original footage, taking things out of context to improve the storyline, etc.
For example, the best David Attenborough nature documentary you can think of is full of artifice. Almost none of the animal sounds in nature documentaries were collected at the same time as the video because they're usually shooting from quite a distance and either the microphone is too directional, in which case you have to add background noise in post or they don't have enough of a directional microphone, in which case you have to add the noise you want in post. Occasionally, these days, software is used to isolate certain noises. That, again, is artifice.
So no, you cannot trust anything you see in a documentary. Ever. The only truths you should ever trust in a film of any sort is the truths you learn about yourself from watching it. Anything else could be a lie.
That doesn't make it garbage.
With that restriction, all education is garbage. Professors have bias, even in hard sciences.
Please read more carefully.
My claim is that making the animal sounds clearer so that there is no confusion for the listener is not garbage under any definition.
Replacing the original with a better representation is exactly what you want for education.
Am I learning the sound of a finch or a cardinal? How can I learn if both are singing at the same time because that's what actually happened in the real life filming?
And if that were the only thing I said, you'd have a point.
It was far from the only thing I said.
In fact, you're even misrepresenting that part of what I said. I said that occasionally software is used to clarify audio. Far more often, it's just added in post from a sound effect library or foley artist. It may not even be a noise that animal ever makes.
I didn't claim it was only cleaning the audio. It was my intention that an artificial substitution can the best thing to do for education.
Your original post didn't mention that the wrong sounds are used. That's completely different.
My post did mention other things that you decided not to bring up- namely the bias of the production team and the tone of the narrator.
I mentioned those first specifically because they were the most important.
I could point out that music also creates an artificial mood which might not reflect the reality of what was shot.
Which I already addressed by claiming professors have bias even in hard sciences.
Professors have academic expertise in their subject and try to bring it to bear in their papers.
Producers want the best reaction to get viewers so that the documentary makes money.
They have slightly different goals.
I'm amazed you aren't aware of the fact that the primary purpose of most documentaries is to make money, either directly in theaters or indirectly by bringing viewers in the TV channel or streaming service.
That's a fair point. However I don't think that a profit motive automatically excludes education.
Automatically? No. But that's, as I said, why you can't trust a documentary. How will you know that you're getting an actual education.
If you don't think that's a problem, you should check out how many people got fooled into thinking What the Bleep Do We Know was an actual documentary about quantum physics. They even interviewed some physicists (without letting them know who they were) and cut their interviews to make it look like they were supporting the documentary's ideas.
And then it got into theaters nationwide and made a bunch of money and many people to this day believe the nonsense in that film.
Why wouldn't they believe it? It sounded true, it was being presented authoritatively.
Hold still and I'll go make a YouTube video for you.
I don't know why I thought you were going to get anything out of the written word.
Just wait right there and I'll scream some buzzwords into a microphone for you, and tell you that you're smarter than everyone. Because you may be able to remember some of those buzzwords, but not what they actually mean.
Disruption! Synergy! The Singularity!
Now hold still for 7 minutes of ads!