A lot of people think that by disproving or fact-checking a specific claim that they are basically “disproving science”, when in fact all they’re doing is just… more science.
Science as a dispassionate set of tools used to try and arrive at a provable conclusion is unassailable. "Science" as a claim to authority or power is no different than appealing to heaven or heaven's God. That is the problem. There are priests running around in white lab coats demanding fealty instead of contributing information, reason, and nuance to a discussion recognizing that their research does not give them claim to the throne.
Unfortunately, there absolutely are people who just blindly support whatever they believe in scientific, this is how you get eugenics, which very much continues today. As it is, if you haven't looked into the whole replication crisis, you should.
Hello Adam, Chemist here. Chemosphere has been on the ejection seat for a while. This journal has had so many problem for so many years. This paper being called out is not the straw that broke the camel's back. However, it is showing very well what are the standards of peer-reviews ongoing in chemosphere. In recent years, publishing companies have started to go hunting for bad practices regarding the peer-review process, including friends giving each other lenient reviews, and straight up businesses selling spots on authorship lists and paper mills. All these issues are strongly linked to the publish or perish way scientists are evaluated. Thank you for educating your public about how the scientific community works and for your vote of confidence.
Thanks, been tired of being called a conspiracy theorist when I tell people "just trust the science" isn't good enough and even the scientific community is not immune from corruption. Its not a conspiracy theory to question science, in fact I would argue questioning serves as a foundation of science.
Look at Retraction Watch and the number of problematic journals still publishing after countless retractions. It's no coincidence that that Clarivate only delisted Chemosphere after a paper got this much attention in the popular media. In any case, they're still indexed in PubMed, and continue to publish papers which are being signal boosted by credulous media sources, including a paper last week on how "A Single Tea Bag Could Release Billions of Microplastics Into The Body".
@@vellusk Correct, though your actions rile followers of scientism, who see science as a substitute source for absolute, unquestionable truths once coming from religion. To them, attempting to question "settled" science is akin to blasphemy.
This is one of the most helpful replies I've ever read on TH-cam. And it shows the reach of Adam's channel that a topic like this can get a response from an expert within minutes of uploading a video on such a topic.
My undergrade was decades ago, and even I as a naive undergrad could see that this is where it was going. Peer review was so dogmatically-taught in the sciences, but it was clear that grad school was a little club of in-people. Put 2+2 together and you realize what was going on.
Same thing happened with spinach, some guy in the 1800s messed up a decimal, and for decades everyone thought spinach contained 10 times more iron than it really does...
@@2degucitas to be fair it's still somewhat high in iron when you measure by weight. The problem is the volume you'd need to eat to get any substantial amount of iron. If you cook it then it becomes easier to eat that large of an amount, but you'll still need to eat a lot. Just think about the weight of meat you eat in one sitting vs the weight of spinach.
So they tested one single crop of spinach, even thought iron content is completely dependent on soil content, and determined iron had a static value of iron? 10% iron would be toxic to any plant, and this was well known in the 1800s. You sir, are a typical American liar.
Ive always hated the fact that some people criticize the scientific method because it keeps getting reworked when that's the whole point. Answers aren't easy to get, that doesn't mean its not there.
Mostly because they want you to reference the Bible, or Koran, ONLY ! Then, of course, the reference those same books, just to push their own agendas ! And make a buck out it, with crap like prosperity ministry.
@@frankie137137 True. But we need to meet somewhere in the middle, because there's a fine line where skepticism flirts with conspiracy. The science is, for all intents and purposes, settled when it comes to whether or not the Earth is flat, for example. Having to qualify every statement for the sake of not seeming biased gets tiresome after a while.
@@Asterite100 The fact that you needed to use the ridiculous example of flat earth is exactly why people don't trust public science communicators. Do you think I was referring to flat earth or was I referring to something actually controversial? Use your brain.
@@thepimento I think Adam is being pretty reasonable here, the article was getting so much mainstream press it's not unreasonable multiple people became aware of the error independently
This, IMHO, is the best video you have ever made. In recent years certain segments of our society have taken to denouncing science and scientists, to the detriment of us all. Thank you for standing up for science.
I’m a professional scientist and I really appreciate your nuanced take on the process, flaws, and benefits of the systems we use for generating and disseminating knowledge.
Your first video helped communicate a potential public health risk. Your second boosted people's faith in science. You do good, Adam, and you do it well.
In a way, he just kind of bragged about it. After all, we know it now, so I wouldn't actually say it was humble, but at least he didn't inflate it like a lot of other streamers would likely do.
@markadams7046 humble bragging feels warranted in this case. No shade towards the researchers (looks like an honest mistake) but it's refreshing to see an influencer actually read a study instead of parroting an alarming headline and grift off the fear-mongering.
@@markadams7046using your experience to share a really good point might be a small amount of bragging, but the overall positive outcome he delivers in the point he’s making is worth the humble brag.
I’ve absolutely seen people use this as a reason to “distrust science,” when this is literally how science works. Science isn’t about unwavering trust in a claim - it’s about testing that claim over and over. If new evidence comes along that challenges it, the claim is re-evaluated, and if the research proves it wrong, it’s replaced with a better, more accurate understanding. It drives me nuts that so many people seem to have slept through their science classes. This is literally the scientific method in action. The fact that our understanding evolves isn’t a weakness; it’s the whole point. Science isn’t about blind belief - that’s dogma. Science is about questioning, testing, and constantly improving what we know. If people understood that, maybe they’d stop acting like a shifting understanding is some kind of betrayal instead of what it’s supposed to be.
"Scientific method" is really just a SFW term for "fuck around and find out". Heck, radiation and penicillin were discovered by messing around with funky rocks and some mold
The problem is the bad actors who try to exploit that. There's a lot of people who want concrete, unwavering answers about everything. I mean that's essentially why religion exists. So when bad actors try to paint it as a weakness, you get waves of science distrust. It's seriously becoming a problem, and should be shunned whenever it happens.
Science 😂 You'd have better luck getting me to believe in the tooth fairy. My lifetime is one thing but the last 4 years... 😂 It's become a joke and people like you are why.
Yes, he showed a lot of empathy towards women in sports when he said that they have to come to terms with trans competing against them and, if they do not like it, too bad, it is just a sport.
@@luismart7714Empathy is inherently partial. He chose to be empathetic towards transgenders instead of women, exactly how he chose to be empathetic towards the scientists instead of all the people they terrified with their mistakes and made them throw away their utensils. OP loves adam's empathy because it probably consistently lines with his sides.
6:13 if you want a good example of this, Andrew Wakefield’s ‘study’ on how the MMR Vaccine ‘caused’ Autism is a great example of this. He literally lied on purpose on the paper.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me, an autistic person, how their kid dying of a horrible, easily-prevented disease is somehow a better outcome than the kid turning out like me. That's the kind of thing that makes parents REAL uncomfortable when I say that to their face...and that would be if vaccines caused autism. Which they don't.
@@SimuLord consider the possibility that some kids may in fact not die from a disease and not get a side effect from a vax and how some parents might prefer that
That statement fills me with hope, like it's us doing good and messing up, and we know we can grow I believe seeing the world more that way can lead to positive change
It's so true though. When I was in college I thought everyone in my career had life figured out and that they were all geniuses. Once I got out into the real world and started my career I've learned that it's 100% just people trying to bs their way through life one more day. The only difference is that they've probably already bs'd their way through life longer than you so they're a little more convincing of it. Nobody knows what they're doing most of the time.
Nobody would’ve blinked twice about you taking a victory lap on this, and I’d even seen comments mentioning you across multiple articles about this subject I’ve read the past couple of weeks. But you took the chance to have a conversation about building trust in the process. You set a standard for anyone with a public reach, content creators or otherwise.
This is why I severely dislike the tendancy of news organizations to latch into single studies and preliminary results and report them. My journalism teachers would be appalled.
2:30 It's also entirely possible that Kitchenaid, OXO, Mainstays, Tupperware, and Uline simultaneously had their legal departments contact the publication about the financial liabilities of standing behind an unretracted and libelous math error during holiday shopping season.
What would be the cause of action? This seems strongly like negligence vs intentional and I don't believe the publication owed any duty of care to the manufacturers. If they could prove the publication owed a duty of care to the manufacturers, which I doubt, they would also have to show that the manufacture's damages were proximate to the breach of duty, which again I doubt they could prove.
@@AllFouRoux Sales figures compared to other years' holiday seasons and the countless testimonies you can find even in this comment section of people throwing out their black plastics are pretty easy to prove.
If I was one of these companies, I’d be thrilled. Everyone would go out and buy new non-black kitchen utensils after reading headlines about the study. That’s exactly what my mom did last month 😂
@@AllFouRouxThese cases already happen. It doesn't have to be a good case, just an expensive one for the journal. They don't have deep pockets. Example of company successfully bringing a suit against a researcher to court: Hi-Tech Pharms., Inc. v. Cohen UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS Oct 28, 2016 CIVIL ACTION NO. 16-10660-WGY (D. Mass. Oct. 28, 2016) (☝🏼...and that's a case where the research had no errors entered into evidence.)
@@sk9592Yes, the result now is in their favor due the retractions... which kind of demonstrates the evidence of real commercial damages to them if the research hadn't been amended.
Science is not the truth. It is the search for truth. Science is the best understanding we can manage with the information we have available. That understanding changes and evolves (sometimes dramatically) as new information is acquired and disseminated. To create a perfect system, one would need a perfect understanding. And since we do not have a perfect understanding, we strive for that with science.
Seriously, yeah! It's amazing how quickly something like this can be identified and corrected nowadays. In the past the correction would have never seen the light of day for YEARS, if at all. Sure this correction might not reach everyone that saw the original study, but it's still orders of magnitude more than it would without the internet and modern information spread.
Videos like this make me want to make multiple accounts just so I can like it more than once. So well said! People spend their whole lives mistrusting the "medical establishment" just to wind up eating peach pits because it's a "miracle cure". And with social media this becomes more and more prevalent every day.
Thank you for putting it this way. The peach pit thing describes my parent exactly. As someone trained in a hard science (first generation) it’s SO distressing. She insists she’s “gotten cynical” but the truth is she’s more *credulous*, as long as the thing being sold is “something They don’t want you to know.” Terrifying.
@kementari Wow... For my Dad (a big conspiracy guy) it was chlorine dioxide... Another snake oil cure that is not only pseudoscientific but very harmful... After drinking it for years he kept increasing the dose until he almost died. He pulled through but he's never been the same since... He might have developed dementia anyways but it absolutely sped the process up. He even convinced ME to drink it once as a minor. There is some truly sinister and harmful stuff when it comes to BS conspiracy miracle cures. The peach pit one is really bad too... I'm sorry to hear you went through something similar to what I did... I just hope we can all learn our lesson eventually so good but naive people don't keep getting hurt.
@kementari I keep trying to respond to you and having my reply deleted by TH-cam 🤷🏼♂️. I've had very similar experiences with a parent & dangerous pseudoscientific "cures". They really can be extremely harmful, especially chlorine dioxide, the one my Dad was doing. I really feel for these people because I think most of them aren't bad people, just naive or misguided. It saddens me that people who have issues with trusting the medical or science establishment... they might have some valid point initially but they get steered towards extremely dangerous alternatives sometimes. My Dad has permanent damage that will never recover. Wishing you better fortune for your parent, that it doesn't wind up costing them what it cost my Dad... 🙏
We threw out all black plastics, and didn't recycle them because we were also told they were not recyclable and should not be reused. With that said, exposure to that fire retardant is *still* a cancer risk.
Remember back in the 90's when "wooden cutting boards harbor bacteria!!" That caused a LOT of restaurants to ditch them for much worse plastic ones. A lot of cooks, myself included, ended up bringing home a lot of very nicely made wooden cutting boards. I still have two of them (33 years later), and they're great. The studied that falsely said "wood bad" was overturned in less than a month. Sadly, no one is going try to save the discarded black plastic because.. its cheap plastic.
Thanks Adam for responding to this with commentary about trust in science and institutional authority. This is 100% an example of why the system works. I'm so worried about the future when the whole media system is set up to amplify and incentivize the most extreme, most emotionally satisfying, shortest headlines tweets and videos. There's little incentive for complexity or nuance. It's so difficult for actual science communication to get eyeballs when for every nuanced complex long form video by an actual expert, there's a thousand fearmongering simplistic headlines or tweets or tiktoks by someone in tangential field trying to scare you into buying their book or something.
Perhaps we can hope that it becomes so extreme that it wraps back around to meaningful discussion. People subconsciously learn to filter out the exhausting incessant noise of short-form outrage, and start noticing rational people again.
@arckinenso7615 I can only hope the institutions responsible for so much behind the scenes don't get completely burnt down in the process. No one realizes the massive amount of work done so they can safely go to a restaurant and eat a meal they can be confident is exactly what's listed on the menu and will be unlikely to poison them. Or the option to educate their kids for free. Or take a Tylenol without worrying it's contaminated..... ugh. I'm in Oklahoma so I'm losing all faith in humanity recently. So many people believing absolute nonsense and don't understand how science works or what a fact is..... all cause they saw something on Facebook, heard something on a podcast, did a quick Google or their preacher told them. Gently telling them that the experts that study a specific topic for their entire careers might have better insights than their favorite podcast entertainer is completely futile because people don't like to feel dumb and want to believe they have the secret knowledge that means they are now in control of all the scary things that can happen. Sad stuff. I hope the damage isn't too bad once people figure it out.
@@arckinenso7615 sheesh TH-cam auto-moderation is wild lately. Basically, I hope these institutions are still around when all the dust has settled. In hopes this comment will remain, I'll use an analogy.... I'm worried at the number of people who think you must destroy a car to fix a tail light, and completely ignore their mechanic because they heard a car salesman say so in a podcast. No one appreciates how many hands and how much research goes into making sure that car is safe and reliable, the safety checks and standards to transport it to their city, people that researched how to make it run and workers that crafted the parts..... they just seem to want to shut the whole operation down because their tail light is faulty. Perhaps TH-cam will allow me to say that at least. 🤦♀️
As someone in academia, 100%! Thank you. Much like democracy, our system of academic research is imperfect, but it's the best system we've figured out so far.
I'll be honest, I was skeptical when I first started watching your initial video on black plastic (the supposedly trustworthy sources I read online had all agreed with the initial study)...but when I watched that video I paused when you pointed out the math error. That blew my mind that such a simple and obvious error could make it past peer review... I appreciate your modesty in how you said essentially "I think this math is wrong, clearly showing it off by factor of 10, but I still could be wrong here"... And obviously you were proved correct by the scientific community :)
11:50 I'm more concerned by the peer review not catching things like AI generated and labelled diagrams in a biology paper than missing a simple maths error like this one. What do I want to do instead? Maybe pay the reviewers for the work they do, that'd be a good start at reform.
I can think of so many people who would benefit from hearing this, thank you for using the chance to convey an important topic instead of simply correcting your old statements!
You were the first source that I saw that pointed out the math mistake. It possibly spurred others who already knew to come forward, but I honestly feel like you were basically the first person to notice essentially. Feel proud! I was proud to know about the mistake before everyone else I knew. :3
i took a experimental lab class last semester and the amount of things you have to make sure of when writing the final paper and things like CITI training really puts into perspective on just how much science has been progressing in all sorts of areas
No, but this particular publication that ran the report is pretty much known as a basket of rotten fruit and people should check the reputation of the basket before they start telling the world about the new apple they just found.
I always appreciate the educational videos on scientific and journalistic integrity and the nuanced view. it probably could be its own playlist in the channel.
there is always a competition between those who admit their mistakes and use them to do better, and those who never admit mistakes and tell people to reject anyone pointing out those mistakes. One side can look like they make mistakes all the time and shouldn't be trusted, the other looks like they never make mistakes and are therefore trustworthy. But when it comes down to it, one side gets things done and make things better and the other doesnt
Kudos. Started watching your videos to learn science of soda bicarbonate but continuing cuz you're a great guy. As an ex-academic who have been through such conversations, THANK YOU.
I love how beautifully you put this I often struggle to convey how science is processes not individuals, because my knowledge comes from individuals And I love you saying basically "do better if you can" . Like yeah it's bad this happened, but the process is the best we have so far
Well thought out ideas and appropriate in today's social environment. Thank you for this video and all throughout the year. I look forward to many more in the year to come. We all will need some intelligent ideas in the coming (4) years. Have a happy and healthy new year!
This is the best ad transition in your channel in my opinion, ever. I willingly watched the ad the whole way for the first time after watching you from early days
You are a really cool dude Adam, I learnt so much from your videos. I wish many more content creators took the care you take in educating yourself and your public
The thing is there is no reason why anyone needs to use those black plastic utensils anyway. They will inevitably scorch or break turning them into more non recyclable eternal waste. Wood and metal tools are fantastic and in my experience last much longer and even when they break, metal can be recycled infinitely and wood biodegrades easily.
A lot of the issue in modern health is allowing possibly dangerous things to propagate until they become massive, which allows for the creation of lobbyists and corrupt studies to defend them i.e Cigarettes. By the time the damage is done, that's when we're told "trust the science, it got cigarettes shutdown!" Never mind that "science" was supporting cigarettes for decades before that point and only turned when the evidence became so great that nobody could defend it before the public.
You forgot many advantage of plastic. Light, flexible, smooth, tolerant to scratches. Especially the first 3, wood/metal can't beat those. Like it or not each material have it's own advantage/disadvantage. You can't dismiss an entire category just because "it's bad".
@@hanifarroisimukhlis5989 If you need something flexible, use silicone. Plastic's only actual advantage in cooking is that it's cheap. > Light, smooth, tolerant to scratches All of those are literally properties of wood lmao. Metal is malleable with serves a similar purpose to being flexible in terms of durability and it's also smooth and light. It's also tolerant to scratches, like way more resistant to them than any plastic tool. So across wood, metal, and silicone, I don't see why you'd ever use plastic in cooking except for it being cheap.
Woah. This is pretty eye opening. And I love that you were the one that started to question the official report… and now we can see that you were right. Holy moly. And shout out to you for being so humble about it.
I agree with the main thrust of this video, but I think it's also helpful to acknowledge that there are legitimate criticisms of the peer review process from both inside and outside of academia. In my view, the most glaring flaw is the insistence on crafting a consistent narrative to a research paper that incentivizes not publishing contradictory data that is produced by the publishing author/lab. From the earliest point in which I got involved in academic research as an undergraduate, I noticed an emphasis on the idea of 'telling a story' within a research paper. If a researcher chooses to include results that would contradict/complicate the hypothesis in their initial submission, they will likely get slammed by reviewers and are much less likely to have their paper published in that journal. There is generally much, much more data that is generated during the research process than what ends up being published in the limited set of figures that are allotted to researchers in the final paper. This is obviously a difficult concept to convey to a lay audience without the potential for creating a disproportionate backlash of distrust in the scientific process, but I think it's still a worthwhile conversation to have. My point also does not mention the fact that peer review is a time consuming and somewhat unrewarded duty for scientists that places an onerous task on researchers that already have more responsibilities than what I think should be considered reasonable of scientists-all the while scientific journals rake in millions from costly publishing fees (which are even higher if a researcher wants to publish open access) and university subscriptions.
The paper was published in a PEER REVIEWED journal. The PEERS are supposed to do their due diligence and catch this crap. Failures such as these occur because several levels did shoddy work on a particular day.
I think constant skepticism is warranted. Not the lazy headline reading, but the pursuit of more and more information to get a fuller picture of the situation. I cooked with my black plastic tonight, aware of the possible risks, but not freaking out and screaming from the rooftops, but knowing the frequency and level of exposure is the real issue with many of the chemicals we deal with in everyday life. True science is an ever evolving pursuit of more and more perfect data, and a clearer picture of the world around us. It's up to the individual what to do with that information and to make a more informed decision every day. Thanks for bringing possible risks to the attention of your audience, and also for clarifying when things aren't exactly as perceived initially.
It's unfortunate that while the authors are transparent about their methods, allowing people to discover their mistakes and enable updates to improve the accuracy of the science, the scholarly publishers make their publications difficult and expensive to access, hiding behind paywalls and institutional gatekeeping. Science as a whole should be more open.
Same thing happened with eggs. To this day people believe they are bad for you and raise cholesterol. The opposite is in fact true. The same scientitst who published the original paper corrected himself later, but that one went unnoticed by the media and public. He is today a promoter of eating at least 2-3 eggs per day for health reasons. Unless you want to lose weight.
Thank you for doing this, it was definitely a very responsible way to respond to "being right". Think we all have something to learn both from what you said and the fact that you chose to say it given the context.
I was over at a friend's house years ago, and his dad was talking about a neighbor. She, apparently, had been tested and had the second highest IQ score of any woman in... some unit of the population--in the U.S. or in the world. She was a mathematician it seems. Anyway, one day he (the dad) came home and she had a locksmith there opening her door. Turns out she'd locked herself out. Friend-dad thought this was just the most amusing thing ever. "Second highest IQ but locks her keys in her house! Har-har! Just as absent minded as the next person! Ha!" The thing is, she's absent-mindedly locked her keys in the house while computing the inner area of a torus using Pappus's centroid theorem. If friend-dad locked himself out it would be because he was wondering how much the cat's Salmon Medley Feast canned food really tasted like salmon.... Mrs. Fluffy doesn't even like salmon when I make it with the honey glaze. Why is she so in love with that canned stuff? Maybe I should try that cat food and see if it tastes like salmon at all. And while debating whether or not to eat catfood he locked himself out of the house.... Point being, "absent-minded" errors are relative. 99% of people reading that paper probably wouldn't even notice the math error because the math has the numbers and the symbols with the childhood math teacher trauma all connected up to it. People look right over math all the time, automatically accepting the conclusion or taking it as a particular result that is really a data point on a scale that represents a range of probability, or even as a simple metaphor. I just did it with that 99% thing in that sentence, which in this case means "almost everybody" not an actual 99 out of 100. 99% of the people reading this didn't even notice that.
I see that at work. You send an email with a summary. You attach your work in Excel, nobody opens the file to check your work and see where the original numbers come from, what calculations you made etc. I have seen so many files with so many errors or even numbers plugged in, the results used to make major decisions.
There's so many commenters that have done an excellent job of saying how I feel. So I just want to thank you for your honesty your being humble and your intelligence. If there were enough people like you I think it would restore my faith in humanity. When George Washington had power and turned it down to set a standard for following generations I thought that was a good idea. And Adam I think you must have had a good education a lack of leaded paint chips , thank you so much and wishing you and your family a wonderful new year. 🎉
I would put much more trust into a publication that admits and publishes its mistakes. The journal cited in this video is way ahead of most mainstream media outlets that almost never put out corrections. Also, your pup is too precious , Adam. I would’ve just given him the treat.
Old man ragusea being a class act ones again! Not only does he back things up with science, he also makes sure people keep their faith when they make a mistake
The fact that you are making this video Adam, shows the system does work. Anyway it's science and the ongoing learning and discovery our understanding and knowledge is going to change and improve over time
This is a perfect example of a thing working exactly as intended. everybody is good and winners here. the people who wrote the study are good for doing that work. you and everyone else who caught and fact checked the error did good at correcting the good paper. The publisher did good when they issued a correction. the world is smarter about the thing we were already smarter about, but now we are even smarterer to have sorted out that math error. yay humans, yay science, yay adam ragusea internet food science nerd website sales guy.
I loved this channel for the cooking science. It filled the void Good Eats left me with. But more than cooking, I've learned a lot more about how to understand and read scientific studies. Thanks for everything Adam.
I didn’t see your video about this, but I saw some from some random channel I never seen before. However, he referenced your original video as the thing that brought this to everyone’s attention.
This is one of the greatest and most important videos to have ever been published on TH-cam. At minimum, every American needs to watch this. The kind of mindset this video critiques is the same mindset that brought you-know-who back to power.
@@stevej71393 If the shoe fits. It’s not a stretch to mention 9/11 in a video about plane hijackings. Also, I don’t know why you brought up his skin color, because I certainly didn’t.
@@Marten1234567890 I’m no Harry Potter enthusiast, but if it’s anything like the corruption of Anakin Skywalker to bring him to the dark side because of his lack of faith in the Jedi order, the analogy may still apply.
When my mom mentioned the math error over Xmas, I burst out laughing "Adam called it”. She read the correction story first and we both own black plastics. I hear you but I do trust the guy who admits the limits of his knowledge and just asks a question. Nothing is so simple, and we’re always learning. (Edited by the time I reached the end of the video)
Hi Adam, I've been a fan ever since your broiled cookies. As a fellow scientist, this message really warms my heart. It can be hard to admit mistakes, and its great that you didn't lambast the original authors but instead lauded them. Cheers to you, Justin ps, also loved the eggnog video
A lot of people think that by disproving or fact-checking a specific claim that they are basically “disproving science”, when in fact all they’re doing is just… more science.
Science as a dispassionate set of tools used to try and arrive at a provable conclusion is unassailable. "Science" as a claim to authority or power is no different than appealing to heaven or heaven's God. That is the problem. There are priests running around in white lab coats demanding fealty instead of contributing information, reason, and nuance to a discussion recognizing that their research does not give them claim to the throne.
I think most of them are just skeptics of the industrial complex and government, not necessarily science itself
Unfortunately, there absolutely are people who just blindly support whatever they believe in scientific, this is how you get eugenics, which very much continues today.
As it is, if you haven't looked into the whole replication crisis, you should.
Anti-Vaxxers, Essential-Oil Guzzlers, Tinfoil-Hatters and Seed-Oil haters must feel very vindicated by your comment.
@@Music-gm7ro no i'm pretty sure half of these deny science
Hello Adam,
Chemist here. Chemosphere has been on the ejection seat for a while. This journal has had so many problem for so many years. This paper being called out is not the straw that broke the camel's back. However, it is showing very well what are the standards of peer-reviews ongoing in chemosphere.
In recent years, publishing companies have started to go hunting for bad practices regarding the peer-review process, including friends giving each other lenient reviews, and straight up businesses selling spots on authorship lists and paper mills. All these issues are strongly linked to the publish or perish way scientists are evaluated.
Thank you for educating your public about how the scientific community works and for your vote of confidence.
Thanks, been tired of being called a conspiracy theorist when I tell people "just trust the science" isn't good enough and even the scientific community is not immune from corruption. Its not a conspiracy theory to question science, in fact I would argue questioning serves as a foundation of science.
Look at Retraction Watch and the number of problematic journals still publishing after countless retractions. It's no coincidence that that Clarivate only delisted Chemosphere after a paper got this much attention in the popular media. In any case, they're still indexed in PubMed, and continue to publish papers which are being signal boosted by credulous media sources, including a paper last week on how "A Single Tea Bag Could Release Billions of Microplastics Into The Body".
@@vellusk Correct, though your actions rile followers of scientism, who see science as a substitute source for absolute, unquestionable truths once coming from religion. To them, attempting to question "settled" science is akin to blasphemy.
This is one of the most helpful replies I've ever read on TH-cam. And it shows the reach of Adam's channel that a topic like this can get a response from an expert within minutes of uploading a video on such a topic.
My undergrade was decades ago, and even I as a naive undergrad could see that this is where it was going. Peer review was so dogmatically-taught in the sciences, but it was clear that grad school was a little club of in-people. Put 2+2 together and you realize what was going on.
"We gotta grow up and realize that there is no one in charge here. It's just us." This is exactly right, such a good way of putting it.
Adam takes a strong dive into deconstructionist existential nihilism and I'm all for it.
Same thing happened with spinach, some guy in the 1800s messed up a decimal, and for decades everyone thought spinach contained 10 times more iron than it really does...
Our Moms made us eat all that spinach for NOTHING?! Good thing I still like spinach.
@@2degucitas Technically, she should've made you eat 10x as much spinach, lmao.
@@2degucitas I mean it's still healthy 😂
@@2degucitas to be fair it's still somewhat high in iron when you measure by weight. The problem is the volume you'd need to eat to get any substantial amount of iron. If you cook it then it becomes easier to eat that large of an amount, but you'll still need to eat a lot. Just think about the weight of meat you eat in one sitting vs the weight of spinach.
So they tested one single crop of spinach, even thought iron content is completely dependent on soil content, and determined iron had a static value of iron?
10% iron would be toxic to any plant, and this was well known in the 1800s. You sir, are a typical American liar.
Ive always hated the fact that some people criticize the scientific method because it keeps getting reworked when that's the whole point. Answers aren't easy to get, that doesn't mean its not there.
People only denounce the scientific method when it drives policy especially when it's only preliminary results
Then people shouldn't say things like "the science is settled" because it destroys the persons credibility.
Mostly because they want you to reference the Bible, or Koran, ONLY ! Then, of course, the reference those same books, just to push their own agendas ! And make a buck out it, with crap like prosperity ministry.
@@frankie137137 True. But we need to meet somewhere in the middle, because there's a fine line where skepticism flirts with conspiracy.
The science is, for all intents and purposes, settled when it comes to whether or not the Earth is flat, for example. Having to qualify every statement for the sake of not seeming biased gets tiresome after a while.
@@Asterite100 The fact that you needed to use the ridiculous example of flat earth is exactly why people don't trust public science communicators. Do you think I was referring to flat earth or was I referring to something actually controversial? Use your brain.
You are refreshingly modest. After you discovered the error I was waiting for others to congratulate you, but I heard none. Fantastic work.
@@thepimento I think Adam is being pretty reasonable here, the article was getting so much mainstream press it's not unreasonable multiple people became aware of the error independently
This, IMHO, is the best video you have ever made. In recent years certain segments of our society have taken to denouncing science and scientists, to the detriment of us all. Thank you for standing up for science.
I’m a professional scientist and I really appreciate your nuanced take on the process, flaws, and benefits of the systems we use for generating and disseminating knowledge.
yea, Damn needed video!
Professional scientist? Never heard it referred to as such. We normally just say scientist.
Professional scientist as opposed to an amateur scientist? Maybe you're just a bot
No, I am professor sciencetist.
@@eyeanmorris It is possible to be both an amateur and a professional scientist, just in different fields.
Your first video helped communicate a potential public health risk. Your second boosted people's faith in science. You do good, Adam, and you do it well.
DAMN, Adam called it. Putting that journalism experience to use. Then being humble about it.
In a way, he just kind of bragged about it. After all, we know it now, so I wouldn't actually say it was humble, but at least he didn't inflate it like a lot of other streamers would likely do.
@markadams7046 humble bragging feels warranted in this case. No shade towards the researchers (looks like an honest mistake) but it's refreshing to see an influencer actually read a study instead of parroting an alarming headline and grift off the fear-mongering.
@@markadams7046using your experience to share a really good point might be a small amount of bragging, but the overall positive outcome he delivers in the point he’s making is worth the humble brag.
@@markadams7046 You could even argue he bragged about it, then used the brag as a refinforcement to back up his position.
kendrick lamar reference
I’ve absolutely seen people use this as a reason to “distrust science,” when this is literally how science works. Science isn’t about unwavering trust in a claim - it’s about testing that claim over and over. If new evidence comes along that challenges it, the claim is re-evaluated, and if the research proves it wrong, it’s replaced with a better, more accurate understanding.
It drives me nuts that so many people seem to have slept through their science classes. This is literally the scientific method in action. The fact that our understanding evolves isn’t a weakness; it’s the whole point. Science isn’t about blind belief - that’s dogma. Science is about questioning, testing, and constantly improving what we know. If people understood that, maybe they’d stop acting like a shifting understanding is some kind of betrayal instead of what it’s supposed to be.
people don't trust "The soyienceTM" and they shouldn't.
Exactly!
"Scientific method" is really just a SFW term for "fuck around and find out". Heck, radiation and penicillin were discovered by messing around with funky rocks and some mold
The problem is the bad actors who try to exploit that. There's a lot of people who want concrete, unwavering answers about everything. I mean that's essentially why religion exists. So when bad actors try to paint it as a weakness, you get waves of science distrust. It's seriously becoming a problem, and should be shunned whenever it happens.
Science 😂 You'd have better luck getting me to believe in the tooth fairy. My lifetime is one thing but the last 4 years... 😂 It's become a joke and people like you are why.
Adam always expresses terrific empathy for others and the process of science. What a top-class dude.
Empathy seems to be at the core of a lot of his content, and I think that's why I stick around through the variety of content and formats.
Yes, he showed a lot of empathy towards women in sports when he said that they have to come to terms with trans competing against them and, if they do not like it, too bad, it is just a sport.
@@luismart7714Empathy is inherently partial. He chose to be empathetic towards transgenders instead of women, exactly how he chose to be empathetic towards the scientists instead of all the people they terrified with their mistakes and made them throw away their utensils.
OP loves adam's empathy because it probably consistently lines with his sides.
@@luismart7714 i fear this comment may contain a lot of cherrypicking
@@Victor-mi2py none.
I wish THIS video would go viral.
It was only posted an hour ago and it showed up on my feed so it's not doing too bad in the algorithm
Me too it's very informative 🖤
6:13 if you want a good example of this, Andrew Wakefield’s ‘study’ on how the MMR Vaccine ‘caused’ Autism is a great example of this.
He literally lied on purpose on the paper.
Or a better example like Ancel keys and the Seven Countries study.
Shoutouts to Brian Deer and the documentary he contributed to "MMR: What they didn't tell you"
@ Fr, still mad that iiiluminaughtiii basically plagiarized the whole fucking thing.
Deer needs the credit.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me, an autistic person, how their kid dying of a horrible, easily-prevented disease is somehow a better outcome than the kid turning out like me.
That's the kind of thing that makes parents REAL uncomfortable when I say that to their face...and that would be if vaccines caused autism. Which they don't.
@@SimuLord consider the possibility that some kids may in fact not die from a disease and not get a side effect from a vax and how some parents might prefer that
"There's no one in charge here, it's just us, it's just people like you and me"
Oh ... OH NO ..., OH NO NO NO NO, PLEASE GOD NO
it's true though, for better or worse. everyone is bumbling!
That statement fills me with hope, like it's us doing good and messing up, and we know we can grow
I believe seeing the world more that way can lead to positive change
How the turn tables.
It's so true though. When I was in college I thought everyone in my career had life figured out and that they were all geniuses. Once I got out into the real world and started my career I've learned that it's 100% just people trying to bs their way through life one more day. The only difference is that they've probably already bs'd their way through life longer than you so they're a little more convincing of it. Nobody knows what they're doing most of the time.
Nobody would’ve blinked twice about you taking a victory lap on this, and I’d even seen comments mentioning you across multiple articles about this subject I’ve read the past couple of weeks.
But you took the chance to have a conversation about building trust in the process. You set a standard for anyone with a public reach, content creators or otherwise.
this is such a healthy conversation to have in a time where people are chronically online.
This is why I severely dislike the tendancy of news organizations to latch into single studies and preliminary results and report them. My journalism teachers would be appalled.
2:30 It's also entirely possible that Kitchenaid, OXO, Mainstays, Tupperware, and Uline simultaneously had their legal departments contact the publication about the financial liabilities of standing behind an unretracted and libelous math error during holiday shopping season.
What would be the cause of action? This seems strongly like negligence vs intentional and I don't believe the publication owed any duty of care to the manufacturers. If they could prove the publication owed a duty of care to the manufacturers, which I doubt, they would also have to show that the manufacture's damages were proximate to the breach of duty, which again I doubt they could prove.
@@AllFouRoux Sales figures compared to other years' holiday seasons and the countless testimonies you can find even in this comment section of people throwing out their black plastics are pretty easy to prove.
If I was one of these companies, I’d be thrilled. Everyone would go out and buy new non-black kitchen utensils after reading headlines about the study. That’s exactly what my mom did last month 😂
@@AllFouRouxThese cases already happen. It doesn't have to be a good case, just an expensive one for the journal. They don't have deep pockets.
Example of company successfully bringing a suit against a researcher to court:
Hi-Tech Pharms., Inc. v. Cohen
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
Oct 28, 2016
CIVIL ACTION NO. 16-10660-WGY (D. Mass. Oct. 28, 2016)
(☝🏼...and that's a case where the research had no errors entered into evidence.)
@@sk9592Yes, the result now is in their favor due the retractions... which kind of demonstrates the evidence of real commercial damages to them if the research hadn't been amended.
It gave me a good excuse to throw out the black plastic cooking utensils that I detested, without my family complaining.
What did you switch to? Metal? Wood?
@@userjames2009probably pastel blue pink or green, it was a scam to get us to buy new utensils
@@userjames2009depends on the utensil
Science is not the truth. It is the search for truth. Science is the best understanding we can manage with the information we have available. That understanding changes and evolves (sometimes dramatically) as new information is acquired and disseminated. To create a perfect system, one would need a perfect understanding. And since we do not have a perfect understanding, we strive for that with science.
Things like this reinforce my trust in science
science is ever changing
Science can always be trusted if it is real science, the scientific community not always.
Things like this reinforce my trust in Adam
@@jakooshow could that be, that old American dude and the media told me the science was settled /s
Seriously, yeah! It's amazing how quickly something like this can be identified and corrected nowadays. In the past the correction would have never seen the light of day for YEARS, if at all. Sure this correction might not reach everyone that saw the original study, but it's still orders of magnitude more than it would without the internet and modern information spread.
Thank you for preaching the need for fully participating in society
Videos like this make me want to make multiple accounts just so I can like it more than once. So well said! People spend their whole lives mistrusting the "medical establishment" just to wind up eating peach pits because it's a "miracle cure". And with social media this becomes more and more prevalent every day.
Thank you for putting it this way. The peach pit thing describes my parent exactly. As someone trained in a hard science (first generation) it’s SO distressing. She insists she’s “gotten cynical” but the truth is she’s more *credulous*, as long as the thing being sold is “something They don’t want you to know.” Terrifying.
@kementari Wow... For my Dad (a big conspiracy guy) it was chlorine dioxide... Another snake oil cure that is not only pseudoscientific but very harmful... After drinking it for years he kept increasing the dose until he almost died. He pulled through but he's never been the same since... He might have developed dementia anyways but it absolutely sped the process up. He even convinced ME to drink it once as a minor. There is some truly sinister and harmful stuff when it comes to BS conspiracy miracle cures. The peach pit one is really bad too... I'm sorry to hear you went through something similar to what I did... I just hope we can all learn our lesson eventually so good but naive people don't keep getting hurt.
@kementari if the book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is still relevant enough, giving her a copy might be good?
@kementari I keep trying to respond to you and having my reply deleted by TH-cam 🤷🏼♂️. I've had very similar experiences with a parent & dangerous pseudoscientific "cures". They really can be extremely harmful, especially chlorine dioxide, the one my Dad was doing. I really feel for these people because I think most of them aren't bad people, just naive or misguided. It saddens me that people who have issues with trusting the medical or science establishment... they might have some valid point initially but they get steered towards extremely dangerous alternatives sometimes. My Dad has permanent damage that will never recover. Wishing you better fortune for your parent, that it doesn't wind up costing them what it cost my Dad... 🙏
I wonder how much additional plastic waste was generated from people panickedly tossing their stuff because of that study.
We threw out all black plastics, and didn't recycle them because we were also told they were not recyclable and should not be reused. With that said, exposure to that fire retardant is *still* a cancer risk.
Remember back in the 90's when "wooden cutting boards harbor bacteria!!" That caused a LOT of restaurants to ditch them for much worse plastic ones. A lot of cooks, myself included, ended up bringing home a lot of very nicely made wooden cutting boards. I still have two of them (33 years later), and they're great. The studied that falsely said "wood bad" was overturned in less than a month. Sadly, no one is going try to save the discarded black plastic because.. its cheap plastic.
Once something is made of plastic it's already waste. It depends on what they replaced it with.
I only got rid of one black plastic ladle and that was only because I don't need two ladles
it's okay, remember that only incels are upset about microplastics, according to Adam...
Thanks Adam for responding to this with commentary about trust in science and institutional authority. This is 100% an example of why the system works. I'm so worried about the future when the whole media system is set up to amplify and incentivize the most extreme, most emotionally satisfying, shortest headlines tweets and videos. There's little incentive for complexity or nuance. It's so difficult for actual science communication to get eyeballs when for every nuanced complex long form video by an actual expert, there's a thousand fearmongering simplistic headlines or tweets or tiktoks by someone in tangential field trying to scare you into buying their book or something.
Perhaps we can hope that it becomes so extreme that it wraps back around to meaningful discussion. People subconsciously learn to filter out the exhausting incessant noise of short-form outrage, and start noticing rational people again.
@arckinenso7615 I can only hope the institutions responsible for so much behind the scenes don't get completely burnt down in the process. No one realizes the massive amount of work done so they can safely go to a restaurant and eat a meal they can be confident is exactly what's listed on the menu and will be unlikely to poison them. Or the option to educate their kids for free. Or take a Tylenol without worrying it's contaminated..... ugh. I'm in Oklahoma so I'm losing all faith in humanity recently. So many people believing absolute nonsense and don't understand how science works or what a fact is..... all cause they saw something on Facebook, heard something on a podcast, did a quick Google or their preacher told them. Gently telling them that the experts that study a specific topic for their entire careers might have better insights than their favorite podcast entertainer is completely futile because people don't like to feel dumb and want to believe they have the secret knowledge that means they are now in control of all the scary things that can happen. Sad stuff. I hope the damage isn't too bad once people figure it out.
@@arckinenso7615 sheesh TH-cam auto-moderation is wild lately. Basically, I hope these institutions are still around when all the dust has settled. In hopes this comment will remain, I'll use an analogy.... I'm worried at the number of people who think you must destroy a car to fix a tail light, and completely ignore their mechanic because they heard a car salesman say so in a podcast. No one appreciates how many hands and how much research goes into making sure that car is safe and reliable, the safety checks and standards to transport it to their city, people that researched how to make it run and workers that crafted the parts..... they just seem to want to shut the whole operation down because their tail light is faulty. Perhaps TH-cam will allow me to say that at least. 🤦♀️
As someone in academia, 100%! Thank you. Much like democracy, our system of academic research is imperfect, but it's the best system we've figured out so far.
I'll be honest, I was skeptical when I first started watching your initial video on black plastic (the supposedly trustworthy sources I read online had all agreed with the initial study)...but when I watched that video I paused when you pointed out the math error. That blew my mind that such a simple and obvious error could make it past peer review... I appreciate your modesty in how you said essentially "I think this math is wrong, clearly showing it off by factor of 10, but I still could be wrong here"... And obviously you were proved correct by the scientific community :)
11:50 I'm more concerned by the peer review not catching things like AI generated and labelled diagrams in a biology paper than missing a simple maths error like this one. What do I want to do instead? Maybe pay the reviewers for the work they do, that'd be a good start at reform.
I can think of so many people who would benefit from hearing this, thank you for using the chance to convey an important topic instead of simply correcting your old statements!
You were the first source that I saw that pointed out the math mistake. It possibly spurred others who already knew to come forward, but I honestly feel like you were basically the first person to notice essentially. Feel proud! I was proud to know about the mistake before everyone else I knew. :3
i took a experimental lab class last semester and the amount of things you have to make sure of when writing the final paper and things like CITI training really puts into perspective on just how much science has been progressing in all sorts of areas
10/10 fireside chat. The bad apples DON'T spoil the whole basket
Maybe in this case. Whether or not bad apples spoil the bunch is best evaluated on a bunch by bunch basis.
No, but this particular publication that ran the report is pretty much known as a basket of rotten fruit and people should check the reputation of the basket before they start telling the world about the new apple they just found.
I always appreciate the educational videos on scientific and journalistic integrity and the nuanced view. it probably could be its own playlist in the channel.
there is always a competition between those who admit their mistakes and use them to do better, and those who never admit mistakes and tell people to reject anyone pointing out those mistakes. One side can look like they make mistakes all the time and shouldn't be trusted, the other looks like they never make mistakes and are therefore trustworthy. But when it comes down to it, one side gets things done and make things better and the other doesnt
Arguably the most vital war throughout human history. A summary of our progress and struggle against self-destruction.
Kudos. Started watching your videos to learn science of soda bicarbonate but continuing cuz you're a great guy. As an ex-academic who have been through such conversations, THANK YOU.
I love how beautifully you put this
I often struggle to convey how science is processes not individuals, because my knowledge comes from individuals
And I love you saying basically "do better if you can" . Like yeah it's bad this happened, but the process is the best we have so far
''This is for you to keep you here, not for you to eat yet'' hard cut to dog being gone. :(
I want to thank you for the approach you took with this story. Seriously. People like you are so rare nowadays, especially on the internet.
Adam, I think this is actually one of the best videos you’ve ever made. You’re giving me Hank Green vibes with this one and I’m here for it.
I have been taking a drink every time Adam opens or closes his laptop and I am wasted
Just shared this with my family, my mum is always sending alarmest media, Black plastic included.
Thank you for your hard work Adam!
This feels in conversation with hank Green's recent video about populism and social media! Thank you for the well thought out video, Adam!
Well thought out ideas and appropriate in today's social environment. Thank you for this video and all throughout the year. I look forward to many more in the year to come. We all will need some intelligent ideas in the coming (4) years. Have a happy and healthy new year!
This is the best ad transition in your channel in my opinion, ever. I willingly watched the ad the whole way for the first time after watching you from early days
I like that this feels like a part 2 for your early video, "why i trust the scientific consensus and you should too"
One of my favorite video that one
I suspected this was on the way! Thanks Adam! Happy holidays to you and yours! ❤
BRAVO! science is real... but imperfect. and sadly, science literacy is deplorably inadequate in the US
You are a really cool dude Adam, I learnt so much from your videos. I wish many more content creators took the care you take in educating yourself and your public
Thanks for this Adam. Very relevant and applicable to many aspects of not only science culture but also popular culture. Happy holidays.
I wish more content creators had the same attitude. Thank you Adam for maintaining integrity and the scientific method.
The thing is there is no reason why anyone needs to use those black plastic utensils anyway. They will inevitably scorch or break turning them into more non recyclable eternal waste. Wood and metal tools are fantastic and in my experience last much longer and even when they break, metal can be recycled infinitely and wood biodegrades easily.
A lot of the issue in modern health is allowing possibly dangerous things to propagate until they become massive, which allows for the creation of lobbyists and corrupt studies to defend them i.e Cigarettes. By the time the damage is done, that's when we're told "trust the science, it got cigarettes shutdown!" Never mind that "science" was supporting cigarettes for decades before that point and only turned when the evidence became so great that nobody could defend it before the public.
You forgot many advantage of plastic. Light, flexible, smooth, tolerant to scratches. Especially the first 3, wood/metal can't beat those.
Like it or not each material have it's own advantage/disadvantage. You can't dismiss an entire category just because "it's bad".
@@hanifarroisimukhlis5989 If you need something flexible, use silicone. Plastic's only actual advantage in cooking is that it's cheap.
> Light, smooth, tolerant to scratches
All of those are literally properties of wood lmao.
Metal is malleable with serves a similar purpose to being flexible in terms of durability and it's also smooth and light. It's also tolerant to scratches, like way more resistant to them than any plastic tool.
So across wood, metal, and silicone, I don't see why you'd ever use plastic in cooking except for it being cheap.
Woah. This is pretty eye opening. And I love that you were the one that started to question the official report… and now we can see that you were right. Holy moly.
And shout out to you for being so humble about it.
I appreciate your nuanced and honest approach to research. Thank you.
I agree with the main thrust of this video, but I think it's also helpful to acknowledge that there are legitimate criticisms of the peer review process from both inside and outside of academia. In my view, the most glaring flaw is the insistence on crafting a consistent narrative to a research paper that incentivizes not publishing contradictory data that is produced by the publishing author/lab. From the earliest point in which I got involved in academic research as an undergraduate, I noticed an emphasis on the idea of 'telling a story' within a research paper. If a researcher chooses to include results that would contradict/complicate the hypothesis in their initial submission, they will likely get slammed by reviewers and are much less likely to have their paper published in that journal. There is generally much, much more data that is generated during the research process than what ends up being published in the limited set of figures that are allotted to researchers in the final paper.
This is obviously a difficult concept to convey to a lay audience without the potential for creating a disproportionate backlash of distrust in the scientific process, but I think it's still a worthwhile conversation to have.
My point also does not mention the fact that peer review is a time consuming and somewhat unrewarded duty for scientists that places an onerous task on researchers that already have more responsibilities than what I think should be considered reasonable of scientists-all the while scientific journals rake in millions from costly publishing fees (which are even higher if a researcher wants to publish open access) and university subscriptions.
Adam, it's refreshing to hear somebody speak with some common sense on the Internet, it is unfortunately a rather rare thing nowadays.
The paper was published in a PEER REVIEWED journal. The PEERS are supposed to do their due diligence and catch this crap. Failures such as these occur because several levels did shoddy work on a particular day.
I think constant skepticism is warranted. Not the lazy headline reading, but the pursuit of more and more information to get a fuller picture of the situation.
I cooked with my black plastic tonight, aware of the possible risks, but not freaking out and screaming from the rooftops, but knowing the frequency and level of exposure is the real issue with many of the chemicals we deal with in everyday life.
True science is an ever evolving pursuit of more and more perfect data, and a clearer picture of the world around us. It's up to the individual what to do with that information and to make a more informed decision every day.
Thanks for bringing possible risks to the attention of your audience, and also for clarifying when things aren't exactly as perceived initially.
It's unfortunate that while the authors are transparent about their methods, allowing people to discover their mistakes and enable updates to improve the accuracy of the science, the scholarly publishers make their publications difficult and expensive to access, hiding behind paywalls and institutional gatekeeping. Science as a whole should be more open.
Same thing happened with eggs. To this day people believe they are bad for you and raise cholesterol. The opposite is in fact true. The same scientitst who published the original paper corrected himself later, but that one went unnoticed by the media and public. He is today a promoter of eating at least 2-3 eggs per day for health reasons. Unless you want to lose weight.
Honestly you can still lose weight doing that easily, if you use them in a plain omlette it's a fairly reasonable calorie high protein meal.
That was probably the best transition to a sponsor I've seen.
Also, I fuckin' love this video. Couldn't agree more, I really appreciate the humility.
Thank you for doing this, it was definitely a very responsible way to respond to "being right". Think we all have something to learn both from what you said and the fact that you chose to say it given the context.
I was over at a friend's house years ago, and his dad was talking about a neighbor. She, apparently, had been tested and had the second highest IQ score of any woman in... some unit of the population--in the U.S. or in the world. She was a mathematician it seems. Anyway, one day he (the dad) came home and she had a locksmith there opening her door. Turns out she'd locked herself out. Friend-dad thought this was just the most amusing thing ever. "Second highest IQ but locks her keys in her house! Har-har! Just as absent minded as the next person! Ha!"
The thing is, she's absent-mindedly locked her keys in the house while computing the inner area of a torus using Pappus's centroid theorem. If friend-dad locked himself out it would be because he was wondering how much the cat's Salmon Medley Feast canned food really tasted like salmon.... Mrs. Fluffy doesn't even like salmon when I make it with the honey glaze. Why is she so in love with that canned stuff? Maybe I should try that cat food and see if it tastes like salmon at all. And while debating whether or not to eat catfood he locked himself out of the house....
Point being, "absent-minded" errors are relative. 99% of people reading that paper probably wouldn't even notice the math error because the math has the numbers and the symbols with the childhood math teacher trauma all connected up to it. People look right over math all the time, automatically accepting the conclusion or taking it as a particular result that is really a data point on a scale that represents a range of probability, or even as a simple metaphor. I just did it with that 99% thing in that sentence, which in this case means "almost everybody" not an actual 99 out of 100. 99% of the people reading this didn't even notice that.
I see that at work. You send an email with a summary. You attach your work in Excel, nobody opens the file to check your work and see where the original numbers come from, what calculations you made etc. I have seen so many files with so many errors or even numbers plugged in, the results used to make major decisions.
There's so many commenters that have done an excellent job of saying how I feel. So I just want to thank you for your honesty your being humble and your intelligence. If there were enough people like you I think it would restore my faith in humanity. When George Washington had power and turned it down to set a standard for following generations I thought that was a good idea. And Adam I think you must have had a good education a lack of leaded paint chips , thank you so much and wishing you and your family a wonderful new year. 🎉
Thank you for making this video! Valuable, and sadly all too rare, to see such thoughtful and nuanced discussion about trust.
I would put much more trust into a publication that admits and publishes its mistakes. The journal cited in this video is way ahead of most mainstream media outlets that almost never put out corrections.
Also, your pup is too precious , Adam. I would’ve just given him the treat.
Old man ragusea being a class act ones again! Not only does he back things up with science, he also makes sure people keep their faith when they make a mistake
Exactly the video I was hoping you would make about this. Thank you as always for your efforts to educate us about educating ourselves
It feels like the best thing I watched on the Internet this year
You did it! This is what true "peer review" is about. Thank you.
The fact that you are making this video Adam, shows the system does work.
Anyway it's science and the ongoing learning and discovery our understanding and knowledge is going to change and improve over time
Love this.. Thank you for being you, Adam.
Happy to see the update, great as always Adam
This is a perfect example of a thing working exactly as intended. everybody is good and winners here. the people who wrote the study are good for doing that work. you and everyone else who caught and fact checked the error did good at correcting the good paper. The publisher did good when they issued a correction. the world is smarter about the thing we were already smarter about, but now we are even smarterer to have sorted out that math error. yay humans, yay science, yay adam ragusea internet food science nerd website sales guy.
Adam manages to totally ignore the the Reproducibility Crisis.
I really appreciate how well youre able to explain the nuances of the subject intellectually
I loved this channel for the cooking science. It filled the void Good Eats left me with. But more than cooking, I've learned a lot more about how to understand and read scientific studies. Thanks for everything Adam.
Finally. A sober TH-camr with responsibility on his internet shoulders when it matters most. Thank you, Adam.
Love this video. Thanks for your perspective as always Adam.
I wish I was still teaching. I would have used this in class. Well done Adam. Thank you
Ok now I want a supercut of you calling out a bunch of things you got wrong over the years. It takes strength to admit your mistakes!
I didn’t see your video about this, but I saw some from some random channel I never seen before. However, he referenced your original video as the thing that brought this to everyone’s attention.
Plastic food containers are already bad enough on their own.
Brilliant rant . I hope everyone that needs to hear it actually understand what is being said .
my greatest respect for this display of humbleness .....
This is IT. This is THE most important video Adam has put on the internet. Period
This is one of the greatest and most important videos to have ever been published on TH-cam. At minimum, every American needs to watch this. The kind of mindset this video critiques is the same mindset that brought you-know-who back to power.
Voldemort got his power through the peer review process? I think I have to rewatch Harry Potter...
Can't go five minutes without someone tying something (anything) back to the orange man.
@@stevej71393 To be fair, he does align himself with science-deniers.
@@stevej71393 If the shoe fits.
It’s not a stretch to mention 9/11 in a video about plane hijackings.
Also, I don’t know why you brought up his skin color, because I certainly didn’t.
@@Marten1234567890 I’m no Harry Potter enthusiast, but if it’s anything like the corruption of Anakin Skywalker to bring him to the dark side because of his lack of faith in the Jedi order, the analogy may still apply.
When my mom mentioned the math error over Xmas, I burst out laughing "Adam called it”. She read the correction story first and we both own black plastics. I hear you but I do trust the guy who admits the limits of his knowledge and just asks a question. Nothing is so simple, and we’re always learning. (Edited by the time I reached the end of the video)
Glad you brought us a point on being both open minded & inclined to take things with a grain of salt
Thank you for explaining the thing too many don't understand or choose to ignore because believing the "truthers" makes them feel better.
Surprisingly mature. Good on you, Adam.
A true one right here, so glad to share this time with you Adam, thank you.
It's the people that peer reviewed the original paper that should be ashamed of themselves
This is unquestionably the most valuable video you've ever made
Ok that transition to your ad at the end might be the best one yet wow hahahq
i dont care how low toxic it is, get. rid. of. PLASTIC!.
Hi Adam, I've been a fan ever since your broiled cookies. As a fellow scientist, this message really warms my heart. It can be hard to admit mistakes, and its great that you didn't lambast the original authors but instead lauded them. Cheers to you, Justin ps, also loved the eggnog video
people are trusting politicians more than scientists
16:22 know-it-all academy is so hilariously intentionally off brand for you I'm glad you put this in the video.
This is one of the best videos you have ever made