Kurzgesagt is lying to you, in every video, even in this one. Because our videos distill
very complex subjects into flashy ten minute pieces and unfortunately, reality is, well,
complicated. The question of how we deal with that,
is central to what we do on this channel and something we think about a lot.
What we mean by lying is the concept of “lies to children”.
The idea that on the path to explaining something complicated you start off with a little lie,
a useful oversimplification, that makes it easier to grasp a concept. For example as a
kid you learn that the earth is a sphere orbiting the sun with planet buddies. But it's not actually
a sphere and the buddies are super different in size and not close to each other at all.
By beginning at a place of oversimplification you are building a framework,
a foundation that you can then build upon and add nuance and complexity later on.
Step by step you are getting towards the real gist of the complicated subject.
Science communication has to use “lies to children” to some degree
or it turns into science education. And getting a proper education in all of the scientific fields
would take years of intense study to become fluent in them.
As a species we have a major interest in summarizing science and its advancements
and educating as many people about it as possible, because we all benefit if more
people have a fact based, scientific world view. We will discuss what science is and how it works
in different videos in more detail, but for now let's just say it's a process to advance,
organize, predict and test our knowledge about the universe.
If you understand the current state of scientific knowledge
then you can make better decisions, based on facts and testable ideas
rather than outdated belief systems or our intuition that evolved to protect
our ancestors from lions but is no longer suited for the complexity of our modern world.
Our brains are comically ill prepared to navigate the fast moving world we happen
to live in today – a world ironically created by science. A few hundred years ago it was possible
to be knowledgeable at an expert level in pretty much every field of study. In the
information age this is a futile endeavor since knowledge and data are increasing exponentially.
So to even have a chance of grasping the world we live in we need summaries that give us, if not a
true understanding of all the details, a solid overview. Explaining science to many people is
not about enlightening the ignorant but necessary for the progress of our species at large.
To make this possible we need to find metaphors and stories that capture the
true nature of things as much as possible while using a language that our brains can deal with.
A great example here is physics. Quarks are often depicted as blue,
red and green, with different spins. But just saying spin and using colors forces our brain
to imagine colorful spinning balls. Which is great to visualize the different types and the
relationships between quarks, but also creates a very wrong image of reality in our heads.
Molecules are nothing like the neat diagrams that we're taught in school
but buzzing and vibrating entities held together by something we call “charge” that
describes how certain things want to be close or escape each other for some unknown reason.
We are describing phenomena that we are pretty sure exist in some form or another because the math
works out and we can do real world experiments and predict their results before we do them.
In reality these are models, tricks to summarize what we know
and make up a coherent story and prepare the ground for more in depth explanations.
Don’t confuse the description of a thing for the thing itself.
Simplifications like these are not just meant to dumb things down
they are actually useful for experts themselves. For example
chemists who use “wrong” electron shell models to work out chemical bonds or scientists using
simplified models as the basis of discussions with colleagues across different scientific fields.
But the simplification of science can also be problematic for a bunch of reasons.
Finding the true nature of reality is super hard because our brains did not
evolve for this job and the universe does not care if we understand it.
Science is a process to work towards gaining knowledge and not an absolute truth generator.
The answers it provides are multi-layered and nuanced and that complexity can get lost when
it is simplified. Especially when it is done so for headlines. An interesting cancer study
turns into a potential cure, a healthy food becomes the basis for a new diet.
Such simplifications give a misleading definiteness to science which goes against its
process-like nature. When cures don't materialize and diets don't turn out to be magical,
we lose confidence in science and start to think of all science communication as misleading.
Then there is the opposite effect:
If a simplification is too engaging, if the story it tells is too good, it can distort the true
complexity of a subject and give you a false sense of security and an illusion of deep knowledge.
A gut feeling that you understand the science better than you actually do, which can lead
people to ignore actual experts over their dangerous superficial knowledge and gut feeling.
And this can have negative consequences for all of us because in the worst case overconfidence
in your own understanding of science can lead to bad decisions made with confidence.
Just think of the surge of people that confidently disavow vaccines or climate change
without truly understanding the subject matter.
So considering all of this and the fact that we
at Kurzgesagt reach millions of people with our videos, how do we handle this?
Well, it has been a journey, especially the research. When we started we just read articles,
then moved on to books, peer reviewed papers, then to conversations with experts. We began to collect
our sources. With every step we realised that we were still not doing enough. Nowadays we try to
read as many primary sources as possible, talk to multiple experts and document our simplifications
and give further reading in our sources doc. But this doesn’t make our process flawless.
What do you do if experts disagree with each other? What do you do if you find an amazing fact
that perfectly fits a narrative but just can’t find its primary source? How do you deal with
the reality that many scientific results have huge error bars or “maybes” attached to them?
How do you handle complex systems that defy easy answers?
In the end, we make ten minute videos, so we need to make decisions about what details and
explanations can fit, which aspects need to be simplified and which parts to cut.There is no
single best answer for how to do this and so we weigh the different options every single time.
It can be painful for experts to see their field simplified.
Some are happy with us, while others don't like it. This is fair but also impossible to avoid.
We are still trying to improve and want to be transparent about what we are trying to do.
For example we are taking part in the TRESCA project about science communication to learn more.
All of this brings us to the purpose of our videos.
The most important thing we want to do with this channel is to inspire you and spark your curiosity
for science and the amazing universe we live in. Learning often doesn’t feel like fun, but with the
right story, it is one of the best things and we hope to provide that to you. Ultimately we
hope that we light a fire in you that motivates you to read books, pay more attention at school
or university and just get interested in a scientific field or two and learn more on your
own. Not because you have to, but because you want to know more about how the world really works.
Because the universe is beautiful and science is a way of seeing this beauty more clearly.
And we hope that knowing that we have to simplify a bit does not make you enjoy our videos less.
We are trying to build something with Kurzgesagt and while we are not 100%
sure yet what exactly, hopefully something that gets people to think about their own life and the
context they exist in today, as well as the far future and the potential we all have as a species.
And of course how big things are and what happens when we blow stuff up, because it is fun. Thanks
for watching and sharing and supporting us – we really can’t do this without you.
Running a science communication business is a balancing act that we take extremely
seriously. On the one hand we need to be responsible and look out for the team
and be able to grow responsibly on the other hand we have to protect the integrity of our videos.
You are enabling us to stay independent because while we do things like sponsorships
or commercial work, the majority of our income comes directly from you,
the birbs. Kurzgesagt is fundamentally funded by its community. By you. Because
of you Kurzgesagt is able to invest as much time in our videos and try to become better.
You get our calendar every year, support us on Patreon and get your personal birds, watch our
videos without adblock or with Youtube premium .Our favorite way to keep the channel running are
our sciency products from our shop that hopefully add additional value to the world. We love
bringing little pieces of knowledge into your home or classroom that inspire you to learn more about
the universe in a little more detail. Especially with our carefully researched infographic posters.
Our latest one teaches you about the night sky and
showcases the stars in our night sky and their special significance for humanity.
With every purchase you directly support what we do on this channel. Please don’t feel
obligated to do so though! Watching and sharing is already helping us out a lot and we are just
grateful that so many of you care about what we try to do here. Thank you so, so much.