>> ^Duckman33:

>> ^ant:
>> ^Duckman33:
I watched this. It's a great show. I learned a lot about Star Trek I never knew before.

It was good? I need to see it, but I don't have cable/satellite.

Yeah, it was really good actually. It was on the Science Channel last week. You could probably find it on their website or a friendly torrent site.


Where's their web site? I couldn't find it. I did see a 10 GB online, but too big! Eh, I will wait.

>> ^ant:

>> ^Duckman33:
I watched this. It's a great show. I learned a lot about Star Trek I never knew before.

It was good? I need to see it, but I don't have cable/satellite.


Yeah, it was really good actually. It was on the Science Channel last week. You could probably find it on their website or a friendly torrent site.

Okay, now this whole Azz Bounce thing....

I am starting to get seriously amused by it.

I agree with the science channel. Toooo funny!

They mention a book he's working on and there's a small ad of some kind at the very end, but given the somewhat dubious title I wasn't sure if it should go into the science channel or not. I rather think not as that's not what the main vid is about anyway.

Surely that just falls under the "science" channel as a whole... otherwise we'll need chemistry and biology too >> ^kulpims:

we need a physics channel

Has anyone here ever looked at the science channel, or are we just applying criteria selectively?

Once the following videos are removed, since they are merely about science and of interest to people interested in science, we can then reasonable remove the present video about science publishing.

http://science.videosift.com/video/Probably-Hitchens-best-speech-It-does-not-follow
http://science.videosift.com/video/Ned-Flanders-Naturally-Selected-Fish
http://science.videosift.com/video/How-long-does-it-take-for-the-earth-to-go-around-the-sun
http://science.videosift.com/video/Arthur-C-Clarke-predicting-the-future-in-1964
http://science.videosift.com/video/Relativity-is-a-Liberal-Plot

Additionally, if the below videos are supposed to represent rigorous scientific experiments, they seem to very clearly fail the above proposed criteria.
http://science.videosift.com/video/We-Live-in-Public-Trailer
http://science.videosift.com/video/The-anti-Semitic-truth-about-evolution
http://science.videosift.com/video/NEVER-Microwave-an-airbag
http://science.videosift.com/video/Seth-Priebatsch-Building-the-game-layer-on-top-of-the-world

*Yawn*. I am more experienced than you as a sifter, channel owner, and, I dare say judging by your formulation of theories in this thread, a scientist. And I don't give a damn about truth by democracy. I serve the Videosift community by running a channel that is held to a certain standard of accuracy, logic and scientific credibility, not by cushioning people's feelings when they cling to ignorant or dumb ideas. Sorry if you can't deal, but that's how it is and is gonna be. I'm done wasting time on this sift.

>> ^chilaxe:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/rembar" title="member since September 28th, 2006" class="profilelink">rembar,
Are you really resorting to personal "rulings" that go against the community? You're at your most professional and appropriate when you refer to the many comments that disagree with your own as "shit."
The science channel is clearly meant to serve science and the community, not the inexperienced, self-righteous biases of a single user.

What is so "personal" about the fact that the methods in this video are not scientific, a core requirement of the science channel?

Why must the standards of that channel be lowered to fit your pet "theories"? I say "theories", because, from a scientific POV, the proposition in this video is not a theory, either.

@rembar,

Are you really resorting to personal "rulings" that go against the community? You're at your most professional and appropriate when you refer to the many comments that disagree with your own as "shit."

The science channel is clearly meant to serve science and the community, not the inexperienced, self-righteous biases of a single user.

@BicycleRepairMan

I did not take your post as offensive, but you know I run my channel with an iron fist.

The question itself is worth asking, and a valid argument could be made that Islam plays a role in the low scientific output of Islamic countries in general.

That being said, this video posed the question and proposed an answer (that Islam in these nations is inhibiting scientific progress) without appropriate adequate evidence. Therefore the question is valid but the argument is unscientific and not deserving of a place in the Science channel.

I explained my judgment on Science videos. Since you don't seem to have been around when I established the channel, you should know that I have always ruled that just because a sift discusses science does not make it worthy of being in the Science channel. There are a bunch of bad science and pseudo-science videos I have booted out (homeopathy, water fluoridation conspiracies, evil vaccines, etc.) because they have misinformation and straight up incorrect theories.

Another great thing about science is that publications are judged by people with graduate degrees and correlating levels of knowledge so that people who know what they're talking about get a say.

Oh, and I am, in fact, debating whether this video is true, and that is why it doesn't belong in Science. Science aims at objective truth. Fuck this nonsense about "discuss the controversy". Shit doesn't fly up in Science.

>> ^chilaxe:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/rembar" title="member since September 28th, 2006" class="profilelink">rembar,
We're debating not whether this video's argument is true, but whether it represents legitimate debate dealing with science.
It's hard to imagine why debate about the factors underlying differential rates of science publication wouldn't be considered 'dealing with science and of interest to those interested in science.' If something is controversial, we add a controversy tag.
The great thing about science is there aren't authority figures who make personal judgments about what represents legitimate debate.

@rembar
I put this video in the science channel not because the video itself is scientifically correct, it is quite clearly an opinion piece that may or may not have its numbers/wordings correct. Its not a scientific paper, and I admit the statistics it presents is somewhat sketchy when he talks about muslims as if they all lived in the parts of the world dominated by Islam. The point of the video however, is to point out the clear difference between the expected output of science from parts of the world dominated by islam (expected compared to the rest of the world) and the actual output. In essence , he is asking "Why are the science rates so low in all these islamic countries?"

Now, there may be valid objections to this line of questioning, this difference may not be connected to Islam, maybe you have a better explanation that would debunk this suspicion, and I welcome it.

But dont you think its a valid question to ask? why are some countries, seemingly independent of everything else, so bad at science? There may be several answers, a very complex answer or no answer at all. Either way its a question ABOUT science, and this is why I put it in Science.

This is not a plea or demand for putting it back, I'm merely giving my reasons for putting it there in the first place, I did not intend to abuse or disrespect the channel in any way, but its a video DISCUSSING science and the state of science, and how science seems to be low on the priority-list in some parts of the world.

Hi @rembar,

I'm always happy to discuss things with fellow advocates of science. First of all, thanks for administrating the Science channel.

The video doesn't appear to claim Muslims produce only 1% of scientific papers, but instead claims the "Islamic World" produces only 1% of scientific papers. Indeed, the author of the original article is a Muslim living in Britain who is arguing for greater scientific funding in the Islamic World and that "A cultural renaissance leading to a knowledge-based society is urgently required if the Muslim world is to accept and embrace [the scientific spirit.]" He's referring to Islamic societies, not Muslims like himself living outside of Islamic societies.

I think you're right that there's a terminology error in the video description submitted by @BicycleRepairMan , in which "Muslims" should be replaced with "[the Islamic World]." In a nutshell, the video gets it right, but the video description gets it wrong.

Thanks for bringing attention to that important distinction.

Chilaxe, I've never run into you before, but I run the Science channel. In opposition to many other channel owners, I run my channel (when I'm around) with an iron fist. Included in my channel description is the note that "if the video is intended to be factual and not parody, it must be reasonably scientifically accurate and in keeping with scientific thought."

This post, video, and the related article make claims that are unsubstantiated given the evidence they cite. For fucks' sake, the post starts off with "Muslims make up about 20 % of the world population but only produce 1 % of the worlds scientific papers (according to the IOP)." which is blatant horseshit if you take the time to even browse the article for the actual statistic.

In the future, please do me the favor of not reversing my decisions for the Science channel, especially if it involves dumping garbage back into Science.

P.S. Sifters, what the hell has happened? Y'all know I also think religion is a crock of shit but you are better than this....for shame.

*nochannel
*religion
*islam
*talks

>> ^chilaxe:

Regarding the fair question about whether this belongs in the "science" channel:
If we put atheists' videos in the "religion" channel, we don't mean they're necessarily correct about religion, we mean that the video contains an argument about religion.
The same appears to be true about videos that contain arguments about science and comparative metrics of nations & cultures' scientific contributions.
I believe it's thus consistent to retain the categorization of science, not because we're claiming the author is correct, but because the author is legitimately discussing science.

Regarding the fair question about whether this belongs in the "science" channel:

If we put atheists' videos in the "religion" channel, we don't mean they're necessarily correct about religion, we mean that the video contains an argument about religion.

The same appears to be true about videos that contain arguments about science and comparative metrics of nations & cultures' scientific contributions.

I believe it's thus consistent to retain the categorization of *science, not because we're claiming the author is correct, but because the author is legitimately discussing science.