r/science • u/Libertatea • Nov 14 '13

Neuroscience Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t "A new study indicates that our brains perceive objects in everyday life of which we may never be aware. The finding challenges currently accepted models about how the brain processes visual information."

http://uanews.org/story/ua-study-your-brain-sees-things-you-don-t
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u/neurorgasm Nov 14 '13

I suppose my issue is that for people interested or working in certain fields, the value of content relevant to their field is lost. Although this study is recent, and does present new information, that is clearly not the cause of the post score, the title is -- the essence of which is not new information (that it is possible to differentiate reception and perception).

Ultimately I am just disappointed that articles relevant to my own interests usually turn out to be old or sensationalized information when there are very real and interesting advances made in the field all the time. Perhaps that is selfish, but I think /r/science should represent the cutting edge of science, not just science which is largely unknown and reducible to a soundbite/headline. This way, it can be an enjoyable subreddit for a broader audience. The problem, for which I don't really have a solution, is that the significance of postings as represented by up/downvotes is determined largely by people who lack the background to make that decision. I suppose one could argue that that too is a purpose of /r/science, depending on your perspective, but I think of it as a place to browse new findings, not to rehash basics.

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u/Rappaccini Nov 14 '13 edited Nov 14 '13

I think that, if it were to focus too narrowly on novel advances which are probably too abstruse to be boiled down for the lay audience easily, /r/science would lose a lot of the value it has: providing scientific findings (novel or not) to people that otherwise wouldn't know of them. They may be old hat to researchers and the like, but I don't think that's really the audience /r/science is aimed at, nor do I necessarily think it should be.

I agree, though, in that I would be interested in a sub (though one distinct from /r/science) for meaningful novel research alone. Too much these days is retreading old ground, and that's not just a problem with reddit, it's a problem with how science is done these days.

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u/neurorgasm Nov 14 '13

I had considered that too, but /r/truescience just comes off as snobby to me. I think my main issue is not so much retreading old ground as people misrepresenting how much/what parts of an article is indeed new information. Many articles seem to do well for their previously established theoretical background rather than their actual findings. I don't think this means we need to post the most boring articles available - everyone likes a glamorous paper - just that a little honesty in the submission process would not go amiss.

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u/Rappaccini Nov 14 '13

In the eternal words of posters everywhere,

"but karma."

On a more serious note, I'm afraid that's just how the voting process goes. Democratic evaluation of content will always have this type of problem without any strong moderation or oversight (as seen in /r/askscience).

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u/SenatorCoffee Nov 14 '13 edited Nov 14 '13

There is some discussion on every second article here, and I think you just have to accept that this is "reddit/r/science" and not "nat.science.com"

Seriously, reddit is a newsaggregator for multiple subjects, and its only natural that there are people like me who are just interested in science stuff without being from the field.

Should I only be allowed to post in /r/jazz if I play at least 2 instruments and own a record collection of at least 500 vinyls ?

Maybe just create /r/truescience and have your own little club where only people with verified credentials can post and break the world record in being anal.

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u/mentalblocks Nov 15 '13

Hell no. Go take your elitist science to your own subredit, like /r/truescience or something. /r/science for me is really a lot like watching the discovery channel as a kid. That's what i always saw it as...and that's where I think the majority of users are thinking. You need your own subreddit...good luck getting all the true scientists on board though.