this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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Science Memes

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Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



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If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"

Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.

Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

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See the pinned paper on Shitposting as Public Pedagogy if you want the academic case for why this works.



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[โ€“] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Did we send anthropologists anf linguists?

Yes actually, we've been studying the language of whales and cetaceans for decades, the study you are referencing, which ended tragically, was part of that ongoing research.

We are closer than ever to unlocking whale language, and have identified several key areas that are hinting that they have actual grammar, such as connecting sounds between repeated "terms" but even with our best tech, we may never be able to hold a conversation with them, as we live in such vastly different worlds that we can assume that they have extremely different perceptions and may not have the foundational experiences necessary to share words and language.

Dude, we jack off about first contact math abd how we would talk to aliens. Seti was(is?) A thing.

If we cant talk to fuckers whose antique bones my grandmother decorated her room with, whose grandmother read by the light of the burning flesh of? We have no god damn right to be calling ourselves intelligent or civilized as a species.