A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
I have literally designed and implemented aircraft parts based on inspiration I got listening to somebody infodump about an animal they were studying. Learn the things other people care about. It will make you better at what you care about and probably a better person in the process
Loads of new technologies are discovered because of people mixing disciplines that hadn't been put together before. A new perspective on a problem can make a massive difference!
I think the most reliable way to advance a scientific field is to find a technique used in a different field and apply it to yours. Even more reliable if you use techniques from theoretical math.
If somebodyβs just following dogma and thinking within a box, theyβre not doing science.
I didnβt even interpret the meme as suggesting that one group of subjects is better than another, and I was disappointed to see so many commenters here thinking that their narrow or broad branch of study is better or more of a true science than other valid fields.
Except that the meme is very specifically used to highlight a distinct qualitative difference between the two "interpretations" of a term which leads to friction or miscommunication between the characters. This meme is doing precisely what you claim it is not.
I think youβre reading things that neither me nor the above image have said.
Given that the very definition of something that makes a meme is that it allows transmission of a specific idea in an encapsulated manner, there are inherent implications of using a meme, whether you explicitly say them or not. This meme is implicitly about a miscommunication between two interpretations of the same term:
I Love Video Games / Me Too is a parody meme format based on an exploitable image macro in which a woman misinterprets a man saying "I love video games" as him expressing love for Lana Del Ray's song of that name.
This meme, since its earliest usage, has been used as a statement of purity, which you can clearly see if you look into the history of it. That connotation is preserved in the use of this meme, whether you yourself are ignorant of its origins, or simply pretending that it isn't some sort of purity statement. I don't disagree with your sentiment, but you are definitively wrong about the implications of the original post.
The thing is, the specific meaning transmitted in a meme can shift slightly depending on how and where it is used. I've seen this format used in one of two contexts to date:
Purity statement, whereby one side is clearly meant to be the 'correct' position. Usually assigned to the male figure, but with some variants where that is switched.
Illustration of differences between two groups, where the idea of 'correctness' of one side over the other is either absent or secondary to just illustrating that difference.
Then there's the slippage between these two, which can be fun to tease out. IMO this meme is an example of the second usage, with some possible slippage. Both sides claim to love science, both sides have things that are sciences and things that are science related but adjacent. Each is assigned topics for which there's a stereotype about men's/women's level of participation. I look at it and think "Here are two people who both truly do love science, but different domains, and each is still learning which is why some elements are imprecise/not specific sciences"). Basically, 1st year BSc man and woman meet at the record store.
Now, depending on authorship and original context, a declaration of purity may be intended (I've seen stuff like this with that intent from insecure engineering students before, usually men), but I feel it loses some of that when deployed in a generic science memes community (as opposed to something like 'Spicy Memes for Bridge Building Boys' or whatever).
I'd be curious if this was OC, or if not where it was taken from.
#memesaresrsbusiness
I see no text on the page you linked that references any connotation of superiority or purity. The first usage of the meme does not suggest either a superiority or a purity, as you claim; however, an audience might project their preferences and gatekeeping onto that which is without bias. In the vast majority of the examples in the link, there is simply a contextual miscommunication between two valid interpretations of a term; only a few examples do suggest superiority or purity. Deferring to imgflip, many of the user-made memes do not have that connotation, while some do. Based on these data, I do not see a subtext of connotation or purity to be necessarily implied in use of that template. The comedy can be derived from something as simple as a word having two meanings.
Once again, you have also claimed that I said something which I had not (prior to this comment).
Edit: adding this image
Yeah, and there was no explicit text that said "separate, but equal" was about racial purity and whites being the best race. But here, "separate, but equal sciences" is totally normal, right?
What a tasteless and illogical thing to say
This is a shit take. The meme is showing two different stereotypes of college freshman. There is not a qualitative difference between the "hard" sciences and the others; the biologists climatologists and psychologists I've known all adhere to the same scientific method and mathematical rigor I learned getting my handful of grad and postgrad degrees in physics math and compsci. The only real difference I've seen is that "soft" sciences tend to work on problems with more stochastic moving parts, making them harder to understand on average. They're not easier, you're just ignorant of the complexity and too arrogant to consider the expertise and accomplishments of others.
I agree that there is not a difference, but this meme is claiming that there is. That is what I am complaining about. I agree with literally everything you have said. The meme is trying to paint a qualitative difference, because that is literally the implicit context of this meme template. I am disapproving of that implication
Night science rules!
Good for them.
Sure, I'd call it probably zoology, but whatever, "animals" counts.
Space isnβt a science either, itβs the subject matter for astronomy and astrophysics.
Aquatic biology - have an axolotl. More science can be involved than with most pets, nitrogen cycle and various experiments I did to try and remove nitrates.
Wow, "Tell me you never took more than high school level chemistry without telling me you never took more than high school level chemistry".
E: also, the fuck is "space"?
The one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism.
Except it has?
I'm sorry you've missed this before, please enjoy it in all its glory: Tim Curry is escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism.
Wait which Red Alert was this?
3, as far as I know, but I've only had contract with it through internet memes, so could be wrong.
Compressed time.
Space is the final frontier science.
As long as she doesnβt say psychology
At least psychology isn't economics
Reminds me of a joke that economics is for those who couldn't cut it in maths and physics. Austrian Economics for those who couldn't handle evidence and statistics in economics.
Iβd take that (or sociology or economics,) over whatever batshit-crazy pseudoscience RFKjr is spouting.
Psychology is a fun science, but we get a lot of students who don't get that they signed up to study a science rather than for getting a degree in holding hands and going "there, there".
I see them as perfectly compatible.
There's only three sciences in that list.
Physics, chemistry and biology ?
I think they'll find there's only one
I guess so: relevant XKCD
It's just math and turtles all the way down
Can't forget the elephants down there propping everything up
they missed philosophy all the way to the right, but yeah
Though im told that Philosophy's just math, sans rigor, sense and practicality.
probably by a mathematician
Yep
I love science. Especially when it's followed by the word "fiction." π
I don't get it, what is the distinction between the left and the right?
Computing
Me with my Accounting degree stuck in the middle with them
I love how "animals" and "engineering" are presented as equivalent in this meme, like "yeah I know these aren't real sciences or anything but I think they're cute!"
The creator was clearly a physicist.
I donβt think your misunderstanding and/or crusty attitude qualifies as a failure on their part.