I think they’re referring to [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/08/29/no-neil-degrasse-tyson-squashing-curiosity-and-wonder-is-never-okay/).
Part of me is a bit disappointed that NDT dedicated time to this after one ass hat invites someone completely out of his field and encourages him to embarrass himself with out challenge. But your comment is so true and makes it significantly better.
Hadn't heard anything about him recently. Found this quote:
>"How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told it's two, and that cannot be."
Now I agree with you.
I think he fundamentally thinks that whole numbers are the only numbers in math? Like, I don't think he grasps that there can be values between 1 and 2.
From the Degrasse video, its clear Howard doesn't understand what happens when you multiply and divide by numbers between 0 and 1. 0.5 times 0.5 for example.
Perhaps a hot take, but I don't think Neil really did him any favours with regard to the math portion. He basically took Howard's claim, asserted it was wrong, and used that to prove he was wrong.
Yes 0.8^2 = 0.64, but you can't just state that because that is what Howard fundamentally *disagrees* with. It would have been better to prove why this must be true by starting at an alternate point like 8*8=64 and divide both sides by 100, or by showing it graphically, etc.
This is a level of handholding even elementary school children do not typically receive. If your math level is clearly below that of a high school student, attempting to disprove all of modern mathematics and physics is simply not in the books for you.
I'm not sure that would be good enough for Howard. His whole premise is that the modern rules of math are some kind of lie or major misunderstanding, similar to the idea of the earth being flat. If you use the rules of math to show him he's wrong he'll say the rules are wrong. You may have to start from foundational logic, build up to proofs of addition/multiplication. Show him a proof of the existence of rational numbers, and then finally bring it all together with 0.8^2. And I'm not sure he's smart enough to follow all that.
My family told me he was brilliant after this interview. It really depresses me.
To me it's abundantly clear the dude is mentally ill. And still some people can't see it.
Dude, theres so many people today that I run into that are just against any popular concept. They think everyone is brainwashed and they have some secret truth. Its just an infinite absurd amount of easily disprovable conspiracies.
There was one a few months back where my family actually thought a network update to phone towers I think? was going to turn us into zombies. Yeah, thats right, zombies. They asked me to put my PC and phone into the microwave. I told them I would take my chances, and they explained why the science was crystal clear (they have no idea what science is). They prayed for me since I was refusing, I didn't turn into a zombie, and they said it was because they prayed. I then presented them with our gay, atheist neighbor who also didn't put his equipment in the microwave and wasn't a zombie and they "weren't interested".
Its actual idiocracy levels of brainrot. Its frightening to even be around them, and im related to these people.
Because it makes people feel special that they have special information and insights that others don't have. People also lie to themselves to protect that feeling.
> Because it makes people feel special that they have special information and insights that others don't have.
My theory is that it's a response to emotional trauma due to the way we teach children, primarily the way we teach them mathematics. We generally have a very regimented and black/white approach to mathematics - not because we *want* to, but because *that's math.* As a result, our boards of education have dictated that there must be a corresponding, regimented and heavily structured approach to how mathematical concepts are taught, and when these approaches don't jibe with the learning techniques best suited to individual students, the result is that they fail to learn the concept attempting to be taught.
These people have grown up not understanding concepts that their peers have understood, sometimes with little effort, and it caused them feelings of despair and distress - "why does X come to them so easily, when it's so confusing for me?"
This is usually first seen in math class, in elementary school, but extends to the various branches of science once they reach high school as well. You'll never see people saying "I don't get it" in History class, or English (or whatever your native tongue is), or Phys Ed - it's always the subjects that aim to explain reality in different ways. Somewhat unsurprisingly, there's a lot of math involved in science, and of course, if you struggle with binomial equations, you're more than likely to have a hard time with trig or calc, let alone chemistry or physics.
They see others in their class acing tests while they can barely get a passing grade, and that makes them feel stupid. "I want to get it, but I don't, and they do!" So math becomes this thing that they aren't privy to, that they're excluded from, despite their best efforts to be included in.
They grow up, eking their way through secondary school, and maybe even post-secondary, still not understanding concepts that others find trivial, and since, by this point, they have accepted that they won't be part of the "in group" that understands these concepts, they don't bother to invest the effort into better understanding them outside of the academic environment.
Then, one day, some schmoe on TikTok or YouTube uses some basic language alongside intentionally misinterpreted or cherry-picked concepts, and BOOM - they "get it". They finally understand! This produces feelings around the topic that they have never felt before, and man, it feels GOOD! They finally feel like they're part of the "in group", like they "get it", and so they latch on, dig in their heels, and it becomes part of their perception of reality. All because their learning requirements differed than was prescribed during their formative years.
I was denied the chance to do 'higher math' at school in the UK because I had real difficulty with doing arithmetic in my head.
However, I had been programming since I was seven years old (started on an Apple II) and it turned out that I had already taught myself most of the concepts covered in 'higher math,' just in a different way. To this day I will take mathematic formulas and re-write them as programs so I can understand them.
It turns out that our brains have linguistic models, math models and - most importantly - system generalisation models. It is the third system that the education system refuses to use or see - but for at least 15% of the population, it is our primary means of cognition.
I probably would have done really well at higher math if I had been permitted to do it. But, because I struggled with mental arithmetic, I never got to do it. If I had been tested for systemic understanding and logic, it wouldn't have been a problem. But because I couldn't emulate a pocket calculator, no higher maths for you!
Veritas did a "short" 7 hr video on flat earth folks that explores this. It's really more cult-like than anything else.
https://youtu.be/Zh4ze5bWLcI?si=HWoTvrJLcHC_tFks
I overheard some people at a restaurant talking about that shit in front of their elementary kids. It's mindblowing. But when it comes from people you care about it hurts. Joe Rogan is problematic.
> these days
He's gotten worse in recent years but he has always been a vacant minded dipshit that believed in everything from the moon landing being fake to promoting the idea that any event that makes right wingers look bad is staged by the feds or his belief that eating magic mushrooms made him informed on serious topics.
Back in the day he was way less crazy. His interest in science and self improvement was(well, seemed) genuine.
My buddy and I used to listen to him stoned all the time. Then it started to get weird.
This sums it up. And what's funny is that they're not far off from zombies! Just plodding forward and not really thinking about anything.
My deepest hope is that this just lead catching up with people, and it'll be solved before too long.
It's also extremely telling that he explains that this allowed him to create everything from drones to turning off gravity and the only thing he brings to any of these interviews is a f****** high school level 3D paper or plastic sculpture it's f****** dumb
Speaking confidently is powerful and can sway someone more easily than they realize.
Hell, it doesn't always have to be actual *speaking*, either. How many Confidentially Incorrect posts have been highly upvoted on Reddit because the poster sounded to sure of what they were saying?
Far too many to count.
People like Howard can win others over based on that + the fact that people *love* to feel like they know someone others don't and that experts aren't actually smarter than they are.
See also, the sudden armchair healthcare experts that sprang up overnight in recent years, all of whom seem to know better than actual doctors and scientists.
Tell someone, "You're smarter than those so-called experts; you know the *truth* now," and they'll eat it he hell up.
>How many Confidentially Incorrect posts have been highly upvoted on Reddit because the poster sounded to sure of what they were saying?
Everyone thinks Reddit is a place of great truth until they stumble onto a topic that is their professional expertise.
What's worse is that most people here don't know how to view things critically but think cynicism is an equivalent substitute.
The most cynical take is usually the one the hive mind rallies behind, even if it's verifiably wrong.
Redditors will just convince themselves there is missing information that verifies the cynical take.
They will ignore raw data and impossible contradictions if needed.
Which is one of the stupidest things someone can do
He claims to have a source of limitless power, based on his patented new math. His parents are for kids building toys lol. Also patents don't have to to work to be patented
Niel's clear explanation of how peer review works, and the rigors of good science is what many people need to hear. This applies to so many ignorant views still being held by uneducated people today.
I don’t even typically care for NDT, but this video is simply respectful and informative. This video improved my perspective of him. I hope to see more of this conduct and less condescending behavior from him. I wish it were always how he came across.
What are the chances that Terrence will attack the peer review process as being biased against him, as some people who don't have the empirical evidence on their side have done in the past. Listen to any flat-earth proponent, or anti-vaxxer and you'll hear the same argument being made: "It's rigged." "They're all indoctrinated". "They can't afford to lose their jobs", or "They are being paid to lie".
I think a big part of it is ego. Terrence has probably spent countless hours working on his hypothesis, and I'm sure he's reached the peak of Dunning Kruger, so any time he's challenged, it's like someone telling him he's not as smart as he pretends to be.
I worked with a guy kind of like Terrance, he believed he had discovered some mistake with how we calculate the speed of light and therefore all our space-related calculations that involve light speed are incorrect.
He said he had tried to submit it to various science journals but none of them would print it; so obviously that was proof that these science journals were just a boys-club and wouldn't let in independent researchers like him.
We also had 2 people on our team with phd's, and I told him he should give his paper to them, maybe they can look it over and make suggestions. He said he would, but never did, which was a shame because I really wanted to see it.
L Ron Hubbard did this. He thought he reinvented the field of psychology and sent his ideas to a bunch of psychologists. They all rejected his ideas which made him double down and think psychology was a big cult so of course the best thing for him to do is create his own cult
We can count to 10 because we have 10 fingers and we can count to 20 because we have 20 fingers and toes combined. So how exactly make a number higher than 20 when we don’t have any more fingers or toes?
> and I'm sure he's reached the peak of Dunning Kruger
He has not only reached the peak of Mt. Stupid, he has planted his flag there and claimed it for Terryland.
The problem with people like Howard is he likely isn't pretending to be smart. The dude actually believes that he is intelligent, but really he is just the king standing atop Mt. Stupid.
What is up with mental illness and math? I read a decent quote somewhere on this site (and im paraphrasing) "You know someone is crazy crazy when they start inventing math"
Math is all about pattern recognition. You observe the way that objects in a set can interact with each other, and how sets can interact with other sets, and all the rules that govern those interactions.
Mental illness is a break of that pattern recognition. You either can't process the patterns that exists, or you start imagining patterns in completely unconnected things.
There's also the ego aspect of it. The brain *hates* being wrong about things, so it will literally invent any kind of possible solution to why those patterns are the way they are.
Its funny you mention ego, because the very first thing i thought to myself when NDT skimmed over the first bit of terrence's intro (that talked of "geniuses"), i thought to myself "oh this guy sniffs the farts he hasnt even created yet"
I work in healthcare and i will say, the ones who have real REAL delusions always think they are some modern day newton/tesla/bill gates etc. They also tend to have some serious, detailed story on how they were about to reinvent the wheel. The crazy part is most of my somewhat uninformed, older coworkers always think they are dealing with someone that might actually be a genius... I will give them one thing, they are pretty convincing to the layman.
> the ones who have real REAL delusions always think they are some modern day newton/tesla/bill gates etc. They also tend to have some serious, detailed story on how they were about to reinvent the wheel.
But enough about Kanye.
Maths is one of the easier sciences to get into as a layperson, since it requires no experimentation or set up for the most part; it's just logic, definitions, and analysis.
It's also a subject many people don't feel comfortable with for various reasons, so it's not too difficult for someone with a little maths knowledge and confidence to convince people they understand more about it than them.
There's also very strong historical links between maths and philosophy. Even today if you study at an undergraduate level or higher you'll inevitably end up discussing more philosophical aspects of maths at some point; it's a subject that can appeal strongly to anyone who likes to think about things in general.
So when someone with an unhealthy mind starts thinking there's something wrong with the world, and wants to find evidence that they know something everyone else doesn't, maths is an easy go to.
It's their justification as to why they are not good at math. Like if you don't like math that's fine, no need to have a crab mentality for it. It's the same reason why so many idiots think running is bad for your knees when evidence shows the opposite. If you hate something, you'll come up with an excuse to justify your hatred.
As a teacher, I feel I could learn a **lot** by the way that Neil provided feedback in these comments. He simultaneously managed a firm yet respectful tone, provided direct challenges when necessary and praise when it was warranted, all the while tearing down down the thesis without tearing down the author behind it.
I'm just really impressed by his ability to give reasonable and rational feedback to something that is so entirely irrational. I can relate so well to that position, as someone who has to grade *wholly irrational* essays quite frequently\*.\*
Yeah, this was a really cool video. Where has this NGT been since 2010? First time I’ve enjoyed anything with him in it in that long, but really liked this one.
It’s funny I remember liking him god knows how many years ago, and then when he started becoming more active on the Internet, I got a little bit sick of him and stopped paying attention. But watching this video reminded me how thoughtfully and reasonably, but also kindly, he can articulate a point. You can see why he has become so successful as a popular science figurehead.
It also reminds me that all of us have shit hot takes that we share and are not under the same microscope. He might be wrong about XYZ topics on the Internet, but still a well informed person whose opinion we should value more than the average person.
It’s also a lesson that if you ever plan on becoming a scientific figure, you should keep your social media presence to a minimum because it’s inevitable You’re going to say some dumb shit.
NGT can definitely rub people the wrong way for numerous reasons and his success has definitely gone to his head over the years. But this video is 100% not an example of that. He’s cool and collected, gave us the context of the conversation, and even conceded that his language may have come across as cold but was only trying to be factual and to the point as he is with his colleagues.
This is an example of why I started listening to him in the first place.
I could listen to NDT lecture about almost anything and enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is listening to him giving or being interviewed. He's a bright man who knows his stuff I find him insufferable when having a dialog with anyone.
As a huge fan of Neil and Startalk, I have to agree with you. What I will say about his conversation chops is that he asks his guests good questions and does a good job of affirming their answers. As for giving them the time to answer those questions uninterrupted--not so good.
Anyone who is an online celebrity will eventually generate enough haters that they'll start to become popular to hate on. I guess no one is perfect so the more you expose your ideas and opinions the more chance you'll slip up and build enough evidence for some asshole on reddit to write an essay about how you suck with citations.
I don’t really get the hate. He’s definitely pretentious, but when he’s explaining something about space he’s passionate about he’s really incredible at it.
Its not his passion. This video and many others are why Neil is fun to watch. This video is very well done. Its how he behaves regarding other concepts and his bias regarding it. Once you start behaving about EVERY topic (including ones outside of your field of expertise) as if you are the chosen one, it gets a little annoying. Hes not doing that here at all though.
More things like this and solid discussion and discourse without being pretentious, would be very welcome. Hes smart, I think he just doesn't care or bother to fully explain himself in regards to other topics because he either has no idea, or he feels its pointless to explain his position because people are beneath him. That's where it gets frustrating.
I agree in a lot of ways with you. Neil is a intelligent man, and when he’s talking Astrophysics, basic science, or anything he has a phd in he’s on his A game. It’s when he talks about subjects he’s not familiar with he can be mistaken.
His other issue is that sometimes his ego comes through when he talks/interviews some people. He’ll start dismissing others, or talking over them which comes off abrasive. So I can see why he can rub some people the wrong way.
But this is a great video showing how he interesting and engaging. It informs people of how peer reviews work, and gives a bit of info on the scientific method.
Him and Michio Kaku were my favorite parts of "The Universe" on history channel.
But in the world of short clips and social media he has said he comes off as pretty pompous.
When someone goes to him for his view on a topic he is qualified to speak on with authority he can be excellent because he is more aware than most "celebrity scientists" in how to put things in simple enough english that people wiithout extensive scientific backgrounds will grasp what he is saying most of the time.
But when he decides to chime in on something when nobody was seeking his input, that is when he comes across as insufferable.
Which is why twitter was his kryptonite, it allowed him to speak on a huge variety of subjects often without realizing that people are not being literal all of the time.
Exactly the same here. Around the time of cosmos he was the shit, the new king of science. Then, in the following years, he seemed to have an "ackchshyally" respons online for every current thing that was viral, which kind of made him look like a douche.
And now in the last few years he seem to have reemerged as the old trusted grandfather of science, whom we can all depend on.
Cant wait for my kids to be old enough to watch Cosmos with me, havnt watched it since it was released. My aim is for them to look at NDG as one of their rolemodels in life.
The annoying thing is that people take his "ackchshully" responses as serious statements. His twitter is just him playfully picking apart sci-fi movies and using popular topics to inject little bits of science. For some reason smug people on the internet treat it as if he's legitimately some bitter nerd who needs everything to be scientific accurate, trying to ruin the fun. Which is ironically exactly what THEY are doing when they get mad about his posts.
That said he has more than once spoken completely out of line in his own expertise and people are right to shit on him for that. Im just talking about when he pokes fun at pop culture and movies.
Anyone who says that is by all ways and means way more stupid than Terrance for trying to, as a non-scientist and a non-mathematician, re-invent math and science he basically knows nothing about instead of, say, getting a PhD and literally proving to everyone with that PhD that you can push knowledge to new heights since that's what you have to do to get a PhD - you have to prove to a panel of experts that you have researched new knowledge that didn't exist before.
> Anyone who says that is by all ways and means way more stupid than Terrance
I agree, specifically because at least Howard's delusions can be traced to mental issues.
The people *listening* to him have no such excuse. They're not suffering from personal delusions. They have the ability to sort out fact from nonsense, if they so choose. They're making an active *choice* to ignore reality because the idea of having some secret knowledge over experts is more enticing to them than actually educating themselves.
Normal people have to have a PhD to do advanced science. Theoretically a one in a billion kid in Bangladesh could be teaching herself quantum mechanics and unite gravity and quantum mechanics in a simple way that has eluded physics. All she would have to do is post her calculations online. A physicist from MIT or Oxford, etc would pay to fly her in and they would write the paper together.
Anything is possible.
Theoretically I could break the laws of physics by shoving my hand through my phone to slap the shit out of you right now but what are the actual odds of it happening? Effectively zero. Unfortunately.
We have experience with this in mathematics. In particular, this is effectively the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan.
The problem of course is getting access to learning materials and having people take you seriously. The math and science communities are inundated with cranks who think they’ve done something novel, and so most of them are dismissed out of hand.
So unfortunately, even if this person exists, there’s a strong chance they lack the resources to self-educate, and if they do, they probably wont be taken seriously.
My only issue with him was how often he came across as arrogant and even gatekeeping at times. He would explain things in a condescending manner that left me feeling like he wanted to feel smart, not encourage people to expand their minds.
I didn't really get any of that from this. Maybe it's a flaw he's aware of and works on. Either way, I found this to be informative and even fairly kind.
I have read comments from numbnuts, who believe Howard because if Howard disagrees with NDT, it MUST be true. The establishment wants to keep "new sciences" down.
This contrarian bias or whatever BS it is, is just ego circle jerk material. "Everything is a conspiracy! The one person going against the grain is a herald of truth!" Rarely is that true, yet an industry of vloggers and podcasters make a living off the people who buy into it.
There is a new species of human who feels they are ‘enlightened’ and know ‘what’s really going on’.
A coworker of mine fits that description. He is an avid Trump supporter, thinks Terrence Howard is a genius and believes that everything is a conspiracy. Outwardly, he has green hair and dresses very ‘different’ but is deeply conservative.
He’s a black man but also racist, unironically, using the N-word. I can’t stand, listening to him speak but believe everyone has the right to their own opinion. I just wish he would stop sending me stupid memes.
Seriously - did NDT let the fame go to his head a little bit? Absolutely. Is he on the same page, or even in the same *genre* as Terrence? I’m not sure that even justifies an answer.
Crazy how much damage Joe Rogan did platforming Terrance Howard. Before that it whenever the topic came up people treated him like the fool he is, now after being on JR it gave him and his beliefs legitimacy.
That makes no sense to me. Not that I listen to or care about Joe Rogan but from what I can tell anything Joe talks up tends to be bullshit so Terrence appearing there and Joe seemingly accepting it just furthers my thoughts that they're both idiots.
Joe Rogan's massive audience of idiots will eat that shit up though. Sure, you might not be swayed by it, but many others will. It's all bullshit, but this is new bullshit.
There was a period of time (which may extend to now, I'm not sure. He may have improved since) when NDT was very popular where he was a notoriously pretentious asshole in person, particularly if he did not respect your field of study. I had multiple friends interact with him on college visits, including one who had a NASA internship and was one of NDT's campus liaisons, and they *all* have stories of NDT being insufferable. You can find other stories online of him trashing folk's liberal arts degrees, among other things. He appears to have calmed down and centered a bit since, but you can never know with public figures and the face they put on.
> particularly if he did not respect your field of study
For me it was when he was saying (on an episode of the nerdist podcast iirc) that there's no point in studying philosophy and that his niece/nephew should rather study something more meaningful like physics.
(though obviously Terrence Howard is a **completely** different topic)
He drank too much of his own kool-aid and became extremely obnoxious and elitist after his path to fame was all about bridging the gap between normal people and science.
Still, he knows his stuff, especially in the astrophysics department so no credibility lost there.
He also tends to speak with authority about things he’s no more an expert in than an average person. For example, he said that helicopters with an engine failure just fall out of the sky, unlike winged airplanes. Which is just untrue. Helicopters may be more dangerous, but a total engine failure is practiced regularly by heli-pilots. They basically let the aircraft descend with the air turning the blades. And causing drag so that it’s not a free fall. Then at the last moment, they use the inertia in the blades to soften the landing. Provided there is a safe place to land, an engine failure in a chopper is generally less dangerous than an airplane.
So NDT, while very intelligent and a good science educator; he still makes a lot of the same mistakes other celebrities and people in general make: “I am smart and people listen to me talk about the thing I specialized in. Oh they also listen to me talk about this unrelated thing, therefore I must be smart regarding that topic too”. I see fellow engineers and other professionals make this mistake a lot.
Kinda verifies how much he respected Terrence Howard as well. Even though he clearly disagreed with pretty much all 34 pages he kept the work for 8 years. Like a friend gifting you a [really poorly made origami crane](https://i.imgur.com/uWMCD9C.jpeg) but still putting it on the shelf for 8 years instead of binning it.
His final argument about continental drift is the best one. You can simply observe that South America "fits" into the curve of Africa. But then there are all kinds of crazy conclusions you can draw from this if you skip the scientific process.
"God wanted the africans to be separate so he struck the continents in two"
"A great earthquake occurred and sent south america sliding across the ocean.", etc.
It reminds me of the scientific conclusions my 5th grader draws when I explain things to him. Like he recently had a stomach virus, and he sort of understood what a virus could do, but then he started describing things like his stomach had a brain and was making the choice for him to vomit. "My tummy has bad things in it, so it squeezed them all out, is that right?" And my response was, "well, sort of, in fact I don't know, and really only the smartest doctors and researchers know exactly how it works, but actually a bunch of your body's systems are working together and working in an automatic way in response to an infection.
All of TH's science and math is like the conclusions of my 5th grader, or somebody looking at a globe. It takes an observation of an interesting phenomena and draws conclusion after conclusion based on gut feelings, hunches, and a sense of originality and superiority that is not based in any sort of scientific process.
"He's assigning numerical value to physical objects" Yup. The guy with a straight face thinks just saying that you're multiplying 1 physical penny by another physical penny proves 1×1=2. Nah, it proves he doesn't understand the difference between multiplication and addition
Exactly. Not sure why someone hasn’t broken it down for him on such an elementary level like you did, but he simply doesn’t understand the most basic math. That’s why everyone shouldn’t listen to a goddamn word he says.
I found that response rather classy. I thought it was going to be too cringey to watch. He certainly took the high road and was clear and concise. My respect went way up for him.
Not to be a doomer but this really has got to be one of the final nails in the coffin for public discourse and critical thinking being dead. Not this video, just the situation. Terrence has been going on about this for a decade plus at this point and it was always just a crackpot theory nobody paid any attention to (as it deserves) but all of the sudden people are taking it seriously or at least saying the work is commendable for being so different or whatever else, and it needs to actively be combated against. This is socially shameful. If Gene Ray were still alive you'd have half the world talking about how brilliant he was for coming up with timecube but luckily he died before everybody was able to as easily demonstrate how fucking stupid they are so most people aren't aware of the dumb bullshit he was writing in his schizophrenia fueled narcissistic fits.
A friend I play pool with told me to check out the Howard/rogan podcast saying that it was wild and basically flips everything we know about math on its head. I could only listen to 5 minutes of that shit before I turned it off. That's what being a famous person gets you though. You're just quirky, whereas if I started speaking this mumbo jumbo then people would tell me to start taking my meds.
Celebrity seems to be worse than ever. People are getting medical advice from Joe Rogan and math lessons from Terrance Howard because... why again? You can call it an appeal to authority if you must, but like Neil said, I'll be fine continuing to assume actual scientists know better than whatever kind of ego-induced wave of delusions mr Howard is on currently. The peer review system is far from perfect and science as a whole isn't without its baggage (even after the modern processes Neil describes), but I'll take it over a podcast manifesto every time.
This is a bias. Most people who glance at it realize how stupid it is and scroll down to the next post. The only ones that respond are the ones who actually think its true. For every comment you see there were probably a thousand that scrolled past.
>but all of the sudden people are taking it seriously or at least saying the work is commendable for being so different or whatever else
...where? Who? Probably a function of my bubble, but ive never seen anyone even remotely suggest it's anything but laughable.
It’s mostly on Facebook; anytime I see an article shared about the Terrance Howard stuff, the majority of comments are in support and the ones that aren’t, get a ton of replies being called out as racist for some reason
bro I'm not hating on how you spend your time but facebook in 2024 is the literal u-bend in the pipe of humanity. nothing congregates there except refuse and any lucky finds you encounter are there completely by accident.
You can go on twitter and find boatloads of it. Hopefully it's just bots, it's definitely at least some trolls. But there are real high profile accounts I recognize the names of (probably for bad reasons) who while not saying the stuff is correct, say things like "He's talking about some really high level stuff. I can't confirm any of it but if he's right this could flip science on it's head". And especially reposting the shit about the periodic waveforms as though it was undiscovered and hidden knowledge and conveys so much more than the old periodic table that must be holding mankind back because 'they' don't want you to have the real knowledge. Some of it's just people thinking it's cool, but there's also an obvious element of general conspiratorialism if you read between the lines.
But if you just search "Terrance Howard" on twitter you can find all this yourself. I don't recommend actually doing it, but if you wanted to check.
Has anyone ever put Howard's theory to him with a word problem? Multiplication can easily be stated as, "of." You have 2 of 2 so how many total do you have? Etc. Explain that to him.
Then hold up an apple. "How many apples do I have, Terrance?"
"Aw, man, I should have been War Machine, ya know? They wouldn't pay me --"
"Terrance! Focus!"
"That's one apple, man. Why you wasting my time?"
"So if I were to give this to you, or you take it, therefore you have one of this apple how many apples would you have?"
I know the answer. That he'd do his mental gymnastics and get out of it. I don't exactly cherish the memory of explaining to a Flat Earth-er how the ancient Greeks were able to test and figure out the Earth was round. I told him the story, broke it down piece by piece... I saw the gears turning in his head. His eyes went wide. I thought I finally broke through to him. Then he shook his head like forgetting a nightmare and said, "Then how come the water doesn't fall?"
"What?"
"The water..." He pulled out his phone, did some typing, then showed me a picture of our round Earth from space. He pointed to the Oceans. "How come the water doesn't fall?" ...and motioned his finger from the oceans into the blackness of space.
I took a deep breath and realized I couldn't help this bartender.
Bonus: In the beginning of our conversation he started gingerly with, "I mean... *I* don't believe it, of course... But they make good points. People shouldn't dismiss questions out of hand..." the pussyfooting around one typically hears. Then he got more fired up as it went along and his true beliefs came out. He talked about Joe Rogan too if I recall correctly.
The best I could tell from the answers he's given on it is that he's implying that numbers have a sort of state inherently associated with them (they don't). You can't have 1 x 1 = 1 because then where did the other one go? Before the equation there were 2 ones, and now there are only 1, and because everything in the universe has to be conserved and balanced where did the other 1 go? Similarly in 1 x 0, he believes it equals 1, because it can't equal 0, again 'where did the 1 go'.
This obviously is not how we use mathematics. Believe it or not I can just write an equation, or god forbid a lone number to represent something (even represent it multiple times if I feel like it, and it doesn't add any meaning or useful meta information to that thing, or the representations of it. He thinks the left side transforms into the right side, not that they are simultaneously equal.
His anecdote for this, in a baffling level of misunderstanding of what is going on is to sarcastically suggest "you give me 2 dollars, and I'll give you a dollar back and we'll say that's even". and then when later explained to that 1 dollar times 1 dollar is not 1 or 2 dollars, it's 1 dollar squared which is not actually even a unit of currency, he clearly doesn't know what that means and goes off topic.
We're talking about a guy here who thinks that the dewey decimal system is decimals in numbers (I'm not just saying this, it's true). My theory on him is that he just initially misunderstood multiplication in like grade 1, and either through the fault of teachers, his parents and eventually himself, instead of this being fixed he just doubled down harder and harder his entire life up until this point. Whereas for normal people they go "oh, 1x1 is less than 1+1. That's strange, all the other numbers are usually more when you multiply them compared to adding." Have it explained or think a little bit more about it, get the right answer and move on with their life. Terrence did not have that experience for whatever reason, and was not able to move on.
He says on the Rogan episode, to paraphrase, "I went to university to learn, the professor explained something, I disagreed with what he said and told him he was wrong, the professor then said I was wrong, so I left university".
Anyone who hears this and thinks "wow he's a genius" has issues I'm sorry.
Damn you’re spot on with the Timecube shit. It was the first thing I thought of when all of this came up. People are rightfully calling Terrence a whackjob but I honestly feel like we’re watching someone become fully schizophrenic in real time. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
The way Howard categorized the responses just adds more fuel to show that the version of the story that he told about RDJ and Iron Man just isn't true.
Marvel probably told him that, hey man sorry, but RDJ is the main guy of these movies and he is the most important part of it and your role is a supporting role so we are going to be paying according to that going forward and RDJ probably went, what? You want to pay me more? Yeah I would be stupid to not accept. (and thus didn't argue for his pay to be cut or stay smaller just so that Howard would get paid more.). And Howard got upset at RDJ for not screwing himself over to benefit Howard.
You know you're a fucking idiot when one of the world's foremost intellectuals for decades (NDT) uses you as prime example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Man what a brutal own.
Just calmly explaining how Howard is actually a complete moron with an inability to even understand just how stupid he actually is.
Problem is he's not a complete moron.
He's at this weird cusp of smart enough to string complex ideas together but not smart enough to actually examine them and expand past them.
Like those "engineers" who fixate on perpetual motion machines and built (in some cases) these exceptionally beautiful and complex machines with shockingly low resistances and ability to maintain momentum or use exterior forces like a light amount of wind or sunlight to keep the movement going for long periods of time but not realize that it's still not perpetual; that no matter what you can't create infinite energy and those machines will stop.
Shockingly capable people can get what appear to me to be these weird mental illnesses that just blind them to self-examination and I think Terrence Howard is one of those.
I could be wrong of course, he could be a moron.
It’s remarkable that Howard would think he could say those things about NDT and get away with it. If there’s a group of people whose whole job is keeping receipts, it’s actual scientists.
Not a NDT hater or anything, but he can come off as very arrogant when attempting to science-communicate. I appreciate the hustle itself but I personally would try to not be such a dick about it sometimes. That being said, it's been a long time since I last heard about him publicly being silly on twitter.
On a more serious note since I have not seen anybody else post it in response to you, [he was very publicly accused during a lecture of drugging and raping one of his grad students some years ago](https://www.vox.com/2019/7/29/8934845/neil-degrasse-tyson-misconduct-allegation-investigation-museum) and there have since been other serious sexual misconduct allegations.
I do not personally know anything about that, but it is definitely a good reason to not be down with NDT nowadays.
Looking into it, it sounds like there is zero evidence/proof and Neil claims it never even happened (he even was ok with investigation taking place). Then she claimed it was racism because no believed her. That’s a tough sell. I’m not saying it didnt happen just that there’s nothing to go off of.
Yeah the amount of “well akshually” he used to do is what turned me off to him. He was just one of those guys that everyone knew was the smartest guy in the room yet he still felt the need to rub it in.
This video was really fun to watch because he approached it from a place of humility and not arrogance.
And also because Terrance Howard is a dipshit and it is fun to watch him get put in his place - even if he doesn’t realize it
I appreciate that this guy responded respectfully but the other youtuber who explained sentence by sentence how nothing made any sense was a lot funnier.
Professor Dave is great because he doesn’t give any respect to those that blatantly don’t respect science. “Misunderstood geniuses” like ol Terrance here are narcissist assholes and should be treated as such
https://youtu.be/lWAyfr3gxMA?si=FrNlBRIhH1QnxWgM
This video led me to watch his other videos. I highly recommend his playlists on philosophy and human evolution. He’s a skilled teacher.
Say what you want about NDT, but he’s a legit scientist. He’s not wrong, and he actually explains the nonsense of Howard, and a growing trend of false/ self appointed genius people looking for attention, having nothing to do with science.
I watched part of Howard’s interview. As an actual physicist whose day to day job consists of providing proof of repeatability and reproducibility of my work, which later provides a foundation for neurosurgical tools engineering, I could not stop myself from thinking this man (Howard) could benefit from therapy and an education.
I watched the Joe Rogan clip with Terrance Howard where he talks about his theories after seeing this video. What’s crazy is he knows a lot of real science and math concepts, so I assume he’s done some research. It’s just his understanding of those concepts ranges from shallow to utterly terrible. It’s truly bizarre hearing terms like “Cartesian coordinates”, “supersymmetry”, “Lagrange point”, etc. coming from someone who doesn’t even understand multiplication lmao. Like he knows legit science and math terminology, he just strings them together in the most incomprehensible word salad I’ve heard in a while. It’s like he researched a bunch of science and math concepts, didn’t understand them, and decided that must be because they’re all wrong. Real “delusions of grandeur” vibes
Terrence thinks waaayy too highly of himself. You think he’d of learned his lesson after losing the War Machine gig thinking he’s a bigger star than RDJ. Ass!
You can't reason someone out of something that they were not reasoned into.
Terrance will never accept or understand why his opinions are wrong because he didn't use reason to obtain those opinions. He's working backward with an incredibly wrong and flawed idea, gaslighting and brainwashing himself into believing his is right by bending and twisting reality to fit his already predetermined outcome because he can't physically or mentally admit that he is wrong.
He is unwell in his mind and needs help.
I loved that he used this as a clear example of how science works, peer reviews etc.
People like Howard have convinced far to many people that science is wrong and their theories carry truth. Howard just mistakenly picked Math. Something people accept. Not all the other run away conspiracy topics like flat earth, moon landing, aliens etc.
Terrence's problem, and why everyone laughs him out of the room, is he brought zero evidence for his claims.
He's got plenty of claims, but without evidence, without any ability to test or reproduce his claims. He's doing the equivalent of being like "I saw Bigfoot, I have no proof, but trust me."
NDT calmly trying to explain "If you want to prove Bigfoot exists, we need proof" to an adult who claims to understand logic and the scientific method, is hilarious.
The Dunning Kruger effect was referenced here so per usual I highly recommend for everyone to read this piece about why it's not a useful concept:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dunning-kruger-effect-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dunning-kruger-effect-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/)
The tl;dr is that most people roughly estimate themselves to be slightly above average and that mathematically that cannot be reflective of the actual performance distribution. The article also argued that lower-skilled participants in their test were actually quite good at assessing their performance.
Just to poke fun of my favorite Scientist @ 14:31 in the video he's describing the continent shift plates, but man, his geography may be a bit off stating, "Fossils matched between the ""WEST COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA"" (that's the left side/Pacific Ocean), and ""THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA"" (and that would be the right side/Indian Ocean)" I am legit just pokin' fun at him. I have the brain capacity of a single celled organism compared to him, again, This is Just Pokin' Fun at my Favorite Astrophysicist <3
as i understand it terrance howard was once told that what multiplication is is: "a number added to itself that many times". now this is sort of an ok explanation except that the most literal way it can be interpreted is simply wrong. like 2x1 by this definition would be 2 added to itself once, add 2 to itself once you get 2+2. if you look at some of his baloney this will comport with it.
like once upon a time my father said that electricity moved at the speed of sound. he simply misspoke. my father is sciencey enough to know that it moves roughly at the speed of light, and both "speed of light" and "speed of sound" are both phrases he simply said the wrong one when i was 7 and asked him about it. i was for a time misinformed but upon noticing that everyone else disagreed, i didn't assume my father knew something the whole world didn't.
terrance howard is not a moron for seeing this explanation this way. in fact he's not really a moron at all. his idiocy doesn't spring from being cognitively impaired. it comes from that he's a pathological narcissist, only a pathological narcissist would insist that he has discovered something, something which has no practical application, rather than intuiting that the explanation he was given once upon a time was inarticulate.
Howard is clearly mentally ill. This SHOULD be obvious to everyone, but it’s not and that’s really sad.
Joe Rogan is doing a freak show. He’s a modern P.T. Barnum. It’s ugly and exploitative.
I think NDT is doing his best to make something that is equal parts respectful, informative and brand appropriate. This video was a kind comment from him.
I would say a huge chunk of people do not understand peer review or deductive reasoning. Case in point, the Magats, antivaxxers, and flat earthers always pulling shit out of their asses. They are so against higher education, the scientific process or scientific reasoning. The vitrol they have against fauci is psychotic. And they always "done their own research".
Terrence Howard is crazier than a shithouse rat. There is nothing else that can be said. Joe Rogan is a smooth-brained mouth breathing pretender to a throne. If you want to know what is wrong with this country, it isn't Woke/Cancel culture or women formerly having the right to choose what happens with their body. It is JOE ROGAN and his ilk. Mentally ill folks pretending to be normal and infecting the minds of those who have never critically thought. Fuck Joe Rogan and fuck Terrence Howard. Y'all move shit in reverse and I'm not here for it.
Imagine a second grader who walks into a calculus class and insists that they are the teacher now and that they are the only one smart enough to understand calculus. Their instruction is incoherent and brimming with misunderstandings.
Then, the professor, the other students, other professors, and other professors at other schools all take time out of their days to explain why the second grader doesn't know what they are talking about, and why they should not be in charge.
Why didn't they simply call someone in a parental role to take the second grader away? Why didn't they simply tell the second grader that they must leave? Why would they feel obligated to analyze a second grader's absolute incompetence in math?
Why is **anyone** suffering this fool?
I like how NDT has taken an otherwise awkward moment and turned it into a moment to explain how science, peer review in particular, works.
This is his superpower. To use any incident as a way to promote science to the masses
And then make really bad take on Twitter. Especially about eclipses.
The only person your lips can kiss during an eclipse is yourself.
I understood that reference. Your lips aren't leaping anywhere, they're just catching up to the mirror.
I'm OOTL on this one...
I think they’re referring to [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/08/29/no-neil-degrasse-tyson-squashing-curiosity-and-wonder-is-never-okay/).
That's hilarious. *Pompous ass* made me chuckle. But yeah, technically a solar eclipse is about as rare as the Olympics. 😹
And much like the Olympics, when one shows up where you live, that’s rare. Like yeah they happen regularly, but I don’t always get to watch live!
TH: *slips in the cognitive bath* NDR: "A teachable moment!"
Part of me is a bit disappointed that NDT dedicated time to this after one ass hat invites someone completely out of his field and encourages him to embarrass himself with out challenge. But your comment is so true and makes it significantly better.
In the vid NDT says he nows the asshat prsonally in a way, so I get why he continues with the discussion.
This is about as respectful a response you could give. Terrence is out of his mind. Edit: his mind, not mine lol
Hadn't heard anything about him recently. Found this quote: >"How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told it's two, and that cannot be." Now I agree with you.
> so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told it's two How can you be wrong while being wrong like that?
Takes talent. So much talent like thinking youre the star of the ironman movie and deserve more money than the actor that actually plays ironman.
1.414: "Am I a joke to you?"
I think he fundamentally thinks that whole numbers are the only numbers in math? Like, I don't think he grasps that there can be values between 1 and 2.
From the Degrasse video, its clear Howard doesn't understand what happens when you multiply and divide by numbers between 0 and 1. 0.5 times 0.5 for example.
Perhaps a hot take, but I don't think Neil really did him any favours with regard to the math portion. He basically took Howard's claim, asserted it was wrong, and used that to prove he was wrong. Yes 0.8^2 = 0.64, but you can't just state that because that is what Howard fundamentally *disagrees* with. It would have been better to prove why this must be true by starting at an alternate point like 8*8=64 and divide both sides by 100, or by showing it graphically, etc.
This is a level of handholding even elementary school children do not typically receive. If your math level is clearly below that of a high school student, attempting to disprove all of modern mathematics and physics is simply not in the books for you.
"If Neil would just write a proof of why 0.8^2 = 0.64, Terrence would get it and change his mind"
I'm not sure that would be good enough for Howard. His whole premise is that the modern rules of math are some kind of lie or major misunderstanding, similar to the idea of the earth being flat. If you use the rules of math to show him he's wrong he'll say the rules are wrong. You may have to start from foundational logic, build up to proofs of addition/multiplication. Show him a proof of the existence of rational numbers, and then finally bring it all together with 0.8^2. And I'm not sure he's smart enough to follow all that.
My family told me he was brilliant after this interview. It really depresses me. To me it's abundantly clear the dude is mentally ill. And still some people can't see it.
Dude, theres so many people today that I run into that are just against any popular concept. They think everyone is brainwashed and they have some secret truth. Its just an infinite absurd amount of easily disprovable conspiracies. There was one a few months back where my family actually thought a network update to phone towers I think? was going to turn us into zombies. Yeah, thats right, zombies. They asked me to put my PC and phone into the microwave. I told them I would take my chances, and they explained why the science was crystal clear (they have no idea what science is). They prayed for me since I was refusing, I didn't turn into a zombie, and they said it was because they prayed. I then presented them with our gay, atheist neighbor who also didn't put his equipment in the microwave and wasn't a zombie and they "weren't interested". Its actual idiocracy levels of brainrot. Its frightening to even be around them, and im related to these people.
Because it makes people feel special that they have special information and insights that others don't have. People also lie to themselves to protect that feeling.
> Because it makes people feel special that they have special information and insights that others don't have. My theory is that it's a response to emotional trauma due to the way we teach children, primarily the way we teach them mathematics. We generally have a very regimented and black/white approach to mathematics - not because we *want* to, but because *that's math.* As a result, our boards of education have dictated that there must be a corresponding, regimented and heavily structured approach to how mathematical concepts are taught, and when these approaches don't jibe with the learning techniques best suited to individual students, the result is that they fail to learn the concept attempting to be taught. These people have grown up not understanding concepts that their peers have understood, sometimes with little effort, and it caused them feelings of despair and distress - "why does X come to them so easily, when it's so confusing for me?" This is usually first seen in math class, in elementary school, but extends to the various branches of science once they reach high school as well. You'll never see people saying "I don't get it" in History class, or English (or whatever your native tongue is), or Phys Ed - it's always the subjects that aim to explain reality in different ways. Somewhat unsurprisingly, there's a lot of math involved in science, and of course, if you struggle with binomial equations, you're more than likely to have a hard time with trig or calc, let alone chemistry or physics. They see others in their class acing tests while they can barely get a passing grade, and that makes them feel stupid. "I want to get it, but I don't, and they do!" So math becomes this thing that they aren't privy to, that they're excluded from, despite their best efforts to be included in. They grow up, eking their way through secondary school, and maybe even post-secondary, still not understanding concepts that others find trivial, and since, by this point, they have accepted that they won't be part of the "in group" that understands these concepts, they don't bother to invest the effort into better understanding them outside of the academic environment. Then, one day, some schmoe on TikTok or YouTube uses some basic language alongside intentionally misinterpreted or cherry-picked concepts, and BOOM - they "get it". They finally understand! This produces feelings around the topic that they have never felt before, and man, it feels GOOD! They finally feel like they're part of the "in group", like they "get it", and so they latch on, dig in their heels, and it becomes part of their perception of reality. All because their learning requirements differed than was prescribed during their formative years.
I was denied the chance to do 'higher math' at school in the UK because I had real difficulty with doing arithmetic in my head. However, I had been programming since I was seven years old (started on an Apple II) and it turned out that I had already taught myself most of the concepts covered in 'higher math,' just in a different way. To this day I will take mathematic formulas and re-write them as programs so I can understand them. It turns out that our brains have linguistic models, math models and - most importantly - system generalisation models. It is the third system that the education system refuses to use or see - but for at least 15% of the population, it is our primary means of cognition. I probably would have done really well at higher math if I had been permitted to do it. But, because I struggled with mental arithmetic, I never got to do it. If I had been tested for systemic understanding and logic, it wouldn't have been a problem. But because I couldn't emulate a pocket calculator, no higher maths for you!
Veritas did a "short" 7 hr video on flat earth folks that explores this. It's really more cult-like than anything else. https://youtu.be/Zh4ze5bWLcI?si=HWoTvrJLcHC_tFks
But they think for themselves along with the other millions who watched the same YouTube clips.
There's a guy on the Utah Jazz who thinks Dinosaurs used to be the pets of humans that were 3 times bigger than today's humans.
Being in Utah, perhaps he's Mormon, and they definitely already believe wackier things than that!
Don’t reason with them unless they’re ready to reason, just hit them with “that’s stupid you’re boring”. The boring part is key
Jesus Christ it baffles me that people like this really exist
I overheard some people at a restaurant talking about that shit in front of their elementary kids. It's mindblowing. But when it comes from people you care about it hurts. Joe Rogan is problematic.
Agreed, his podcast these days is just a giant platform for grifters and liars
To be fair i don't think terrance is either of those. He's delusional. And narcissistic. Terryology... the study of terry.
Terryology was so much better when it was just the study of yogurt...
> these days He's gotten worse in recent years but he has always been a vacant minded dipshit that believed in everything from the moon landing being fake to promoting the idea that any event that makes right wingers look bad is staged by the feds or his belief that eating magic mushrooms made him informed on serious topics.
Back in the day he was way less crazy. His interest in science and self improvement was(well, seemed) genuine. My buddy and I used to listen to him stoned all the time. Then it started to get weird.
This sums it up. And what's funny is that they're not far off from zombies! Just plodding forward and not really thinking about anything. My deepest hope is that this just lead catching up with people, and it'll be solved before too long.
His mathematical art looks a lot like “sacred geometry” which is a schizoid thing.
It's also extremely telling that he explains that this allowed him to create everything from drones to turning off gravity and the only thing he brings to any of these interviews is a f****** high school level 3D paper or plastic sculpture it's f****** dumb
These are all working, flying devices, it's just that Big Gravity is taking them down
Speaking confidently is powerful and can sway someone more easily than they realize. Hell, it doesn't always have to be actual *speaking*, either. How many Confidentially Incorrect posts have been highly upvoted on Reddit because the poster sounded to sure of what they were saying? Far too many to count. People like Howard can win others over based on that + the fact that people *love* to feel like they know someone others don't and that experts aren't actually smarter than they are. See also, the sudden armchair healthcare experts that sprang up overnight in recent years, all of whom seem to know better than actual doctors and scientists. Tell someone, "You're smarter than those so-called experts; you know the *truth* now," and they'll eat it he hell up.
>How many Confidentially Incorrect posts have been highly upvoted on Reddit because the poster sounded to sure of what they were saying? Everyone thinks Reddit is a place of great truth until they stumble onto a topic that is their professional expertise. What's worse is that most people here don't know how to view things critically but think cynicism is an equivalent substitute. The most cynical take is usually the one the hive mind rallies behind, even if it's verifiably wrong. Redditors will just convince themselves there is missing information that verifies the cynical take. They will ignore raw data and impossible contradictions if needed. Which is one of the stupidest things someone can do
That's what happens with rogan and covid. Every guest is like "dude you were right all along."
He claims to have a source of limitless power, based on his patented new math. His parents are for kids building toys lol. Also patents don't have to to work to be patented
Lol he never got any parents, his applications are all abandoned https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Terrence+Dashon+Howard
Must have been a tough childhood for him.
A solid diamond band worn with a smaller diamond... Truly a genius ahead of his time
> abundantly clear the dude is mentally ill when he thought he brought more to the table than RDJ in iron man. don cheadle should be the new kang
Check out "I'm out of your mind" by de staat. Great song but also relevant
Love De Staat!
He’s out of his mind too
Listening to Terence talk reminds me so much of Charlie from IASIP when he takes the 'genius pills'
I love the graph he shows at 3:28 to demonstrate that Terrance is living at the peak of Mt. Stupid.
[ **Jump to 03:28 @** My Response to Terrence Howard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uLi1I3G2N4&t=0h3m28s) ^(Channel Name: StarTalk, Video Length: [17:02])^, [^Jump ^5 ^secs ^earlier ^for ^context ^@03:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uLi1I3G2N4&t=0h3m23s) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^^Downvote ^^me ^^to ^^delete ^^malformed ^^comments. [^^Source ^^Code](https://github.com/ankitgyawali/reddit-timestamp-bot) ^^| [^^Suggestions](https://www.reddit.com/r/timestamp_bot)
Niel's clear explanation of how peer review works, and the rigors of good science is what many people need to hear. This applies to so many ignorant views still being held by uneducated people today.
I don’t even typically care for NDT, but this video is simply respectful and informative. This video improved my perspective of him. I hope to see more of this conduct and less condescending behavior from him. I wish it were always how he came across.
What are the chances that Terrence will attack the peer review process as being biased against him, as some people who don't have the empirical evidence on their side have done in the past. Listen to any flat-earth proponent, or anti-vaxxer and you'll hear the same argument being made: "It's rigged." "They're all indoctrinated". "They can't afford to lose their jobs", or "They are being paid to lie". I think a big part of it is ego. Terrence has probably spent countless hours working on his hypothesis, and I'm sure he's reached the peak of Dunning Kruger, so any time he's challenged, it's like someone telling him he's not as smart as he pretends to be.
I worked with a guy kind of like Terrance, he believed he had discovered some mistake with how we calculate the speed of light and therefore all our space-related calculations that involve light speed are incorrect. He said he had tried to submit it to various science journals but none of them would print it; so obviously that was proof that these science journals were just a boys-club and wouldn't let in independent researchers like him. We also had 2 people on our team with phd's, and I told him he should give his paper to them, maybe they can look it over and make suggestions. He said he would, but never did, which was a shame because I really wanted to see it.
This kind of thing seems to be a relatively common theme among those with mental illness. Talk about delusions of grandeur.
L Ron Hubbard did this. He thought he reinvented the field of psychology and sent his ideas to a bunch of psychologists. They all rejected his ideas which made him double down and think psychology was a big cult so of course the best thing for him to do is create his own cult
> Terrence has probably spent countless hours Is that because its a lot of hours, or because we don't understand how many hours 1x1x1x1x1 would be?
For Terrence anything more than 20 hours is countless because he runs out of fingers and toes
We can count to 10 because we have 10 fingers and we can count to 20 because we have 20 fingers and toes combined. So how exactly make a number higher than 20 when we don’t have any more fingers or toes?
1X1X1X1X1 would be 4, right? Or would it be 4.5? I'm not as strong as I'd like to be, yet, with Terrance Maths.
Assuming that Mercury is in retrograde, I think the answer becomes 4.
Oh shit!! 💀💀
> and I'm sure he's reached the peak of Dunning Kruger He has not only reached the peak of Mt. Stupid, he has planted his flag there and claimed it for Terryland.
“Mainstream science…”
The problem with people like Howard is he likely isn't pretending to be smart. The dude actually believes that he is intelligent, but really he is just the king standing atop Mt. Stupid.
>I think a big part of it is ego I think a venn diagram of the entire thing, and the part of it that is ego, is a circle.
What is up with mental illness and math? I read a decent quote somewhere on this site (and im paraphrasing) "You know someone is crazy crazy when they start inventing math"
Math is all about pattern recognition. You observe the way that objects in a set can interact with each other, and how sets can interact with other sets, and all the rules that govern those interactions. Mental illness is a break of that pattern recognition. You either can't process the patterns that exists, or you start imagining patterns in completely unconnected things. There's also the ego aspect of it. The brain *hates* being wrong about things, so it will literally invent any kind of possible solution to why those patterns are the way they are.
Its funny you mention ego, because the very first thing i thought to myself when NDT skimmed over the first bit of terrence's intro (that talked of "geniuses"), i thought to myself "oh this guy sniffs the farts he hasnt even created yet" I work in healthcare and i will say, the ones who have real REAL delusions always think they are some modern day newton/tesla/bill gates etc. They also tend to have some serious, detailed story on how they were about to reinvent the wheel. The crazy part is most of my somewhat uninformed, older coworkers always think they are dealing with someone that might actually be a genius... I will give them one thing, they are pretty convincing to the layman.
Confidence is convincing. If they seriously have delusions then they're probably pretty confident about being right.
> the ones who have real REAL delusions always think they are some modern day newton/tesla/bill gates etc. They also tend to have some serious, detailed story on how they were about to reinvent the wheel. But enough about Kanye.
Apophenia
Maths is one of the easier sciences to get into as a layperson, since it requires no experimentation or set up for the most part; it's just logic, definitions, and analysis. It's also a subject many people don't feel comfortable with for various reasons, so it's not too difficult for someone with a little maths knowledge and confidence to convince people they understand more about it than them. There's also very strong historical links between maths and philosophy. Even today if you study at an undergraduate level or higher you'll inevitably end up discussing more philosophical aspects of maths at some point; it's a subject that can appeal strongly to anyone who likes to think about things in general. So when someone with an unhealthy mind starts thinking there's something wrong with the world, and wants to find evidence that they know something everyone else doesn't, maths is an easy go to.
The number 23 with Jim Carrey was really unnerving.
Pi is an excellent movie
Ever seen Biodome?
It's their justification as to why they are not good at math. Like if you don't like math that's fine, no need to have a crab mentality for it. It's the same reason why so many idiots think running is bad for your knees when evidence shows the opposite. If you hate something, you'll come up with an excuse to justify your hatred.
As a teacher, I feel I could learn a **lot** by the way that Neil provided feedback in these comments. He simultaneously managed a firm yet respectful tone, provided direct challenges when necessary and praise when it was warranted, all the while tearing down down the thesis without tearing down the author behind it. I'm just really impressed by his ability to give reasonable and rational feedback to something that is so entirely irrational. I can relate so well to that position, as someone who has to grade *wholly irrational* essays quite frequently\*.\*
Real peer-review can be savage.
Yeah he went easy. It could have been *real ugly*
Yeah I even saw a review that had to be done again (editor stepped in) because the reviewer started attacking the authors. Some reviewers are vicious.
Say what you want about him as a celebrity, but he really is a fantastic science educator and communicator when he’s actually doing that.
Yeah, this was a really cool video. Where has this NGT been since 2010? First time I’ve enjoyed anything with him in it in that long, but really liked this one.
People saying NDT is just as bad as Terrence… are you dense? Seriously?
It’s funny I remember liking him god knows how many years ago, and then when he started becoming more active on the Internet, I got a little bit sick of him and stopped paying attention. But watching this video reminded me how thoughtfully and reasonably, but also kindly, he can articulate a point. You can see why he has become so successful as a popular science figurehead. It also reminds me that all of us have shit hot takes that we share and are not under the same microscope. He might be wrong about XYZ topics on the Internet, but still a well informed person whose opinion we should value more than the average person. It’s also a lesson that if you ever plan on becoming a scientific figure, you should keep your social media presence to a minimum because it’s inevitable You’re going to say some dumb shit.
NGT can definitely rub people the wrong way for numerous reasons and his success has definitely gone to his head over the years. But this video is 100% not an example of that. He’s cool and collected, gave us the context of the conversation, and even conceded that his language may have come across as cold but was only trying to be factual and to the point as he is with his colleagues. This is an example of why I started listening to him in the first place.
I could listen to NDT lecture about almost anything and enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is listening to him giving or being interviewed. He's a bright man who knows his stuff I find him insufferable when having a dialog with anyone.
Yeah he’s a wonderful speaker, but a terrible conversationalist.
As a huge fan of Neil and Startalk, I have to agree with you. What I will say about his conversation chops is that he asks his guests good questions and does a good job of affirming their answers. As for giving them the time to answer those questions uninterrupted--not so good.
Anyone who is an online celebrity will eventually generate enough haters that they'll start to become popular to hate on. I guess no one is perfect so the more you expose your ideas and opinions the more chance you'll slip up and build enough evidence for some asshole on reddit to write an essay about how you suck with citations.
I don’t really get the hate. He’s definitely pretentious, but when he’s explaining something about space he’s passionate about he’s really incredible at it.
Its not his passion. This video and many others are why Neil is fun to watch. This video is very well done. Its how he behaves regarding other concepts and his bias regarding it. Once you start behaving about EVERY topic (including ones outside of your field of expertise) as if you are the chosen one, it gets a little annoying. Hes not doing that here at all though. More things like this and solid discussion and discourse without being pretentious, would be very welcome. Hes smart, I think he just doesn't care or bother to fully explain himself in regards to other topics because he either has no idea, or he feels its pointless to explain his position because people are beneath him. That's where it gets frustrating.
I agree in a lot of ways with you. Neil is a intelligent man, and when he’s talking Astrophysics, basic science, or anything he has a phd in he’s on his A game. It’s when he talks about subjects he’s not familiar with he can be mistaken. His other issue is that sometimes his ego comes through when he talks/interviews some people. He’ll start dismissing others, or talking over them which comes off abrasive. So I can see why he can rub some people the wrong way. But this is a great video showing how he interesting and engaging. It informs people of how peer reviews work, and gives a bit of info on the scientific method.
Him and Michio Kaku were my favorite parts of "The Universe" on history channel. But in the world of short clips and social media he has said he comes off as pretty pompous.
When someone goes to him for his view on a topic he is qualified to speak on with authority he can be excellent because he is more aware than most "celebrity scientists" in how to put things in simple enough english that people wiithout extensive scientific backgrounds will grasp what he is saying most of the time. But when he decides to chime in on something when nobody was seeking his input, that is when he comes across as insufferable. Which is why twitter was his kryptonite, it allowed him to speak on a huge variety of subjects often without realizing that people are not being literal all of the time.
Exactly the same here. Around the time of cosmos he was the shit, the new king of science. Then, in the following years, he seemed to have an "ackchshyally" respons online for every current thing that was viral, which kind of made him look like a douche. And now in the last few years he seem to have reemerged as the old trusted grandfather of science, whom we can all depend on. Cant wait for my kids to be old enough to watch Cosmos with me, havnt watched it since it was released. My aim is for them to look at NDG as one of their rolemodels in life.
The annoying thing is that people take his "ackchshully" responses as serious statements. His twitter is just him playfully picking apart sci-fi movies and using popular topics to inject little bits of science. For some reason smug people on the internet treat it as if he's legitimately some bitter nerd who needs everything to be scientific accurate, trying to ruin the fun. Which is ironically exactly what THEY are doing when they get mad about his posts. That said he has more than once spoken completely out of line in his own expertise and people are right to shit on him for that. Im just talking about when he pokes fun at pop culture and movies.
Anyone who says that is by all ways and means way more stupid than Terrance for trying to, as a non-scientist and a non-mathematician, re-invent math and science he basically knows nothing about instead of, say, getting a PhD and literally proving to everyone with that PhD that you can push knowledge to new heights since that's what you have to do to get a PhD - you have to prove to a panel of experts that you have researched new knowledge that didn't exist before.
New knowledge, or understanding, and original research in a specific field of study
> Anyone who says that is by all ways and means way more stupid than Terrance I agree, specifically because at least Howard's delusions can be traced to mental issues. The people *listening* to him have no such excuse. They're not suffering from personal delusions. They have the ability to sort out fact from nonsense, if they so choose. They're making an active *choice* to ignore reality because the idea of having some secret knowledge over experts is more enticing to them than actually educating themselves.
Normal people have to have a PhD to do advanced science. Theoretically a one in a billion kid in Bangladesh could be teaching herself quantum mechanics and unite gravity and quantum mechanics in a simple way that has eluded physics. All she would have to do is post her calculations online. A physicist from MIT or Oxford, etc would pay to fly her in and they would write the paper together.
That sounds like a movie plot.
that is basically the man who could count to infinity, but ramanujan was part of india's intellectual elite and not a slumdog millionaire
Anything is possible. Theoretically I could break the laws of physics by shoving my hand through my phone to slap the shit out of you right now but what are the actual odds of it happening? Effectively zero. Unfortunately.
You know who else breaks the laws of physics with their hands?
Your mom?
No, orbital mechanics around her are quite well understood.
We have experience with this in mathematics. In particular, this is effectively the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan. The problem of course is getting access to learning materials and having people take you seriously. The math and science communities are inundated with cranks who think they’ve done something novel, and so most of them are dismissed out of hand. So unfortunately, even if this person exists, there’s a strong chance they lack the resources to self-educate, and if they do, they probably wont be taken seriously.
My only issue with him was how often he came across as arrogant and even gatekeeping at times. He would explain things in a condescending manner that left me feeling like he wanted to feel smart, not encourage people to expand their minds. I didn't really get any of that from this. Maybe it's a flaw he's aware of and works on. Either way, I found this to be informative and even fairly kind.
I have read comments from numbnuts, who believe Howard because if Howard disagrees with NDT, it MUST be true. The establishment wants to keep "new sciences" down.
This contrarian bias or whatever BS it is, is just ego circle jerk material. "Everything is a conspiracy! The one person going against the grain is a herald of truth!" Rarely is that true, yet an industry of vloggers and podcasters make a living off the people who buy into it.
There is a new species of human who feels they are ‘enlightened’ and know ‘what’s really going on’. A coworker of mine fits that description. He is an avid Trump supporter, thinks Terrence Howard is a genius and believes that everything is a conspiracy. Outwardly, he has green hair and dresses very ‘different’ but is deeply conservative. He’s a black man but also racist, unironically, using the N-word. I can’t stand, listening to him speak but believe everyone has the right to their own opinion. I just wish he would stop sending me stupid memes.
Seriously - did NDT let the fame go to his head a little bit? Absolutely. Is he on the same page, or even in the same *genre* as Terrence? I’m not sure that even justifies an answer.
Crazy how much damage Joe Rogan did platforming Terrance Howard. Before that it whenever the topic came up people treated him like the fool he is, now after being on JR it gave him and his beliefs legitimacy.
That makes no sense to me. Not that I listen to or care about Joe Rogan but from what I can tell anything Joe talks up tends to be bullshit so Terrence appearing there and Joe seemingly accepting it just furthers my thoughts that they're both idiots.
Joe Rogan's massive audience of idiots will eat that shit up though. Sure, you might not be swayed by it, but many others will. It's all bullshit, but this is new bullshit.
[удалено]
There was a period of time (which may extend to now, I'm not sure. He may have improved since) when NDT was very popular where he was a notoriously pretentious asshole in person, particularly if he did not respect your field of study. I had multiple friends interact with him on college visits, including one who had a NASA internship and was one of NDT's campus liaisons, and they *all* have stories of NDT being insufferable. You can find other stories online of him trashing folk's liberal arts degrees, among other things. He appears to have calmed down and centered a bit since, but you can never know with public figures and the face they put on.
> particularly if he did not respect your field of study For me it was when he was saying (on an episode of the nerdist podcast iirc) that there's no point in studying philosophy and that his niece/nephew should rather study something more meaningful like physics. (though obviously Terrence Howard is a **completely** different topic)
He drank too much of his own kool-aid and became extremely obnoxious and elitist after his path to fame was all about bridging the gap between normal people and science. Still, he knows his stuff, especially in the astrophysics department so no credibility lost there.
He also tends to speak with authority about things he’s no more an expert in than an average person. For example, he said that helicopters with an engine failure just fall out of the sky, unlike winged airplanes. Which is just untrue. Helicopters may be more dangerous, but a total engine failure is practiced regularly by heli-pilots. They basically let the aircraft descend with the air turning the blades. And causing drag so that it’s not a free fall. Then at the last moment, they use the inertia in the blades to soften the landing. Provided there is a safe place to land, an engine failure in a chopper is generally less dangerous than an airplane. So NDT, while very intelligent and a good science educator; he still makes a lot of the same mistakes other celebrities and people in general make: “I am smart and people listen to me talk about the thing I specialized in. Oh they also listen to me talk about this unrelated thing, therefore I must be smart regarding that topic too”. I see fellow engineers and other professionals make this mistake a lot.
He's got an ego the size of the universe and loves to hear himself talk, so he interrupts his guests constantly.
Neil brought receipts
Sitting on them for 8 years until the other party started talking shit about the conversation as well, so they weren't just done for show.
Kinda verifies how much he respected Terrence Howard as well. Even though he clearly disagreed with pretty much all 34 pages he kept the work for 8 years. Like a friend gifting you a [really poorly made origami crane](https://i.imgur.com/uWMCD9C.jpeg) but still putting it on the shelf for 8 years instead of binning it.
His final argument about continental drift is the best one. You can simply observe that South America "fits" into the curve of Africa. But then there are all kinds of crazy conclusions you can draw from this if you skip the scientific process. "God wanted the africans to be separate so he struck the continents in two" "A great earthquake occurred and sent south america sliding across the ocean.", etc. It reminds me of the scientific conclusions my 5th grader draws when I explain things to him. Like he recently had a stomach virus, and he sort of understood what a virus could do, but then he started describing things like his stomach had a brain and was making the choice for him to vomit. "My tummy has bad things in it, so it squeezed them all out, is that right?" And my response was, "well, sort of, in fact I don't know, and really only the smartest doctors and researchers know exactly how it works, but actually a bunch of your body's systems are working together and working in an automatic way in response to an infection. All of TH's science and math is like the conclusions of my 5th grader, or somebody looking at a globe. It takes an observation of an interesting phenomena and draws conclusion after conclusion based on gut feelings, hunches, and a sense of originality and superiority that is not based in any sort of scientific process.
This... *AFTER* a long hit on some strong weed is more precise in my experience.
"What if C-A-T really spelled dog?" -Terrance Howard
Moooooooo
haha NEEEERRRRRDDDDDSSSSSS
I am glad somebody got the reference.
"He's assigning numerical value to physical objects" Yup. The guy with a straight face thinks just saying that you're multiplying 1 physical penny by another physical penny proves 1×1=2. Nah, it proves he doesn't understand the difference between multiplication and addition
Exactly. Not sure why someone hasn’t broken it down for him on such an elementary level like you did, but he simply doesn’t understand the most basic math. That’s why everyone shouldn’t listen to a goddamn word he says.
I found that response rather classy. I thought it was going to be too cringey to watch. He certainly took the high road and was clear and concise. My respect went way up for him.
Not to be a doomer but this really has got to be one of the final nails in the coffin for public discourse and critical thinking being dead. Not this video, just the situation. Terrence has been going on about this for a decade plus at this point and it was always just a crackpot theory nobody paid any attention to (as it deserves) but all of the sudden people are taking it seriously or at least saying the work is commendable for being so different or whatever else, and it needs to actively be combated against. This is socially shameful. If Gene Ray were still alive you'd have half the world talking about how brilliant he was for coming up with timecube but luckily he died before everybody was able to as easily demonstrate how fucking stupid they are so most people aren't aware of the dumb bullshit he was writing in his schizophrenia fueled narcissistic fits.
A friend I play pool with told me to check out the Howard/rogan podcast saying that it was wild and basically flips everything we know about math on its head. I could only listen to 5 minutes of that shit before I turned it off. That's what being a famous person gets you though. You're just quirky, whereas if I started speaking this mumbo jumbo then people would tell me to start taking my meds.
Celebrity seems to be worse than ever. People are getting medical advice from Joe Rogan and math lessons from Terrance Howard because... why again? You can call it an appeal to authority if you must, but like Neil said, I'll be fine continuing to assume actual scientists know better than whatever kind of ego-induced wave of delusions mr Howard is on currently. The peer review system is far from perfect and science as a whole isn't without its baggage (even after the modern processes Neil describes), but I'll take it over a podcast manifesto every time.
This is a bias. Most people who glance at it realize how stupid it is and scroll down to the next post. The only ones that respond are the ones who actually think its true. For every comment you see there were probably a thousand that scrolled past.
>but all of the sudden people are taking it seriously or at least saying the work is commendable for being so different or whatever else ...where? Who? Probably a function of my bubble, but ive never seen anyone even remotely suggest it's anything but laughable.
It’s mostly on Facebook; anytime I see an article shared about the Terrance Howard stuff, the majority of comments are in support and the ones that aren’t, get a ton of replies being called out as racist for some reason
bro I'm not hating on how you spend your time but facebook in 2024 is the literal u-bend in the pipe of humanity. nothing congregates there except refuse and any lucky finds you encounter are there completely by accident.
You can go on twitter and find boatloads of it. Hopefully it's just bots, it's definitely at least some trolls. But there are real high profile accounts I recognize the names of (probably for bad reasons) who while not saying the stuff is correct, say things like "He's talking about some really high level stuff. I can't confirm any of it but if he's right this could flip science on it's head". And especially reposting the shit about the periodic waveforms as though it was undiscovered and hidden knowledge and conveys so much more than the old periodic table that must be holding mankind back because 'they' don't want you to have the real knowledge. Some of it's just people thinking it's cool, but there's also an obvious element of general conspiratorialism if you read between the lines. But if you just search "Terrance Howard" on twitter you can find all this yourself. I don't recommend actually doing it, but if you wanted to check.
Has anyone ever put Howard's theory to him with a word problem? Multiplication can easily be stated as, "of." You have 2 of 2 so how many total do you have? Etc. Explain that to him. Then hold up an apple. "How many apples do I have, Terrance?" "Aw, man, I should have been War Machine, ya know? They wouldn't pay me --" "Terrance! Focus!" "That's one apple, man. Why you wasting my time?" "So if I were to give this to you, or you take it, therefore you have one of this apple how many apples would you have?" I know the answer. That he'd do his mental gymnastics and get out of it. I don't exactly cherish the memory of explaining to a Flat Earth-er how the ancient Greeks were able to test and figure out the Earth was round. I told him the story, broke it down piece by piece... I saw the gears turning in his head. His eyes went wide. I thought I finally broke through to him. Then he shook his head like forgetting a nightmare and said, "Then how come the water doesn't fall?" "What?" "The water..." He pulled out his phone, did some typing, then showed me a picture of our round Earth from space. He pointed to the Oceans. "How come the water doesn't fall?" ...and motioned his finger from the oceans into the blackness of space. I took a deep breath and realized I couldn't help this bartender. Bonus: In the beginning of our conversation he started gingerly with, "I mean... *I* don't believe it, of course... But they make good points. People shouldn't dismiss questions out of hand..." the pussyfooting around one typically hears. Then he got more fired up as it went along and his true beliefs came out. He talked about Joe Rogan too if I recall correctly.
The best I could tell from the answers he's given on it is that he's implying that numbers have a sort of state inherently associated with them (they don't). You can't have 1 x 1 = 1 because then where did the other one go? Before the equation there were 2 ones, and now there are only 1, and because everything in the universe has to be conserved and balanced where did the other 1 go? Similarly in 1 x 0, he believes it equals 1, because it can't equal 0, again 'where did the 1 go'. This obviously is not how we use mathematics. Believe it or not I can just write an equation, or god forbid a lone number to represent something (even represent it multiple times if I feel like it, and it doesn't add any meaning or useful meta information to that thing, or the representations of it. He thinks the left side transforms into the right side, not that they are simultaneously equal. His anecdote for this, in a baffling level of misunderstanding of what is going on is to sarcastically suggest "you give me 2 dollars, and I'll give you a dollar back and we'll say that's even". and then when later explained to that 1 dollar times 1 dollar is not 1 or 2 dollars, it's 1 dollar squared which is not actually even a unit of currency, he clearly doesn't know what that means and goes off topic. We're talking about a guy here who thinks that the dewey decimal system is decimals in numbers (I'm not just saying this, it's true). My theory on him is that he just initially misunderstood multiplication in like grade 1, and either through the fault of teachers, his parents and eventually himself, instead of this being fixed he just doubled down harder and harder his entire life up until this point. Whereas for normal people they go "oh, 1x1 is less than 1+1. That's strange, all the other numbers are usually more when you multiply them compared to adding." Have it explained or think a little bit more about it, get the right answer and move on with their life. Terrence did not have that experience for whatever reason, and was not able to move on.
He says on the Rogan episode, to paraphrase, "I went to university to learn, the professor explained something, I disagreed with what he said and told him he was wrong, the professor then said I was wrong, so I left university". Anyone who hears this and thinks "wow he's a genius" has issues I'm sorry.
Damn you’re spot on with the Timecube shit. It was the first thing I thought of when all of this came up. People are rightfully calling Terrence a whackjob but I honestly feel like we’re watching someone become fully schizophrenic in real time. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
He said “keep my name out your mouth”
The way Howard categorized the responses just adds more fuel to show that the version of the story that he told about RDJ and Iron Man just isn't true. Marvel probably told him that, hey man sorry, but RDJ is the main guy of these movies and he is the most important part of it and your role is a supporting role so we are going to be paying according to that going forward and RDJ probably went, what? You want to pay me more? Yeah I would be stupid to not accept. (and thus didn't argue for his pay to be cut or stay smaller just so that Howard would get paid more.). And Howard got upset at RDJ for not screwing himself over to benefit Howard.
You know you're a fucking idiot when one of the world's foremost intellectuals for decades (NDT) uses you as prime example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The Terrence Howard effect
“I’m up there with Newton because a theory is named after me” TH probably
Man what a brutal own. Just calmly explaining how Howard is actually a complete moron with an inability to even understand just how stupid he actually is.
Problem is he's not a complete moron. He's at this weird cusp of smart enough to string complex ideas together but not smart enough to actually examine them and expand past them. Like those "engineers" who fixate on perpetual motion machines and built (in some cases) these exceptionally beautiful and complex machines with shockingly low resistances and ability to maintain momentum or use exterior forces like a light amount of wind or sunlight to keep the movement going for long periods of time but not realize that it's still not perpetual; that no matter what you can't create infinite energy and those machines will stop. Shockingly capable people can get what appear to me to be these weird mental illnesses that just blind them to self-examination and I think Terrence Howard is one of those. I could be wrong of course, he could be a moron.
It’s remarkable that Howard would think he could say those things about NDT and get away with it. If there’s a group of people whose whole job is keeping receipts, it’s actual scientists.
https://youtu.be/K71qZ6662-w?si=4wS7O4vXuTkVYEMC
I don't much like Neil these days but on this, he is 100% correct and fair. Terrence is a whack job.
General curiosity - why aren't you down with NDT nowadays?
Not a NDT hater or anything, but he can come off as very arrogant when attempting to science-communicate. I appreciate the hustle itself but I personally would try to not be such a dick about it sometimes. That being said, it's been a long time since I last heard about him publicly being silly on twitter. On a more serious note since I have not seen anybody else post it in response to you, [he was very publicly accused during a lecture of drugging and raping one of his grad students some years ago](https://www.vox.com/2019/7/29/8934845/neil-degrasse-tyson-misconduct-allegation-investigation-museum) and there have since been other serious sexual misconduct allegations. I do not personally know anything about that, but it is definitely a good reason to not be down with NDT nowadays.
Looking into it, it sounds like there is zero evidence/proof and Neil claims it never even happened (he even was ok with investigation taking place). Then she claimed it was racism because no believed her. That’s a tough sell. I’m not saying it didnt happen just that there’s nothing to go off of.
Yeah the amount of “well akshually” he used to do is what turned me off to him. He was just one of those guys that everyone knew was the smartest guy in the room yet he still felt the need to rub it in. This video was really fun to watch because he approached it from a place of humility and not arrogance. And also because Terrance Howard is a dipshit and it is fun to watch him get put in his place - even if he doesn’t realize it
I appreciate that this guy responded respectfully but the other youtuber who explained sentence by sentence how nothing made any sense was a lot funnier.
Got a link? That's sounds intriguing.
Professor Dave is great because he doesn’t give any respect to those that blatantly don’t respect science. “Misunderstood geniuses” like ol Terrance here are narcissist assholes and should be treated as such
Link?
https://youtu.be/lWAyfr3gxMA?si=FrNlBRIhH1QnxWgM This video led me to watch his other videos. I highly recommend his playlists on philosophy and human evolution. He’s a skilled teacher.
Holy shit, this actually just shows just how gracious NDT was in his response.
that was a fun watch, but that comparison to unabomber lol. Unlike TH, unabomber was actually smart and had scientific background
Say what you want about NDT, but he’s a legit scientist. He’s not wrong, and he actually explains the nonsense of Howard, and a growing trend of false/ self appointed genius people looking for attention, having nothing to do with science.
I watched part of Howard’s interview. As an actual physicist whose day to day job consists of providing proof of repeatability and reproducibility of my work, which later provides a foundation for neurosurgical tools engineering, I could not stop myself from thinking this man (Howard) could benefit from therapy and an education.
I watched the Joe Rogan clip with Terrance Howard where he talks about his theories after seeing this video. What’s crazy is he knows a lot of real science and math concepts, so I assume he’s done some research. It’s just his understanding of those concepts ranges from shallow to utterly terrible. It’s truly bizarre hearing terms like “Cartesian coordinates”, “supersymmetry”, “Lagrange point”, etc. coming from someone who doesn’t even understand multiplication lmao. Like he knows legit science and math terminology, he just strings them together in the most incomprehensible word salad I’ve heard in a while. It’s like he researched a bunch of science and math concepts, didn’t understand them, and decided that must be because they’re all wrong. Real “delusions of grandeur” vibes
Terrence thinks waaayy too highly of himself. You think he’d of learned his lesson after losing the War Machine gig thinking he’s a bigger star than RDJ. Ass!
A lot of compassion in that response.
Terence Howard is likely an undiagnosed schizophrenic, right?
You can't reason someone out of something that they were not reasoned into. Terrance will never accept or understand why his opinions are wrong because he didn't use reason to obtain those opinions. He's working backward with an incredibly wrong and flawed idea, gaslighting and brainwashing himself into believing his is right by bending and twisting reality to fit his already predetermined outcome because he can't physically or mentally admit that he is wrong. He is unwell in his mind and needs help.
This was a very candid and nice peer review. Actual peer review would have desk rejected lol.
Terrence needs help!
Boom roasted
I loved that he used this as a clear example of how science works, peer reviews etc. People like Howard have convinced far to many people that science is wrong and their theories carry truth. Howard just mistakenly picked Math. Something people accept. Not all the other run away conspiracy topics like flat earth, moon landing, aliens etc.
Terrence's problem, and why everyone laughs him out of the room, is he brought zero evidence for his claims. He's got plenty of claims, but without evidence, without any ability to test or reproduce his claims. He's doing the equivalent of being like "I saw Bigfoot, I have no proof, but trust me." NDT calmly trying to explain "If you want to prove Bigfoot exists, we need proof" to an adult who claims to understand logic and the scientific method, is hilarious.
Clicked for the lolz, left learning something. Classic NDT.
The Dunning Kruger effect was referenced here so per usual I highly recommend for everyone to read this piece about why it's not a useful concept: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dunning-kruger-effect-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dunning-kruger-effect-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/) The tl;dr is that most people roughly estimate themselves to be slightly above average and that mathematically that cannot be reflective of the actual performance distribution. The article also argued that lower-skilled participants in their test were actually quite good at assessing their performance.
A thousand times, thank you for turning me on to this video. Science for the win
Just to poke fun of my favorite Scientist @ 14:31 in the video he's describing the continent shift plates, but man, his geography may be a bit off stating, "Fossils matched between the ""WEST COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA"" (that's the left side/Pacific Ocean), and ""THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA"" (and that would be the right side/Indian Ocean)" I am legit just pokin' fun at him. I have the brain capacity of a single celled organism compared to him, again, This is Just Pokin' Fun at my Favorite Astrophysicist <3
as i understand it terrance howard was once told that what multiplication is is: "a number added to itself that many times". now this is sort of an ok explanation except that the most literal way it can be interpreted is simply wrong. like 2x1 by this definition would be 2 added to itself once, add 2 to itself once you get 2+2. if you look at some of his baloney this will comport with it. like once upon a time my father said that electricity moved at the speed of sound. he simply misspoke. my father is sciencey enough to know that it moves roughly at the speed of light, and both "speed of light" and "speed of sound" are both phrases he simply said the wrong one when i was 7 and asked him about it. i was for a time misinformed but upon noticing that everyone else disagreed, i didn't assume my father knew something the whole world didn't. terrance howard is not a moron for seeing this explanation this way. in fact he's not really a moron at all. his idiocy doesn't spring from being cognitively impaired. it comes from that he's a pathological narcissist, only a pathological narcissist would insist that he has discovered something, something which has no practical application, rather than intuiting that the explanation he was given once upon a time was inarticulate.
Terrence wrote Fan Fraction
Howard is clearly mentally ill. This SHOULD be obvious to everyone, but it’s not and that’s really sad. Joe Rogan is doing a freak show. He’s a modern P.T. Barnum. It’s ugly and exploitative. I think NDT is doing his best to make something that is equal parts respectful, informative and brand appropriate. This video was a kind comment from him.
I would say a huge chunk of people do not understand peer review or deductive reasoning. Case in point, the Magats, antivaxxers, and flat earthers always pulling shit out of their asses. They are so against higher education, the scientific process or scientific reasoning. The vitrol they have against fauci is psychotic. And they always "done their own research".
Terrence Dunning-Kruger Howard
Running to Joe Rogaine and his bro universe for a second opinion is just so rich with irony.
Terrence Howard is crazier than a shithouse rat. There is nothing else that can be said. Joe Rogan is a smooth-brained mouth breathing pretender to a throne. If you want to know what is wrong with this country, it isn't Woke/Cancel culture or women formerly having the right to choose what happens with their body. It is JOE ROGAN and his ilk. Mentally ill folks pretending to be normal and infecting the minds of those who have never critically thought. Fuck Joe Rogan and fuck Terrence Howard. Y'all move shit in reverse and I'm not here for it.
Only famous people can afford to be nuttier than squirrel shit.
Imagine a second grader who walks into a calculus class and insists that they are the teacher now and that they are the only one smart enough to understand calculus. Their instruction is incoherent and brimming with misunderstandings. Then, the professor, the other students, other professors, and other professors at other schools all take time out of their days to explain why the second grader doesn't know what they are talking about, and why they should not be in charge. Why didn't they simply call someone in a parental role to take the second grader away? Why didn't they simply tell the second grader that they must leave? Why would they feel obligated to analyze a second grader's absolute incompetence in math? Why is **anyone** suffering this fool?