Since the creation of this website, I intended to give a selection of links that I find interesting. Therefore, I have created the “links” section. As I do not want to give a list without more element, each link will be published along with a presentation article. This article being the first one to present a link. Also, as while I write this my first video review is being shot, this gives me the opportunity to clearly show that the website is not at all abandoned.
The first link I propose leads to Bruce Benamran’s e-Penser, which proposes videos of general scientific popularisation. Though they are French speaking videos, several of them have English subtitles.
I have already mentioned e-Penser. This is essentially a science popularisation Youtube channel, one of the pioneers of the French-speaking web. The videos are really educational, and if one does not know the topics discussed in them, I think they give a fairly good general vision without being really misleading. The videos often contain well done animations, they greatly contribute to the quality of the presentations – there are even some that I would like to borrow on the occasion.
Of course, we all have our limits, me included. Bruce Benamran, being a human being, has his owns. He sometimes made some inaccuracies, even some errors. He has already reported some of them. That said, this does not usually lead to erroneous ideas. He also often uses analogies, what I am quite cautious about, because analogies come with some ideas that do not correspond to phenomena for which they serve as an analogy.
Furthermore, Bruce Benamran made a running gag about Aristotle, mocking the positions of the latter on the various topics he presents. The gags make me laugh. However, it is a bit simple since Aristotle’s system has now been completely invalidated. But, as I have already indicated, what is important with this system is not that it has been invalidated. Moreover, this leads to make anachronistic reproaches to Aristotle. Especially, in my view, this is indicative of an aristocratic vision of science, which is considered to make progress through a series of eureka from some individuals with higher understanding. Bruce Benamran is neither the first nor the only one to convey this vision. However, I consider this is a wrong way of thinking, as science rather continuously advances through constant collective search for errors, and by correcting them. In this blog, I try to present how research work is made with a point-of-view I think is closer to the way it is done internally.
These few reservations should not lead you astray: I really advise you to watch his videos, they are really worth seeing. It is because I take him seriously that I wanted to present both the qualities and the limits I find in him.
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