He is correct: Having a Bachelor in science does not make one a scientist unless actively pursuing research. He has a solid science background but like many others with science diplomas, he’s not a scientist.
He is an entertainer, like all YouTube science channel figureheads unless their daily job is at a lab ( and even then: they are not necessarily talking about subjects they know well, science is a wide area of knowledge).
I’ll preface this by saying I don’t particularly like the direction the channel has gone. He’s sold out big time, as described by many comments above (both literally, by selling the channel to VC, and metaphorically, by selling out whole videos and the integrity of their content to advertisers as the Tom Nicholas video explains). And his ties to grifters like Colin Grey and Philipp Dettmer (of CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt fame) definitely don’t work in his favour.
But that said, I think this comment you made is a bit reductive. He has a PhD in effective science communication. He can legitimately claim expertise in communicating science to the public via YouTube in a way most popsci content cannot. Obviously not the same as doing scientific research himself, but he also doesn’t claim to be doing that.
Yup. I’ve got two main stories in evidence of it, but I’ll just share one here because the other is much longer.
Both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey were early members of the creator-owned streaming platform Nebula. Creators literally have an ownership stake in the business, and are paid out a slice of revenue based on their viewership.
But early on, when it was still taking the shape we know it in today, Grey and Kurzgesagt were members with an ownership stake. They left it a long time ago citing “creative differences” (or some vague nonsense like that). From little pieces that have come out on the rare occasions that existing Nebula creators have said something about it, apparently those two were less interested in the vision of Nebula as a place where multiple creators support each other in growing their collective revenue; instead they wanted to take more of a parasitic approach where they could profit off of the backs of other, smaller creators. Because the then-co-owners weren’t interested in that, Grey and Kurzgesagt ended up leaving.
I can share the other if you’re interested, but chiefly, it demonstrates that Kurzgesagt is deeply mistrusting, a quality known to map to mistrustful people, and it shows Dettmer behaving in a very dishonest way towards a fellow creator who went by Coffee Break (now Coffeezilla).
He is correct: Having a Bachelor in science does not make one a scientist unless actively pursuing research. He has a solid science background but like many others with science diplomas, he’s not a scientist. He is an entertainer, like all YouTube science channel figureheads unless their daily job is at a lab ( and even then: they are not necessarily talking about subjects they know well, science is a wide area of knowledge).
I’ll preface this by saying I don’t particularly like the direction the channel has gone. He’s sold out big time, as described by many comments above (both literally, by selling the channel to VC, and metaphorically, by selling out whole videos and the integrity of their content to advertisers as the Tom Nicholas video explains). And his ties to grifters like Colin Grey and Philipp Dettmer (of CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt fame) definitely don’t work in his favour.
But that said, I think this comment you made is a bit reductive. He has a PhD in effective science communication. He can legitimately claim expertise in communicating science to the public via YouTube in a way most popsci content cannot. Obviously not the same as doing scientific research himself, but he also doesn’t claim to be doing that.
Kurzgesagt are grifters?
Yup. I’ve got two main stories in evidence of it, but I’ll just share one here because the other is much longer.
Both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey were early members of the creator-owned streaming platform Nebula. Creators literally have an ownership stake in the business, and are paid out a slice of revenue based on their viewership.
But early on, when it was still taking the shape we know it in today, Grey and Kurzgesagt were members with an ownership stake. They left it a long time ago citing “creative differences” (or some vague nonsense like that). From little pieces that have come out on the rare occasions that existing Nebula creators have said something about it, apparently those two were less interested in the vision of Nebula as a place where multiple creators support each other in growing their collective revenue; instead they wanted to take more of a parasitic approach where they could profit off of the backs of other, smaller creators. Because the then-co-owners weren’t interested in that, Grey and Kurzgesagt ended up leaving.
I can share the other if you’re interested, but chiefly, it demonstrates that Kurzgesagt is deeply mistrusting, a quality known to map to mistrustful people, and it shows Dettmer behaving in a very dishonest way towards a fellow creator who went by Coffee Break (now Coffeezilla).