Reddit and What I Found There

I didn't think it was humanly possible for me to love Reddit anymore than I did already, but in exploring forums related to biology and health I discovered fantastic new sources of information, discussions, and news. I spent a lot of time on the biology forum on Reddit, which is where I will be drawing my responses from.

Guo, David. "Reddit-logo". 1/30/2016 via Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Generally, Reddit is a place for questions, discussions, reviews, complaints, music, links, articles, and many, many more resources. On the biology forum, most of the posts were external articles, open discussions, and specific questions. Similarly to the rest of Reddit, people share their ideas informally and the majority of posts spark debate from the community.

This post in particular struck my interest. As an undergrad biology student myself, I love to see someone I can relate to asking questions of the biology community on Reddit. Though the actual question itself is not as relevant, the responses and the discussion that ensues encompass the site's helpful and discussion-based environment. The way the responders and the original poster interact to problem solve is fascinating to me, and I am confident that Reddit possesses a wealth of information if used properly.

Secondly, I came across this article, linked from the biology forum. Again, I am not particularly interested in the specific topic of the article. What drew me in was the fact that Reddit, a community-based site, is a recipient of this kind of information.

To expound, errors in studies are not extremely common, especially in those that have been refined and confirmed as intensely as this one. In addition, I thoroughly enjoy when people are able to admit when they are wrong, especially in the science and health fields, as I believe that acknowledging errors in this context will lead to new, more correct information.

Overall, from experiencing Reddit, my views on people in the biology community did actually get altered. As previously mentioned, admitting you are wrong in the world of science is an admirable feat, and I would not expect that from the majority of humans. Also, I was glad to see that the forum was not entirely composed of professors and doctors, but also of students like myself seeking help or advice from those more knowledgeable than themselves.