He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.
In 2004, Muller graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Physics. Muller moved to Australia to study film-making; however, he instead enrolled for a PhD in physics education research from the University of Sydney, which he completed in 2008 with the thesis, Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education.
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.
To be fair some wet wipes are flushable (as in they disintegrate when flushed), the problem is that not all of them are and there’s no standard they have to adhere to, so even the ones that shouldn’t be flushed are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable.
No that’s literally the experiment that Derek did. He “showed” that the wet wipes “disintegrated”. What they actually did was break apart under a large weight he put on top of them. That’s not what happens in a sewage system. Along with that, unless they completely dissolve they will still cause issues as the broken up strands.
Unless you are a civil engineer you should not be deciding what goes in a sewer. And no one making wet wipes are civil engineers.
I haven’t seen his experiment and don’t really care what he did. Other independent experiments have shown that some wet wipes do disintegrate. The reason authorities recommend against their use is what I said: there is no standard for what constitutes “flushable” and the industry is rife with false advertising.
So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.
Let’s cover some of the bad science:
What is this 24 hour time limit for these wipes sitting in water? Clogs happen in sewage systems immediately, not 24 hours later. And it doesn’t even take that long for sewage to move through a proper system anyway, so any clogs would happen at the processing facility where they are worst, not in “twists and turns” like this guy says
He literally hides what happens to the toilet paper when he flushes it, but he didn’t hide it very well. You can see in later shots (like at 8:26 in the top right) that the toilet paper literally broke up by the time it made it to the concrete. That is how it’s supposed to work. The rest failed by the time they hit the concrete.
He shakes the mason jars before opening them, then claims it is to “simulate the twists and turns”. This dude is just lying out his ass. Do you know the number of turns before you get from a toilet to the street? It’s like 3. I think every toilet in my house actually only has 1 or 2, depending on which floor. Shaking these up is so badly messing with the experiment. And guess what! They’re still completely intact! But the toilet paper one he barely shakes and yet it’s completely dissolved.
And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.
Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.
Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.
He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.
According to Wikipedia
He himself claimed he’s not a scientist so /shrug
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.
To be fair some wet wipes are flushable (as in they disintegrate when flushed), the problem is that not all of them are and there’s no standard they have to adhere to, so even the ones that shouldn’t be flushed are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable.
No that’s literally the experiment that Derek did. He “showed” that the wet wipes “disintegrated”. What they actually did was break apart under a large weight he put on top of them. That’s not what happens in a sewage system. Along with that, unless they completely dissolve they will still cause issues as the broken up strands.
Unless you are a civil engineer you should not be deciding what goes in a sewer. And no one making wet wipes are civil engineers.
I haven’t seen his experiment and don’t really care what he did. Other independent experiments have shown that some wet wipes do disintegrate. The reason authorities recommend against their use is what I said: there is no standard for what constitutes “flushable” and the industry is rife with false advertising.
Here’s some plumbing YouTube guy testing a bunch of them and finding some that do disintegrate while others do not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVijZZ2yAtc
Of course the best option is a bidet, but this is as of yet unknown technology to most Americans.
So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.
Let’s cover some of the bad science:
And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.
Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.
Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.
There’s no standard they have to adhere to, but there are certifications you can look for that guarantee they break up properly.