Shows
Science FictionsUnpaywalled: Jonathan Haidt vs. social mediaHello everyone! We weren’t able to record a podcast this week, because 1) Stuart was busy and 2) it’s Tom’s birthday. So by way of apology we’re re-releasing this one about some drama last year between Jon Haidt, sworn enemy of smartphones, and some guys who like meta-analyses. Hope you enjoy it!A while back, The Studies Show covered the question of whether smartphones and social media cause mental health problems. Amazingly, that podcast didn’t settle the issue, and the debate has continued—and continued rather acrimoniously.Psychologists—most notably Jonathan Haidt—are currently la...
2025-11-2600 min
Science FictionsEpisode 80: Mindfulness meditationPay attention. Focus on your breathing. Live in the moment. Accept yourself. Do you have a self? Focus on that self. And so on. This is, of course, the practice of mindfulness meditation, which seems to be everywhere: in schools, at work, in apps, and all over the scientific literature.Do any of the claimed effects of mindfulness meditation (relieving your depression! Changing the structure of your brain!) actually add up? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart focus calmly, serenely, and gratefully on their own thoughts, and then find out.The...
2025-07-291h 04
Science FictionsEpisode 78: Worm wars and mouth bacteriaSeconds out! Round one! Ding ding! And other boxing terms. We’ve found a topic on which Tom and Stuart actually disagree. Kind of. In this episode of The Studies Show, they use the examples of “the worm wars” (does deworming kids in developing countries help them stay in school?) and a new craze for “tooth bacteria” (can colonizing your mouth with a genetically-modified bacterium stop you getting cavities?) to argue about how we should make our minds up about uncertain—but potentially promising—medical treatments.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. On t...
2025-07-151h 15
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 21: Psychological sex differencesThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comInspired by a new Nature paper on how the “maths gap” emerges between girls and boys in school, Tom and Stuart look into the evidence for psychological sex differences: in maths, in mental rotation, and, yes—in whether they like pink or blue.To listen to the full episode and read the show notes, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber at www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe.
2025-07-0810 min
Science FictionsEpisode 77: Anti-ageing, part 1Whether it’s people giving themselves goat blood transfusions in an effort to maintain their youth, or yet another influencer telling you to buy XYZ miracle supplements, anti-ageing is big business. In the first part of what will surely become a longer Studies Show series, Tom and Stuart look at the evidence for a few supposed “breakthrough” treatments that can slow down ageing: rapamycin, metformin, winding back the epigenetic clock, and calorie restriction.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. This week we talked about their new article on “through running”...
2025-06-241h 05
Science FictionsEpisode 76: The four-day weekWould you like to do 80% of your current job but for 100% of the pay? Well, of course you would. But would it be good for the economy? It’s been suggested that companies who move to four-day working weeks have happier, less frazzled employees and no noticeable loss in productivity. Some people even claim their productivity goes up!In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart explore the theory and the evidence on the four-day week. There are some ridiculously overblown claims here, but is there any realistic stuff left over?The Studies Sh...
2025-06-1749 min
Science FictionsEpisode 75: Broken windows theoryWe all hate “urban decay”—graffiti, litter, boarded-up buildings. But does urban decay cause crime? That’s the premise of the “broken windows” theory: seeing a dilapidated and poorly-maintained physical environment emboldens criminals.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the history of, and the evidence for, broken windows theory. The theory has inspired social psychologists, criminologists, and others to do an awful lot of studies—and as we’ll discover in this episode, it seems to have inspired scientists to commit a few crimes themselves…The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in...
2025-06-101h 14
Science FictionsUn-paywalled: Bicycle helmetsHello everyone! Thanks to Tom’s holiday and Stuart’s job we weren’t able to record this week, so we’ve put out a classic paid episode to tide you over. We hope this goes some way to scratching your Studies Show itch.Most people think it’s obvious that you should wear a helmet when cycling. It might save your life if you fall off and hit your head. Duh.But over the years, many contrarian arguments have pushed back against this seemingly-obvious point. What if people engage in “risk compensation”, where they cycle more dan...
2025-06-0455 min
Science FictionsEpisode 74: NeurogenesisCan adults still grow new neurons in their brains? You’d think we might know the answer to the question of adult “neurogenesis” after more than half a century of neuroscience research. But it turns out we don’t.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the suprisingly controversial question of adult neurogenesis. Are you “stuck with” the number of brain cells you had as a child, or can you add to that number by making the right choices as an adult? And does it even matter?This podcast is brought to y...
2025-05-281h 06
Science FictionsEpisode 73: Borderline Personality DisorderDo you know anyone who has extremely intense relationships—one minute totally in love with someone; the next, flying into a rage and calling them the worst person ever? It’s possible that they have borderline personality disorder.Whatever that is. What is a “personality disorder”, anyway? How is one diagnosed? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss a disorder that gets a lot of attention online, but which seems pretty tricky to define. And it’s somehow both surprising and entirely predictable that Tom relates this disorder back to his favourite topic: the Revere...
2025-05-201h 03
Science FictionsEpisode 72: Parenting (Part 1)The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is this week! Friday 9 May, Conway Hall, London, 8pm. Get your tickets AT THIS LINK or at bit.ly/tss_live. Welcome to a new series of The Studies Show, all about parenting. We’ll cover the weird claims, fads, and controversies about how you should raise your kids.In this first episode, which focuses on infancy, we cover some feeding-related topics (an update on breastfeeding, the question of sterilising baby bottles, and the idea of baby-led weaning) as well as “tummy time” and sleep training. Are an...
2025-05-061h 17
Science FictionsEpisode 71: The autism epidemicThe Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is next Friday, 9th of May, at Conway Hall in London. Get your tickets right HERE! Or go to bit.ly/tss_live. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can’t be wrong about literally everything, can he? His latest controversial statement is that he wants to find the “environmental exposure” that has been causing the huge spike in autism rates over the past few decades.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into whether there really is an autism epidemic in the first place—...
2025-04-2954 min
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 19: CircumcisionThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comSome scientific controversies are quite surprising (why would the shape of the Earth be controversial, for example?). But some aren’t. The controversy surrounding circumcision—which involves disputed medical science, bodily autonomy, children, disease, religion, sex, tradition, family, and, of course, genitalia—is about as fiery as it gets. In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the very sensitive issue of circumcision, covering the health benefits or lack thereof, the alleged risks, and the unbeli...
2025-04-2210 min
Science FictionsEpisode 70: Bird fluDon’t forget THE STUDIES SHOW LIVE—on 9 May in London! You can buy tickets at this link, or by going to bit.ly/tss_live.What’s going to be the next pandemic? For a long time you might’ve seen news stories about the current threat of H5N1 bird flu, but you probably haven’t paid much attention. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try and work out how worried we should be. Are COVID-scarred people freaking out over nothing? Or are we at the start of something much scari...
2025-04-1555 min
Science FictionsEpisode 69: Conspiracy theoriesWhile you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take.If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, awake!…or so said William Shakespeare—about whom there are quite a few conspiracy theories, now we come to think of it. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart do their best to waken you from your own slumber and open your eyes to the psychology of conspiracy theories. Why do people believe them? How do you even define a conspiracy theory? And is there anything we can do to s...
2025-04-081h 10
Science FictionsEpisode 68: CannabisThe Studies Show LIVE! Get your tickets for our live show in London on Friday 9 May at this link.Blaze it up! It’s time for an episode on cannabis. And just to be clear, not “on cannabis”, but “on, as in about, cannabis”. What’s the evidence that this incredibly popular drug will lower your IQ? What about the question of whether it causes psychosis?In this toked-up episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try to find out—and gracefully refrain from any “drug humour” while doing so.The Studies Show is brought to...
2025-04-011h 02
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 18: AbortionThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comAs if the basic “pro-life vs. pro-choice” issue wasn’t controversial enough, there’s been a decades-long scientific debate on the impact of abortion on mental health. Does getting an abortion cause a lifetime of depression? Or do most women think that in retrospect it was the correct choice?As it happens, this issue opens up some massive questions about meta-analysis, bias, and the impact of legal threats on science. Tom and Stuart discuss them in this paid-only episode of The S...
2025-03-2510 min
Science FictionsEpisode 67: Seed oilsRobert F. Kennedy, Jr. thinks that seed oils—like sunflower or soybean oil—are causing terrible damage to people’s health. And now he’s the US Health Secretary (wait, what?!) we should probably take him seriously.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart trace the origins of the idea that seed oils are uniquely unhealthy, and look at all the best evidence from randomised trials on whether it’s remotely true.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, where you can find detailed, beautifully-written essays on technology and progress...
2025-03-1157 min
Science FictionsEpisode 66: SuperforecastingWhether it’s the 1903 New York Times article that claimed a flying machine was ten million years away, or the record executive who (allegedly) told the Beatles in the early 1960s that guitar bands were on the way out, predictions are hard.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the psychologist Philip Tetlock’s research on superforecasters, the people who make the most accurate predictions of all. Even if you can’t become a superforecaster yourself, it turns out there’s a lot we can learn from them about how to form beliefs—and how to...
2025-03-041h 15
Science FictionsEpisode 65: Havana Syndrome and mass hysteriaBeginning in 2016, diplomats at the US Embassy in Havana started reporting strange concussion-like symptoms, even though they hadn’t taken a blow to the head. Some claimed they’d been the victim of a mysterious “sonic weapon”, aimed at them from somewhere outside and accompanied by a loud, high-pitched noise. Several scientific papers followed that appeared to confirm they’d been attacked. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tell the whole story of Havana Syndrome, and dare to touch on the highly controversial theory that the symptoms might’ve been the result of mass hysteri...
2025-02-2552 min
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 17: The lab leak hypothesisThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIt’s been five years since the start of the COVID pandemic (yes, you read that correctly—five years). And the debate still rages online—did the virus come from a wet market, maybe via a pangolin, or from a gain-of-function experiment in a biolab?In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart cover the lab leak hypothesis, and talk about what it means for how people should make their minds up about scientific controversies.To h...
2025-02-1810 min
Science FictionsEpisode 64: IQEvery so often there’s a controversy related to IQ. The latest was caused by [checks notes] the new Vice President of the US attacking the IQ of a political podcaster on Twitter.You could argue that the VP should have better things to be doing. But Tom and Stuart certainly don’t, because they’ve recorded a whole episode of The Studies Show on the science of IQ. Hasn’t IQ been debunked as a measure? Does anyone take it seriously in 2025? Doesn’t an IQ test only tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests...
2025-02-111h 14
Science FictionsEpisode 63: Philosophy of scienceIt had to happen eventually: this week The Studies Show is all about philosophy. As we look at science in general, how do we decide what those studies are actually showing? Tom and Stuart take a look at the Big Two of philosophy of science: Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, with their respective theories of falsificationism and paradigm shifts. Both are theories that almost everyone interested in science has heard of—but both make far more extreme claims than you might think.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, the best place to...
2025-02-041h 10
Science FictionsEpisode 62: Violent videogamesBefore the panic over social media—but after the panic over “video nasties”—was the panic over violent videogames. Was Pac-Man causing little Johnny so much frustration that he’d take it out on his siblings with his fists? Was Doom secretly training little Timmy to be a school shooter?You don’t hear so much about videogames and violence any more, but if you look at the studies (and the critiques of those studies) there’s a lot to learn about where science can go wrong. In this episode of The Studies Show—in addition to, if we’re honest...
2025-01-281h 04
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 16: RecyclingThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIs recycling worthwhile? Is sending your rubbish to landfill actually so bad? Grab your cotton tote bag and join Tom and Stuart as they look at the evidence—and the intense political debate and even conspiracy theories—over the surprisingly controversial topic of recycling.This is a paid-only episode, and to hear the whole thing (and read the show notes), you’ll need to become a subscriber to The Studies Show. Find out how at www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe.
2025-01-2111 min
Science FictionsEpisode 61: Conflict of interestWe want scientists to be paragons of objectivity. At the very least, we want them to tell us who’s paying their bills. But it turns out that in some fields of research, the norms about reporting financial conflicts of interest are all over the place. Scientists making big money from after-dinner speeches about their research often don’t think it’s at all relevant to disclose.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the evidence on how funding affects the outcomes of scientific research—and discuss whether scientists need to be a lot mo...
2025-01-061h 07
Science FictionsEpisode 60: Best and worst science of 2024In this final episode of 2024, Tom and Stuart talk about the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the year… but temper it with some of the worst episodes of scientific fraud and misconduct, too. Then, just as a bonus, they address some of the biggest errors made in episodes of The Studies Show in 2024, too.Thank you so much for listening in 2024. If you aren’t one already, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the podcast and get access to all the episodes. In any case, we’ll see you for more The Studies Show in the Ne...
2024-12-241h 05
Science FictionsEpisode 59: The apocalypseIn this “fun”, festive episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss two ways—one man-made, one natural—that our species might be wiped off the planet.The first is “mirror life”, a science-fiction-sounding threat that hardly anyone had heard of until last week, when a group of concerned scientists wrote an open letter arguing that this is a technology that should never be developed. The second is the eruption of a supervolcano, which has a scarily high likelihood of happening in the next century… and for which scientists say we’re “woefully underprepared”. Have a cheery Christmas!
2024-12-171h 04
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 15: Sex and sportThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comRather unexpectedly, the idea of separate sports for males and females has become massively controversial—a major flashpoint in the culture wars, and even in the recent US election.So what does the evidence say? Is it fair if trans women (who are biologically male) compete with females in sports like swimming, or even boxing? How much sporting performance does a lifetime of testosterone grant you? In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and (confirmed sport-hater) Stuart lo...
2024-12-1010 min
Science FictionsEpisode 58: PsychopathyPatrick Bateman. Hannibal Lecter. Ted Bundy. The guy who used to live downstairs from me. Psychopaths, every one. Except defining psychopathy, let alone measuring it, turns out to be surprisingly controversial among psychologists and forensic scientists.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the latest attempts to define and model psychopathy, the evidence on the questionnaires used to measure it, and whether The Sopranos was right in saying that therapy only makes psychopaths worse.Our sponsor for the next month is GiveWell. They’re the org that helps you work ou...
2024-12-0357 min
Science FictionsEpisode 57: Collider biasAmong patients hospitalized for COVID, smokers had better outcomes. Among people with cardiovascular disease, those with obesity live longer. Among NBA basketballers, taller players don’t do any better. These are all facts. But the interpretation you might immediately draw is completely wrong.It turns out that these findings (and many more) might be due to the weird and under-discussed phenomenon of “collider bias”. Everyone who’s interested in scientific methods knows what a confounder is—but do they know what a collider is? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart attempt to explain.We’re...
2024-11-261h 00
Science FictionsEpisode 56: Water fluoridation and dentistryIs Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., just a big crank? Well, yes. But is he nevertheless correct in his specific claims about the harms of water fluoridation? It’s long been argued that it’s no longer necessary, and that it might have the scary adverse effect of lowering children’s IQs. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the evidence.While they’re at it, Tom and Stuart ask whether there’s evidence for several other dentistry-related claims. Regular check-ups; flossing; fillings; fluoride toothpaste—is your dentist just b**********g you about any or all o...
2024-11-191h 02
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 14: Adult ADHDThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comYou might’ve noticed it: a lot of celebrities have recently been talking or writing about their diagnosis of adult ADHD. The way they discuss it, as soon as they discovered they had ADHD everything made sense: their distractibility, their difficulties following instructions, their restlessness, and so on.But is adult ADHD a real psychiatric condition? How does it differ from childhood ADHD? And (whisper it) might some people actually be faking having ADHD? In this episode of The St...
2024-11-1211 min
Science FictionsEpisode 55: Government science fundingIn a desperate attempt to be relevant given the US Election, Tom and Stuart dedicate this episode of The Studies Show to talking about government investment in science. How bad is it if politicians cut the science budget? Exactly how much do you get back for every pound or dollar spent on science—and how is that even calculated in the first place?The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine—a journal of science, history, and technology that discusses the secrets behind human progress. You can read their published essays at worksinprogress.co...
2024-11-0552 min
Science FictionsEpisode 53: The Stanford Prison ExperimentPhilip Zimbardo, the psychologist who’s best known for running the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, died last week. That’s a good excuse to discuss his legacy: what did his famous experiment tell us about the power of the situation to make normal people commit evil and sadistic acts?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart go back to the original report of one of the most famous psychology studies of all time, and then see how the experiment is looking after more than 50 years of discussion and debate (spoiler: not good).The...
2024-10-221h 12
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 13: SurrogacyThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIt’s a constant source of online controversy: surrogacy. A “medical ethics” issue like this wouldn’t usually be a case for The Studies Show, except that science is often brought into the argument.Is it really true, as anti-surrogacy campaigners claim, that both the surrogate mother and the baby suffer serious physical and psychological problems, in large part caused by the traumatic separation after birth? In this paid-only episode, Tom and Stuart find out. To listen to the full epi...
2024-10-1511 min
Science FictionsEpisode 52: Very old people and "Blue Zones"What’s the secret of living to 100? Well, it might be living in a “Blue Zone”: one of the handful of places around the world where there are apparently loads of centenarians. Except, as has been argued recently, Blue Zones might be a load of nonsense.In this epside of The Studies Show, relative spring chickens Tom and Stuart look at some of the recent controversies in demography. Is there a limit to the human lifespan? Did someone really live 122 years? And how could researchers not have noticed the glaring problems with the whole idea of Blue Zones...
2024-10-081h 01
Science FictionsEpisode 51: Antimicrobial resistanceThere are an awful lot of things to worry about in the world. Are “superbugs” among them? That is, how worried should we be that bacteria will develop resistance to our best antibiotics, meaning infections will run rampant and even basic surgery is out of the question?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart wash their hands and then dig in to the evidence on the coming antimicrobial crisis. Exactly how many deaths can we expect from untreatable resistant infections? Turns out the question is, ahem, resistant to easy answers. (Sorry).The Stud...
2024-10-0150 min
Science FictionsEpisode 50: ToxoplasmaBeen feeling a little strange lately? A bit impulsive, maybe? Feeling a sudden urge to get a pet cat? Sorry to say it, but maybe you’re infected with a scary mind control parasite: specifically, the paraside Toxoplasma gondii.Or… maybe not. It turns out that, despite popular belief, the supposed behavioural effects of T. gondii are supported by very weak scientific evidence. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart explain.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. It’s the no.1 destination online if you’re interested in “Progress S...
2024-09-241h 08
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 12: Jonathan Haidt vs. social mediaA while back, The Studies Show covered the question of whether smartphones and social media cause mental health problems. Amazingly, that podcast didn’t settle the issue, and the debate has continued—and continued rather acrimoniously.Psychologists—most notably Jonathan Haidt—are currently laying into each other, analysing, re-analysing, and meta-analysing datasets to try and work out whether “it’s the phones”. In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart explain the story so far, and in the process get very disappointed by their heroes.If you want to hear the whole episode and re...
2024-09-1759 min
Science FictionsEpisode 49: Scientific publishingIt’s in a peer-reviewed paper, so it must be true. Right? Alas, you can only really hold this belief if you don’t know about the peer-review system, and scientific publishing more generally.That’s why, in this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart break down the traditional scientific publishing process, discuss how it leads science astray, and talk about the ways in which, if we really cared, we could make it better.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. Their new September 2024 issue is out now, and is...
2024-09-101h 16
Science FictionsEpisode 48: AlcoholOkay, it’s time to finally answer the question: is drinking booze good or bad? Is there really a “J-curve”, such that it’s bad to drink zero alcohol, good to drink a little, and then bad to drink any more than that? What exactly is the “safe level” of alcohol consumption, and why do the meta-analyses on this topic all seem to tell us entirely different things?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart get very badly intoxicated—with statistics.We’re sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. There’s no better place onlin...
2024-09-0355 min
Science FictionsEpisode 47: The 25 year old brainEveryone knows your brain hasn’t finished maturing until you’re 25. That’s so well-known, in fact, that some countries (like Scotland) have built it into their criminal justice system, giving lower sentences to under-25s—even very violent ones—on account of their immature brains.But in this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss what the evidence really says about when the brain matures—and the trickiness of linking important policy decisions to the science.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, who don’t just have their mag...
2024-08-271h 03
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 11: Sex educationThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comDid your schoolteacher also do the thing with the banana and the condom? It might’ve been cringe and awkward, but just ask the experts: the evidence is “clear and compelling” that sex education classes reduce the likelihood of teenage pregnancy, the transmission of STIs, and even the prevalence of sexual abuse.In this paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask the inevitable question: how “clear and compelling” are we talking, here? Those experts wouldn’t exaggerate t...
2024-08-2010 min
Science FictionsEpisode 46: The marshmallow testIt’s one of the best-known findings of psychology research: kids who can delay gratification by not eating a marshmallow will grow up healther, wiser, and more successful. But guess what? Later studies had trouble finding the same results. What do we actually know about delaying gratification?Get ready to control yourselves, because in this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tell the story of yet another famous psychological study that turned out not to live up to the hype.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. If you’re look...
2024-08-131h 12
Science FictionsEpisode 45: Air pollutionRemember when they were coming to take your gas stove away? Every so often a study about the effects of air pollution on health goes viral, and we’re reminded again that seemingly innocuous objects—like your kitchen cooker—could be bad for us in unexpected ways. How bad is air pollution? And is it getting any better?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the science of air pollution, trying to separate correlation from causality, and working out what scientists mean when they say that deaths are “attributable” to something (it’s more compl...
2024-07-301h 04
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 10: Misinformation, debunkedThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comWe all agree that misinformation is bad. So why do we cringe when we hear prominent scientists and commentators talking about “misinformation” these days?It’s because the public discussion on misinformation bears very little relation to what we actually know about it and its effects. Ironically, some scientists—misinformation researchers who should know better—are at the root of this confusion.In this epic-length, paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart take “misinformation” researchers to task for sp...
2024-07-2311 min
Science FictionsEpisode 44: AsteroidsLast week’s episode covered a man-made existential risk to humanity—nuclear war. But what about natural risks? Could there, right now, be a vast asteroid sailing through space that’ll collide with Earth, sending us go the way of the dinosaurs?In this rocky episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the data on how often we should expect civilisation-destroying asteroids to hit Earth - and what if anything we can do about it if one is approaching.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, the best p...
2024-07-1653 min
Science FictionsEpisode 43: Nuclear winterThe UK has a new Prime Minister, and one of his first acts will have been to write letters to the captains of our nuclear missile submarines, telling them what to do in the event that the UK gets obliterated by a nuclear strike. But what else might happen after a full-scale nuclear war? Many scientists—most notably Carl Sagan—have theorised that nuclear war would block out the sun, destroy crops, and maybe lead to human extinction. But it turns out this is a very controversial theory. In this rather grim episode of The Studies Show, Tom...
2024-07-091h 12
Science FictionsEpisode 42: Election specialThis week it’s the UK General Election, and lots of other countries either have elections coming soon or have recently voted. Lots of pollsters and political scientists have been attempting to predict the outcomes - but how successful will they be?In this Studies Show election special, Tom and Stuart discuss the various quirks and downsides of opinion polls, and ask how scientific political science really is. The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine - the best place online to find beautifully-written essays about human progress. How can we learn from th...
2024-07-021h 01
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 9: ViagraThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comThere’s one thing we know Viagra does very well. But what other uses does it have? Can it, as has now been claimed in three separate studies, prevent Alzheimer’s disease?In this priapic paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask if there might be something to the theory that, through some vascular mechanism, Viagra might slow the effects of dementia. Or is that all just a phallus… er, fallacy?
2024-06-2510 min
Science FictionsEpisode 41: Criminal justice and forensic scienceThe criminal justice system and science are both broadly looking for the same thing - the truth. But in many cases the two don’t mix well. Whether it’s court cases that attempt to decide the truth of a scientific dispute, or the use of fingerprints, DNA, or statistics by the prosecution in a murder case, a lot can go wrong - and there’s a lot at stake.Inspired by the recent discussion, or perhaps lack of discussion, around [a criminal case nobody in the UK can talk about for legal reasons], Tom and Stuart spend...
2024-06-181h 01
Science FictionsEpisode 40: AddictionTo be addicted to something, you’ve got to… er, actually, what does it mean to be “addicted” to something? We all agree you can be addicted to heroin, but can you also be addicted to videogames, or sex, or listening to podcasts? And actually, it turns out we don’t all agree you can be addicted to heroin - or, at least, people have very different models of what that means. In what is effectively an hour-long clarification of a throwaway comment in a previous episode, Tom and Stuart talk through the various aspects of addiction, and try to...
2024-06-111h 05
Science FictionsEpisode 39: Peanut allergyShould you avoid giving your child peanuts to ensure they don’t develop an allergy? If you’d asked medical authorities this question in the late 90s and early 2000s, you’d get an answer that’s completely opposite to what you’d get now.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the science behind the medical recommendations on peanut allergy - the remarkable story of a major scientific U-turn.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. Their latest article, about “advance market commitments” for vaccines and antibiotics and other stuf...
2024-06-041h 04
Science FictionsEpisode 38: Lead and crimeMany Western countries, most notably the US, had a major decline in their crime rate in the 1990s. About 20 years earlier, the US had banned the use of lead in gasoline. Perhaps you wouldn’t think those two facts are related - but many researchers think this wasn’t a coincidence.After getting distracted and doing a whole episode on lead and IQ a couple of weeks ago, Tom and Stuart get to the subject they intended to cover: the lead-crime hypothesis. How strong is the evidence that the presence of lead in a child’s early enviro...
2024-05-2856 min
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 8: The science of Johann HariThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comJohann Hari is a journalist with an interesting past who has now written four very popular books on scientific topics (addiction, depression, attention, and obesity). Are those books any good?In this paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart—who have both written reviews of Hari’s books—discuss Hari’s career, his sudden emergence as a science writer, and exactly how many miles you need to travel around the world to ensure your book becomes a New York...
2024-05-2110 min
Science FictionsEpisode 37: Lead and IQPetrol, pipes, paint: they made a whole generation duller. That’s if you believe the research on the effects of lead on IQ. By interfering with neurological development, the lead that we used to encounter routinely has left hundreds of millions of us with a tiny bit of brain damage.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the toxic effects of lead - from very obvious, high-dose lead poisoning to the more insidious, low-level effects that have apparently held millions of people back. How strong is the evidence for the effects of lo...
2024-05-141h 04
Science FictionsEpisode 36: Vitamin DPreventing cancer. Curing depression. Single-handedly ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Oh, and something to do with your bones. Is there anything Vitamin D can’t do?Maybe the answer is: “quite a lot”. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the claims about the wondrous powers of Vitamin D supplements - and whether any of them have any decent evidence behind them. The whole story turns out to be a perfect parable for how to think about health research.📚Buy Tom’s book, Everything is Predictable, at this link! And join us at the b...
2024-05-0759 min
Science FictionsEpisode 35: The loneliness epidemicWe can all agree that being lonely is bad. But apparently, science shows it’s really, really bad. Indeed, being lonely is so dangerous to your health that its equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And it gets worse: we’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, meaning that the health of millions is at risk.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask two questions: is there actually a loneliness epidemic? And does it make sense to compare loneliness to something as bad for you as smoking cigarettes?The Studies Show...
2024-04-3054 min
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 7: Youth gender medicine & the Cass ReviewThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comThe evidence for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for young people with gender dysphoria is “remarkably weak”. That’s according to the Cass Review, a new in-depth report commissioned by NHS England.As you might imagine, the report’s conclusions have been somewhat controversial. In this paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart read through the Cass Report, consider the arguments of its critics, and try to put the whole thing in context.
2024-04-2310 min
Science FictionsEpisode 34: Does depression exist?Several previous episodes of The Studies Show have covered depression and treatments for it, but none have really considered what depression is. It’s time to do that. It turns out that some scientists have made serious critiques of the standard way of thinking about depression, and argue that we need a revolution in the way we measure it.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart take nothing for granted - they look into the idea of “latent variables”, read the studies critiquing the concept of a single, monolithic “depression”, and talk about what this all m...
2024-04-161h 02
Science FictionsEpisode 33: Probability (and Tom's new book)Everything is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World. That’s the new book—out on April 25 in the UK and May 7 in the US—by our very own Tom Chivers!In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart cover some of the historical sections of the book, and talk about where some of our basic ideas about probability come from (it turns out to be a weird combination of inveterate gamblers and Presbyterian ministers).The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress Magazine - the best place online to find deep d...
2024-04-091h 02
Science FictionsEpisode 32: MicroplasticsMicroplastics are everywhere: there are teeny-tiny plastic particles in your drinking water, your food, your air - and perhaps even in your internal organs. How worried should you be?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the research on microplastics, covering all the reasons that the health effects of microscopic particles are not straightforward to study. They also look in detail at a scary new study that apparently found, according to one headline, that microplastics “could raise [your] risk of stroke and heart attack”.Russian serfs! Railroad tunnels! Silkworms! The Zika...
2024-04-021h 00
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 6: Bicycle helmetsThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comMost people think it’s obvious that you should wear a helmet when cycling. It might save your life if you fall off and hit your head. Duh. But over the years, many contrarian arguments have pushed back against this seemingly-obvious point. What if people engage in “risk compensation”, where they cycle more dangerously because they know they’re wearing a helmet? What about if encouraging helments puts people off cycling so they miss the health benefits?In this...
2024-03-2610 min
Science FictionsEpisode 31: The trouble with meta-analysisWe all love to cite meta-analyses. They’re the review studies where scientists take every single piece of research ever published on a particular question, and then calculate the overall “true” effect across all of them. Putting together all those studies is a much better way to get to the truth… isn’t it?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart give a intro to meta-analysis, and then talk about several major problems with the whole idea. Is meta-analysis—relied upon for making so many important scientific decisions, and cited in so many of our previous...
2024-03-191h 09
Science FictionsEpisode 30: The origin of lifeDon’t worry, it’s nothing important this week - only the origin of all life on planet Earth. No biggie. Sure, life evolved by natural selection, but to get evolution going, you need to have life in the first place. So where did it come from?Scientists have theories about “abiogenesis” - the moment around 3.5 billion years ago when, having never existed before, biology began. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the theories, and some of the recent studies where scientists have tried to recreate the conditions that might’ve sparked se...
2024-03-1258 min
Science FictionsEpisode 29: Cognitive declineThe discourse has once again turned to a feverish discussion of cognitive decline. Which 2024 US Presidential candidate has it worse? What does that mean for the campaign and for the Presidency in general?In this episode of The Studies Show, your rapidly-ageing hosts look at some of the research on cognitive ageing and cognitive decline. What happens when you give cognitive tests to people of different ages? Do those tests actually matter? They then ask whether there’s a chance that the received wisdom about cognitive ageing is wrong, and that maybe they can hold onto their pr...
2024-03-051h 04
Science FictionsEpisode 28: Climate modelsRemember when the airwaves were full of people questioning the idea of man-made climate change? You don’t hear much from them any more - in large part becuase the evidence that our CO2 emissions are altering the climate has become so overwhelming.After a recap on how we know that carbon warms the climate, Tom and Stuart use this episode of The Studies Show to discuss climate predictions—er, I mean, projections—and how accurate they’ve been. They ask whether the media always gets it right when discussing climate (spoiler: no), and whether we should be optim...
2024-02-271h 04
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 5: The Hans Eysenck sagaThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comHans Eysenck was one of the biggest names in psychology. Was he also a scientific fraudster? Long after his death, allegations resurfaced about his late-career studies, which either contained some of the most impressive findings in medical history, were a terrible mistake… or were the result of something much more sinister.In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tell the shocking—and often darkly amusing—tale of Hans Eysenck and his enigmatic collaborator, Ronald Grossarth-Maticek. If you...
2024-02-2010 min
Science FictionsEpisode 27: ExerciseOkay, whether exercise is good isn’t really in question. But there are so many pseudoscientific myths surrounding sports and exercise that it’s always worth looking more closely at some of the claims.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into two widely-believed claims about exercise. First, does stretching your muscles before exercising actually help you in any way? Second, does exercise help alleviate the symptoms of depression? And then, they ask a bonus question inspired by the quality of the evidence on the previous two: why is so much of sports scie...
2024-02-1354 min
Science FictionsEpisode 26: PsychotherapyWhat treatment works best for people with depression? Is it psychodynamic psychotherapy, in the Freudian tradition, with its emphasis on hidden, unconscious desires? Or is it Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, based on more contemporary (and less, y’know, made up) ways of thinking about psychology? How do you even do a good study on something as complicated as psychological therapy, anyway?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom (ego) and Stuart (superego) talk about two recent reviews that summarise all the evidence on which kind of therapy works best - and find some results that surprise them bo...
2024-02-061h 07
Science FictionsEpisode 25: Is it the phones?Everyone seems to have decided that it’s the phones. That is, they’ve decided that heavy smartphone and social-media use is to blame for the current wave of mental illness, despair, and depression that’s affecting young people - teenage girls in particular.Except… we need to ask how strong the evidence is. What do the studies actually show about what’s causing the mental health crisis? And, wait - is there actually a mental health crisis to begin with? In this extra-long episode of The Studies Show (it’s a big topic after all), Tom and Stuart a...
2024-01-301h 20
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 4: Male and female brainsThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comEither there are massive differences between the brains of men and women, or there aren’t any notable differences at all - and people who think differences exist are “neurosexists”. It’s easy to find well-qualified scientists making each of these arguments. They can’t all be right. What’s going on? What do the biggest and best MRI studies of brain sex differences tell us? Do we know what causes them, or how they might affect our psychology? And what doe...
2024-01-2310 min
Science FictionsEpisode 24: PersonalityWhy do some people love parties and others prefer to stay at home with a book? Why do some people worry endlessly about all the bad things that might happen, while others breeze through life with supreme confidence? Why is Stuart such a nice guy and Tom far less so?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss personality and the personality tests that are supposed to measure it. They discuss whether it might be the Big Five or the Big Six, what measuring personality is good for, and whether “Grit” is even a thin...
2024-01-161h 03
Science FictionsEpisode 23: Statistical significanceIt’s mentioned on the podcast pretty much every week. But what does “statistical significance” actually mean? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart start 2024 off with the most exciting subject possible: p-values. THRILL as they discuss statistical misconceptions! MARVEL as they talk about how “effect size” differs from “statistical significance”! CHUCKLE as they resort to endless coin-flipping analogies! And GASP as they discuss ways to stop scientists from “hacking” their p-values and ending up with misleading research!The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine - an online magazine fu...
2024-01-091h 06
Science FictionsEpisode 22: Review of 2023We admit it: The Studies Show tends to be quite negative. We’re always complaining about low-quality studies, faulty reasoning, and bad science.Not this time! In this end-of-year special, Tom and Stuart discuss the good science news from the past year, covering all the coolest technologies and most life-saving medical advances from 2023.See you in 2024 - oh, and pre-order Tom’s book on Bayes!CreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this...
2023-12-2950 min
Science FictionsEpisode 21: Falling sperm countsEvery so often there’s a panic in the media: sperm count is declining! The human race is on the way out! New studies regularly appear that seem to support this idea. The recent book Count Down by epidemiologist Shanna Swan argued vociferously that the culprit is plastic pollution, which apparently releases endocrine-disrupting chemicals that ruin our fertility.Is any of that true? What do the meta-analyses, which try to gather together all the evidence on sperm counts over time, really say on this question? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask whether th...
2023-12-1959 min
Science FictionsEpisode 20: The microbiomeIf you were to list the top 5 most hyped areas of science right now, the microbiome would clearly be one. The collection of billions of microbes that live in our gut—and which are studied by collecting, er, “stool samples”—have been blamed for causing not just gastrointestinal symptoms, but even mental health disorders.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the microbiome: what’s the evidence that it contributes to all our ills? Can it really be the case that we can transplant blended faeces from one person to another and improve their heal...
2023-12-121h 02
Science FictionsEpisode 19: Science and politics“Science is political”. How could it not be? It’s done by humans, whose political biases will influence not just the topics they choose to study but also how they study them. But does that mean it’s fine for scientists to blatantly bring their politics into their work? Does that mean it’s okay for scientific journals to endorse political candidates?In this slightly unusual episode of The Studies Show (which doesn’t include very many actual studies), Tom and Stuart discuss the never-ending debate over where politics begins and ends in science, debate whether it’s possible for...
2023-12-051h 07
Science FictionsEpisode 18: Phonics and the reading warsTeaching kids how to read is amazingly controversial. Or at least, it was controversial until recently, when we achieved a proper scientific consensus that the best way to teach them is to use systematic phonics. This method has seen big successes here in the UK, and is helping thousands of children achieve proper literacy.…that’s the story, anyway. But how strong is that scientific consensus? What evidence do we have that systematic phonics is the best way to learn to read? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the work of a pr...
2023-11-211h 01
Science FictionsEpisode 17: Your shrinking attention spanThe thesis of Johann Hari’s bestselling 2022 book Stolen Focus is that tech companies—via the internet, smartphones, and social media—are wrecking our attention spans. Hari argues that Facebook, Apple, and all the rest, in their deliberate attack on our ability to concentrate, are doing huge damage to the human species.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart (whose microphone sounds a bit odd this week - sorry about that!) discuss the data on whether people’s attention spans are getting shorter, ask whether there’s evidence people are too distracted to finish tasks—such...
2023-11-141h 01
Science FictionsEpisode 16: Alzheimer's and the amyloid hypothesisWhat causes Alzheimer’s? The main theory is that it’s due to a build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain. But some scientists think that’s hopelessly wrong, and that a hidebound belief in the amyloid hypothesis is stopping us from finding a cure.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart talk about the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s, ask whether all the hype over the three recent Alzheimer’s drugs (“a momentous breakthrough!”) is justified, and look at some ways we could do better research on dementia.The Studies Show is supported b...
2023-11-071h 03
Science FictionsEpisode 15: Halloween special on parapsychologyWelcome to a very spooky episode of The Studies Show, on the topic of parapsychology. Tom and Stuart discuss telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and more, and look at some of the most recent attempts by scientists to show that these weird—and did we mention spooky?—psychic phenomena are real. Can it really be the case that studies claiming the existence of psychic powers get published in mainstream scientific journals? What does this mean for how seriously we take scientific journals? And is Stuart right that a parapsychology study published earlier this year might be the best psychology stud...
2023-10-311h 01
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 2: Long COVIDThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIf you catch COVID, what’s the chance the symptoms will last for months? And what’s the chance they’ll be so debilitating that they ruin your life? Different studies have given wildly different answers to these questions - in part because they define “Long COVID” in all sorts of different ways. In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try to work out what’s going on. How good is the research in this area? And, m...
2023-10-2411 min
Science FictionsEpisode 14: Scientific fraudWith major (alleged!) misconduct cases happening at some of the biggest US universities, scientific fraud has been in the news a lot recently. If you’re a scientist you’re supposed to be discovering the truth - so why do some scientists (allegedly - please don’t sue us!) just make all their results up?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss some outrageous instances of scientific fraud, and how they were discovered. They look at all the reasons a scientist might decide to break the rules and falsify or fabricate their data - and...
2023-10-171h 09
Science FictionsEpisode 13: Football and dementiaWe’ve all heard of football players (that’s “soccer players” for US listeners) tearing their hamstrings, spraining their ankles, and injuring their knees. But could all that heading of the football, whether or not it causes a concussion, be having a subtler but much more damaging long-term effect on the player’s brain?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart—the latter of whom, as you’ll discover, is not a massive fan of sport in general—discuss research on whether playing the nation’s favourite sport might lead to dementia in later life. If it does...
2023-10-1059 min
Science FictionsPaid-only Episode 1: Diversity trainingThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIf you’ve ever done a diversity training session at work, you’ll almost certainly have learned about unconscious bias, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and trigger warnings. Prejudice, racism, and trauma are apparently simmering constantly, just under the surface of our conscious minds.It turns out that each of these concepts has been subject to a lot of scientific research. It also turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that they’re all extremely controversial. In this first paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show...
2023-10-0310 min
Science FictionsEpisode 12: Nuclear powerNuclear power seems like exactly what we want: a reliable, low-carbon source of huge amounts of energy. So why does it produce less of our electricity per capita now than it did decades ago?A major reason: nuclear power suffers from very bad PR. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the ever-present safety fears surrounding nuclear power, the problems of nuclear waste, and the reasons that nuclear power is so drastically expensive. How many people died in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, anyway? Could new reactor designs fix some of nuclear power’s...
2023-09-261h 02
Science FictionsEpisode 11: The AI apocalypse debateIs artificial intelligence going to lead to the extinction of humanity? What would that even look like? Everyone’s got an opinion: mostly either “that sounds absolutely ridiculous” or “that sounds absolutely terrifying”.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart do something slightly different. Stuart plays the role of an AI apocalypse sceptic, and grills Tom on all the arguments about the coming AI apocalypse. Happily, Tom has already written a whole book on the subject, so he knows all the answers.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine...
2023-09-191h 10
Science FictionsEpisode 10: Cash transfersThinking of giving money to charity? Maybe you should give to a charity that does cash transfers - that is, gives the money directly to low-income people with no or minimal strings attached. Many in the “effective altruism” movement, which aims to find the best ways to spend money to improve people’s lives, are big fans of cash transfers to people in developing countries.But lately, some blockbuster studies on cash transfers have come under heavy criticism. Does this cast doubt on the whole idea? In this episode, Tom and Stuart look at these new studies, and th...
2023-09-1258 min
Science FictionsEpisode 9: The placebo effectIf you give someone a sugar pill but convince them it’s a real medicine, they might get better because of the power of belief. That’s the standard story, anyway. But as Tom and Stuart find in this episode, the more you dig into the science on placebo effects, the more you begin to doubt that the placebo effect is some innate bodily healing process that responds to beliefs. Instead, it might all just be due to mistakes and biases in the studies. Do we need to completely change the way we think about placebos?
2023-09-0558 min
Science FictionsEpisode 8: Growth mindsetIn any given school, you’re never more than 6ft away from a poster about “growth mindset”. It’s the massively-popular idea that if you believe that people can change, you’ll put more effort into a task (like studying) and end up doing better at it. On the other hand, if you have a “fixed mindset” and think talent is innate and unchangeable, you won’t put in the effort and you’ll fail to reach your potential.In this episode, Tom and Stuart talk about how the claims about the power of growth mindset have changed over the y...
2023-08-291h 05
Science FictionsEpisode 7: The LK-99 superconductor, and other physics false dawnsIf you were anywhere near social media at the start of August, you’ll have seen endless claims of a massive, world-changing breakthrough in physics: the LK-99 room-temperature superconductor.In this episode, Tom and Stuart—neither of them anything approaching a physicist, so caveat emptor—discuss what a superconductor is, why it would be exciting (or not) for it to work at room temperature, and ask why people online got so excited over claims that one had been discovered… when it actually hadn’t. The Studies Show is sponsored by the i, the UK’s best daily...
2023-08-221h 06
Science FictionsEpisode 6: Ultra-processed foodsWe’ve apparently found the culprit for the obesity epidemic, and it’s “ultra-processed foods”. They’re the plastic-wrapped, industrially-produced foods with long lists of ingredients that apparently make up 60% of the average UK diet.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tuck in to some “hyper-palatable” research on nutrition and health, discuss the main randomised trial in this area, and try (and immediately fail) to read out the whole definition of “ultra-processed foods” in one breath.The Studies Show is brought to you by the i, the UK’s best daily newspaper. You...
2023-08-1554 min
Science FictionsEpisode 5: Vaping, smoking, and popcorn lungSeemingly-reliable sources give you diametrically-opposed views on vaping. Are e-cigarettes “95% less harmful” than cigarettes, or aren’t they? Are vapes gateway drugs that lead people to smoke, or are they a great way to give up smoking? Is it both? Neither?In Episode 5 of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the research on the health effects of vaping and try to answer these questions - as well as explaining the origin of the fabled “popcorn lung”.The Studies Show is brought to you by the i, the UK’s best daily newspaper. For the next...
2023-08-0848 min
Science FictionsEpisode 4: Psychedelics and psychotherapyYou’ve surely seen the hyped news stories. Psychedelic drugs are no longer just for hippies and attendees at raves: they’re the new frontier of mental health treatment, revolutionising how we think about conditions like depression and PTSD and showing major promise in clinical trials.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into psychedelics and mental illness. They start by talking about why scientists think psychedelics might be relevant here - and it’s to do with the theory of the “Bayesian Brain”. Then they get into the studies, and point to some serio...
2023-08-0456 min
Science FictionsEpisode 3: Aspartame and the stupid list of things that cause cancerThe WHO’s cancer-research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has decided that the commonly-used sweetener aspartame “possibly causes cancer”. It’s been added to a long list of chemicals, activities, and occupations that are in some way carcinogenic. Apparently.But the list is really stupid. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask about the point of this list, when after all, the dose makes the poison. Is working a night shift as much of a cancer risk as using aloe vera skin cream? Does it even make sense to ask that...
2023-08-0154 min
Science FictionsEpisode 2: Breastfeeding - what the science actually saysEvery so often a new study appears that claims that breastfed children are smarter, healthier, or otherwise better off later in life than those who were fed baby formula.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into one recent such study, and ask what the research in general tells us about the apparently-dramatic effects of breastfeeding. Should you feel terribly guilty if you can’t, or choose not to, breastfeed your baby? Or is this an example of weak evidence being blown out of proportion?The Studies Show is sponsored by...
2023-07-2851 min
Science FictionsEpisode 1: Why is Ozempic so controversial?In this first episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the new wave of weight loss drugs (like semaglutide), and the weird, often irrational arguments that people make against them.“New, effective drugs will help people lose lots of weight and this is a good thing” doesn’t sound like it should be a controversial statement, but as this episode shows, it really is.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, the best place to find insightful essays on science, technology, and human progress. We’re very grateful for their su...
2023-07-2453 min
Everything Hertz89: Conflicts of interest in psychology (with Tom Chivers)We chat with Tom about whether psychology has a conflict-of-interest problem and how to best define such conflicts.
Links and other stuff we cover...
Tom's article on conflicts of interest in psychology
How can we define a conflict an interest without falling down a rabbit hole?
Communication statistics to the layperson
How science journalism focuses on single studies rather than the larger story
Tom’s new book: The AI does not hate you
Win Tom’s book! Tweet your favourite Hertz episode and we’ll pick one at random, who'll get sent Tom's book
How do journa...
2019-08-0559 min