The Studies Show

Nov 18 2024 75 ep. 50 mins 650

The Studies Show Podcast artwork

A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie

www.thestudiesshowpod.com

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Episode 56: Water fluoridation and dentistry

Nov 18 2024 62 mins

Is 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

Paid-only Episode 14: Adult ADHD

Nov 11 2024 11 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.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,

Episode 55: Government science funding

Nov 04 2024 52 mins

In 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 yo

Episode 54: Halloween special on psychic mediums

Oct 28 2024 69 mins

WoooOOOOOoooOOOOOoooo, it’s that time of year again! It’s Halloween, so it’s time for The Studies Show hosts to face their fears, and read the research from one of the weirdest areas of science, parapsychology.This time it’s all about psychic mediums. What does it mean to test whether someone can talk to the dead? Are we any better at doing it now than we were 100 years ago

Episode 53: The Stanford Prison Experiment

Oct 21 2024 72 mins

Philip 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

Paid-only Episode 13: Surrogacy

Oct 14 2024 11 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.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 th

Episode 52: Very old people and "Blue Zones"

Oct 07 2024 61 mins

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 demogra

Episode 51: Antimicrobial resistance

Sep 30 2024 50 mins

There 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 com

Episode 50: Toxoplasma

Sep 23 2024 68 mins

Been 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

Paid-only Episode 12: Jonathan Haidt vs. social media

Sep 16 2024 11 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.comA 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 currentl