The Studies Show

Mar 03 2025 89 ep. 51 mins 688

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 66: Superforecasting

Mar 03 2025 75 mins

Whether 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 ma

Episode 65: Havana Syndrome and mass hysteria

Feb 24 2025 52 mins

Beginning 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�

Paid-only Episode 17: The lab leak hypothesis

Feb 17 2025 10 mins

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

Episode 64: IQ

Feb 10 2025 74 mins

Every 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 be

Episode 63: Philosophy of science

Feb 03 2025 70 mins

It 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 int

Episode 62: Violent videogames

Jan 27 2025 64 mins

Before 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

Paid-only Episode 16: Recycling

Jan 20 2025 11 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.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 61: Conflict of interest

Jan 06 2025 67 mins

We 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.

Un-paywalled: Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review

Dec 30 2024 75 mins

This week, as a gift for New Year’s Eve, we’re opening up a previously-paywalled episode so that everyone can listen. It’s our episode from April 2024 on “Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review”. Since the show notes were previously behind the paywall, they’re copied below.If you’d like to listen to all our paywalled episodes—which are of course ad-free, like this

Episode 60: Best and worst science of 2024

Dec 23 2024 65 mins

In 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,