53 min listen
Skeptic Check: Check the Skeptics
ratings:
Length:
54 minutes
Released:
Oct 26, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
ENCORE One day, coffee is good for you; the next, it’s not. And it seems that everything you eat is linked to cancer, according to research. But scientific studies are not always accurate. Insufficient data, biased measurements, or a faulty analysis can trip them up. And that’s why scientists are always skeptical.
Hear one academic say that more than half of all published results are wrong, but that science still remains the best tool we have for learning about nature.
Also, a cosmologist points to reasons why science can never give us all the answers.
And why the heck are scientists so keen to put a damper on spontaneous combustion?
Studies discussed in this episode: Chocolate and red wine aren’t good for you after all The Moon is younger than we thought
Guests:
John Ioannidis – Professor of medicine, health research and policy, and statistics, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University. His paper, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False,” was published in PLoS Medicine.
Marcelo Gleiser – Physicist and astronomer at Dartmouth College, author of The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
Joe Schwarcz – – Professor of chemistry and Director of the Office for Science and Society, McGill University, Montreal and author of Is That a Fact?: Frauds, Quacks, and the Real Science of Everyday Life
First released June 16, 2014.
Hear one academic say that more than half of all published results are wrong, but that science still remains the best tool we have for learning about nature.
Also, a cosmologist points to reasons why science can never give us all the answers.
And why the heck are scientists so keen to put a damper on spontaneous combustion?
Studies discussed in this episode: Chocolate and red wine aren’t good for you after all The Moon is younger than we thought
Guests:
John Ioannidis – Professor of medicine, health research and policy, and statistics, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University. His paper, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False,” was published in PLoS Medicine.
Marcelo Gleiser – Physicist and astronomer at Dartmouth College, author of The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
Joe Schwarcz – – Professor of chemistry and Director of the Office for Science and Society, McGill University, Montreal and author of Is That a Fact?: Frauds, Quacks, and the Real Science of Everyday Life
First released June 16, 2014.
Released:
Oct 26, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
What Makes Us Human Part I: Others: Are humans unique or do we just do some things a little better than other species? In the first of our two-part series on the nature of humanity: how the influence of others has shaped our evolution. Find out how baby talk gave root to human... by Big Picture Science