Science Fictions

Latest Episodes:

Episode 42: Election special Jul 02, 2024

Show notes

This 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 the past so that we can solve problems quicker in future? How can we apply this kind of mindset to subjects as diverse as science, medicine, technology, architecture, and infrastructure? Get some great ideas at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Ben Ansell’s book Why Politics Fails

* The polls that got Brexit wrong (but where online polling did better)

* The “Lizardman Constant”

* Stuart’s 2023 i article on whether it’s really true that 25% of British people think COVID was a “hoax”

* Recent-ish paper by Andrew Gelman on Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP)

* Examples of recent MRPs from the UK (and one from the US from 2020)

* The surprising utility of just using “uniform swing”

* The very embarrassing 2010 “psychoticism” mixup between conservatism and liberalism - which even has its own Wikipedia page

* Article on the replication crisis in political science

* 2017 article with examples of where political bias might’ve affected political science

* The Michael LaCour case, where a political scientist fabricated an entire canvassing study and got it published in Science

* Weirdly, even though the study was fake, the principle behind it does seem to be correct

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. We’re grateful to Prof. Ben Ansell for talking to us about polling. Any errors are our own.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Paid-only Episode 9: Viagra Jun 25, 2024

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com

There’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?

Episode 41: Criminal justice and forensic science Jun 18, 2024

Show notes

The 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 this episode looking into what happens when science meets the law.

Our favourite online magazine is Works in Progress - so it’s particularly pleasing that they’re the sponsors of The Studies Show. Works in Progress publish in-depth essays on underrated ideas to improve the world, covering the history and future of science and technology. Go to worksinprogress.co to read their entire archive for free.

Show notes

* UK man arrested for airport-related joke (2010); UK man arrested and punished (narrowly avoiding prison) for saying “burn auld fella, buuuuurn” upon the death of “Captain Tom” (2022)

* Simon Singh successfully sued by chiropractors (but then successfully appeals; 2010)

* Paper on the Italian criminal cases that helped fuel the anti-vaccine movement

* Jim Carrey campaigns against vaccines

* Tom’s 2018 New Scientist article on glyphosate and cancer

* 1995 article on the “phantom risks” of breast implants

* Helen Joyce on the Sally Clark case

* Tom’s 2024 Unherd article on “the dangers of trial by statistics”

* 2022 Royal Statistical Society report on the same topic

* How Bayes-savvy statisticians helped overturn Lucia de Berk’s conviction

* Gerd Gigerenzer on OJ Simpson

* 2022 philosophy paper on the issues with forensic science

* 2016 White House report on the gaps in forensic science

* Dror & Hampikian (2011) study on bias in DNA interpretation

* 2009 “Texas sharpshooter” paper on the rarity (or not) of DNA matches

* Useful 2023 review of human factors research in forensic science

* Interviews with 150 forensic examiners on potential biases in their work

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 40: Addiction Jun 11, 2024

Show notes

To 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 pin down the scientific definition of what turns out to be a strangely elusive concept.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, whose recent issue covers its usual mix of science, technology, and policy ideas to help with human flourishing. Read deeply-researched articles about prediction markets, gentrification, concrete, and drink-driving policy at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Addiction: A Very Short Introduction, by Keith Humphries

* And his Atlantic article on how de-stigmatising drugs could be a mistake

* Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and How to Spend it Better) by Pete Etchells

* Scotland’s unbelievably bad drug problem in one graph

* Theodore Dalrymple on Samuel Taylor Coleridge

* And another historical case: The Rugeley Poisoner

* US physician referring to addiction as a “disease” in 1874

* And a German physician discusses “morbid craving” for morphine in 1875

* Made-up Victorian theories on the cause of addiction

* Useful Vaughan Bell article on “the unsexy truth” about dopamine

* Evidence that Parkinson’s patients still experience pleasure despite low dopamine levels

* Evidence that a majority of (UK) smokers want to quit

* The CAGE screening questionnaire for alcohol disorders

* On the 1980 letter cited in and discussed in Dopesick

* Marc Lewis’s Memoirs of an Addicted Brain

* A discussion and critique of the “Rat Park” experiments

* Paper on “Addictive Symptoms of Mukbang Watching” (this is real!)

* The jokey origins of “Internet Use Disorder”

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 39: Peanut allergy Jun 04, 2024

Show notes

Should 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 stuff besides, is now available at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Useful review article on the “diagnosis and management of food allergy”

* Analysis of UK NHS data on hospitalisations and mortality from anaphylaxis

* Two studies raising doubts about parents’ claims that their child has an allergy

* Recommendations on improving tests for food allergy

* 1998 UK Department of Health document recommending not to give children peanuts until 3 years of age

* 2000 American Academy of Pediatrics statement that broadly agrees

* Stuart’s 2023 i article on the controversy

* 2008 observational study comparing Jewish children in the UK (no peanuts) to Jewish children in Israel (lots of peanuts)

* …after which the advice in the UK is announced to be “suspended”

* The 2015 LEAP randomised controlled trial on peanut avoidance vs. peanut consumption in infants

* Follow-up of the same data to age 12

* BBC article about the follow-up

* Observational study from Australia finding no significant change in the prevalence of peanut allergy

* Paper arguing that if we want to see effects, we need to give peanuts to babies even earlier

* The EAT trial of food allergen exposure in non-high-risk infants

* Re-analysis of LEAP and EAT data to work out the best age to administer peanuts

* The PreventADALL study from Sweden

* 2019 article collecting examples of “medical reversals” from across the scientific literature

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 38: Lead and crime May 28, 2024

Show notes

Many 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 environment increases their propensity for crime when they grow up? And how strong is the evidence that lead removal (at least partly) caused the declining crime rate?

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress, the magazine full of new and underrated ideas for advancing science, technology, and humanity. They have a new issue out right now, which opens with a fascinating essay on the decline of drink-driving. Check it out at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Numbers on the US crime rate over time

* Evidence from Finland on IQ and crime

* The first study (to our knowledge) on the lead-crime hypothesis, from 2007

* Rob Verbruggen’s 2021 Manhattan Institute report on lead and crime

* Jennifer Doleac’s 2021 Niskanen Center report on lead and crime

* Paper focusing on 1920s/30s America and the impact of lead on crime

* 2020 Swedish paper on moss lead levels and crime

* 2021 PNAS paper on lead and personality change

* 2022 meta-analysis on the lead-crime hypothesis

* 2023 systematic review on the same topic

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Paid-only Episode 8: The science of Johann Hari May 21, 2024

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com

Johann 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 Times bestseller.

Episode 37: Lead and IQ May 14, 2024

Show notes

Petrol, 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 low-level lead exposure on IQ?

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, a journal of ideas to accelerate human progress. If you’re a student aged 18-22 and want to attend the Works in Progress “Invisible College” this August (at which Stuart is speaking), take a look at this link.

Show Notes

* Centers for Disease Control (CDC) page on lead poisoning

* Articles on the history of lead poisoning from the BBC and the Guardian

* 2022 PNAS study concluding that “half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood” (the one with the “824,097,690” figure)

* Article on blood lead levels and which are considered dangerous

* The 2005 meta-analysis on lead and children’s IQs

* Cited in the 2021 “Global Lead Exposure Report”

* The critique from the CDC in 2007

* The critique paper from 2013

* The critique paper from 2016

* The correction from 2019

* The critique paper from 2020

* Quasi experiments: from Rhode Island; using manufacturing employment

* 2018 paper on low-level lead and all-cause mortality

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 36: Vitamin D May 07, 2024

Show notes

Preventing 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 book launch in London on 16th May 2024! 📚

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine: the stylish, well-argued, data-packed place to read essays about science, technology and human progress. Find their latest issue at this link.

Show notes

* Rupa Huq MP’s article from during the COVID pandemic on how the government should be “shouting about Vitamin D”

* Huq and David Davis MP convince the government to recommend Vitamin D

* Stuart’s New Statesman article on why this was jumping the gun a little

* How Vitamin D regulates calcium and phosphorus metabolism in the body

* Might it slow tumour growth? Or prevent cardiovascular disease? Evidence from rats

* Observational studies on how Vitamin D levels are related to: depression, cognitive impairment, cancer rates, cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality

* Review paper claiming widespread deficiency in Vitamin D

* Scientific American article including discussion of the confusion over what it means to be “deficient” in, and/or have an “insufficiency” of Vitamin D

* 2019 paper reporting results from the VITAL trial on cancer and cardiovascular risk

* D-health trial results on cancer risk and cardiovascular risk

* From the D-health trial, papers reporting no effect of Vitamin D supplementation on: cognitive impairment, depression, microbiome diversity, telomere length, hypothyroidism, erectile dysfunction, falls, fractures

* Classic xkcd cartoon on false-positive jelly beans

* 2022 Nature Reviews Endrocrinology review on the (lack of) evidence for the effects of Vitamin D beyond bone-related problems

* Story of UK man who died of a Vitamin D overdose

* Vitamin D and COVID: the promising observational study; the null trial

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 35: The loneliness epidemic Apr 30, 2024

Show notes

We 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 is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. Click here to see the latest issue, packed with essays on YIMBYism, clinical research, Russian history, railway tunnels, and more.

Show notes

* The US Surgeon General’s report into “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation”

* Articles on the loneliness epidemic from the BBC, NPR, the BBC again, the New York Times, the New York Times again, and Science magazine

* 2023 article in The Times (London) that makes the 15-cigarettes-a-day comparison

* The 2017 Jo Cox report on “Combatting Loneliness”

* 2010 meta-analysis of social relationships and mortality risk

* American Time Use Survey, 2003-2020

* Meta-Gallup poll from 2022 on “The Global State of Social Connections”

* Are US older adults getting lonelier (2019 study)? What about “emerging adults” (2021 meta-analysis)?

* Comparison between younger-old people and older-old people on their loneliness levels

* 2017 review study on the health effects of loneliness

* 2023: systematic review no.1, systematic review no.2, both into the effects of loneliness on health

* 2005 study on the health effects of smoking tobacco

Credits

* The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

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