Science Fictions

Latest Episodes:

Episode 77: Anti-ageing, part 1 Jun 24, 2025

Show notes

Whether 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”—the deceptively simple idea of not having trains stop at the edge of town and instead running them right through the centre. It seems obvious if you live in London, but it wasn’t always this way. Check out the article for a detailed, nerdy discussion about how we can make trains—and therefore citites—better.

Show notes

* New meta-analysis on rapamycin and ageing

* Website for Bryan “n = 1” Johnson and his related health claims

* Our World In Data on life expectancy and about the reasons why it increased

* Meta-analysis on methylation and the “biological clock” as a predictor of longevity

* The STAP stem cell debacle

* 2016 study using Yamanaka factors to slow down ageing in mice

* 2023 study of the same idea on wild-type mice, showing a 109% increase in life expectancy

* 2014 Scottish study on diabetes, metformin, and life expectancy

* Critical letter noting the study’s flaws

* Failed replication from Denmark in 2022

* The NIH’s Interventions Testing Program

* Older review of calorie restriction and ageing

Credits

We’re grateful to Andrew Steele for talking to us for this episode. 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 76: The four-day week Jun 17, 2025

Show notes

Would 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 Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. As of last week there’s a new issue of the magazine, and it’s full of the usual mix of remarkable historical, technological, and scientific topics (and sometimes all three together). Find it all completely free at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Pedro Gomes’ book Friday is the New Saturday

* The Chinese city considering giving everyone Friday afternoons off

* One of a few pro-4-day-week websites

* 2019 Guardian report claiming that Microsoft Japan increased productivity by 40% after implementing the 4-day-week…

* …and a World Economic Forum report claiming the same thing…

* …debunked by Microsoft Japan’s own press release

* Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days’ Work With Six Days’ Pay (from 1926)

* Evidence that after a certain point, extra hours become counterproductive

* 2023 UK trial into the 4-day week

* Four-year trial of the 4-day week in Iceland

* 4-day week trial (with control group) in Portugal

Credits

We’re grateful to Prof. Pedro Gomes for talking to us for this episode. 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 75: Broken windows theory Jun 10, 2025

Show notes

We 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 Progress magazine. In particular, it’s brought to you by this recent article on the world’s first electric grid, which is representative of the thoughtful, data-rich, well-written articles on human progress that you’ll find everywhere on the main site and its associated Substack.

Show notes

* Robert Jenrick confronts fare-dodgers on the London Tube…

* …and talks about “broken windows” in an interview afterwards

* The original “broken windows” article from The Atlantic in 1982

* Philip Zimbardo’s 1969 article, including the “Bronx vs. Palo Alto” study

* Diederik Stapel’s 2011 Science article on “coping with chaos”

* …and an article about him after his fraud was revealed

* The famous Keizer et al. study from 2008 (also in Science)

* 2014 article that’s highly critical of Keizer’s research

* 2017 failed replication of Keizer et al.

* Useful 2020 review article on the empirical evidence for broken windows theory

* 2018 Australian panel study on informal social control and crime

* Article arguing NYC had a major crime decline in the 1990s, but that it wasn’t through broken-windows policing

* Data on homicides in NYC by year

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

Un-paywalled: Bicycle helmets Jun 04, 2025

Show notes

Hello 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 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 March 2024 episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try to work out who’s right.

Show notes

* The original 1975 study on what’s become known as the “Peltzman Effect”: risk compensation (in this case about car safety)

* Potential evidence for risk compensation in AIDS

* Claims of risk compensation relating to mask-wearing at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic

* The eye-tracking study on helmet-wearing, which used the Balloon Analogue Risk-Taking lab task

* n=27 study on helmets and cycling with one hand on the handlebar

* Study on risk compensation with the following confusing structural equation model diagram:

* Academic cycles around and records thousands of cars passing him while he’s either wearing or not wearing a helmet

* Forbes article about the statistical controversy over these data

* Bizarre study on how motorists “dehumanize” cyclists

* Could helmets make “rotational injuries” worse?

* Cochrane review on cycle helmets and injuries from 1999

* Ben Goldacre and David Spiegelhalter on cycle helmets - “uncertainty… is unlikely to be substantially reduced by further research”

* Systematic review on helmet use and injuries from 2016

* Review of meta-analyses from 2023

* 2006 BMJ article finding “no clear evidence” that mandating cycle helmets reduces injuries

* Negative correlation between cycle numbers and helmet usage, across different countries

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 74: Neurogenesis May 28, 2025

Show notes

Can 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 you by Works in Progress magazine, which this week has a new article explaining why nuclear power is so expensive (spoiler: it relies on an incorrect scientific model that we’ve discussed in previous podcast episodes: the “linear no threshold” model. For a full explanation, along with articles on a dizzying array of other progress-related topics, take a look at www.worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Summary post on the debate by Scott Alexander from 2018

* 2000 PNAS study on the brains of London taxi drivers

* 2021 retrospective review of taxi driver studies

* Study comparing passed vs. failed cabbies on “The Knowledge”

* Study putting together neuroimaging research on when the brain peaks in volume and other measures

* 1962 Science study on neurogenesis in rats

* 1999 BrdU study in macaque monkeys

* Famous 1998 study on neurogenesis in the human hippocampus

* 2006 PNAS sudy on testing neocortical neurogenesis using Carbon-14 dating

* 2013 study using similar methods on the hippocampus

* 2018 Nature paper claiming no adult neurogenesis

* Associated commentary article

* Atlantic article describing the controversy by Ed Yong

* 2018 paper finding neurogenesis occuring up to age 79

* 2019 Nature Medicine paper claiming “abundant” adult neurogenesis

* Fair-minded 2019 review paper

* Somewhat angrier 2021 review paper

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. We’re grateful to Claire Wang for her help with researching this episode.

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 73: Borderline Personality Disorder May 20, 2025

Show notes

Do 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 Reverend Thomas Bayes.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. On their Substack newsletter, you can find different styles of articles that aren’t part of the main magazine, like this excellent walkthrough of nuclear power technology called “Nuclear Reactors for Dummies”. You can find that and much more at worksinprogress.news.

Show notes

* Mayo Clinic page on personality disorders

* NHS page on Borderline Personality Disorder

* Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2021 essay “It is Obscene”

* Tom’s Unherd article on this controversy

* 2009 paper on Dissociative Identity Disorder and its overlap with Borderline Personality Disorder

* Comparison of patients with DID and BPD, with a discussion of the overlap

* Pieces by people with BPD diagnoses who’ve regularly changed their dress/style

* Tom’s book on Bayesianism

* Sceptical article about top-down effects on perception

* Paper on the “predictive processing” theory of BPD

* Scott Alexander article on the same topic

* Twin study on the overlap between BPD and antisocial personality disorder, and potential sex differences

* Longitudinal studies on whether people “age out” of BPD

* People higher in “dark tetrad” traits are more likely to enjoy trolling people online

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 20: The Studies Show LIVE with Jesse Singal May 13, 2025

Show notes

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

Did you miss our live show last week? Good news if you happen to be a paid subscriber: we’re posting the audio in full. Listen as we’re joined by Jesse Singal from Blocked and Reported to discuss the strange “science” of Multiple Personality Disorder (or is it Dissociative Identity Disorder?), as well as digging into the methods of a deeply flawed paper on “top surgery” for gender-dysphoric youth.

To listen to the full show, and to read the show notes, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber at www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe.

Episode 72: Parenting (Part 1) May 06, 2025

Show notes

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 any of these good for your baby? Are any of them bad? Tom and Stuart look through the evidence.

Let us know which parenting-related claims you want us to look into as the series continues!

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. In their recent issue you can find out about surprising policy screwups, the latest fertility techology, the history of the pineapple, and why all that steam comes out from the roads in New York City. It’s all available for free at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Breasfeeding:

* 2024 meta-analysis of health effects of breastfeeding

* 2024 study from Uganda on “topping up” breastfeeding with formula milk

* Bottle sterilising:

* UK NHS advice on bottle sterilisation

* Advice from other countries/states: Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Alberta (Canada), Israel, Norway, Sweden, US CDC, Texas Children’s Hospital, France

* Lab research on germs passing from hands to bottles

* 2006 observational study on health and sterilising bottles

* Baby-led weaning

* 2017 review and discussion of the history of baby-led weaning

* 2023 Turkish randomised control trial

* 2017 report from the NZ “BLISS” study

* 2022 French Academy of Paediatrics statement on baby-led weaning

* Tummy time

* UK NHS advice on tummy time

* 2023 protocol for a randomised trial

* Very low-quality Indonesian study on tummy time

* Sleep training

* Weird 2012 “cortisol synchrony” study

* Debate about the measurement of cortisol

* 2020 study claiming no effects of sleep training on attachment; response 1; reply from the authors; response 2

* Emily Oster’s ParentData piece on sleep training

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 71: The autism epidemic Apr 29, 2025

Show notes

The 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—and if there isn’t, why the diagnoses might be going up so quickly anyway.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. This week we discussed the article from the most recent issue about the UK’s land value tax—a cautionary tale of a policy that might sound good on paper, but was utterly cursed in practice. Find this and so many more fascinating articles about human progress at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* RFK Jr’s latest claims about autism (and his plans to gather data)

* His statement “I believe autism comes from vaccines”, from 2023

* His “Children’s Health Defence” org from 2015

* CDC data on autism rates in the US

* And similar data from the UK

* A paper on the much lower rates in 1966

* “Early infantile autism” - the original 1944 paper by Leo Kanner

* Hans Asperger’s similarly-timed research

* And on his collaboration with the Nazis

* On “refrigerator mothers”

* Data from after the MMR vaccine was split in Yokohama, Japan

* The DSM-V checklist for autism spectrum disorder

* Scott Alexander’s controversial piece “Against against autism cures”

* 2023 paper on the prevalence of profound autism

* Article on the growing waiting lists for autism diagnoses

* More details on the same

* 2022 paper on the genetics of autism

* Article on rates of extra time in exams in the UK

* Adam Hunt’s post about Renée Thornton, hot-air balloonist

* The Economist’s Bagehot column on the “tyranny of turning up”

* Underdiagnosed autism in girls

Credits

We’re grateful to Adam Hunt for talking to us about psychiatric diagnoses for this episode. 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 19: Circumcision Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

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

Some 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 unbelievably bitter scientists who are battling it out over this unlikely topic.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, you’ll just hear the very tip of the show—you’ll need to go to www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe to read the show notes and hear the whole thing.

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