Science Fictions
Episodes
Episode 29: Cognitive decline
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The discourse has once again turned to a feverish discussion of cognitive decline. Which 2024 US Presidential candidate has it worse? What does that m...
Mea Culpa 3
01 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mistakes were made. By us. In this Mea Culpa episode we discuss several of them, big and small, from multiple previous episodes. If you’ve noticed u...
Episode 28: Climate models
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Remember when the airwaves were full of people questioning the idea of man-made climate change? You don’t hear much from them any more - in large pa...
Paid-only Episode 5: The Hans Eysenck saga
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comHans Eysenck was one of the biggest names in psychology. ...
Episode 27: Exercise
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Okay, whether exercise is good isn’t really in question. But there are so many pseudoscientific myths surrounding sports and exercise that it’s al...
Episode 26: Psychotherapy
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What treatment works best for people with depression? Is it psychodynamic psychotherapy, in the Freudian tradition, with its emphasis on hidden, uncon...
Episode 25: Is it the phones?
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone seems to have decided that it’s the phones. That is, they’ve decided that heavy smartphone and social-media use is to blame for the curre...
Paid-only Episode 4: Male and female brains
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comEither there are massive differences between the brains o...
Episode 24: Personality
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do some people love parties and others prefer to stay at home with a book? Why do some people worry endlessly about all the bad things that might ...
Episode 23: Statistical significance
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s mentioned on the podcast pretty much every week. But what does “statistical significance” actually mean? In this episode of The Studies Sho...
Episode 22: Review of 2023
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We admit it: The Studies Show tends to be quite negative. We’re always complaining about low-quality studies, faulty reasoning, and bad science.Not ...
Episode 21: Falling sperm counts
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often there’s a panic in the media: sperm count is declining! The human race is on the way out! New studies regularly appear that seem to s...
Episode 20: The microbiome
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to list the top 5 most hyped areas of science right now, the microbiome would clearly be one. The collection of billions of microbes that ...
Episode 19: Science and politics
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“Science is political”. How could it not be? It’s done by humans, whose political biases will influence not just the topics they choose to study...
Paid-only Episode 3: Pornography and "No Nut November"
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIt’s November, so a strange subset of “very online”...
Episode 18: Phonics and the reading wars
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Teaching kids how to read is amazingly controversial. Or at least, it was controversial until recently, when we achieved a proper scientific consensus...
Mea Culpa 2
18 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s another brief episode covering the errors we’ve made in our last few episodes, from the very minor to the somewhat more serious.We’re gra...
Episode 17: Your shrinking attention span
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The thesis of Johann Hari’s bestselling 2022 book Stolen Focus is that tech companies—via the internet, smartphones, and social media—are wrecki...
Episode 16: Alzheimer's and the amyloid hypothesis
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What causes Alzheimer’s? The main theory is that it’s due to a build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain. But some scientists think that’s hopele...
Episode 15: Halloween special on parapsychology
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to a very spooky episode of The Studies Show, on the topic of parapsychology. Tom and Stuart discuss telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, an...
Paid-only Episode 2: Long COVID
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIf you catch COVID, what’s the chance the symptoms will...
Episode 14: Scientific fraud
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With major (alleged!) misconduct cases happening at some of the biggest US universities, scientific fraud has been in the news a lot recently. If you’...
Episode 13: Football and dementia
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve all heard of football players (that’s “soccer players” for US listeners) tearing their hamstrings, spraining their ankles, and injuring ...
Paid-only Episode 1: Diversity training
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comIf you’ve ever done a diversity training session at wor...
Episode 12: Nuclear power
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear power seems like exactly what we want: a reliable, low-carbon source of huge amounts of energy. So why does it produce less of our electricity...
Episode 11: The AI apocalypse debate
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is artificial intelligence going to lead to the extinction of humanity? What would that even look like? Everyone’s got an opinion: mostly either “...
Episode 10: Cash transfers
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking of giving money to charity? Maybe you should give to a charity that does cash transfers - that is, gives the money directly to low-income peo...
Episode 9: The placebo effect
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you give someone a sugar pill but convince them it’s a real medicine, they might get better because of the power of belief. That’s the standard...
Mea Culpa 1
02 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On The Studies Show, we’re all about trying to get it right. But sometimes we get it wrong. Every so often, we’ll do a feedback/corrections/clarif...
Episode 8: Growth mindset
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In any given school, you’re never more than 6ft away from a poster about “growth mindset”. It’s the massively-popular idea that if you believe...
Episode 7: The LK-99 superconductor, and other physics false dawns
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you were anywhere near social media at the start of August, you’ll have seen endless claims of a massive, world-changing breakthrough in physics:...
Episode 6: Ultra-processed foods
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve apparently found the culprit for the obesity epidemic, and it’s “ultra-processed foods”. They’re the plastic-wrapped, industrially-pro...
Episode 5: Vaping, smoking, and popcorn lung
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seemingly-reliable sources give you diametrically-opposed views on vaping. Are e-cigarettes “95% less harmful” than cigarettes, or aren’t they? ...
Episode 4: Psychedelics and psychotherapy
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve surely seen the hyped news stories. Psychedelic drugs are no longer just for hippies and attendees at raves: they’re the new frontier of me...
Episode 3: Aspartame and the stupid list of things that cause cancer
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The WHO’s cancer-research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has decided that the commonly-used sweetener aspartame “pos...
Episode 2: Breastfeeding - what the science actually says
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often a new study appears that claims that breastfed children are smarter, healthier, or otherwise better off later in life than those who we...
Episode 1: Why is Ozempic so controversial?
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the new wave of weight loss drugs (like semaglutide), and the weird, often irrationa...