Follow the Science

To cheat is human – and cheating affects most human endeavors, even science. Fake science refers to a growing problem with papers that look like they describe real experimental results but the data are made up, or copied from someone else’s work, often on a different disease altogether. Meet two scientists who’ve volunteered to become fake paper sleuths.

David Sanders is a virologist at Purdue University who tracks scientific plagiarism, and has acted as a whistle blower. Elisabeth Bik is a microbiologist with a remarkable talent for spotting faked graphs. She eventually left her research job to focus full time on fake science papers and the infamous “paper mills” that churn them out for a profit. She was recently awarded the Peter Wildy Award for microbiologists who have championed outreach activities and enhanced the knowledge of microbiology as a subject.

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

What do I mean by Follow the Science? I picked this title for the show because it was catchy, but I thought I should take a deeper look at what it’s come to mean. It’s not always obvious what’s real science, what’s pseudoscience, and my guest for this episode is an expert on both. Historian Michael Gordin is author of "On the Fringe, Where Science Meets Pseudoscience". We talk about how hard it is to find one rule to separate science from pseudoscience, and how science has changed and evolved over time. We also look back at how astrology and other areas of fringe or pseudoscience used to be respected areas of science. The interview leads me to a new understanding of my podcast title. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Social media has become the primary source of news for millions, and yet it’s not in the business of giving people reliable or accurate information. I’ll be talking to Indiana University computer scientist Filippo Menczer about the way social media divides us, manipulates us and deceives us. We talk about bad actors who set up deceptive automated accounts, called bots, and about the recent Scientific American piece he co-authored, Information Overload Helps Fake News Spread, and Social Media Knows it. He’ll also recount what happened when he became the target of a disinformation campaign.

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Past pandemics have started because people trafficked, sold, ate or encroached on wild animals. In this episode we’ll discuss how pandemics start with science writer David Quammen, author of the 2012 book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. He’s accompanied international teams of disease detectives investigating how SARS1, Nipah Virus and other disease agents jumped from animals to humans and started to spread. 

We may never know whether the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic started with a transfer directly from a bat, went through an intermediate host, or emerged from a lab accident, but understanding how other pandemics have started could help us avoid another global disaster. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

The World Health Organization recently sent a team to China to investigate the origin of the coronavirus that sparked our pandemic. But they returned with little new information beyond a vague assertion that the virus probably had a “natural” origin in an animal. There was no explanation for how, where or when it jumped to humans. 

Matt Ridley, a journalist with a background in biology, says the possibility of a lab accident is far from ruled out. He talks about potential clues being withheld, including a database cataloguing the genetic sequences of viruses studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He calls out,  “an appalling lack of transparency,” and applauds a group of volunteer internet sleuths. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Now that vaccines are available to younger people who are unlikely to die from Covid-19, many are getting their shots with the understanding that they can finally bring down the barriers to normal social lives, and even dating and romance. While most experts agree the vaccines work, they disagree on whether people should feel okay about returning to normal interactions any time soon. And some warn of a pandemic that will linger for months, if not forever. 

In this episode, I’ll talk with UCSF infectious disease doctor Monica Gandhi, who is advocating the kind of “harm reduction” approach developed during the AIDS crisis – when experts stopped condemning people for being human and instead found ways for us to more safely experience romance and love. She’s still very upbeat that vaccines will squash the disease through herd immunity. 

My second guest is renowned vaccine expert Paul Offit, from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He, too, is upbeat about the lifesaving effects of vaccines, but is more concerned about the return to normal, which he says may come at a cost. At this point, normalcy may be rushing back like the tide, whether the experts approve or not. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Even before the pandemic, trusting experts had become synonymous with trusting science. But there’s a world of difference between “science” and the opinion of a scientist. In this episode I’ll examine the value, and the limitations, of expert opinion. Physician, epidemiology professor and podcaster Vinay Prasad (Plenary Session) will discuss the reasons certain experts get all the limelight while others, despite being better qualified, might be drowned out. He’ll also talk about the oversized role of Twitter in shaping public opinion.  And risk communication consultant Peter Sandman and I discuss the ways experts have recently overstepped the bounds of their expertise and imposed their values and politics on us, couched as “the science”. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Is it okay to deceive people if you think your dishonesty will save lives? Are some lies virtuous? Risk Communication consultant Peter Sandman says public health officials routinely lie when they think it’s good for us. We talk about the ways public health officials lie, how they justify it, and which aspects of pandemic messaging are deliberately misleading. In the end, we agree that lies generally have bad long-term consequences.

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

In the pandemic, science and politics are getting mixed up in an unhealthy relationship, especially in decisions about how much risk is acceptable to society. UCSF physician and science communicator Vinay Prasad (Plenary Session) talks about the way scientific discussion is being squelched when it’s deemed politically incorrect, and how, more broadly, politics can bias medicine toward pessimism and more extreme interventions. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!

Misinformation about the pandemic is flooding over social media and traditional news media as well. But it’s not obvious what constitutes misinformation when the we’re grappling with a new virus and the state of science changes weekly. I’ll be talking to physician and medical educator Roger Seheult about getting censored by YouTube, and about the way politics has shaped people’s perception of such seemingly neutral topics as drugs, vitamin D and vaccines. 

Immunologist Florian Krammer will talk about how the pandemic has changed the way people consumer and create science news, so that legitimate scientific papers can be misinterpreted to create misinformation.  

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!