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 live in our gut—and which are studied by collecting, er, “stool samples”—have been blamed for causing not just gastrointestinal symptoms, but even mental health disorders.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the microbiome: what’s the evidence that it contributes to all our ills? Can it really be the case that we can transplant blended faeces from one person to another and improve their health? And, sorry to have to ask this, but what exactly is that smell?

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress, the online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Their newest November 2023 issue is packed with data-driven, deeply-researched articles on the history and future of the science and tech that shapes our world. It’s all freely-available right here at this link.

Show notes

* 2007 Ben Goldacre Guardian article on “Dr.” Gillian McKeith, the Awful Poo Lady

* 2019 review of microbiome research and some of its methodological difficulties

* 2022 review of the mechanisms by which the microbiome might affect our health

* 2016 Science paper on population norms for the microbiome

* The “30 plants a week” claim, from the ZOE app website; from Tim Spector in the Guardian

* The “American Gut Project” study

* Stuart’s article on why “30 plants a week” is a silly claim

* 2020 meta-analysis of studies on faecal microbiome transplants for recurrent C. difficile infection

* Paper that’s critical of the evidence for faecal transplants for C. diff

* 2021 review of faecal transplants in Crohn’s disease

* 2019 review of the microbiome and mental health, including some of the history of the idea

* 2019 editorial speaking very highly of the power of the “gut-brain axis”

* 2023 KCL small-scale study on probiotics for depression

* 2023 review of observational studies of faecal transplants for autism

* Scott Alexander’s article “Against Against Autism Cures”

* Brain study on the apparent causal role of the microbiome in Alzheimer’s disease

* Stuart’s i article critiquing it

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

“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 but also how they study them. But does that mean it’s fine for scientists to blatantly bring their politics into their work? Does that mean it’s okay for scientific journals to endorse political candidates?

In this slightly unusual episode of The Studies Show (which doesn’t include very many actual studies), Tom and Stuart discuss the never-ending debate over where politics begins and ends in science, debate whether it’s possible for science to be politics-free, and cover the recent story of the scientific journal editor fired for expressing a (pretty mild, all things considered) political opinion on Twitter.

The Studies Show is brought to you by the i, the non-partisan UK daily newspaper for readers with open minds. For the best insights into British politics, as well as extensive interviews, lifestyle insights, and all the rest, consider subscribing to the paper. You can get a money-off deal on your digital subscription by following this special podcast link.

The Studies Show is also sponsored by Works in Progress, the online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Their newest November 2023 issue is packed with data-driven, deeply-researched articles on the history and future of the science and tech that shapes our world. It’s all freely-available right here at this link.

Show notes

* Eisen’s joke about a worm which caused a racism/sexism row

* His fateful tweet about Hamas that eventually got him fired as editor of eLife

* Coverage of his firing in Nature News; in Science

* Nature endorses Biden in 2020

* Tom’s article in Unherd about politicising science

* Tom’s article in Unherd about the importance of “decoupling”

* Stuart’s Substack article about how science is political - but that’s a bad thing

* Astral Codex Ten article about the arrogance of presuming it’s not possible to be any more rational than you are right now

* Study of how Nature’s political endorsements affected people’s trust in the journal

* Stuart’s article in the i on this study; summary in Politico

* Nature’s editorial response, arguing that they’ll do endorsements anyway

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com

It’s November, so a strange subset of “very online” men are trying to avoid, er, “self-abuse” for the entirety of the month. They’re doing it because they believe it has all sorts of psychological and health benefits. But others argue that No Nut November could itself cause you harm. Who’s right?

In this ADULTS ONLY episode of The Studies Show which they…

Teaching kids how to read is amazingly controversial. Or at least, it was controversial until recently, when we achieved a proper scientific consensus that the best way to teach them is to use systematic phonics. This method has seen big successes here in the UK, and is helping thousands of children achieve proper literacy.

…that’s the story, anyway. But how strong is that scientific consensus? What evidence do we have that systematic phonics is the best way to learn to read? In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the work of a prominent “phonics sceptic”, and find his arguments pretty compelling.

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress, the online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Their new November 2023 issue is out now, full of fascinating, well-researched essays on how mathematics drove the industrial revolution, the history of asbestos as a building material, how we might harness geothermal energy to power the world, and much more. It’s all freely-available right here at this link.

The Studies Show is also supported by the i, a snappy, non-partisan UK newspaper for people with open minds. Insights on UK politics, world affairs, a whole range of voices in the opinion section: it’s all here. You can get a money-off deal on your digital subscription—which includes full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

Show notes

* Big 2018 review article on “ending the reading wars”, with excellent background on the debate and on the science of reading more generally

* Tom’s WIRED article on numeracy, with mention of the history of literacy efforts in the UK

* “fish” = “ghoti”

* The UK’s 2006 Rose Report into the best ways to teach reading

* Survey showing a lot of teachers don’t like the Phonics Check

* In defence of phonics, by Prof. Kathy Rastle

* Prof. Jeffrey Bowers’s 2020 article on “Reconsidering the evidence” that systematic phonics is better than other ways to teach reading (see here for references to all the individual meta-analyses mentioned in the show)

* One of several critiques of Bowers

* Bowers’s 2023 reply to several critics

* Bowers’s blog (many posts about various aspects of the phonics debate; see the comment sections for contributions from his critics and further debate)

* Report on England’s 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) scores

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

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 grateful to listeners who pointed these out - please keep doing so! If you’ve noticed an error on The Studies Show, let us know and we’ll correct it on a future episode like this. Contact details are on the About page.

Show notes

* UNSCEAR numbers on birth defects caused by Chernobyl

* Adjusting for publication bias makes the effect of cash transfers on mental health disappear

* Explanation of the paradoxical effect of healthier, longer-living people having a higher risk of dementia if you control for age

* Retraction note to one of criminologist Eric Stewart’s papers notes that the study was retracted due to “a mistake in the way the original data were merged… [which,] in conjunction with the discovery of other coding and transcription errors, collectively exceeded what the authors believed to be acceptable for a published paper”. That is, not retracted for “fraudulent data”, as we stated

* Analysis by one of Stewart’s co-authors concluding that the studies were “likely fraudulent”, even if they weren’t technically retracted for that reason

* The location of Cornwall. It’s in the south-west.

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

The thesis of Johann Hari’s bestselling 2022 book Stolen Focus is that tech companies—via the internet, smartphones, and social media—are wrecking our attention spans. Hari argues that Facebook, Apple, and all the rest, in their deliberate attack on our ability to concentrate, are doing huge damage to the human species.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart (whose microphone sounds a bit odd this week - sorry about that!) discuss the data on whether people’s attention spans are getting shorter, ask whether there’s evidence people are too distracted to finish tasks—such as writing podcast descriptions—that they’ve started, and

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress, the online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Find all their deeply-researched, beautifully-written essays about ideas that have changed, and will change, the world right here at this link.

The Studies Show is also supported by the i, a snappy, non-partisan UK newspaper for people with open minds. You can get a money-off deal on your digital subscription—which includes full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

Show notes

* Pre-order Pete Etchells’s book Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better)

* Johann Hari’s 2022 Guardian article on attention spans

* Stuart’s review of Stolen Focus, including some background on Hari’s “interesting” journalistic career

* “You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish”, apparently

* Just watch this video. No spoilers.

* The lizardman’s constant is 4%

* 2009 PNAS study on multitasking

* 2021 Cyberpsychology meta-analysis on cognitive control and multitasking

* 50% of people think tech is ruining people’s attention spans

* Satirical study from 2020 on the addiction to “spending time with friends”

* One of Matthew Sweet’s Twitter investigations of Johann Hari’s references

* Stuart’s look at some of the other studies cited in the book

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

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 hopelessly wrong, and that a hidebound belief in the amyloid hypothesis is stopping us from finding a cure.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart talk about the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s, ask whether all the hype over the three recent Alzheimer’s drugs (“a momentous breakthrough!”) is justified, and look at some ways we could do better research on dementia.

The Studies Show is supported by the i, the UK’s smartest daily newspaper. You can get a money-off deal on your digital subscription—which includes full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress, the online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. If you’re a listener to The Studies Show, it’s a dead-cert that you’ll love Works in Progress - and it’s all available for free. Find the magazine at this link.

Show notes

* The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) - the test Stuart quotes at the start

* NHS list of Alzheimer’s symptoms

* List and discussion of possible theories for the cause of Alzheimer’s

* Chris Hemsworth interview about finding out he’s at high genetic risk of Alzheimer’s

* Potential clues about the origin of Alzheimer’s from Down Syndrome

* Sharon Begley’s STAT article on “how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades”

* Science investigation of potential fraud in the original Aβ*56 study

* Explanation of why it’s bad, but not devastating for the amyloid hypothesis

* Independent panel urges the FDA not to approve Aducanumab - but they do so anyway

* Derek Lowe’s highly sceptical discussion of the “disgraceful” approval

* Stuart’s sceptical article in the i on Lecanemab (link to the trial itself)

* BBC article on the “momentous breakthrough”

* “16 cautionary notes” on Lecanemab

* Stuart’s sceptical article in the i on Donanemab (link to the trial itself)

* And Stuart’s Twitter thread on “clinically meaningful” effects in Alzheimer’s

* BBC More or Less episode discussing the problems with measuring the effect of an Alzheimer’s drug

* How do the new Alzheimer’s drugs work in theory? One potential explanation

* Paper by Elliot Tucker-Drob on how we measure dementia and how we forget about individual differences while doing so

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Welcome to a very spooky episode of The Studies Show, on the topic of parapsychology. Tom and Stuart discuss telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and more, and look at some of the most recent attempts by scientists to show that these weird—and did we mention spooky?—psychic phenomena are real.

Can it really be the case that studies claiming the existence of psychic powers get published in mainstream scientific journals? What does this mean for how seriously we take scientific journals? And is Stuart right that a parapsychology study published earlier this year might be the best psychology study ever?

Happy Halloween! 🎃

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress, the best place on the internet to read about science, technology, and human progress. As well as its main website, Works in Progress has a Substack called Notes on Progress, with shorter—but no less fascinating—pieces on similar themes. You can find Notes on Progress at this link.

The Studies Show is also sponsored by the i, the UK’s smartest daily newspaper. You can get a money-off deal on your digital subscription—which includes full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

Show notes

* Article on parapsychology calling it “the unwitting jester in the court of academia”

* 2021 “umbrella review” of many parapsychology meta-analyses

* 2023 in-progress meta-analysis of ganzfeld telepathy research

* Book chapter discussing parapsychology and quantum physics

* Study showing how meta-analysis can overstate effect sizes

* Daryl Bem’s famous 2011 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

* Critical analysis by Tal Yarkoni of Bem’s experiment and his statistics

* Failed replication of Experiment 9 from that study by Stuart, Chris French, and Richard Wiseman

* The Transparent Psi Project study from 2023

* Audit of the Transparent Psi Project finding a few mistakes (now corrected in the original study)

* Example of high-quality research practices in parapsychology: a “registered report” from the 1970s

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com

If you catch COVID, what’s the chance the symptoms will last for months? And what’s the chance they’ll be so debilitating that they ruin your life?

Different studies have given wildly different answers to these questions - in part because they define “Long COVID” in all sorts of different ways. In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try to work out what’s going on. How good is the research in this area? And, more to the point, can they talk about this topic for a whole hour without offending anyone?

To listen to the full version of this episode and see the show notes, you’ll need to be a paid subscriber to The Studies Show podcast on Substack. See below or go to www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe for the options.

If you’re already a paid subscriber: thank you!

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’re a scientist you’re supposed to be discovering the truth - so why do some scientists (allegedly - please don’t sue us!) just make all their results up?

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss some outrageous instances of scientific fraud, and how they were discovered. They look at all the reasons a scientist might decide to break the rules and falsify or fabricate their data - and talk about ways we might try and prevent these scientific crimes in future.

*EDIT 22 October 2023: In the podcast we say that Eric Stewart’s papers were retracted for “fraudulent data”. Whereas he has been accused of fraud by at least one of his co-authors (and others), and whereas he claims to have lost all the original data files so they can’t be checked, it’s not correct to say this is why his studies were retracted, as per the publishers’ retraction notes. They were retracted for gross errors and incompetence rather than fraud.

The Studies Show is sponsored by the i, the UK’s smartest daily newspaper. You can get a money-off deal on digital subscriptions—which include full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

The Studies Show is also sponsored by Works in Progress, an online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Did you know that, in addition to the main magazine, Works in Progress has a Substack called Notes on Progress, with shorter pieces on the same themes? You can find Notes on Progress right here.

Show notes

* Big New Yorker article about Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino

* Data Colada article on Dan Ariely’s study; and the first of several articles on Francesca Gino’s research

* New York Times article on the fallout from the Gino case

* GoFundMe page for Data Colada’s legal defence

* 2009 review of surveys asking scientists whether they’ve committed fraud, and how much fraud they think there is

* Example studies asking questions on fraud as well as sub-fraud “questionable research practices”: psychologists, economists, biomedical statisticians

* The Retraction Watch Leaderboard of the most-retracted scientists

* Story of anaesthesiologist Joachim Boldt, current leader in number of papers retracted from the literature

* Book on the fraudulent semiconductor physicist Jan-Hendrik Schön

* News of recent retractions by a superconductor physicist at the University of Rochester

* Article on John Carlisle, fake RCT-spotter extraordinaire

* Article on Elisabeth Bik, expert on spotting fake scientific images; Bik’s paper on the prevalence of problematic images

* Description of the GRIM test by Nick Brown and James Heathers

* BBC Radio 4 programme by Michael Blastland about scientific fraud-spotters, featuring Bik, Brown, and Heathers (and also Stuart)

* Recent article on using Benford’s Law to discover fraud

* Story of Hwang Woo-Suk, the audacious cloning fraudster at Seoul National University

* Story of Eric Stewart, researcher of systematic racism at Florida State University

* Story of Paolo Macchiarini, windpipe surgery fraudster and convicted criminal

* Stuart’s article on why we need to actually punish fraudsters

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 www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe