Episodes
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185: The Retraction
October 4th, 2024 | 1 hr 8 mins
We discuss the recent retraction of a paper that reported the effects of rigour-enhancing practices on replicability. We also cover James' new estimate that 1 out of 7 scientific papers are fake
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184: A race to the bottom
September 5th, 2024 | 48 mins 17 secs
Open access articles have democratized the availability of scientific research, but are author-paid publication fees undermining the quality of science?
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183: Too beautiful to be true
August 3rd, 2024 | 45 mins 5 secs
Dan and James discuss a paper describing a journal editor's efforts to receive data from authors who submitted papers with results that seemed a little too beautiful to be true
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182: What practices should the behavioural sciences borrow (and ignore) from other research fields?
July 2nd, 2024 | 51 mins 9 secs
Dan and James answer a listener question on what practices should the behavioural sciences borrow (and ignore) from other research fields
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181: Down the rabbit hole
June 3rd, 2024 | 42 mins 50 secs
We discuss how following citation chains in psychology can often lead to unexpected places, and how this can contribute to unreplicable findings. We also discuss why team science has taken longer to catch on in psychology compared to other research fields.
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180: Consortium peer reviews
May 2nd, 2024 | 50 mins 14 secs
Dan and James discuss why innovation in scientific publishing is so hard, an emerging consortium peer review model, and a recent replication of the 'refilling soup bowl' study.
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179: Discovery vs. maintenance
April 3rd, 2024 | 48 mins 38 secs
Dan and James discuss how scientific research often neglects the importance of maintenance and long-term access for scientific tools and resources
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178: Alerting researchers about retractions
February 29th, 2024 | 49 mins 45 secs
Dan and James discuss the Retractobot service, which emails authors about papers they've cited that have been retracted. What should authors do if they discover a paper they've cited has been retracted after they published their paper?
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177: Plagiarism
January 31st, 2024 | 42 mins 52 secs
We discuss two recent plagiarism cases, one you've probably heard about and another that you probably haven't heard about if you're outside Norway. We also chat about the parallels between plagiarism and sports doping—would people reconsider academic dishonesty if they were reminded that future technology may catch them out?
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176: Tracking academic workloads
December 29th, 2023 | 36 mins 12 secs
We chat about a paper on the invisible workload of open science and why academics are so bad at tracking their workloads
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175: Defending against the scientific dark arts
December 7th, 2023 | 38 mins 10 secs
We chat about a recent blogpost from Dorothy Bishop, in which she proposes a Master course that will provide training in fraud detection—what should such a course specifically teach and where would these people work to apply their training? We also discuss whether open science is a cult that has trouble seeing outward.
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174: Smug missionaries with test tubes
November 1st, 2023 | 53 mins 21 secs
James proposes a new type of consortium paper that could provide collaborative opportunities for researchers from countries that are underrepresented in published research papers
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173: How do science journalists evaluate psychology papers?
October 1st, 2023 | 35 mins 7 secs
Dan and James discuss a recent paper that investigated how science journalists evaluate psychology papers. To answer this question, the researchers presented science journalists with fictitious psychology studies and manipulated sample size, sample representativeness, p-values, and institutional prestige
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172: In defence of the discussion section
August 31st, 2023 | 35 mins 36 secs
Dan and James discuss a recent proposal to do away with discussion sections and suggest other stuff they'd like to get rid of from academic publishing
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171: The easiest person to fool is yourself (with Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris)
July 20th, 2023 | 55 mins 42 secs
We chat with Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris about the science of cons and how we can we can avoid being taken in. We also cover the fate of the gorilla suit from the 'invisible gorilla' study, why scientists are especially prone to being fooled, plus more!
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170: Holy sheet
June 23rd, 2023 | 50 mins 32 secs
We discuss evidence of data tampering in a series of experiments investigating dishonesty revealed via excel spreadsheet metadata and how traditional peer review is not suited for the detection of data tampering.