Everything Hertz

186: Evaluating journal quality

November 13th, 2024 | 43 mins 11 secs

In this episode we chat about a Nordic approach for evaluating the journal quality and how we should be teaching undergraduates to evaluate journal and article quality

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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Dan and James discuss the Retractobot service, which emails authors about papers they've cited that have been retracted. What should authors do if they discover a paper they've cited has been retracted after they published their paper?

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

Episode Archive