Metascience Matters

Randy Ellis
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I'm Randy Ellis, a computational biologist and neuroscientist who cares about metascience, reproducibility, and rigor in science. I started Metascience Matters because I believe science communication can be improved across the board for all fields of science, but most especially for the field of science dedicated to studying science itself.

Episodes

  1. FEB 8

    300+ retractions, image manipulation, and why science should be boring | Metascience Matters #3

    Mu Yang is a behavioral neuroscientist at Columbia University, and a scientific sleuth responsible for more than 300 retractions. She led an effort that discovered more than 130 fraudulent papers in the publication record of Eliezer Masliah, former head of the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. Her sleuthing work has been documented in the book "Doctored" by Charles Piller, Science Magazine, and other outlets, and is unpaid. CONTACT RANDY: metasciencematters@gmail.com EPISODE LINKS: Books:  Doctored by Charles Piller: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Doctored/Charles-Piller/9781668031254 Unreliable by Csaba Szabo: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/unreliable/9780231216241/ Scientific integrity blogs:  Dorothy Bishop: https://deevybee.blogspot.com/ Leonid Schneider: https://forbetterscience.com/ Podcasts for critical thinking Plain English by Derek Thompson: https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/plain-english-with-derek-thompson The Gray Area by Sean Illing: https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area The Ezra Klein show (NYT): https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 2:58 - Mu's origin story 4:35 - Moving to Columbia 6:15 - How Mu became a sleuth 8:13 - Reporting her first case 13:09 - Red flags Mu looks for in papers 17:30 - Reductionism in behavioral neuroscience 18:04 - Standardization vs. Generalizability 19:58 - Data sharing standards across fields 21:09 - Difficulties of reporting irregularities in papers, university incentives 23:54 - Allocating time between images, numerical, other kinds of data 24:37 - How she searches through papers 25:45 - Examining the chemistry literature 31:10 - Types of misconduct vary by field, risks of reporting 35:43 - The case of Eliezer Masliah 40:31 - Why demonizing individual scientists isn't productive; the system isn't working 56:59 - Academic incentives for positive data 1:07:31 - Hard to publish null data; "unhealthy codependence" between academia and publishing 1:13:08 - Changing incentives 1:21:42 - Are we even making a dent in the scale of scientific misconduct?  1:27:35 - Mu's toolkit 1:29:38 - Mu does this work because it's fun! 1:34:38 - Protecting students; telling them that null data is ok 1:37:52 - Evaluating researchers  1:43:15 - Is peer review still relevant? 1:51:38 - How much better could science be? 1:55:14 - What will science look like in a century? 1:58:13 - Advice and resources for listeners 2:00:54 - Online presence 2:01:35 - Outro

    2h 2m

  2. JAN 23

    Esketamine for depression, registered reports, and alcohol use disorder | Metascience Matters #2

    Florian Naudet is a Professor of Therapeutics at Rennes University. As a metascientist and psychiatrist, his research interests lie in developing and evaluating methodological solutions to treatment assessment, primarily but not exclusively for mental health conditions. His work has also made inroads to quantifying and understanding research waste and the prevalence of substandard data-sharing practices. CONTACT RANDY: Feedback: metasciencematters@gmail.com EPISODE LINKS: Efficacy and safety of esketamine for “treatment resistant depression”: registered report for a systematic review with an individual patient data meta-analysis of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials https://link.springer.com/article/10.... Vibration of effects from diverse inclusion/exclusion criteria and analytical choices: 9216 different ways to perform an indirect comparison meta-analysis https://link.springer.com/article/10.... Pharmageddon (book) https://davidhealy.org/pharmageddon-i... A manifesto for reproducible science https://www.nature.com/articles/s4156... Using reporting guidelines to improve the reproducibility of cooking Christmas tree meringues: the “People tasting trees” cluster-randomised controlled trial https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:36 - Florian's origin story as a psychiatrist and metascientist 4:46 - How Florian became interested in metascience 11:55 - Systematic review of clinical trials of Esketamine for depression 28:45 - Publishing this study as a registered report 40:49 - Vibration-of-effects analysis of double-blind randomized controlled trials assessing nalmefene and/or naltrexone for treating alcohol use disorders 59:58 - Advice for listeners interested in pursuing research like Florian's 1:03:38 - Outro

    1h 4m

  3. 12/15/2025

    Exposomics, Vibration-of-Effects, and the Future of AI in Health | Metascience Matters #1

    Chirag Patel is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, renowned for his expertise in using computational methods to understand human health and disease from high-throughput data streams. He specializes in understanding the role in the intersection of genetics and environmental exposures (the exposome) in human health, as well as various disease areas such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. CONTACT RANDY: Feedback: metasciencematters@gmail.com EPISODE LINKS: Chirag’s Lab: https://www.chiragjpgroup.org/ TEDx talk on the exposome:    • Exposome: decoding human health and diseas...   OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:37 - How do you decide what to work on? 1:57 - Where does metascience fit into your work? 3:57 - Vibration-of-effects analysis 6:41 - How does VoE change how we see existing scientific work? 9:22 - The biggest challenges in the replication crisis within biomedical informatics 11:48 - Environment-wide association study of Type 2 diabetes 15:04 - The exposome 17:30 - Policy vs. precision medicine applications of the exposome 20:09 - The patient exposome 22:38 - HBA1C for diabetes as a bridge to the exposome 23:54 - Broader metascientific issues of the exposome 25:01 - The effects of extreme weather events on human health 29:35 - AI for biomedical informatics, the exposome, metascience 31:19 - Advice for listeners interested in pursuing research like Chirag’s 32:53 - Outro

    33 min
  • 3 Episodes

About

I'm Randy Ellis, a computational biologist and neuroscientist who cares about metascience, reproducibility, and rigor in science. I started Metascience Matters because I believe science communication can be improved across the board for all fields of science, but most especially for the field of science dedicated to studying science itself.

Information

  • Creator
    Randy Ellis
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Randy Ellis
  • Show Website
    Metascience Matters