The Studies Show

Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
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The Studies Show

A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie www.thestudiesshowpod.com

  1. −5 D

    Episode 65: Havana Syndrome and mass hysteria

    Beginning in 2016, diplomats at the US Embassy in Havana started reporting strange concussion-like symptoms, even though they hadn’t taken a blow to the head. Some claimed they’d been the victim of a mysterious “sonic weapon”, aimed at them from somewhere outside and accompanied by a loud, high-pitched noise. Several scientific papers followed that appeared to confirm they’d been attacked. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart tell the whole story of Havana Syndrome, and dare to touch on the highly controversial theory that the symptoms might’ve been the result of mass hysteria (or as it’s now known, “mass psychogenic illness”). The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. Their Substack is full of shorter articles that highlight apects of science and technology you might never have considered. This week: the surprising story of “The Prophet of Parking”. You can find that any all of their shorter items at worksinprogress.news. Show notes * The most recent (January 2025) development in the story of Havana Syndrome * Stuart’s New Statesman article on Havana Syndrome from 2021 * Long and detailed ProPublica article from 2018 * Wikipedia articles on the LRAD and the Active Denial System * NY Times article from around the time, about the Trump administration’s reaction to the “attacks” * US Senate hearings on the “attacks” led by Marco Rubio * Initial 2018 JAMA article with cognitive and other tests * Response letters 1, 2, and 3 (“cognitive impairments everybody has”) * 2019 JAMA article on brain imaging results * Stuart’s 2015 study on brain imaging in ageing * Entomologists report on the similarity of the recorded sound to that of a cricket * Declassified US report that agrees * A history of mass psychogenic illness * BBC article on “The Bristol Hum” * Guardian article on the bizarre phenomenon of Morgellon’s Syndrome * Article arguing that critics of the “mass psychogenic illness” theory have misunderstood the condition * 2020 National Academy of Sciences report * Putin bragging about high-tech Russian weapons 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

    52 min

  2. 18 FEB.

    Paid-only Episode 17: The lab leak hypothesis

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com It’s been five years since the start of the COVID pandemic (yes, you read that correctly—five years). And the debate still rages online—did the virus come from a wet market, maybe via a pangolin, or from a gain-of-function experiment in a biolab? In this paid-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart cover the lab leak hypothesis, and talk about what it means for how people should make their minds up about scientific controversies. To hear the full episode, read the show notes, and leave a comment, you’ll need to be a paid subscriber on Substack. You can become one at www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe.

    11 min

  3. 11 FEB.

    Episode 64: IQ

    Every so often there’s a controversy related to IQ. The latest was caused by [checks notes] the new Vice President of the US attacking the IQ of a political podcaster on Twitter. You could argue that the VP should have better things to be doing. But Tom and Stuart certainly don’t, because they’ve recorded a whole episode of The Studies Show on the science of IQ. Hasn’t IQ been debunked as a measure? Does anyone take it seriously in 2025? Doesn’t an IQ test only tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests? In this episode, find out the answers to all these questions and more. The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. It’s an online magazine associated with the broad “progress studies” movement, where you can find excellent, data-driven essays on what works to drive scientific and technological advances. You can find every issue of the magazine, for free, at worksinprogress.co. Show notes * JD Vance’s tweet about Rory Stewart’s IQ; Rory Stewart’s response * Study on how standardised testing helps get more poor/minority kids into “gifted and talented” programmes * 2023 meta-analysis on intelligence and lifespan * 2018 study (n >2m) from the Israeli military on intelligence and early mortality * Brief Nature article discussing why intelligence might relate to lifespan * 2018 article on the psychological problems of high-IQ people * Huge Swedish study on psychiatric hospitalisation and intelligence * Can you ever be too smart for your own good? * Meta-analysis on self-knowledge of IQ * 2020 study showing that the Dunning-Kruger effect is a “statistical artefact” * 2023 follow-up analysis 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

    1 tim 15 min

  4. 4 FEB.

    Episode 63: Philosophy of science

    It had to happen eventually: this week The Studies Show is all about philosophy. As we look at science in general, how do we decide what those studies are actually showing? Tom and Stuart take a look at the Big Two of philosophy of science: Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, with their respective theories of falsificationism and paradigm shifts. Both are theories that almost everyone interested in science has heard of—but both make far more extreme claims than you might think. The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, the best place to go online for fact-rich, data-dense articles on science and technology, and how they’ve made the world a better place—or how they might do so in the future. To find all their essays, all for free, go to worksinprogress.co. Show notes * Tom’s new book, Everything is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World * Wagenmakers’s 2020 study asking scientists how they think about scientific claims * David Hume’s 1748 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the problem of induction * Bertrand Russell’s 1946 book History of Western Philosophy * Popper’s 1959 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Popper * Kuhn’s 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Kuhn * 2019 Scott Alexander review of the book * Michael Strevens’s 2020 book The Knowledge Machine * Daniel Lakens’s Coursera course on “improving your statistical inferences” 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

    1 tim 10 min

  5. 28 JAN.

    Episode 62: Violent videogames

    Before the panic over social media—but after the panic over “video nasties”—was the panic over violent videogames. Was Pac-Man causing little Johnny so much frustration that he’d take it out on his siblings with his fists? Was Doom secretly training little Timmy to be a school shooter? You don’t hear so much about videogames and violence any more, but if you look at the studies (and the critiques of those studies) there’s a lot to learn about where science can go wrong. In this episode of The Studies Show—in addition to, if we’re honest, just spending quite a lot of time talking about videogames—Tom and Stuart ask whether there’s any decent evidence that gaming can make people more aggressive. The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine—a journal of underrated ideas to make the world a better place. In the episode we discussed a recent essay on cruise ships, and the surprising (and continual) improvements over the years. You can find all their essays, all of which are free to read, at worksinprogress.co. Show notes * Horribly violent games of yore: Death Race, Postal, Postal 2, Carmageddon, Doom II, Quake * Newer games mentioned in the episode: Slay the Spire, Hades, Doom Eternal, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring * Hilarious attempt by an MP to ban Space Invaders in 1981 * Chris Ferguson’s 2013 review of videogames and violence * 2003 review of “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth” * Pete Etchells’s 2019 book Lost in a Good Game * List of publications based on the Singapore dataset * Influential 2008 study by Chris Anderson showing a correlation between videogame violence exposure and violence * Small Ferguson study from 2012 controlling for several variables and finding no correlation * Study in the ALSPAC/Children of the 90s dataset * Are modern, more realistic games worse for us than older ones? Study from 2021 * Use the CRTT to get whichever result you want * Psychological measures aren’t toothbrushes * Violent crime rates over time in the US, UK, various European countries, Japan 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

    1 tim 5 min

  6. 21 JAN.

    Paid-only Episode 16: Recycling

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com Is recycling worthwhile? Is sending your rubbish to landfill actually so bad? Grab your cotton tote bag and join Tom and Stuart as they look at the evidence—and the intense political debate and even conspiracy theories—over the surprisingly controversial topic of recycling. This is a paid-only episode, and to hear the whole thing (and read the show notes), you’ll need to become a subscriber to The Studies Show. Find out how at www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe.

    11 min

  7. 6 JAN.

    Episode 61: Conflict of interest

    We want scientists to be paragons of objectivity. At the very least, we want them to tell us who’s paying their bills. But it turns out that in some fields of research, the norms about reporting financial conflicts of interest are all over the place. Scientists making big money from after-dinner speeches about their research often don’t think it’s at all relevant to disclose. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at the evidence on how funding affects the outcomes of scientific research—and discuss whether scientists need to be a lot more transparent about where their money comes from. Show notes * 2017 meta-analysis of the impact of funding source (for-profit vs. non-profit) on medical randomised trials * Tom’s Nature article on undisclosed financial conflicts in psychology research * New Angela Duckworth paper with no COI statement * Unconvincing ethics article on COI disclosures and public trust * Scientist declares his membership of the Scottish Socialist Party in an article about Margaret Thatcher * Ioannidis article on conflicts of interest in nutrition research 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

    1 tim 7 min

  8. 2024-12-31

    Un-paywalled: Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review

    This week, as a gift for New Year’s Eve, we’re opening up a previously-paywalled episode so that everyone can listen. It’s our episode from April 2024 on “Youth gender medicine & the Cass Review”. Since the show notes were previously behind the paywall, they’re copied below. If you’d like to listen to all our paywalled episodes—which are of course ad-free, like this one—you can subscribe by visiting thestudiesshowpod.com. Normal service will be resumed next week. Happy New Year! Show notes * The Cass Review’s final report * List of systematic reviews from University of York researchers that were commissioned by the Cass Review * Hannah Barnes on why the Tavistock gender identity clinic was forced to close * VICE interview with a Tavistock doctor, including information on patient numbers * Original Dutch single-case study on puberty blockers * Somewhat larger Dutch study of puberty blockers from 2011 * The “Early Intervention” study from England (not published until 2021) * Article that’s critical of the “cis-supremacy” in the Cass Review * BMJ editorial on the Cass Review * Billy Bragg claims that the Cass Review only included 2 studies out of 102 * Owen Jones’s video where he claims studies were “arbitrarily” excluded from the report * Fact-checking post from Benjamin Ryan, covering some of the criticisms of the Cass Report * Hilary Cass interviewed by The Times * Episode of BBC More or Less that addresses some of the criticisms * 2020 study on the small proportion of medical treatments where there’s strong evidence * More recent (2022) study by the same authors finding an even more depressing picture: “More than 9 in 10 healthcare interventions studied within recent Cochrane Reviews are not supported by high-quality evidence, and harms are under-reported” * The book Medical Nihilism * The BMJ review of the book, quoted in the episode 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

    1 tim 15 min
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Om

A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie www.thestudiesshowpod.com

Information

  • Skapad av
    Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
  • Aktiva år
    2023 - 2025
  • Avsnitt
    88
  • Åldersgräns
    Barnvänligt
  • Copyright
    © Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
  • Programmets webbplats
    The Studies Show

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