
4 episodes

Nullius in Verba Smriti Mehta and Daniël Lakens
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- Science
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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Nullius in Verba is a podcast about science—what it is and what it could be. It is hosted by Smriti Mehta from UC Berkeley and Daniël Lakens from Eindhoven University of Technology.
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Episode 3: Confirmatio Praeiudicia
In our third episode, we discuss confirmation bias, which affects not only how scientists generate and test their own hypotheses, but also how they evaluate the scientific evidence presented by others. We discuss guardrails against confirmation bias that are already in place, and others that could potentially improve scientific practice if adopted.
Shownotes
Wason, P. C. (1960). On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 129-140.
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220.
Mellers, B., Hertwig, R., & Kahneman, D. (2001). Do frequency representations eliminate conjunction effects? An exercise in adversarial collaboration. Psychological Science, 12(4), 269-275.
Coles, N. A., March, D. S., Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Larsen, J. T., Arinze, N. C., Ndukaihe, I. L., ... & Liuzza, M. T. (2022). A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the many smiles collaboration. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-12.
Dutilh, G., Sarafoglou, A., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2021). Flexible yet fair: Blinding analyses in experimental psychology. Synthese, 198(23), 5745-5772.
Sarafoglou, A., Hoogeveen, S., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2023). Comparing analysis blinding with preregistration in the many-analysts religion project. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 6(1), 25152459221128319.
Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly
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Episode 2: Scepticismus
In our second episode, we discuss the role of skepticism in science, a topic that relates closely to the title of our podcast. Given that the scientific enterprise is essentially an exercise in organized skepticism, how can we maintain a healthy amount of skepticism while also ensuring that scientists don't slip into cynicism or nihilism?
Shownotes
Opening quote by Imre Lakatos from Science and Pseudoscience. Hear it from the man himself.
Ego depletion
Ioannidis, J. P. (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Medicine, 2(8), e124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Wacholder, S., Chanock, S., Garcia-Closas, M., El Ghormli, L., & Rothman, N. (2004). Assessing the probability that a positive report is false: an approach for molecular epidemiology studies. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 96(6), 434-442. DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djh075
Quote by Debra Mayo. Original reference: Mayo, D. G. (2018). Statistical inference as severe testing: How to get beyond the statistics wars. Cambridge University Press. -
Episode 1: Motivus
In our first episode, we discuss a quote from the preface to The Instauratio Magna (of which Novum Organum is a part), in which Bacon claims that scientists should be motivated to do science for the betterment of mankind, and not for personal motives like fame, fortune, or even fun.
Here is the tweet (by Heidi Seibold) on academia not being aligned with good scientific practices.
An unedited transcript of the episode can be found here. -
Episode 0: Introductio
In this introductory episode, Daniël and Smriti share which podcasts they like, why they are starting their own, and how their connection to each other is also tied to podcasting. They also talk about the theme of the podcast, which is inspired by Francis Bacon’s delineation of the scientific method 400 years ago.