Episode 81 - Junk Science, Click Bait, and Meaningless Experiments

Ever feel like there’s something wrong with all the news and information you consume, even when you get it from professional scientists and doctors?

We tackle the reproducibility crisis in science today starting with taking a look at some mudslinging between high profile online academics Andrew Gelman and Cass Sunstein.

We also talk about the probable over-publishing of studies in stock market prediction and elsewhere, and scientists reading too much when interpreting results to fit their narrative and ideology.

Links

Reddit Post on Reproducing Stock Prediction Papers.. and finding they were full of it!

Andrew Gelman’s Blog Post slamming Cass Sunstein for Tweet and past praise of Wansink
Psychology Today on misinterpreting the results of the Marshmellow Test, and What happens when it’s repeated, Also related analysis from Vox, and Neatorama’s Miss Cellania: Everything we Know is a Lie
Cornell: Bottomless Bowls of Soup win Wansink an Ignoble

Wall Street Journal Book Review on Fraud in the Lab
Fraud in the Lab: The High Stakes of Scientific Research by Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis on Amazon

The Book of Why: The new Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl

Related Episodes

Episode 76 on whether Google’s Autocomplete will actually affect elections
Episode 22 on P-Hacking
Episode 12 on Virtual Friends and Enemies as related to our discussion on Click Bait