Dan and James discuss rejection in academia and emerging science communication mediums. Here are a few links and other things they cover: The main university of Sydney bar has closed because all the youth are playing Fortnite and on TikTok How should you respond to rejection? The rejected paper on fasting during Ramadan and cognitive control What if there was Tinder for manuscript submission? Josh’s tweet about citations in Wikipedia Grant lotteries The Steven Bradbury reference The use of TikTo...
Mar 02, 2020•1 hr 17 min
Should research scientists build their knowledge and skillset broadly at the risk of being a master of none? Dan and James discuss this, along with a recent editorial on the use of Twitter in academia. Here's other stuff they cover: Some tools that Dan's using right now: BioRender , Canva , Slack , 99designs , and Notion . Dan pre-registers a prediction Herchandise! Use the code "EH102" to get a 20% discount on Hertz merchandise (valid until March 2, 2020) The k-index editorial Roger Ebert's sta...
Feb 17, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Dan and James cover a new paper which discusses whether research misconduct should be criminalised. If so, where do we draw the line and who should investigate these cases? Here's an episode overview and links to stuff we mentioned: We’re a pop science podcast, apparently Elizabeth Bik’s wikipedia page Elizabeth’s Patreon page The original consortium letter The apology letter from the APS The “ love of science ” tweet How James got into science Tal’s “ science is not a jobs program ” tweet The '...
Feb 03, 2020•59 min
To celebrate our 100th episode, which we video-streamed live, Dan and James were joined by three special guests: Daniel Lakens, Amy Orben, and Chris Chambers. Here's what they covered in this episode: James and Dan share their favourite episodes The power of the Twitter direct message Daniel Lakens joins us to discuss his recent work on helping people make better statistical decisions Can you create cross-discipline effect size guidelines? What would Jacob Cohen say if we could bring him back to...
Jan 27, 2020•1 hr 51 min
Dan and James answer a listener question on science advocacy. Is this an activity that all scientists should do, and if so, how much advocacy work should we be doing? Here's other stuff they cover and links to stuff they mention: James’ thoughts on thanksgiving James’s hot mic tweet The Tom Bartlett story in the Chronicle about the criminologist accused of cooking the books The SCORE DAPRA project A listener question from Crystal Steltenpohl : What is a scientist’s role in advocacy? Julieanne Sm...
Jan 06, 2020•50 min
We chat with Sophia Crüwell (Meta-Research Innovation Center Berlin) about pre-registration and her recent work introducing pre-registration templates for cognitive modelling research. Here's what we cover and some links: Sophia’s PhD research Sophia’s recent preprint: Preregistration in Complex Contexts: A Preregistration Template for the Application of Cognitive Models The first version of the pre-print titled, preregistration is redundant, at best The updated version of the preprint titled, "...
Dec 16, 2019•59 min
Dan and James discuss the concept of "slow science", which has been proposed in order to improve the quality of scientific research and create a more sustainable work environment. Here's what they cover in this episode Thank you patrons day! Social media algorithms reward outrage, not quality of substance A paper on slow science from Uta Frith, which includes a proposal of publication limits Is information overload really a problem? The META platform for a weekly research digest Would reducing t...
Dec 02, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Dan and James discuss the results of this year's Nature survey of PhD students. Despite a majority of students reporting general satisfaction with their decision to undertake a PhD, many described a sense of uncertainty, harassment in the lab, and gruelling work hours. Things they discuss... James met an Australian member of parliament and won a commendation from Sense under Science The Doing Good symposium The Nature PhD survey Bloat in academia What people like the most about being a PhD stude...
Nov 18, 2019•48 min
Dan and James discuss why academia tolerates bad presentations and the strange distrust of polished presentations. Here's what else they discuss... James had a Filipino feast https://twitter.com/jamesheathers/status/1188582859528949766?s=20 We’re approaching 100 episodes! ReproducibiliTea is spreading worldwide! Why do some people not trust polished presentations? The Mike Morrison episode on the Better Poster The “I want a refund for a bad presentation” blog post What does James consider a ‘goo...
Nov 04, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Dan and James chat with Fiona Fidler (University of Melbourne), who is leading the repliCATS project , which aims to develop accurate techniques to elicit estimates of the replicability of research. This is also the first time they interview a guest live! Here's what they discuss... The story behind repliCATS Australia's best export, Tim Tams The SCORE project organised by DARPA Can anyone use the repliCATS methodology? Dan, Fiona, and James talk about did their honours theses (this is roughly t...
Oct 21, 2019•58 min
Dan and James answer a listener question on how to navigate open science practices, such as preprints and open code repositories, in light of double-blind reviews. Stuff they cover: How common is double-blind review? How many journals don’t accept preprints? Bias in the review process How practical is blinded review? Do the benefits of preprints outweighs not having blinded review? James' approach to getting comments on his preprints Convincing your supervisor to adopt open science practices The...
Oct 07, 2019•55 min
Dan and James discuss the role of Google Scholar in citation patterns and whether we should limit academics to only publishing two papers a year. Links and details: James has a new Hertz-quarters The Metascience conference How is google scholar influencing citation patterns A slide from @Jevinwest's presentation on Google Scholars Is this a symptom of lazy citaton practices rather than the algorithm? What are the alternatives to google scholar? Should google open up the algorithm? GS will find y...
Sep 16, 2019•1 hr 14 min
We chat with Kristin Sainani (Stanford University) about a popular statistical method in sports medicine research (magnitude based inference), which has been banned by some journals, but continues to thrive in some pockets of scholarship. We also discuss the role of statistical inference in the current replication crisis. Links and info What is magnitude based inference and how did Kristin get involved in this? The response to Kristin’s critiques This is really an issue of small sample sizes Kri...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Dan and James discuss two listener questions on performing secondary data analysis and the potential for prestige to creep into open science reforms. More info and links: Why generate your own dataset when you can get a high impact paper using public data? Thanks to Stu Murray for the question Will people steal your ideas? The journal Scientific Data Are we now incentivising data mining rather than data collecting? Synthetic data Dan’s recent synthetic data preprint primer Ego and prestige got u...
Aug 19, 2019•58 min
We chat with Tom about whether psychology has a conflict-of-interest problem and how to best define such conflicts. Links and other stuff we cover... Tom's article on conflicts of interest in psychology How can we define a conflict an interest without falling down a rabbit hole? Communication statistics to the layperson How science journalism focuses on single studies rather than the larger story Tom’s new book: The AI does not hate you Win Tom’s book! Tweet your favourite Hertz episode and we’l...
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr
Dan and James apply the pomodoro principle by tackling four topics within a strict ten-minute time limit each: James' new error detection tool, academic dress codes, the "back in my day..." defence for QRPs, and p-slacking. Here are links and details... James won an award James’ new error detection tool, DEBIT Academic dress codes P-slacking The p-slacking paper Marcus Crede’s paper: A Negative Effect of a Contractive Pose Is Not Evidence for the Positive Effect of an Expansive Pose A preview of...
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr
We chat with Mike Morrison, a former User Experience (UX) designer who quit his tech career to research how we can bring UX design principles to science. We discuss Mike's recently introduced 'better poster' format and why scientists should think carefully about UX. Here's what we cover: What’s the story behind the “better poster?” The Better Poster video The Better Poster template The importance of minimising cognitive load Science isn’t badly designed, it’s not even designed at all What is goo...
Jul 01, 2019•51 min
Dan and James answer a listener question on whether they should stick it out for a few months in a toxic lab to get one more paper or if they should leave. Other stuff they cover: We don’t like cricket, oh no, we love it James is bad at tribalism We answer a listener question about a bad lab environment The “Dutch Bounce” The Golden Lab Child Demonstrating independence by writing a sole author paper What should you do if there’s a late authorship switch on your paper? Having an upfront conversat...
Jun 17, 2019•1 hr 5 min
We chat with Kevin Mitchell (Trinity College Dublin) about what the field of psychology can learn from genetics research, how our research theories tend to be constrained by our research tools, and his new book, " Innate ". Other stuff we cover: Kevin's book, " Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are " The story with link between Serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR variation and it’s link to depression Gene wide association studies (GWAS) vs. candidate gene studies Correcting for ...
Jun 03, 2019•1 hr 23 min
We chat with Amy Orben, who applies "multiverse" methodology to combat and expose analytical flexibility in her research area of the impact of digital technologies on psychological wellbeing. We also discuss ReproducibiliTea, an early career researcher-led journal club initiative she co-founded, which helps young researchers create local open science groups. Here are some more details and links: The tweet pointing our Dan's gramatical error in his usual introduction. THANKS DENIS Is Twitter melt...
May 21, 2019•52 min
By popular demand, Dan and James are kicking it old school and just shooting the breeze. They cover whether scientists should be on Twitter, if Fortnite is ruining our youth, book recommendations, and null oxytocin studies. Stuff they cover and links to obsure references Should scientists be on twitter? James runs a Twitter experiment Scite has now gone live, listen to our episode on this platform Our dreams of a live Hertz episode Is Fortnite killing our youth and the parallels with the “heavy ...
May 08, 2019•59 min
We answer a listener question on the possible negative consequences of the open science movement—are things moving too quickly? Links and things we discuss in the episode: We have a new logo, if you haven't already noticed... Contact us via our website form ! Considering the potential downsides of open science Here come dat boi meme explination The dangers of open access by fiat The role of commercial entities in open science The “ University of Oslo fancy Norway people-pay-taxes oil money blood...
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 11 min
We answer our first audio question, on whether academia is too broken to fix, and a second question on whether we’ve ever worried about the possible repercussions of our public critiques and commentary on academia. Show details: Our first audio question is from Erin Williams (@DrErinWill), who asks whether academia is too broken to fix The letter to the editor that got rejected, despite the publication of the response to the letter Harassment in academia Have we ever been worried that someone mi...
Apr 01, 2019•56 min
We chat with Sean Rife, who the co-founder of scite.ai , a start-up that combines natural language processing with a network of experts to evaluate the veracity of scientific work. Here's what we cover and links for a few things we mention What is scite.ai? The Winnower Why is there no good (and free) plagiarism detector? Grobid - A machine learning library for extracting, parsing and re-structuring PDFs Meta-analysis can prop up flawed bodies of literature The " Too meta " XKCD cartoon What’s t...
Mar 17, 2019•52 min
We chat with Henry Drysdale (University of Oxford), co-founder of the COMPare trials project , which compared clinical trial registrations with reported outcomes in five top medical journals and qualitatively analysed the responses to critical correspondence. Discussion points and links galore: The history behind the COMPare project The two papers that were published: a prospective cohort study correcting and monitoring 58 misreported trials and a qualitative analysis of researchers’ responses t...
Mar 03, 2019•56 min
In this episde, we chat with Lisa DeBruine (University of Glasgow) about her experience with large-scale collaborative science and how her psychology department made the switch from SPSS to R. Discussion points and links galore: Deborah Apthorp's tweet on having to teach SPSS , "because that's what students know" People who are involved with teaching R for psychology at the University of Glasgow: @Eavanmac @dalejbarr @McAleerP @clelandwoods @PatersonHelena @emilynordmann Why the #psyTeachR start...
Feb 17, 2019•59 min
Dan and James discuss how to deal with the problem of scientists who start talking about topics outside their area of expertise. They also discuss what they would do differently if they would do their PhDs again Here's what they cover... The podcast will now be permanently archived on Open Science Framework James did a talk at the Sound Education conference on podcasting for early career researchers. Here's the video if you want to see him squirm uncomfortably in his chair for 20 minutes and/or ...
Feb 04, 2019•55 min
Peer review is typically conducted behind closed doors. There's been a recent push to make open peer review standard, but what's often left out of these conversations are the potential downsides. To illustrate this, Dan and James discuss a recent instance of open peer review that led to considerable online debate. Here's what they cover... How should we navigate the open review of preprints? Gate keepers gonna gate keep, but is this better out in the open? Weaponising openness Some people don't ...
Jan 21, 2019•48 min
We’re joined by Daniele Marinazzo (University of Ghent) to chat about the recently launched overlay journal Neurons, Behavior, Data analysis and Theory (NBDT), for which he on the Editorial Board. An overlay journal is organised a set of manuscripts that is published and hosted by a seperate entity (in this case, the Arxiv server), a feature that dramatically reduces publication costs. We discuss the unique overlay model, how this can drive article fees to essentially zero, and what it takes to ...
Jan 07, 2019•58 min
In this episode, Dan and James chat with microbiologist Elisabeth Bik about about the detection of problematic images in scientific papers, the state of microbiome research, and making the jump from academia to industry. More info on what they cover: How Elisabeth get into error detection of scientific images The process of detecting errors in images How groups of authors tend to publish multiple papers with problematic images The association between journal prestige and problematic images Provi...
Dec 19, 2018•52 min
