This is the second part of a three-episode series on Paul Meehl's unpublished book, The Seven Sacred Cows of Academia.

This is the first part of a three-episode series on Paul Meehl's unpublished book, The Seven Sacred Cows of Academia.

In this episode, we discuss science communication. What is the purpose of science communication? Who does or should engage in it? Are there negative consequences of communicating science to the public? And what should we discuss over coffee and sandwiches?

Shownotes

• Joubert, M. (2019). Beyond the Sagan effect. Nature Astronomy, 3(2), 131-132.
• Martinez-Conde, S. (2016). Has contemporary academia outgrown the Carl Sagan effect?. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(7), 2077-2082.
• Turner, J. (1962). Some Coffee and Sandwiches? Science, 136, 231-231.
• Bruine de Bruin, W., & Bostrom, A. (2013). Assessing what to address in science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(3), 14062-14068.
• Burns, T. W., O'Connor, D. J., & Stocklmayer, S. M. (2003). Science communication: a contemporary definition. Public Understanding of Science, 12(2), 183-202.
• Fischhoff, B. (2013). The sciences of science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(3), 14033-14039.

Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Conference: https://dornsife.usc.edu/cesr/censorship-in-the-sciences-interdisciplinary-perspectives/

How Woke Warriors Destroyed Anthropology - Elizabeth Weiss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpWN_CsuiRc&t=392s

Clark, C. J., Jussim, L., Frey, K., Stevens, S. T., Al-Gharbi, M., Aquino, K., ... & von Hippel, W. (2023). Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(48), e2301642120.

The vertebra of Galileo in Palace Bo in Padova: https://heritage.unipd.it/en/vertebra-galileo/

The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19723-8

Stefano Comino, Alberto Galasso, Clara Graziano, Censorship, industry structure, and creativity: evidence from the Catholic Inquisition in Renaissance Venice, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2024, ewae015, https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewae015

Bernouilli’s fallacy https://aubreyclayton.com/bernoulli

Jerzy Neyman: A Positive Role Model in the History of Frequentist Statistics https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2021/09/jerzy-neyman-positive-role-model-in.html

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Medicine, 2(8), e124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Neher, A. (1967). Probability Pyramiding, Research Error and the Need for Independent Replication. The Psychological Record, 17(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393713

Moonesinghe, R., Khoury, M. J., & Janssens, A. C. J. W. (2007). Most Published Research Findings Are False—But a Little Replication Goes a Long Way. PLOS Medicine, 4(2), e28. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040028

Stroebe, W. (2016). Are most published social psychological findings false? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 66, 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.09.017

Diekmann, A. (2011). Are Most Published Research Findings False? Jahrbücher Für Nationalökonomie Und Statistik, 231(5–6), 628–635. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2011-5-606

Goodman, S., & Greenland, S. (2007). Why most published research findings are false: Problems in the analysis. PLoS Medicine, 4(4), e168.

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2007). Why most published research findings are false: Author’s reply to Goodman and Greenland. PLoS Medicine, 4(6), e215.

In preparation for our discussion of "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" by John Ioannidis from 2005, we read a very similar paper published 40 years earlier:

Neher, A. (1967). Probability Pyramiding, Research Error and the Need for Independent Replication. The Psychological Record, 17(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393713

In this episode, we discuss what separates science from pseudoscience and touch upon the demarcation problem, the recent controversial podcast called the Telepathy Tapes, and the movie Ghostbusters. Enjoy.

Shownotes

• McLean v. Arkansas
• Pigliucci, M., & Boudry, M. (Eds.). (2019). Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem. University of Chicago Press.
• Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate Animal Magnetism
• The Telepathy Tapes
• Frankfurt, H. G. (2009). On bullshit.
• Moberger, V. (2020). Bullshit, pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy. Theoria, 86(5), 595–611.
• Ghostbusters (1984) - Venkman's ESP Test Scene

Conspiracy Stories Show Notes:

• Zeitgeist documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(film_series)
• Podcast Drang naar Samenhang: https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/drang-naar-samenhang/id1584797552
• This is not a conspiracy theory documentary. https://www.everythingisaremix.info/tinact
• Parker, M. (2000). Human Science as Conspiracy Theory. The Sociological Review, 48(2_suppl), 191-207. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2000.tb03527.x
• Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538-542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261
• Tage-gate episode of More of a Comment than a Question: https://moreofacomment.buzzsprout.com/1207223/episodes/5511751-tage-gate