#365: David Robert Grimes, PhD – Conspiracy Theories & Bad Information: Why Are We Susceptible?
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2020
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. David Robert Grimes is a physicist, cancer researcher and a science journalist. In addition to his cancer research, he has also published peer-reviewed work on conspiracy theories, meta-research and health modelling.
Dr. Grimes is the author of the fantastic book The Irrational Ape: Why We Fall for Disinformation, Conspiracy Theory and Propaganda. And given his keen interest in advancing the public understanding of science, he contributes to several media outlets discussing science, politics and society.
He appears frequently on news media to discuss and debate topics as diverse as vaccination to climate-change, and gives talks across the world on the importance of evidence in society. He was joint winner of the 2014 Nature / Sense About Science Maddox Prize for standing up for Science.
David is affiliated with Oxford University, Queen's University Belfast and Dublin City University. His cancer research has focused on the mathematical modelling and mechanistic understanding of hypoxia in cancer.
Show notes available at sigmanutrition.com/episode365
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 365 of the podcast. You are very welcome. As always, |
| 0:24.5 | I am your host, Danny Lennon. And given all that has happened this year and all the continued |
| 0:31.9 | crises really that are going to face society going into the next number of years. |
| 0:39.4 | I think today's conversation is one that is particularly timely and important. |
| 0:44.5 | My guest is Dr. David Robert Grimes, who is a physicist, a cancer research, and a science journalist. |
| 0:52.8 | And in addition to his published research in the area of cancer and health modeling, he's also published peer-reviewed work related to conspiracy theories and meta-research. And he has done a lot of work on this side in terms of science communication in the mainstream media where he's written for a number |
| 1:12.1 | of different media outlets he's appeared on tv a number of times talking about science and its |
| 1:18.3 | implications and importance in society and politics and dr grimes is the author of an absolutely |
| 1:25.2 | fantastic book that i've loved reading called The Irrational |
| 1:28.8 | Ape. And in this, he lays out many of these ideas of not only why we fall for disinformation |
| 1:37.7 | and conspiracy theories, but how we can cultivate being more critical thinkers, which is |
| 1:42.6 | being a kind of central theme of many of |
| 1:45.1 | the discussions on this podcast. And so we're going to hopefully walk through a number of these |
| 1:51.0 | different ideas throughout this conversation. The show notes this episode are going to be |
| 1:56.4 | available over at sigmautrition.com slash episode 365. There you'll be able to get a transcript of this |
| 2:04.0 | episode. You'll be able to get links to any resources that are relevant to this discussion, |
| 2:09.6 | including any research papers that we mentioned, the book that Dr. Grimes has written and anything |
| 2:15.7 | else that may be of value. And then you'll also get a |
| 2:19.2 | brief overview of what was covered in this particular episode. So that's sigmautrition.com |
| 2:23.9 | slash episode 365. And before we jump in, if I can just ask if you do find this episode interesting, |
| 2:32.3 | insightful, and potentially very important for people you know to listen |
| 2:37.6 | to, I really appreciate you sharing that around. So either just screenshot this on your phone |
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