Ed Yong on Science, Replication, and Journalism

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2012

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ed Yong, science writer and blogger at "Not Exactly Rocket Science" at Discover Magazine, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the challenges of science and science journalism. Yong was recently entangled in a controversy over the failure of researchers to replicate a highly-cited and influential psychology study. He discusses the issues behind the failed replication and the problem of replication in general in other fields, arguing that replication is under-appreciated and little rewarded. After a discussion of the incentives facing scientists, the conversation turns to the challenges facing science journalists when work that is peer-reviewed may still not be reliable.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts
0:13.9	of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org
0:21.2	where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to
0:26.5	another information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today is May 29th, 2012, and my guest is Ed Yong. He is an award-winning science journalist. His
0:45.3	blog at Discover Magazine is not exactly rocket science. Ed welcomed Econ Talk. Hello, thanks
0:52.3	for having me.
0:53.5	You recently got entangled in a controversy over replicability in psychology, which is
0:58.8	our first topic. That's right. We're going to talk about the reliability of scientific
1:03.2	results and how that translates into journalism. I want to start off with your experience in
1:08.8	the psychology area and at a particularly well-known study that got complicated because
1:14.9	of replicability. What happened there?
1:18.2	The original study was published in 1996. It was by a man called John Barge, who is a very
1:24.4	well-known so-called social psychologist. It showed that people who are primed with words
1:32.1	related to old age. If they're unconsciously exposed to these words, then they will walk
1:39.9	more slowly down a corridor.
1:43.0	It was a pretty... Sorry, go on.
1:45.0	This was after the experiment was not only about one thing, but actually was about something
1:49.1	else. What the experiment was interested in is when the experiment was over, if they'd
1:53.2	seen words in the experiment that were related to being old, they'd walk more slowly. I have
1:57.8	to say, Ed, it just doesn't pass the SNF test for me to start with. It was a very extremely
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.