Rationally Speaking #180 - David Roodman on "The Worm Wars"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2017

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia talks with economics and public policy expert David Roodman about the "Worm Wars" in social science -- the debate over whether deworming pills are an effective way to fight poverty. Along the way they discuss how to analyze a study, the differences between economists and epidemiologists, and how to make high stakes decisions when all your evidence is flawed.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode of Rationally Speaking is sponsored by Givewell, one of my favorite nonprofits.
0:05.1	They do rigorous research to quantify how much good a given charity does, how many lives
0:09.9	does it save, or how much does it reduce poverty per dollar donated?
0:13.5	You can read all about their research, or just check out their short list of top recommended
0:18.5	evidence-based charities to maximize the amount of good that your
0:22.0	donations can do. Check them out at give well.org. Welcome to rationally speaking, a podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:44.3	I'm your host, Julia Galef, and with me is today's guest, David Rudman.
0:48.3	David is a senior advisor for the Open Philanthropy Project.
0:51.6	Before that, he served as a senior economic advisor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He specializes in public policy and economics, especially economic
0:58.5	development in poorer countries. And David was a guest on rationally speaking previously,
1:03.4	about a year ago now, maybe a little more, when we were talking about microfinance and his
1:09.6	book, due diligence. This time, we're going to be talking about microfinance and his book due diligence.
1:16.7	This time, we're going to be talking about something, primarily about something called the worm wars,
1:22.0	which sounds most of all like a science fiction epic trilogy.
1:24.7	But no, it's even more exciting than that.
1:26.4	It's a controversy and social science.
1:28.8	So, David, welcome back to the show.
1:39.0	Great to be here. All right. Let's set the stage here. Starting in about 2004, the economic development world got really excited about deworming pills as a cheap and easy way to help people in poor countries.
1:46.2	The idea being that in a lot of countries, especially in Africa, it's quite common for people
1:51.2	to be infected with intestinal worms, parasites, which interfere with their nutrition and cause
1:56.2	illness, and that in turn makes it hard for them to go to work and school and succeed in life.
2:00.8	But we have pills that get rid of worms, and so the idea is that in a makes it hard for them to go to work and school and succeed in life. But we have
	...

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