Summary
For years, science has had a dirty secret; research has been dogged by claims and instances of fraud, malpractice and outright incompetence. Suspicious-looking data sets, breakthrough results that can’t be replicated, eyebrow-raising statistical sleights of hand - science has been undergoing something of an existential crisis.
And at the forefront of keeping science honest has been a bunch of outsiders, some of them with no formal academic positions, no salaried posts, double-checking the published claims of researchers and academics. Their work is not without controversy, especially when they go public; nevertheless, they’ve achieved impressive results.
Presenter Michael Blastland meets some of these ‘Truth Police’, discovering their methodology and their motives, as well as asking how scientific institutions are reacting to the deep issues they have brought out into the light.
Presenter: Michael Blastland Producer: Nathan Gower
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | All right there, fellow podcast lovers. |
| 0:42.0 | This is seriously from BBC... All right there fellow podcast lovers. |
| 0:42.6 | This is seriously from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:46.2 | And I'm your host, Vanessa Casile. |
| 0:48.8 | This podcast brings you true stories |
| 0:50.9 | for curious minds and wild imaginations. |
| 0:54.5 | Next up, something powerful, unique, and seriously clever. |
| 1:07.0 | I'd like to introduce to you three unusual people. Their work is strange, frankly. |
| 1:09.0 | They tend to be outsiders whose attention is usually unwelcome. Their territory, a dark corner of science. |
| 1:17.8 | They might change what you know, what you believe, even the medicines you trust, that such people exist at all doing what they do, you might |
| 1:26.2 | think absurd or scandalous. |
| 1:32.0 | We've called them the truth police. The what? Meet them and you'll see. |
... |
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