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Science Fictions

Science Fictions

Written by: Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
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About this listen

 A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie

sciencefictionspod.substack.comTom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie Science
Episodes
  • Episode 100: Replication, replication, replication

    Episode 100: Replication, replication, replication
    Apr 28 2026

    We made it: triple figures! And as luck would have it, Nature just simultaneously published four major meta-science papers that are right up our street. Aw. Thanks, Nature. You shouldn’t have.

    How screwed is social/behavioural science? We read all four papers to find out.

    We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who’s been listening for all this time. See you for the next hundred!

    Show notes

    * The four Nature papers:

    * Replication

    * Reproducibility

    * Robustness

    * The non-DARPA one

    Credits

    The Science Fictions podcast—all 100+ episodes of it!—is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • Episode 99.5: Candidate genes

    Episode 99.5: Candidate genes
    Apr 21 2026
    Here’s another one for the annals of “entire scientific field becomes totally misguided for decades”. How could it have been possible that so many scientists fell for the idea of candidate genes—that there were individual gene variants that explained huge chunks of variation in depression, aggression, intelligence, and many more psychological traits? How could they have written literally hundreds of peer-reviewed papers based on completely false “results”?Well, they did. Here’s the story.(Why 99.5? We’re putting off doing Episode 100, just so we can mark the occasion with an even better topic).The Science Fictions podcast is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, the journal of underrated ideas for making the world a better place. Today we talked about the new article on why Japan’s railways are so good and what other countries can learn from them. Read all their articles, for absolutely zero cost, at worksinprogress.co.Show notes* The first study on 5HTTLPR and depression, from 1996* Caspi et al.’s seminal 2003 Science paper on gene-environment interaction with 5HTTLPR and depression* “Orchid genes” in The Atlantic; Wired; The New York Times* Caspi et al’s 2002 paper on MAOA, the “warrior gene”* Article on the Maori people and MAOA* 2009 story on an Italian court reducing a sentence due to MAOA* Though no such luck in New Mexico in 2021* Scott Alexander’s classic 2019 article on candidate genes* Failure to replicate the 5HTTLPR GxE as early as 2005* 2009 meta-analysis with flat-as-a-pancake results for 5HTTLPR* Letter about the lopsided nature of its citations* 2011 “critical review” of candidate gene studies* 2019 Border et al. study attempting to replicate depression candidate genes* 2025 GWAS of depression* A Google Scholar search for “5HTTLPR depression”, restricted to articles published in 2026CreditsThe Science Fictions podcast is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Episode 99: Power posing

    Episode 99: Power posing
    Mar 31 2026
    For a while in the early-to-mid 2010s, the most prominent psychology research in the world was on power posing. Harvard’s Amy Cuddy did a TED talk that reached tens of millions; her exhortation to “fake it til you make it” struck a chord and produced endless book sales from readers fascinated to hear how, just by adopting an expansive posture, you could revolutionise your own psychology and succeed at life.In this episode, with the benefit of hindsight, we ask: what was that all about?This podcast is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. In today’s episode we mentioned “The Perks of Being a Mole Rat”, Aria Shrecker’s entertaining new piece on what makes some animals live for an inordinately long time. Find it and endless other fascinating pieces on human progress at worksinprogress.co.Show notes* Dana Carney (not Carvey)’s 2016 letter on changing her mind about power posing* The 1996 study about walking more slowly down the hallway after reading words to do with old people* Tom’s first and second pieces in Nature* Daryl Bem’s piece on “Writing the Empirical Journal Article”* Amy Cuddy’s TED talk (the third most-watched ever)* Two studies we mentioned on the facial feedback hypothesis* 2014 NYT article on power posing and Amy Cuddy* Amy Cuddy’s bestselling book, Presence* UK Conservative Party politicians power posing for some reason* The original 2010 power posing paper in Psychological Science* A re-examination of the robustness of the results* Ranehill et al.’s 2015 replication attempt* Cuddy et al.’s “summary and review” from the same issue* Simmons & Simonsohn on the whole evidence base on power posing* Cuddy’s strategic retreat* Meta-analysis on expansive vs. “lack of contractive” posingCreditsThe Science Fictions podcast is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 13 mins
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