Principal Instigators

As we all know, space is the ideal place for computers. The cold vacuum of space insulates them, and there are plenty of muons to keep them company. Liv is predictably thrilled at this prospect, so much so that she coughs her way through explaining it to Sandra and Dan

On this very special (unlocked) episode, Sandra and Dan(i) shepherd Liv through the listener-created March Sadness™ bracket, and witness apotheosis

From 2021 to 2024, many Americans were worried that Trump would begin a second term as president in 2025, and slash federal funding for scientific research. But the leaders of the Democratic party rose to the top for a reason: namely, their clear-eyed insight into the best strategies for achieving their party's goals. On today's episode, Sandra, Liv, and Dan discuss how the Biden White House and D...

Sandra, Liv, and Dan are back to discuss the impacts of Trump and DOGE on science from destroying the scientific progress our society is based on to somehow making grad school even worse, including their most heinous crime: getting us to defend the status quo

What happens when you combine internet libertarians’ favorite woman, questionably-supported statistical analyses of human sexuality, and show tunes written by guys from a prediction market? On today’s episode, Liv shows Sandra and Dan why the answer is “psychic damage.” Content warning: sex and sexual assault, transphobia

The past year and a half has been quite eventful for National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger. He has made big claims about fire and burials and art. Far less attention has been paid to the pair of white men who are using paleoanthropology as an excuse to buy up land outside of Johannesburg, South Africa—and the fact that their wacky antics might have increased the value of that land,...

Scientists are encouraged to share their findings with the general public; organizations that communicate scientific discoveries, such as National Geographic, are helping to build an informed and rational citizenry in a changing world full of misinformation. But what if the incentives of the magazine and TV businesses come into conflict with responsible scientific research and communication? On se...

Questionable research was retracted long after the damage was done in the federal court case that will allow the Supreme Court to restrict mifepristone access. We need to prevent shoddy research from getting published in the first place, but is academia capable of enforcing even the most basic scientific standards? To answer this question, we travel back to 2018, when Trump was president, Ruth Bad...

You wouldn't trust a scientist—not even a physicist!—to enforce the law. But we trust judges to translate science into many of its impacts on society. Dan assures Liv and Sandra that nothing could possibly go wrong. https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2011/02/book-of-week-frogs-in-trousers.html

On today’s episode, Sandra, Liv, and Dan take you through the tale of a climate scientist cancelled by his own petard. Free Press article Nature paper Referee report

On today’s episode, Liv, Sandra, and Dan explore the exciting world of open access journals, where science is liberated for just a fraction of a graduate student's annual salary (per paper).

Tired: a reasonably well-supported scientific consensus based on numerous lines of evidence collected by countless researchers over decades. Wired: a rando in the twilight of his career who eventually learns to get his unique ideas through peer review. Inspired: the most unqualified people imaginable spouting off on social media about topics they don't care to understand.

On the debut episode of Principal Instigators, Sandra, Liv, and Dan discuss ProPublica's uncovering of a scheme to make your high schooler a peer-reviewed published author. https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications