Science Fictions

Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science

By: Stuart Ritchie

Narrated by: Stuart Ritchie

Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

So much relies on science. But what if science itself can’t be relied on?

Medicine, education, psychology, health, parenting - wherever it really matters, we look to science for advice. Science Fictions reveals the disturbing flaws that undermine our understanding of all of these fields and more.

While the scientific method will always be our best and only way of knowing about the world, in reality, the current system of funding and publishing science not only fails to safeguard against scientists’ inescapable biases and foibles, it actively encourages them. From widely accepted theories about ‘priming’ and ‘growth mindset’ to claims about genetics, sleep, microbiotics, as well as a host of drugs, allergies and therapies, we can trace the effects of unreliable, overhyped and even fraudulent papers in austerity economics, the anti-vaccination movement and dozens of best-selling books - and occasionally count the cost in human lives.

Stuart Ritchie has been at the vanguard of a new reform movement within science aimed at exposing and fixing these problems. In this vital investigation, he gathers together the evidence of their full and shocking extent and proposes a host of remedies to save and protect this most valuable of human endeavours from itself.

©2020 Stuart Ritchie (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Brilliant and fair

Many find it fashionable to critique institutions, but few offer ways to fix it like this.

This book offers a deeper look at the replication crisis and the roots of how bad science come to undermine the institution. More so, the author avoids interpersonal drama and dispassionately explains how poor incentives and controls result in the fraud and bias in academia.

While a must read for academics and science writers, the book offers fantastic definitions and explainers for terms you never knew were important like "p-hacking" and "pre-prints" as well as a fantastic appendix on how to read an academic paper.

This is definitely on my list of recommended books henceforth.

A must

Great book. It should be a must read for any student who wants to start a career in science.

Very well researched and written book.

Well read by the author. Well written. Enough examples to make it interesting. Good critique of many of the problems that need to be resolved in research. And some suggestions for improvement.

Science needed this

Stuart Ritchie greatly captures the issues in science today. The crisis is dire and urgent and he carefully, fairly and without reservations invites the reader to see the crisis. Unusual for most authors he offers some solutions but quickly admits more needs to be done. A great read, and important argument a job superbly executed. The bonus is the author performs the book himself, you truly hear his “voice”