Written by Uma Hornish:
Following her article about ‘The Measure of Everyday Life: Stories from Social Science podcast,’ here are a few more of Uma’s podcast recommendations for QMSS fans, including specific episodes which stood out to her.
More or Less: Behind the Statistics by BBC Radio:
Description: This podcast includes brief episodes which analyze different statistical queries or phenomena in the world and brings statiscal analysis to topics which you likely would have never looked at through that lens before.
Episode Length: around 8 minutes for most, some 30 minute specials
Recommended Episodes:
- A Tiktok tale
In this episode, the hosts discuss how tiktok, and tiktok users, had a significant impact on thousands of research studies, invalidating the results of many of them.
- Same data, opposite results. Can we trust research?
This episode presents the phenomena that the same studies, with the same set up, can very frequently produce different results. It touches on and explains what is known as the replication crisis and helps listeners understand the pivotal role humans play in collecting and analyzing data.
- Other good episodes: Death, Tax and Dishwashers, The numbers behind Squid Games, The art of counting
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos:
Description: The Happiness Lab is hosted by former Yale professor Laurie Santos and shares surprising stories and research that discuss happiness. This podcast is likely to change your perception of what happiness is and how to attain it.
Episode Length: typically 30 minutes
Recommended Episodes:
- Episode 3: Silver Linings
This episode, which interviews Olympic figure skating silver medalist Michelle Kwan, presents evidence that silver medalists (or people who come in second) tend to be more disappointed in the result than who get bronze medalists. Dr. Santos presents lots of compelling evidence throughout the podcast, including studies which analyze the emotions of athletes on the podium by tracking their facial muscles. Through this podcast she explains why someone could be happier about doing worse.
- Episode 10: Making the Grade
In this episode Dr. Santos discusses the detriment that grades have on not only student happiness but also performance. Dr. Santos shares studies which found that when people aren’t graded they actually learn more and seem to “do better”. She talks with many professors and academics who are extremely critical of the antiquated and deep-rooted grading system in the United States and argue why it should be done away with all together.
Revisionist History hosted by Malcolm Gladwell:
Description: This podcast, in which author Malcolm Gladwell re-visits something from the past and attempts to re-evaluate it, covers a broad range of topics. While there are many interesting episodes in this podcast, the following two part series stood out due to its links to QMSS.
Episode Length: 30-45 minutes
Recommended Episode:
- Lord of the Rankings and Project Dillard
In these two episodes, Gladwell discusses the famous U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings. He interviews a team of researchers and students who were able to create an algorithm which can almost perfectly replicate the U.S. News rankings, shedding light on what factors they use to rank colleges. Gladwell discusses the many problems with the algorithm and highlights how some schools are unfairly penalized by the algorithm, causing listeners to question their perception of the nationally accepted status of colleges based on their rankings. In the second episode, he explains why some great schools, hidden under the cloud of “prestigious” universities, never had a chance.
Freakonomics Radio with co-author Stephen J. Dubner:
Description: This podcast, which has over 400 episodes to date, explores economics in a broad sense by using economic tools to understand human behavior and phenomena. The episodes contain incredibly fascinating descriptions of how things happen and explore surprising connections in the world.
Episode Length: 40-60 minutes
Recommended Episodes:
- Episode 475: Why does the richest country in the world have so many poor kids?
In this episode, Dubner adresses why child poverty is so high in the United States, and attempts to contextualize the question: do we not care about our children? This episode stands out because Dubner grapples with understanding an important issue in the U.S. which doesn’t receive nearly enough attention. Dubner discusses how we have failed to invest in children and how our national conviction that poverty is due to laziness has led to a lack of social support unknown in other wealthy countries, leaving our children behind. He also discusses what policies can change this and whether a bipartisan effort can succeed.
- Episode 444: How Do You Cure a Compassion Crisis?
This episode features an interview of two doctors who concluded that extensive data shows that compassion from doctors (patient centered care) helps patients not only psychologically, but also physiologically by lowering patient’s perceived pain. Compassionate treatment also leads to reduced costs due in part to patients being more willing to take their prescribed medications. However, there is a large amount of burnout in the profession and a lack of compassionate care. Dubner discusses how we can fix this by updating medical school education and changing incentives for doctors in the U.S.
Data Skeptic:
Description: This podcast focuses on more advanced topics relating to statistics, machine learning, data science, and big data. Host Kyle Polich interviews a new expert every episode which, in the past season, focused on time series and forecasting.
Episode Length: 20-45 minutes
Episodes:
- Data Science at eHarmony
In this episode, Polich is joined by the director of data science at eHarmony, Jon Morra, who describes what methods they use for matching people both on compatibility and affinity. Affinity relates to initial attraction and the probability of initial communication. Morra goes into very specific details about the matching process and how they even use facial analysis software to determine potential matches.
- The Police Data and Data Driven Justice Initiatives
In this episode, Polich interviews two professionals who worked on the White House’s Police Data Initiative under president Obama. The interviewees discussed how they attempted to increase transparency in police data around the U.S. in order to better understand community policing. They also discuss how this data can be used to improve policing and help rehabilitate low level offenders.