We are creating a podcast about science culture! Specifically, it is a podcast that will be accompanied by educational modules (all NIH funded) addressing how the “culture of science” plays into the “reproducibility crisis”.
We are focusing on the “why” behind the “how”. Meaning rather than focusing on p-hacking/image duplication/fabricated data, we’re focusing on what drives people to p-hack/duplicate images/fabricate data. We want to examine, among other things, the incentive systems put into place by universities, granting agencies, & publishers, and how that contributes to poor research.
A (non-exhaustive) list of things we plan to cover:
-How quantity over quality is rewarded in hiring, tenure/promotion, funding, publishing
-Media coverage (fame factor and how the media doesn’t report on null results)
-Conflicts of interest (professional, ideological, financial)
-Poor oversight/mentoring (including how that can trickle down scientific “generations”)
-Authority structure
Particularly in terms of those last two: We want to talk to people who have felt pressure from mentors (likely during grad school or postdoc) to conduct inappropriate analyses and/or other data/publication related tasks for the sake of publishing specific and/or significant results. We want to hear from you whether you felt comfortable doing what was asked of you or not, whether you complied or did not. There is no judgement, only the wish to talk about an issue that is difficult to quantify precisely because we do not talk about it. We can take measures to anonymize you if you prefer.
If you have stuff to say about any of the above, we want to hear from you!!! You can e-mail Tiffany at tsdohert@iu.edu or DM her on Twitter @DrTiff_
We’ll likely conduct a pre-interview over the phone (less than 20 minutes) to make sure we’ll have plenty of relevant and interesting things to discuss, and if we all feel like it’s a go, we’ll get you scheduled for an interview. We’ll come to you and work around your schedule. The interview itself would be around an hour, and it’s not live, so we can edit anything. Very low pressure. We want this to be as easy on you as possible.
In addition, if you have further topics related to this angle that you think we should consider, we want to hear about it! And if you know someone who would be awesome but not likely to see this, we want to hear about them, too!
