The DISRUPTED SCIENCE Podcast

In 2025, Anita Say Chan’s book, Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, was published by the University of California Press. This led to a review here, and we became immediate fans of her insights and research trajectory. We also conducted an email interview with Chan back in June 2025, before we were any good at podcasting. That interview is absolutely riveting, with dozens of insights that will give you pause. Then, in September 2025, we had the chance to do a podcast interview with Chan, where we discussed: the path from Big Data to eugenics to the surveillance economy the role academia has played in enabling much of this our lurch toward tech-led authoritarianism our confusion of metrics with merit Big Tech’s monoculture and paranoia It’s a great interview. Given renewed attention on both “soft eugenics” and eugenics in scientific publications — preprints and otherwise — we thought it would be a good idea to revisit this. We’d also like to mention a recent paper by Helen Burn about Galton and the history of eugenics in statistics and at University College London (UCL). Chan references the history, as well. Discoveries of the Week (also revisited) Sniffing out the platypus [video] Subscribe today Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

We’re finally in the long-awaited tunnel to people buying and reading our book. It seems like forever, yet the book also strikes us as more relevant than ever. As with most things set into motion, the path has contained some surprises. One was that the initial publication date (July 21st) was pushed back to August 4th due to supply chain issues. However, three book signings had already been scheduled, so the publisher has arranged for books to be available early at these pre-publication signings: Porter Square Books in Cambridge, July 21st — more information/RSVP Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport, July 24th — more information/RSVP Northshire Books in Manchester, VT, July 25th — more information/RSVP This week, we discuss having a “platform” for the book, recording podcast interviews, drafting potential op-eds, dealing with reviews and early feedback, and some fun experiences we’ve already had. We also discuss a mental challenge that sneaked up on us — so much time has passed and so much has changed since we put pens down, we have to become comfortable about talking about the book as if it’s a new thing, when for us it’s more than a year or two old. We also share our “Discoveries of the Week.” Link to Kent’s discovery about frogs. PNAS paper discussed. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Quantification as proxy for qualification of scientific and academic publications has been around for a very long time.  Today, we touch a little on the history of bibliometrics and scientometrics, but not as much as in the chapter in our book, where we go into the metrics of it all over the last 30 years. Griping about the JIF has been going on for decades. “Responsible use” or “don’t count it” per DORA “should” statements, etc., and to no avail because in the end it is a commercial product that influences careers, university rankings, and provides fodder for profit-driven publishers all over the world. Constraints on publication made it a reliable measure of centrality in a community. Disrupting constraints on publication via cascading portfolios, pop-up journals, special issues, AI slop, and preprints has compromised the JIF. Researchers no longer recognize lists of high impact journals in their fields. Clarivate has not addressed in their marketing copy how their 2026 product accounts for what is actually happening in scientific publishing today. They highlight “transparency,” “publisher-neutral,” “6th decade of trust,” and “responsible use,” but the reality is that what they are selling includes fake citations, fake papers, real citations to fake papers, real papers citing fake papers, paid-for authorships, author appropriations, journals that have gone hybrid or OA getting rankings boosts because they are easier to be cited, including by AI, etc.  What’s different today, even moreso than a year ago, is that the tricks and schemes to use scientific papers as currency for various reasons are known, and turbo-charged by AI. We’ll be talking more about this in the coming months. But we wanted for now to have a frank conversation about the JIF during “announcements week.” It’s our effort to make you a little more aware of what’s going on in the trust marker and metrics space from our point of view. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

We turned the manuscript for our book in almost a year ago now, but we were working feverishly on it around this time given that MAHA was busy undermining vaccine science even then. Now, a year later, how is our book looking? More or less relevant? In this episode, we take a walk of some key chapter to find out: Trapped In the Tech Shrine An Ad Model for Scientific Claims   Everything Counts, Nothing Matters  Amateur Hour “Code Is Law”  The Price of “Free”  Feudalism Makes a Comeback   Not the Same as the Old Boss   What Does an LLM “Know”?   Unnatural Science   Bottom line?  The book is more obviously relevant, but perhaps like other books we’ve heard authors reflecting upon after publication, we didn’t go far or hard enough. We also include our “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

We’ve been doing our podcast for nearly a full year, starting right as we were putting our pencils down from writing the book. We didn’t know quite what to expect, but we were excited to try something new, and we learned how to do a podcast, which felt like an accomplishment. We’ve also has some great interviews: AI experts (the professor kind) Librarians (who serve communities of students and faculties) Historians (who put today things into context) Business professors (who talked about incentives) Artists (who create) Scientists (who study and learn) Up-and-coming leaders (who have perspective for the next generation) Public health experts (who are having to fight for the right to do their jobs) Silicon Valley insiders (who know where the money comes from) Philosophers (who think about the big picture) Editors (who do the work) We’ve covered a few very active topics in a variety of ways: MAHA AI OA This all allowed us to keep learning while we put the finishing touches on the book and got closer to publication date. But now, we are going to pivot . . . Our book is coming out, so we’re focusing on everything that goes into that, while leaving coverage of developments to “The Geyser” and writing there. We also have some other projects in the works that are going to require a lot of focus, so we’re using the time saved doing this to focus on those. Basically, we’re not sure what the podcast will be now. Here are some possibilities: Once in a while, we may have episodes like the ones you’ve heard before We may make some announcements about the book or have interviews with people involved with it in some way We may podcast from an event like a signing or talk We may have announcements about the other big projects we’re working on We may just jump on it if something crazy happens and we want to talk with you about it So, stay subscribed to the feed, and we’ll show up soon enough with something we hope you’ll find interesting — we’re just not entirely sure what it might be! We also will continue to have our “Discoveries of the Week” every time. This week, they include a history of jaywalking: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/nx-s1-5813709/diving-deep-into-the-fascinating-history-of-americas-jaywalking-laws Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/   

Today we take a deep dive into a fake paper involving Eric Topol, one of the most prominent names in what we have to call “mainstream medicine” today. We’re going to offer our second opinion on what we know to be his misdiagnosis of what should be done to cure this “problem.” A clue to the real source of the problem is the only “real” thing about the paper — the DOI. CrossRef has failed to realize that the DOI is a brand asset being exploited across scientific publishing as a fake certification code. Predatory publishers boast when they get a DOI. Pseudoscience grifters litter their citation lists with DOIs to make it appear as if certifying bodies have signed off on their claims. So, it’s no wonder that usage of DOIs is spiking as MAHA and other fake science grifts accelerate. This points out a lack of serious governance of certification in general, even accidental certification via technological tools that can be made to look validating and certifying to those outside science. We start with a side-quest into the papers offered to the Trump Administration by Joe Rogan to get an executive order about psychedelics rolling. Finally, we have our “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

This week, guest host Michael Magoulias takes the reins to conduct a lighthearted interview of your intrepid authors, partly to take the sting out of this being tax day in the US. Michael has worked in scholarly publishing at the University of Chicago Press and is currently at Elsevier. He’s a trenchant observer of the scene and mutual friend. We tackle some introductory questions and then . . . the Colbert Questionert! What is the best sandwich? The scariest animal? So many topics. Enjoy this lighthearted episode, including three “Discoveries of the Week.” We’ll be back with more interviews and serious topics next week. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Susan Wise Bauer is a historian and author of The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy. I reviewed her book a few weeks ago, and Joy attended a talk she gave William & Mary. Her engaging book seems to come from an era when the history of science existed outside of politics, restoring a calm sense of historical perspective much needed in these troubled times. In addition teaching for 18 years at William and Mary and writing books, Bauer is a farmer and a publisher. We discuss a grab-bag of topics, including: Kleenex How physicians evolved out of acolytes at temples The English sweat The library book panic Copernicus and corpses We also share our “Discoveries of the Week:” Susan’s: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown Kent’s: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242976013-how-the-internet-disrupted-science Joy’s: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=slow+vacuuming Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Technology and media have become entangled and confused, so much so that the free speech of “no, thanks, not for us” is now called “censorship” and discussing public officials or people on the public payroll in accountable roles is being equated to “doxxing.” Meanwhile, it’s becoming clearer AI isn’t about knowledge, it’s about power. Media manipulation is what tech has become all about — from social media to AI. President Trump has been a media manipulator since the beginning: John Barron, John Miller, David Dennison as his fake personas to plant stories National Enquirer “catch and kill” stories (Stormy Daniels) Ghost-authored Art of the Deal The Apprentice First Twitter President First TikTok President Truth Social Which brings us to the new President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which is mostly a who’s who of media manipulators masquerading as technologists: Marc Andreessen — VC, on Meta board Sergey Brin — Alphabet, in the Epstein files (island, Ghislaine) Safra Catz — Oracle Larry Ellison — Oracle Michael Dell — Dell Jacob DeWitte — Oklo Investors (nuclear power) Fred Ehrsam — Coinbase David Friedberg — Investor (sold business to Monsanto) Jensen Huang — NVIDIA John Martinis — quantum physicist, UCSB, 2025 Nobel Prize Bob Mumgaard — fusion energy Lisa Su — AMD (on Biden’s PCAST before) Mark Zuckerberg — Meta These CEOs have a combined wealth in excess of US$900 billion. Overall, it looks like a group formed to deliver the Singularity and realize Adam Becker’s worst nightmare — nuclear power, fusion, compute, AI, and techno-authoritarianism. How are these people being propped up? “CEO Said a Thing!” journalism: https://karlbode.com/ceo-said-a-thing-journalism/  Attention economy conceits: https://www.altmetric.com/solutions/altmetric-attention-digest/ We discuss where science fits or doesn’t, and share our zero-gravity “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re joined by Amanda Licastro, Head of Digital Scholarship Strategies and Visiting Associate Professor in English at Swarthmore College. Amanda recently participated in one of Rick Anderson’s debates at the Researcher to Reader conference in London. This one was titled, “Resolved: AI Tools Will Provide a Net Benefit to Scholarly Communication.” Amanda took the side of opposing that statement. In these debates, a poll is taken before the participants speak to gauge audience sentiment at the outset. Then, after the speakers exchange opening statements and responses, the poll is repeated. Before the start of the debate, 80% of the audience believed AI would be a net benefit to scholarly communications. After a professional and well-natured presentation of facts, 52% of the audience came to believe that AI would not be a net benefit to scholarly communications. We discuss a variety of great and relevant topics, including use of AI in colleges, the dark downsides, and fears of skill, cognitive, and information degradation, as well as tricks and techniques companies are using to force these on us or convince them of their benign value. It’s a great conversation. “Discoveries of the Week” Amanda’s discovery: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-ai-headline-rewrites-test-472146 Kent’s discovery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busta_Rhymes_Island Joy’s discovery: https://www.phl.org/newsroom/Longestlinecheesesteaks Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

A recent episode of Paris Marx’s “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast featured Tim Schwab, author of the 2023 book, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire. Recent revelations about Gates and Jeffrey Epstein have led to a reckoning at the Gates Foundation, making Schwab’s book more relevant and causing us to pause and revisit the role of the Gates Foundation and funders in general in the scientific and scholarly publishing space. Started to reputation-wash himself after Microsoft lost its 2001 anti-trust case — with Gates himself testifying in a memorable set of exchanges — the Gates Foundation’s reputation has been eroding for some time. The Epstein Files may be the end of the line for this effort to rehabilitate Gates’ reputation. As we write in our upcoming book, Gates is not alone in trying to use money to influence priorities in science, medicine, and scientific publishing: Five funders rose to prominence in “open” scientific publishing relatively quickly — Max Planck, HHMI, Wellcome, Gates, and CZI — representing an interesting historical trajectory of wealth shifting from nation-states to manufacturing to chemistry to computer science to social media. In some ways, it is the preceding century in a nutshell. They are all proving problematic. We discuss Phase 1 of funder involvement, and how this has created a bridge into a more dire potential Phase 2 as MAHA grifters have learned the tricks of sheltering cash and spending on grifter science. We also share our Discoveries of the Week. Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

John Wiley & Sons is at it again with its “date anyone with a cute AI” approach, announcing yesterday a deal with OpenEvidence (OE). This is nothing new for Wiley, a company that seems more infatuated with tech than it is with science and scholarship, a massive departure from its roots. OE is certainly happy to make the deal, but not for the quality of the content. Rather, it keeps their targeted ad business growing. Platforming medical and health content is simply laying the groundwork for making a Facebook of medical information — a platform designed to sell user-targeted ads with the quality of content barely registering as a concern. OE has proven susceptible to eugenics-adjacent pay-to-play misinformation, pay-to-play articles placed to help shill colostrum, and pay-to-play articles published to promote “functional medicine,” a MAHA-related pseudo-specialty. And nobody at OE seems to care, because that’s just part of the Section 230 platform game — don’t interfere in the content, just use it to get qualified leads to interact with your ad system. While Facebook leveraged the trust of your social network — friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances — to get users into their ad platform, OE is leveraging trust markers in medical science, from brands to the concepts of peer review and evidence. Bottom line? OE is an advertising platform being rolled out to target physicians with premium targeted ads, likely selling for a cost-per-view (CPV) of $500-$800. With major agencies backing it and others suffering FOMO, OE is positioned to clean up. However, with only about $7 billion in annual pharma ad spending, is this enough to justify their massive valuation? And will they be able to unseat actual point-of-care tools like UpToDate? Or will they just be a second-rate sideshow after the dust settles, the fundamental flaws become clear, and the short-term wins have been pocketed? We also share our “Discoveries of the Week.” Fish doorbells: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-dutch-fish-doorbell-helps-migrating-fish-each-spring/ Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

The last 25 years in scientific publishing has been about privileging technology-backed insurgents — business models, philosophies, belief systems, information theories. Natural science empowered by digital tools flipped to “digital science” at the expense of funding for natural science. Things are more complicated now in the sciences. Insurgents are coming from all directions, so we have to distinguish between bad insurgents and good insurgents — and some of the new bad ones are playing an updated version of the tech game, too. Disruption is so embedded now that normies are insurgents. Good insurgents want to align with pro-science players for the long-term and to the benefit of all. Bad insurgents continue to exploit communication channels and others, primarily for their own enrichment and benefit. In addition, bewildering controversies have emerged between the science-aligned incumbents and science-aligned insurgents, in particular AAAS and Stand Up for Science. We discuss the value of the newer, unencumbered insurgents vs. encumbered incumbents, how the battle is against anti-science players unencumbered by rules, norms, or bureaucratic process, and how we need to support the good insurgents who are focused beyond the horizon of crazy in-fighting. The incumbents have the power to influence, and they have a choice to make. We also share our “Discoveries of the Week.” The Murder of Jane Stanford: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-murder-of-jane-stanford/id278981407?i=1000751170391 Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Carl Rhodes is Professor of Business and Society at The University of Technology Sydney Business School. Carl researches the relationship between liberal democracy and contemporary capitalism. Martina Linnenluecke is an internationally recognized scholar who conducts research on corporate adaptation and resilience to global climate change. She is also at The University of Technology Sydney Business School. Their work caught our attention when we saw their January 5, 2026, article in The Conversation entitled “The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing.” It was related to their 2025 “speaking out” article in the journal Organization entitled “The junkification of research.” From academic capitalism to the secondary market for careerist OA publishing, the discussion is wide-ranging and lively, with a focus on their five stages of junkification/enshittification: The commodification of research The proliferation of pay-to-publish journals A decline in quality and integrity The sheer volume of publications Enshittification We also share our “Discoveries of the Week.” Tony Hawk’s “Ollie 720 Challenge” won by a 12-year-old from Japan, Ao Nishikawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGScJcp-Y3c Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Maxwell K. Riggsbee, Jr., is a technologist currently specializing in developing machine learning systems around content serving US government policy-makers and related stakeholders via his company Gadget Software.  Max is also well-known for the cartoons he puts out on LinkedIn. Inspired by his love of 19th century political cartoons, these are timely, well-designed encapsulations of current events. One he did in honor of my post about “Rachel So” and aixiv.org was particularly lovely.  We wanted to talk to Maxwell about his career, his cartoons, and his vision for where this is all going. We also discuss his idea for “compute-ready documents,” and share our “Discoveries of the Week.” Show Notes “Then Is Now Diaries:” https://thenisnow.substack.com/p/1954-from-here-to-there “Goldie & Frenchie” YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dogpackapp Skyride maintenance: https://liftblog.com/aeronaut-skyride-busch-gardens-williamsburg-va/comment-page-1/ Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Earlier this week, Ben Collins, the owner of The Onion, was interviewed on Kara Swisher’s “On” podcast. The interview raised some core questions about the digital information age and how we in scientific publishing are handling it so far. Collins is from Massachusetts. His mother is a librarian, and he initially pursued a sports journalism career. In 2024, he became CEO of a company called Global Tetrahedron, which purchased The Onion. He wanted to rescue it from being purchased by Elon Musk and becoming “an AI slop farm.” Collins is also attempting to buy InfoWars from Alex Jones, mainly to make sure victims who have been awarded money from Jones’ lies and defamations can finally get some.  The interview touched on a core difference in the media space, one that I pondered independently before listening to the interview — Why is there one fake media space that is currently thriving but starting to crack under the strain, and a separate reality-based media space growing stronger and more interesting and relevant by the day? What does this portend? Where does scientific publishing fit into this now? Are we indulging unscientific fantasies of our own? And why is it so much more fun and impactful to be in the reality-based world today? We also share our “Discoveries of the Week.” “Stuff You Should Know” podcast about the color orange (and more): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-should-know/id278981407?i=1000747999454 The Ransomware Hunting Team: https://reneedudley.com/ Now available in paperback Show Notes Interview with Ben Collins: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-onions-ben-collins-on-political-satire-why-trump/id1643307527?i=1000747679219 Subscribe to The Onion: https://membership.theonion.com/ Wired article about infiltrating Moltbook: https://www.wired.com/story/i-infiltrated-moltbook-ai-only-social-network/ “Polymaths” fantasies: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2025/01/20/in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence-polymaths-are-back-in-vogue/ Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

PJ Puterbaugh’s skills exist at the intersection of art and science. Working as a painter and portraitist, years ago she found herself utilizing her abilities to help people by becoming a forensic artist. This meant certifying with the International Association for Identification (IAI) and becoming a Certified Forensic Artist. PJ works by assisting various law enforcement agencies with John and Jane Doe images and skull-to-face reconstructions. The same methods can also apply to museum and historical projects. Her work for medical examiners and cold case investigators bridges forensic science, creative visualization, and multimedia storytelling to bring human faces to life with accuracy and impact. She has helped law enforcement identify various victims and close years-old cold cases.  We also have our “Discoveries of the Week,” which are quite toothy. Related Links PJ Puterbaugh’s site: https://pjputerbaughartist.com/ Forensic Art and Illustration: https://www.amazon.com/Forensic-Art-Illustration-Karen-Taylor/dp/0849381185/ GOLF: What You Know Can Hurt You: https://www.amazon.com/GOLF-What-Discover-fundamentals-swing/dp/0615268404/ Ologies podcast about paleohistology: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/paleohistology Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Reading about Skylar Hughes is like reading about the early days of a superstar. A ballerina, a young academic powerhouse, and a community and psychological researcher for years already, Skylar went from high school in Georgia to attending Duke University, her dream at the time.  She worked as a fact-checker at CNN, and caught our eye with her TEDxDuke talk about social norms around truth. Since then, she has graduated from Duke and is now pursuing a Master’s in the Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute.  In this interview, we discuss distinctions between norms, normal, and normalized, dis- and misinformation, believing lies vs. condoning lies, “weird checking,” the Fairness Doctrine, and much more. We also have our “Discoveries of the Week.” The paper Skylar mentions Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

“Disintermediation” was a hot buzzword during the early days of disruption thinking, but it never really occurred. Instead, the platform era ushered in new forms of intermediation based on advertising incentives and deregulation, making the current environment far less accountable and far more about exploitation. Markets depend on middlemen, as do information economies. The health of markets and information spaces often depends on how well those middlemen function, the rules that define their scope of action, and the incentives that guide their choices. As Jonathan Rauch wrote in The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of the Truth (Brookings Institution Press, 2021): Without the places where professionals like experts and editors and peer reviewers organize conversations and compare propositions and assess competence and provide accountability — everywhere from scientific journals to Wikipedia pages — there is no marketplace of ideas; there are only cults warring and splintering and individuals running around making noise. Compared to the intermediation of yore, with editors, editorial boards, and publishing staff listed on mastheads, platforms have no such obvious pathways to accountability. Section 230 has been used to provide them with the kind of legal cover that allows them to make their own rules and behave with near impunity. Attention is the new commodity, and stealing yours is the goal. The new middleman is a thief, not an ally. We discuss these issues, the black boxes of platforms, the role of LLMs as new black box intermediaries, the long-forgotten Fairness Doctrine and its relevance, and more. We also touch on recent news (the new STM report, PISS, and more). Joy’s post about velvet ropes: https://www.the-geyser.com/bring-back-the-velvet-ropes/ This podcast gets a nod: Also, this draft paper (labeled as such, thank you authors) is a critically important read because of the ideas: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5870623 Some background on how it came about: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/how-generative-ai-is-destroying-society We finish with our “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Rick Anderson, the University Librarian at Brigham Young University (BYU), joins us today. Rick serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards and is a regular contributor to the Scholarly Kitchen. He has served as president of NASIG and SSP, groups that span from libraries to publishers Also, he and Kent are not related, even if people often misattribute things between them. Late last year, Rick wrote a two-part contemplation (Part 1 and Part 2) of what the OA movement might have achieved and where things might reasonably go from here, emphasizing that a range of approaches might have to be embraced so we can focus on more central issues. Rick has also written three books, including Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2018). Our wide-ranging discussion touches on how libraries first inspired Rick, his career journey from BYU and back, and his role in shaping discussions around OA through analysis. We finish with “Discoveries of the Week.” Joy’s Discovery of the Week: https://youtu.be/zOd01sLlDj4?si=L6cCE09o-K7c-g1A Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

To close out 2025, we’ve decided to focus on a few related topics — incentives, norms, rules, and the customer you choose. Scientific and scholarly publishing has embraced misaligned incentives by making information producers the primary customers, causing the norms and rules of the game to warp and even break. What might happen if we reorient ourselves around information consumers? What norms might be more readily embraced? What rules might be reestablished? Would it be a better game? A recent proposal in Nature from Jennifer Byrne, a cancer researcher at the University of Sydney, would require publishers to certify as ISO-9001 organizations, with her justifications fitting with our arguments quite well: “Organizations certified as ISO-9001-compliant must demonstrate operations that are customer-focused, committed to continual improvement and underpinned by systematic management approaches and evidence-based decision-making.” “Journals and publishers are currently incentivized to meet authors’ expectations — but ISO 9001 compliance means also prioritizing the needs of readers.” Other links for the episode: Cloud Dancer Dogs: https://www.latimes.com/companion-animals/dogs/breeds/story/pantone-2026-cloud-dancer-white-dog-breeds “HardFork” interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/podcasts/hardfork-ai-science.html Tristan Harris interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-dilemma-with-tristan-harris/id1498802610?i=1000740817066 This also marks our 32nd episode since launching the “Disrupted Science” podcast in June — a surprising achievement as according to Riverside 44% of podcasts started don’t make it past three episodes, and only 8% make it past 10 episodes. Maybe we’re just stubborn enough to make this work. We were stubborn enough to write a book, after all. We were also interviewed last week by Darrell Gunter for WSOU 98.5FM at Seton Hall. Maybe we also like to talk . . . We’ve had tremendous guests as we’ve gotten underway, and look forward to some of them returning next year in addition to some great new guests already being lined up. We also have our final “Discoveries of the Week” and some book updates to share. Thanks for listening, and for all your support. Happy New Year! Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

For a variety of reasons we explore in the podcast, the OA bubble is not arriving in the AI era as something as all-encompassing or healthy as imagined — in fact, it appears to be deflating and is certainly dirtier than expected. It also does not possess sufficient surface tension to repel elements of the AI bubble from mixing in — OA papers with OA citations and text are often found, and many more are suspected to exist throughout preprint servers, predatory publishers, and opportunistic Gold OA publishers. The increasingly conjoined bubbles may share a fate in some manner, one we speculate about. There are also some common business aspects — funding that dries up, circular financing operations, and bad actors aplenty. Will both bubbles pop in spectacular fashion? Will they slowly deflate? Will one pop, leaving the other unharmed? Or are there another scenarios? In any event, both bubbles appear incongruous with scientific discovery. Where do we go from here? We finish with our “Discoveries of the Week.” Article on the New York Times’ “Connections” game. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re talking with Elizabeth Jacobs, Professor Emerita in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Arizona. She retired in 2024 to help found “Defend Public Health,” a fiscally-sponsored volunteer network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect public health from the Trump administration’s attacks on proven, science-based policies.  Topics of today’s interview include RFK, Jr., MAHA, public health disinformation and misinformation, supplements grifting, seeds of chaos to enable lawsuits, the importance of a new approach to advocacy, the negative valence of social media, and the proven power and safety of vaccines. Also, we have our “Discoveries of the Week,” including an important study Jacobs mentions. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

This week, we dive into an unexpected topic — the rather bizarre Bluesky account run by Altmetric. Altmetric has made some changes lately, including podcasts, so-called sentiment analysis, and Bluesky itself. And their LinkedIn account is much more sober than Bluesky. But as you experience the Bluesky account, you get a feeling that something is definitely not quite right. What is going on here? Is some part of Altmetric coming off the rails? And, with the Impact Factor producing confusing results, is it time to look beyond current metrics? We also have some book updates and our “Discoveries of the Week.” Interview with Dr. Fay-Wei Li, Duke Gaga Fern Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Derek Lowe is a medicinal chemist working on drug discovery. He’s been writing a renowned science blog called “In the Pipeline” since 2002. Lowe tackles a mix of scientific updates, political perspectives, and critiques of scientific publishing, all in an extremely down-to-earth and readable manner. He’s also the author of a 2016 book, The Chemistry Book: From Gunpowder to Graphene, 250 Milestones in the History of Chemistry. In a recent post Lowe described himself as an “AI Realist,” while writing a great line about current LLMs: They are extruding an optimized slurry of words into answer-shaped chunks. To my way of thinking, these are far more removed from actual human writing than a typical chicken nugget is from a chicken walking around a barnyard — but I have to admit that there are many situations where they’re good enough. When it comes to AI, Lowe is a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist, but as the interview shows, sacrificing science at the altar of technology is not a way forward. Discovery science, the effects of cuts on academia, and why drug discovery is and likely will remain difficult terrain are all topics we discuss. A serious amateur astronomer and — like any good chemist — a cook, Derek’s renowned chocolate pecan pie recipe: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/holiday-organic-synthesis-chocolate-pecan-pie It’s an entertaining and informative episode, with our “Discoveries of the Week” and our thanks for all the support you’ve given us and our nascent podcast efforts so far. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re talking with Roger McNamee, an entrepreneur, author, musician, and investor with a legacy in Silicon Valley that stretches from his days heading the T. Rowe Price Science and Technology Fund through the social media era and now into the crypto and AI era. In 2019, McNamee published a book — Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe — where he outlined how his high hopes for his proteges Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg had been dashed. More recently, he’s been reflecting on the mismatches between capital investments and revenues for large AI companies. McNamee is a member of the band Moonalice, which performs and records regularly. He shares a fascinating story about the band, as well. We finish with our “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/   

Today, we’re talking with Jeremy Berg, a former editor of Science, former President of ASBMB, and former Director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the NIH. Earlier this year, Berg grew alarmed at the nomination of Jay Bhattacharya as Director of the NIH, and began a correspondence with him after his confirmation. For a time, he documented this via his Bluesky account, which grew massively as a result. Striking a calm, evidence-based tone, Berg often received no response from Bhattacharya. When he did, the responses seemed to bristle with political overtones. Berg published these correspondences in late Summer in PDF form under the title, “Fifty Shades of Jay.” He continues to update the document from time to time. We wanted to talk with Jeremy about this, and given the recent spate of announcements about Director-level “hiring in a hurry” at the NIH — including a new Director of the NLM — we also wanted to discuss other aspects of MAHA-era science defunding, firings, and hirings as the US scientific establishment is turned upside-down. We also talk about diversity issues, with a particularly interesting angle coming to light. It’s a fascinating interview throughout, which we close with our “Discoveries of the Week.” Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re talking with Nick Evans, who was in the Department of Philosophy in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and who recently moved to the Department of Political Science, a move he explains in the interview. Joy met Nick at this year’s Peer Review Congress in Chicago, where he talked about his research around preprints and public policy. With a background in physics, science policy, and philosophy, Nick has a rich lens through which to view various aspects of his research topics, which includes dual-use technologies and gain-of-function in the life sciences. His book called Gain of Function was published earlier this year with MIT Press. It’s a fascinating and informative discussion, he shadow-quotes Neil Peart, and we also get into “Discoveries of the Week,” which include coffee, cars, and deer. Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re talking with Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, co-authors of the book The AI Con, which came out earlier this year.  Emily is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School. In 2023, she was included in the inaugural Time 100 list of the most influential people in AI.  Alex is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute and a Lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley. She is an outspoken critic of the tech industry, a proponent of community-based uses of technology, and a highly sought-after speaker and expert.  We discuss how AI hoodwinks people by exploiting their natural tendency to assign intelligence to things that produce language, how “science is squarely in the hype danger zone,” labor and structural issues related to AI exploitation and extraction, and so much more. You can get a sense of their witty approach to tackling this by realizing that when they talk about “synthetic text extruding machines,” it reduces to “STEM.” We also get their “Discoveries of the Week.” Visit this page for information about contacting Emily. Visit this page for information about contacting Alex. For more information about their book, visit this page. Our book — available for PRESALE — is here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-the-Internet-Disrupted-Science/Kent-Anderson/9781493094400 Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re talking with Mike Olson, Assistant Professor and Cataloging & Discovery Librarian at Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Mike published two guest posts on “The Scholarly Kitchen” earlier this year which caught our eye. The first was in March, where he wrote about library catalogs as colonization systems with the power to make naming decisions appear neutral and inevitable by disguising bias behind what a former ALA president called “a facade of technical objectivity.” His next post in August had to do with layoffs at OCLC justified by claims of advances in AI that could lead to efficiency. Mike noted that “the same technological advances celebrated for their efficiency are erasing the human expertise that creates the high-quality metadata these systems depend on to function.”   As fans of human expertise, local and disciplinary control, and skepticism about tech claims, we wanted to bring him on for a conversation. The interview does not disappoint, as it echoes concerns from earlier interviews about how academia is being appropriated for rents and extractive processes by tech companies without support for the kind of skepticism and support of human expertise we’d expect from universities. Subscribe today Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we’re joined by Seth Leopold, an orthopaedic surgeon and Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, also known as CORR, a top journal in orthopaedic surgery.  Seth and Kent got to know one another through some projects and mutual concerns about scientific publishing, and this year they published a piece with another editor in marine science outlining their concerns about unreviewed preprints. Today we talk about some of the challenges the editorial team at CORR wrestles with on a daily basis, some of the stances the orthopaedic journals have taken collectively, and some of the more recent challenges AI has posed for them. Show Notes Preprint paper by Leopold, Browman, and Anderson: https://journal.trialanderror.org/pub/preprinting-responsibility/release/1 Paper about CORR wrestling with AI LTEs: https://journals.lww.com/clinorthop/fulltext/2025/10000/editorial__ai_assisted_letters_to_the_editor_scope.1.aspx Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Acetamiophen is one of the most studied analgesics in the world, and was the centerpiece of a famous product recall when a murderer laced capsules with potassium cyanide. The company swept the shelves in the name of public safety, and restocked them only after establishing new tamper-proof packaging. Today, Big Tech is releasing products that are leading to clear consumer harms, yet remain idolized and immunized. Why is this? Is there a quasi-religious aspect to technology and its offshoots we need to recognize? How does this dovetail with re-emerging religious fundamentalism in general? And where does it leave science? We discuss these topics and share our ”Discoveries of the Week.” Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/   

This week, in a special Friday episode, we are pleased to bring you an interview with Christine Laine, the Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Internal Medicine, which is published by the American College of Physicians (ACP). The Annals and the ACP have been at the center of a couple of controversies stirred up by the MAHA crowd. You’ll hear how word reached the Annals team that RFK, Jr., wanted a paper about vaccines and autism retracted. (Hint: RFK, Jr., looks bad, the Annals comes out smelling like a rose.) And you’ll hear more about that BMC Environmental Health paper, and why its methodology is suspect, how its author still involved in the legal case where his evidence was disallowed by a judge, and more. We also discuss the use of AI in medical science, point-of-care systems, and physician training and practice — including how it’s affecting patient interactions. At its heart, it is an interview about the power of expertise, the importance of good journals within scientific communities, the role of editorial care and collaborations, and how we collectively get science done right. Unlike what some would have you believe, it’s not easy. We hope you enjoy the interview.   Show Notes Dr. Andrea Love’s coverage of the Tylenol paper’s disreputable background: https://news.immunologic.org/p/the-tylenolautism-pseudoscience-pipeline The paper in question: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01208-0  Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/   

The author of the book, Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, Anita Chan is a Professor in the School of Information Sciences and Department of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Today, she joins us to discuss the relationships between Big Data, eugenics, Big Tech, techno-fascism, AI in science, and more. It's an enlightening conversation, and an especially urgent one given how hard Big Tech is attempting to co-opt our culture. We also share our “Discoveries of the Week,” including a rediscovery of a classic technique for teaching. (Hint: It still works.)   Show Notes Predatory Data book: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/predatory-data/paper?ref=the-geyser.com Interview with Olivia Guest and Iris van Rooij: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-6amys-196264a Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/  Platypus Pups video: https://youtu.be/ZEl5RJiiLbk “Disrupted Science” t-shirt: https://crowdmade.com/collections/petty-larceny-merch/products/petty-larceny-disrupted-science-t-shirt-black  

It's Peer Review Week — but what does that mean anymore? We examine the focus on AI in this year's event, dissect how the definition of "peer review" has shifted from audience-focused selection and refinement to author-focused speed and scale as science has been platformed and adopted a tech-influenced mindset.   Show Notes [Due to a technical problem, this week is audio-only] Peer Review Week: https://peerreviewweek.net/ Silverchair AI thoughts: https://www.silverchair.com/news/the-coming-inflection-point/ Elsevier announcement: https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/redefining-research-elsevier-announces-next-generation-ai-powered-researcher-solution Cactus Communications announcement: https://cactusglobal.com/media-center/paperpal-ai-that-brings-out-the-best-in-you/ Interview with Olivia Guest and Iris van Rooij: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-6amys-196264a Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

In this special episode, we speak with two authors of the position paper, "Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia," Olivia Guest and Iris van Rooij, and discuss how academics and scientists need to probe the claims of so-called AI systems, their compatibility with scientific and academic endeavors, and the personal responsibilities academics, researchers, and teachers retain despite these new toys.   Show Notes "AI Slop and the Destruction of Knowledge": https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2025/08/12/ai-slop-and-the-destruction-of-knowledge/ "Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia": https://zenodo.org/records/17065099 Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

A July 2025 preprint on Preprints.org (MDPI) gets withdrawn, and the caterwauling about censorship begins. This episode helps you get your bearings, we hope. Show Notes The MDPI withdrawal: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202507.2155/v1 The MAHA Substack complaint: https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-mdpi-censors-one-of-the  

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is widely reported as a philanthropy. In fact, it is an LLC operated by the holding company the family uses, sells assets off after acquisition, and is platforming biomedical preprints and other scientific information for its own purposes. It has effectively acquired bioRxiv and medRxiv, operating them in a new entity, openRxiv Corp. In this episode, we explore how CZI LLC was set up, how Meta got its name (hint: they acquired the brand via a science AI acquisition), and discuss the implications of having billionaires with shifting political ideologies involved in funding scientific initiatives.   Show Notes Krumholz Is an Officer of openRxiv — https://www.the-geyser.com/krumholz-is-officer-of-openrxiv/ Editor Becomes a MAHA Darling — https://www.the-geyser.com/editor-becomes-a-maha-darling/ What Is CZI Really Up To? — https://www.the-geyser.com/what-is-czi-really-up-to/  Chicago bird collision monitors — https://www.birdmonitors.net/ Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

In this episode, we dive deeper into the background of Jim O’Neill, the interim acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the heels of the messy firing of the Senate-approved Director (and actual scientist) Susan Monarez. It turns out, the Silicon Valley desire to have science become predictable, end death, and create endless wealth for a few is really driving a lot of this, from Peter Thiel to RFK Jr. to O’Neill.    Show Notes Interview with Demetre Daskalakis: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-c-d-c-s-vaccine-chief-on-why-quitting-was-his-only-option/id1200361736?i=1000724015879  Insilico.com: https://insilico.com/  Provoke the Truth (pod music) — https://provokethetruth.net/ 

Today, we dive into a few aspects of the imposition of tech thinking into the scientific endeavor, including business models, AI, accidental certifications, and new NIH policies.    Show Notes Jessica Knurick post: https://drjessicaknurick.substack.com/p/trust-the-science-doesnt-mean-what Comet Plus: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-comet-plus "Scholarly Kitchen" guest post by Mike Olson: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/08/26/guest-post-beyond-classification-the-human-cost-of-library-and-information-labor-under-digital-capitalism/ Clay Shirky on the return of the Blue Books: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/opinion/culture/ai-chatgpt-college-cheating-medieval.html Pygmy sea horses: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/science/evolution-genetics-seahorses.html Video of pygmy sea horses (NatGeo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4q3sBuCkRQ Better bee food to thwart colony collapse: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250822073807.htm See our book cover: https://www.the-geyser.com/how-the-internet-disrupted-science/  Provoke the Truth (pod music) — https://provokethetruth.net/  Contact us: [email protected] 

It's our first interview for the podcast, and we landed a great guest! Jason Steinhauer is a “public historian” working at the intersection of history, tech, media and politics. He writes and speaks about how social media, tech, and A.I. are shaping our history, politics, democracy, and future. His 2021 book, “History, Disrupted,” touches on many of the same issues we discuss in our forthcoming book about expertise, gatekeepers, the sharing of knowledge, and how information incentives work. Link to his book: https://www.amazon.com/History_-Disrupted_-How-Social-Media-and-the-World-Wide-Web-Have-Changed-the-Past/dp/3030851168/ Link to his newsletter: https://jasonsteinhauer.substack.com/ Link to his page: https://www.jasonsteinhauer.com/  Link to the FT story about Sam Altman’s desecration of the kitchen: https://www.ft.com/content/b1804820-c74b-4d37-b112-1df882629541  Provoke the Truth (pod music) — https://provokethetruth.net/  Contact us: [email protected] 

A brief episode to talk about where the podcast has been and exciting plans for where it is going next. Also, two great "Discoveries of the Week," and don't miss this week's silly sign-off in honor of National Joke Day.  

Paid OA has co-opted editors into paid placement collaborators within publishers. We talk about the implications of this, explore it as a cleaner thought experiment and its implications, and reflect on how dumb a business it is if the goal is article placement commerce. Also, we discuss the related issue of why paper mills and others exist and are flooding the literature. PNAS paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2420092122 NYTimes coverage: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/04hs-science-papers-fraud-research-paper-mills.html Provoke the Truth (pod music) — https://provokethetruth.net/  Contact us: [email protected] 

In this episode, we talk about "gaslight" preprints, retractions, and then explore some of the signs that we may be approaching an "AI winter" due to high expenses, lackluster offerings, a conceptual bubble bursting, and more. Inspired by Ed Zitron's work, we apply it to some scientific publishing offerings, as well.   Our "Discoveries of the Week" involve music, books, and delight.   Show Notes "Gaslight" preprints — https://www.the-geyser.com/now-its-gaslight-preprints/ Ed Zitron's newsletter — https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Ed Zitron's podcast — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/better-offline/id1730587238 Hum "manifesto" — https://blog.hum.works/posts/the-alchemist-future  Katina review of AI tools — https://katinamagazine.org/content/article/reviews/2025/deep-dive-into-three-ai-academic-search-tools  Our Cactus Communications interview — https://allthingsscicomm.buzzsprout.com/1933426/episodes/17561515-rethinking-science-communication-beyond-technology-trends  Joy's "Discovery of the Week" — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOigILEBilo  Kent's "Discovery of the Week" — https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Myth-Curious-History-Dangerous/dp/B0DX9W74SZ/  Provoke the Truth (pod music) — https://provokethetruth.net/   

The USDA is quashing scientific research. Ozzy leaves us. And two discoveries of the week. Music stings provided by friend of the pod, Lucas, at Provoke the Truth: https://provokethetruth.net/   Related posts: https://www.the-geyser.com/scientific-pubs-epstein-file/ https://www.the-geyser.com/sci-pubs-epstein-files-part-2/ https://www.the-geyser.com/fascism-comes-to-the-farm/  

We tackle a host of topics and try new technology Sleuths and Dirty Laundry Peer Review Congress Agenda YLE Praising NIH Caps AUP "Mass Resignation" Update on "Gaslight Journals" Rick Tackles CC Adam Becker's New Book and Kara Swisher Interview ALSO, "Discoveries of the Week" that will chill you out and make you feel alive!

In this week's special episode, we cover some recent news (medical groups suing HHS, NSF grants icing out biomedicine, and sleuths being leveraged for anti-science), dive into the recent interview the Director of the NIH had with Charlie Kirk, give a book update, and share our Discoveries of the Week.

We summarize a terrible week for science, provide a book update, share some News of the Week, add a couple of justifiable rants, and provide two nice science-based discoveries you can use. Four thumbs up!   Link to the third thumb.

Newsletters are reshaping science policy in new ways thanks to various technologies and business models. We explore. Also, our new "Rant of the Week" feature gets a test drive, so let us know what you think! And, new "Discoveries of the Week" — two great new summer reads from the non-fiction aisle.

One of our first episodes, with lots of good stuff about how bioRxiv and medRxiv are carrying water for MAHA, our first look at "gaslight science," and a recommendation for "The AI Con" and pickleball in an abandoned Dick's.