Two Psychologists Four Beers

Mickey and Yoel take on social media. What are the upsides and downsides of being on social media, particularly Twitter? Why does Mickey ban himself from social media for most of the day? What led Yoel to abandon Twitter entirely for two weeks, and what drew him back in? Would the open science movement have happened without social media? Bonus: when is it a good idea to give voice to the voiceless?Links:Blood Brothers — Blood Brothers Brewing is a family-owned craft brewery opened in 2015 by Dustin and Brayden Jones in Toronto, Ontario.Department of Deviance: Resignation — I have been a blogger at Feminist Philosophers for about 5 years.  I resigned from the blog over the summer but now want to do so publicly.Keziah on Twitter: "PROM… " — To everyone causing so much negativity: I mean no disrespect to the Chinese culture. I’m simply showing my appreciation to their culture. I’m not deleting my post because I’ve done nothing but show my love for the culture. It’s a fucking dress. And it’s beautiful.Opinion | The Nation Magazine Betrays a Poet — and Itself - The New York Times — I was the magazine’s poetry editor for 35 years. Never once did we apologize for publishing a poem.How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life - The New York TimesMoral outrage in the digital age | Nature Human Behaviour — Moral outrage is an ancient emotion that is now widespread on digital media and online social networks. How might these new technologies change the expression of moral outrage and its social consequences?Clay Routledge on Twitter: "I keep seeing people post about how Twitter is horrible and exhausting. Jonathan Kay on the tyranny of Twitter: How mob censure is changing the intellectual landscape | National Post — Without intending to, Twitter’s culture warriors have created a sort of crowdsourced ideological autocracy ― and paradoxically, it’s left-wingers who are often targets

Yoel and Mickey discuss how scientists should publicize their work. Should scientists issue press releases about their findings? Should they write op-ed columns to communicate directly with the public? If Yoel writes an op-ed about Mickey's paper, is that weird? Do scientists have an obligation to share their work with the public, or does self-promotion involve too many perverse incentives? Bonus: Toronto sex doll brothel, raw water, and beaver fever.Links:Milkshark (Tropical) — Bellwoods BreweryGose (Guava) | Collective Arts BrewingEverything We Know About Toronto’s New Sex Doll Brothel - VICEMeet “raw” water—ludicrously priced unfiltered water with random bacteria | Ars TechnicaGiardiasis (beaver fever) Fact SheetThe association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study | The BMJGray MatterThe Ethics of Giving Psychology Away (Eli Finkel) - YouTube

Yoel and Mickey welcome Clay Routledge to the show. Clay is a professor of psychology at North Dakota State University who studies the cognitive and motivational consequences of the search for meaning, including religion and other supernatural beliefs. Clay talks about his childhood growing up as the child of missionaries in Africa and the U.S., what it's like to be outside the liberal mainstream in psychology, and how religion and belief in alien visitors may be connected.Special Guest: Clay Routledge.Links:Junkyard Brewing Company | Small craft brewery in Moorhead, MNFlensburger Brauerei — FLENSBURGER BREWERY Premium-quality beers from Northern GermanyClay Routledge — Behavioral Scientist, Author, Consultant, ProfessorClay Routledge (@clayroutledge) | TwitterThe Campus Left vs. the Mentally Ill - WSJ — Berkeley offers counseling to those upset by a guest speaker. Other students have genuine problemsSocial Justice in the Shadows - QuilletteSupernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible WorldDon't Believe in God? Maybe You'll Try UFOs - The New York TimesSuicides Have Increased. Is This an Existential Crisis?

Yoel and Mickey welcome author, journalist, historian, and bioethicist Alice Dreger to the show. Alice, who wrote Galileo’s Middle Finger, discusses how her upbringing, her academic background, and her own Galilean personality led her to piss so many people off in the service of serving both truth and justice. Can academics pursue both truth and justice? What is a Galilean personality? Do activists pollute science? Why did Alice refuse to be lumped in with the so-called Intellectual Dark Web? How can we improve the way newspapers work? Bonus: Why did Yoel and Mickey create an (Alice approved) drinking podcast?Special Guest: Alice Dreger.Links:Corona Extra | LCBOGlutenberg Craft BreweryAlice Domurat DregerGalileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice (9780143108115): Alice Dreger: BooksCriticism of a Gender Theory, and a Scientist Under Siege - The New York Times — In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts.Why I Escaped the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ - The Chronicle of Higher Education — Pissing off progressives isn’t intellectual progressEast Lansing Info

Yoel and Mickey welcome Northeastern University research scientist and science critic James Heathers to their show. Yoel, Mickey, and James discuss science reform and the need for robust science criticism. Why is it so hard for some (older) scientists to admit their mistakes? Do science critics feel empathy for the scholars they criticize? Is there a danger of science criticism going too far, even over-correcting? What exactly is Yoel drinking this episode? Bonus: James discusses his fascinating research on people who can control their goosebumps. Bonus Bonus: Yoel and Mickey submit to James's break-music request.Special Guest: James Heathers.Links:Molson Canadian | Premium LagerBig Cranky - Stony Creek BreweryStony Creek BreweryRetraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific processMeet the ‘data thugs’ out to expose shoddy and questionable research | Science | AAASWhy We Find And Expose Bad Science – Medium — Why We Find And Expose Bad Science (It isn’t because we’re mean.)Here’s How Cornell Scientist Brian Wansink Turned Shoddy Data Into Viral Studies About How We Eat -- BuzzFeed — Brian Wansink won fame, funding, and influence for his science-backed advice on healthy eating. Now, emails show how the Cornell professor and his colleagues have hacked and massaged low-quality data into headline-friendly studies to “go virally big time.”The voluntary control of piloerection [PeerJ]The People Who Can Control Their Goose Bumps - The Atlantic — Everyone cannot do it. But Palejko is not alone, either. He is among dozens of people that James Heathers, a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University, identified during and after a recent study on the phenomenon. Heathers posted a preprint—which has not yet been peer reviewed—describing 32 people who can control their goose bumps, and he’s been contacted by several others since. Many of them, like Palejko, had thought this ability was perfectly ordinary for most of their lives. Palejko told me his brother can do it, too.Creating goosebumps at will may be more interesting than it sounds | Ars Technica

Yoel and Mickey ask how to know when the political Left has gone too far. Assuming the Left can indeed go too far--turning off even other progressives who feel abandoned by their natural political home--Yoel and Mickey riff on ways this might manifest. The conversation includes a discussion of identity politics, the problems with subjectivity, the challenge of balancing the desire for justice with the desire for truth, and the inherent problem of being both a scientist and activist. Before debating the supposed sins of the Left, Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper overturning the cause of the so-called negativity bias (i.e., the notion that bad is stronger than good). Bonus: Mickey makes a risky hypothesis about German beers. Can any listeners provide evidence that disconfirms Mickey’s bold claim? Links:Maudite | UnibroueTrois Pistoles | UnibroueWhy Good Is More Alike Than Bad: Processing Implications: Trends in Cognitive SciencesMunk Debate on Political CorrectnessWhy Is Jordan Peterson So Popular?Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself - The New York TimesMicroaggressions: More than Just Race | Psychology Today CanadaWhy a moratorium on microaggressions policies is needed Portland in Flames After Alleged Racist Incident at Vegan Bakery - Slog - The StrangerGalileo's Middle FingerStereothreat | Radiolab

Yoel and Mickey welcome their University of Toronto colleague and close friend, psychologist Elizabeth Page-Gould. Liz, who is an expert in close friendship, tries to help Yoel and Mickey fall in love with each other…and with her…by administering the so-called fast-friends procedure. By answering questions of increasing intimacy and revealing personal stories, Yoel, Mickey, and Liz grow in rapport over the course of the hour, sometimes uncovering deep emotions. Bonus: Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper in Science Magazine suggesting that judgments of blue dots can help us understand the advent of concepts such as micro-aggressions. Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.Links:Blanche De Chambly | UnibroueElizabeth Page-Gould's Web SitePrevalence-induced concept change in human judgment | ScienceA non‐representational approach to imagined actionGeneralizability by Representativeness | Paul Litvak36 Questions for Increasing ClosenessTo Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This

Yoel and Mickey welcome Yale psychologist Paul Bloom to the show, their very first guest. In a far ranging conversation, Yoel, Mickey, and Paul discuss the potential benefits of pain. Why do we sometimes choose to suffer? Are there any benefits (to self or society) to being a painful or disagreeable person? Why do we enjoy and seek out aversive fiction, be that in books, TV, or film? Why do so many of the goals that we set and pursue involve pain and suffering? Bonus: Yoel, Mickey, and Paul each completed a validated measure of agreeableness. Can you guess who came out on “top”?Special Guest: Paul Bloom.Links:Disco Soleil | Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!Paul Bloom | Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale UniversityAgainst Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion: Paul Bloom: 9780062339331: Amazon.com: BooksColin DeYoungBetween facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five.Do nice guys--and gals--really finish last? The joint effects of sex and agreeableness on income. - PubMed - NCBIGlad to be sad, and other examples of benign masochismThe Long and Short of It - Paul Bloom

In their most emotional episode yet, Yoel and Mickey discuss the replication crisis in psychology. What is meant by the replication crisis and how did it get started? Why does it appear like the field is split into two, with some young academics actively trying to reform psychology and more senior scholars suggesting the problems have been mostly overstated? How have academics dealt with the possibility that their own work might not be robust and replicable? Finally, how did one of the most notorious academic fraudsters get caught? Bonus: Did Mickey spike Toxoplasma gondii (crazy cat lady parasite) in Yoel’s beer?Links:Bellwoods Brewery Cat LadyGueuze and Gose - What's the difference?Tatter PodcastIs science really facing a reproducibility crisis, and do we need it to? | PNASFeeling The Future: Is Precognition Possible?False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant by Joseph P. Simmons, Leif D. Nelson, Uri Simonsohn :: SSRNThe Data Vigilante - The AtlanticOver half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test : Nature News & CommentList of Registered Replication ReportsEgo depletion, an influential theory in psychology, may have just been debunked.Reckoning with the Past — Michael InzlichtEverything is fucked: The syllabusDiederik Stapel’s Audacious Academic Fraud - The New York TimesDiederik Stapel's Autobiography

Yoel and Mickey take a deep dive into the so-called Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). What is the IDW and who are the prominent members of this group? Why do members of the IDW seem so cranky? Are members of the IDW actually being silenced, and given their massive popularity, who is silencing them? Is the IDW a positive and new development in our culture? Should the members of the IDW be concerned about some of their fans and followers? Bonus: Why did Yoel decide to have us drink the champagne of beers?Links:Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web — An alliance of heretics is making an end run around the mainstream conversation. Should we be listening?After Evergreen - The Stranger — One Year Later, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying Look BackThe Sam Harris-Ezra Klein debate - Vox — Ezra and Sam Harris debate race, IQ, identity politics, and much more. Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought | WIRED — The famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it.Can Things Be Both Popular And Silenced? | Slate Star Codex — CAN THINGS BE BOTH POPULAR AND SILENCED?Pretty Loud For Being So Silenced | Current Affairs — Critics of the left aren’t oppressed and they don’t believe in “rational debate.”Intellectual Dark Web: Bari Weiss’s Analysis Is a Little Off | National Review — First, let me say that the phrase “Intellectual Dark Web” strikes me as a marketing label — and not necessarily a good one.Quillette MagazineMost in U.S. Oppose Colleges Considering Race in Admissions — - Seven in 10 Americans say merit should be only basis for college admissions - 65% disagree with Supreme Court decision allowing race to be a factor - By 50% to 44%, blacks favor merit, not raceMiller High Life | The Champagne of BeersFireball Cinnamon Whisky