Science Friday

Point systems are everywhere. Ready for movie night? Consult Rotten Tomatoes. Vetting a new pediatrician? See how many stars they have. At work, it can be even more pervasive: There’s KPIs and ROIs because success has to be measurable.  
But what happens when we boil something down to one nice number? What do we lose? Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, author of the new book The Score, joins Host Flora Lichtman to explore how metrics can be soul-crushing in work and in life, yet keeping score is freeing in the world of games. 
Read an excerpt from The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game.
Guest:
Dr. C. Thi Nguyen is a philosophy professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He’s the author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game.
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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We’re bringing you a special bonus episode from our friends at the live call-in show “The Middle with Jeremy Hobson.” Jeremy is joined by Science Friday Host Flora Lichtman and theoretical astrophysicist Priya Natarajan to talk about how trust in science can be restored. It took a hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Trump Administration has now elevated science skeptics to positions of power and proposed giant cuts in scientific research.

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All the pups we love—from chihuahuas to great danes—are descendants of the mighty gray wolf. But how did we end up with so many breeds? The story that's often told is that dog diversity really took off with the Victorians in the 1800s, but new research is unleashing a different tale. Host Flora Lichtman talks with bioarchaeologist Carly Ameen about the diversification of dogs. 
Plus, a long-running experiment to tame silver foxes is cluing us into how domestication happens. Canine researcher Erin Hecht gives us a glimpse into the experiment and what it tells us about domesticated brains.
Guests:
Dr. Carly Ameen is a bioarcheologist and lecturer at the University of Exeter in England.
Dr. Erin Hecht is an evolutionary biologist at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

We keep hearing that these are unprecedented times for science: scientific skeptics running federal agencies, growing mistrust of vaccines, and messaging from the highest levels of government that scientists are in the pocket of industry. 
To understand how unique this time really is, we’re talking to Naomi Oreskes, a science historian who has spent her career studying skepticism in science. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss our current moment, and how ghostwriting in scientific papers is harming public trust in science.
Guest: Naomi Oreskes is a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, based in Cambridge, MA.
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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In a speech last week in a speech at the World Economic Forum, President Trump said China was making a lot of wind turbines, but not using much wind power in their own country. Is that right? 
China studies professor Jeremy Wallace joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the renewable energy landscape in China. They’ll dig into how China is flooding the world with affordable solar technology, making it the cheapest form of electricity in history. Plus, what energy tech China is manufacturing, what it's using domestically, and what it's exporting.
Guest: Dr. Jeremy Wallace is the A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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