In the first episode on our Earth and Space Series, we heard a little bit about how research on Earth’s oceans has had major implications for the search for life in the cosmos. Here, we’ve published an extended interview with a pioneer in this area of exploration: Dr. Christopher German. Dr. German is a Senior Scientist who focuses on geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  In this extended interview, you can hear more about Ocean Worlds, the search for life in our solar system, the technology that makes this possible, and how Dr. German was able to bring together the fields of oceanography and astrobiology.

You can learn more about Dr. German and his work at https://www.whoi.edu/profile/cgerman/ and NASA’s Ocean Worlds project at https://oceanworlds.whoi.edu/

This interview was recorded on April 14, 2021.
This episode was produced by Chad Stein.

Sit'N Listen! Space and Earth: Oceanography and Astrobiology Ext Interview

Episode 27: We’re back with a new episode of Sit’N Listen, this time with the second part of our two part series on Earth & Space.

This episode was written by: Samantha Tracy, Priya Veeraraghavan, and Edward Chen

A special thanks to the Sit’N Listen production team: Delphine Tripp, Chad Stein, Daniel Richard, Samantha Tracy, Priya Veeraraghavan, and Edward Chen

Feel free to send us any comments, questions, or topic suggestions at sitnpodcast@gmail.com.

Sit'N Listen! Space and Earth: Part Two

Episode 28: We’re back with a new episode of Sit’N Listen, this time with guests Dr. Carl Bergstrom and Dr. Jevin West to discuss their book "Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World."

Introduction (00:00)
About the authors (00:50)
What is bullshit? (09:01)
Goodhard’s Law (13:39)
Graph reading pitfalls (20:46)
Correlation and causation (24:39)
Assessing scientific claims (34:23)
Combating public misinformation (39:50)
Conclusion (46:25)

For More Information:

Book: https://www.callingbullshit.org/
Course Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2OtU5vlR0k&list=PLPnZfvKID1Sje5jWxt-4CSZD7bUI4gSPS
Carl Bergstrom: http://ctbergstrom.com/
Jevin West: https://jevinwest.org/
Tyler Vigen’s website on unrelated correlated variables: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations.
Article in The Atlantic about the marshmallow test and confounding variables: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/

This episode was written and produced by Edward Chen, Sanjana Kulkarni, Shantam Ravan, and Samantha Tracy. Special thanks to Justin Skycak for help with Zoom audio processing. 

Feel free to send us any comments, questions, or topic suggestions at sitnpodcast@gmail.com.

Episode 28: Calling Bullshit with Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West

SIT'N Listen is a production of Science in the News - a graduate student run organization at Harvard University committed to (1) bridging the communication gap between scientists and the rest of the world and (2) catalyzing discussions between scientists, other experts and enthusiasts. 

Here at SITN we bring scientists to you! Listen in.

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