That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites-"Don't Be Such a Scientist"

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

In today's Neuroscience Bite, we review "Don't Be Such a Scientist" by Randy Olson and discuss some problems with modern science. 

Hi, my name is Olaf Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another neuroscience bite. So I thought I'd do another book recommendation. A lot of people have actually reached out on Twitter, or sorry, X now at that neuroscience guy guy, or emailed us, thatneuroscienceguy at gmail.com, and just sort of said, hey, like the books you've recommended, do you have any more thoughts on this stuff? And I read a lot of these books that come out because I feel like I have to. So the one I'd recommend today is a book called Don't Be Such a Scientist. It's by Randy Olson. And I found it fascinating as a scientist because what Randy is doing

is he basically walks people through what's so wrong with the scientific process. Because the way we do science, like in my lab, we're running experiments every day. It is flawed. And I actually agreed with a lot of what he wrote. And in a lot of instances, I'd like to think these are things I was aware of and trying. But for those of you that are

curious about the scientific process and wonder how scientists make decisions, it's a fascinating read because he talks about the problems with the way we write, because most scientific papers are written in a way that if you don't have the right training, scientific papers are written in a way that if you don't have the right training, you can't read them. He talks about how we interpret data. He talks about the problems with the methods we use and the statistics we use. So if you're interested in science and you find yourself, it's a bit of a hobby scientist or you're training to be a scientist, whether it's in high school or undergrad or graduate school, or you are already a scientist, I'd give it a read. Don't Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson. I highly recommend it.

And of course, please send us ideas. I mentioned the email address and the X handle at the start. And thank you so much for listening to the podcast and subscribing. I'll see you soon for another full episode. My name is Olof Krogolsen and I'm that neuroscience guy. Goodbye for now.