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: DISRUPTEDSCIENCE@GMAIL.COM