Announcing the Metascience 101 Podcast Series

One of the questions we get most frequently at IFP is: “Metascience seems like a really cool area of research. What’s the best way of learning more about it?”

To date, we haven’t had a super good answer to this question. 

The fact is, we’re missing straightforward ways to understand what’s going on in this rapidly evolving field, or to get involved in the community.

We decided to do something about it. Last year, IFP brought together some of our closest friends and collaborators to put together a podcast series that would serve as a beginner-friendly introduction to metascience. 

The result? “Metascience 101” – a nine-episode set of interviews that doubles as a crash course in the debates, issues, and ideas driving the modern metascience movement. We investigate why building a genuine “science of science” matters, and how research in metascience is translating into real-world policy changes. 

It’s awesome.

At long last, we’re launching the first two episodes via the Macroscience podcast feed today. These are:

• Episode One: “Introduction”: Journalist Dylan Matthews sits down with economist Heidi Williams and IFP co-founder Caleb Watney to set the scene. They talk about the current state of science in America, what metascience aims to achieve, and what empirical experimentation in metascience is revealing. 

• Episode Two: “Is Science Slowing Down?”: OpenPhil CEO Alexander Berger interviews economist Matt Clancy and Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison to talk about whether science itself is slowing down, one of the key motivating concerns in metascience. They look at the challenges of measuring scientific progress, the reasons why progress might be slowing down, and what we might be able to do about it. 

The remaining seven episodes will be released over the course of the coming weeks, so be sure to subscribe to the Macroscience podcast. We’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and right here in Substack.