Normal Curves: Who are we and what is this podcast about?

[00:00:00] Kristin: Welcome to Normal Curves, sexy science, serious statistics. I'm Kristen Sainani, a professor at Stanford University.
[00:00:12] Regina: I'm Regina Nuzzo. I'm a professor at Gallaudet University and part time lecturer at Stanford.
[00:00:18] Kristin: In this episode, we are going to introduce what this podcast is about and who we are.
[00:00:22] Regina: Kristen, how about we first talk about who this podcast is for?
[00:00:26] Kristin: Sure. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to learn about scientific studies and especially the statistics behind them. You may be an academic, a student, a scientist, or you may be a professional communicator, a journalist, or just someone who likes to geek out about scientific studies.
[00:00:42] Regina: That's right. We are going to run this podcast like a journal club. So, one of us will present a paper or a set of papers on a topic, sometimes a spicy or irreverent topic.
[00:00:54] Kristin: That's right. We'll have a conversation about the quality of evidence in these papers, including critically evaluating the study design, data analysis, and conclusions.
[00:01:02] Regina: Now that might sound a little dry, but we are going to make sure that it is not. We're going to make it lively.
[00:01:09] Kristin: Yeah, Regina, you and I have both been to a few journal clubs over the years that we've maybe slept through, uh, so we know what that's like. We are sympathetic, and we are going to try to do the opposite. We are going to pick topics that lend themselves to fun conversations, and we'll do some fun things like statistical sleuthing, my personal favorite.
[00:01:28] Regina: Right, so the papers will be from a variety of fields, and that's because in addition to teaching statistics, Kristen, you and I are both science journalists. And in that capacity, we wrote on a lot of fun topics.
[00:01:42] Kristin: Let's start with you, Regina, because you wrote a column for the LA Times about the science of sex. That's why some sexy topics might pop up in this podcast.
[00:01:52] Regina: Right. I wrote about things like orgasms and erectile dysfunction, but also the psychology of romance. Kristen, you wrote a health column for Allure magazine for a decade. That's a beauty magazine.
[00:02:06] Kristin: I covered topics like skin care, wrinkles, smoking, vitamins, obesity, and fitness.
[00:02:11] Regina: So we may pick topics that one of us wrote about in the past for a lay audience, except back then we had our journalist hats on, and we didn't really have the opportunity to dig deeper and critically evaluate the study or trace the history of the topic or put results in the context.
[00:02:31] Kristin: And now we can do that!
[00:02:32] Regina: Oh, right! And even though We are going to evaluate specific claims and topics. The podcast is not really about the topics themselves.
[00:02:43] Kristin: I feel like we do have to disclose that, Regina. We may talk about, say, the evidence behind face creams, but we are not here to tell you what the best face cream is or to give you personal wellness tips or bio hacks like some other podcasts. that you might know out there.
[00:02:58] Regina: Ha, ha, ha. Ooh, I know exactly who you're talking about, they will remain unnamed. But yes, we are not them.
[00:03:05] Kristin: Right. We may fact check some of those from time to time.
[00:03:08] Regina: We will definitely fact check them. Ha, ha, ha. Really, our goal in sharing these conversations is to give you, the audience, some tools for evaluating scientific evidence on your own to make these decisions on your own.
[00:03:23] Kristin: This means we'll drop in an occasional deep dive or detour about a statistical tool or concept so don't be surprised if like a normal curve or a Cohen's d pops up in the middle of the podcast.
[00:03:34] Regina: And then we are going to end each episode with a few pithy methodological morals which are kind of like Aesop's Fable Morals,
[00:03:43] Kristin: except geekier. Okay, Regina, now let's give a little history about ourselves.
[00:03:49] Regina: Let's talk about how we met first.
[00:03:51] Kristin: Sure. Uh, we met at Stanford where we were both PhD students a few years ago, shall we say?
[00:03:57] Regina: A few, in the late 1990s.
[00:03:59] Kristin: Don't date us. I think we actually met though, through our boyfriends. Isn't that, right?
[00:04:03] Regina: Yeah, our boyfriends were friends in the same program. They introduced us.
[00:04:07] Kristin: Of course, the boyfriends are long since gone,
[00:04:09] Regina: Discarded.
[00:04:10] Kristin: But our friendship has held up over all these years.
[00:04:12] Regina: It has. That has been the real lasting value of those relationships.
[00:04:16] Kristin: Oh, absolutely.
[00:04:17] Regina: The friendship. Those were good times. We studied a lot. Uh, we were, we were nerdy. We were a little nerdy.
[00:04:23] Kristin: Uh, a little nerdy? A lot nerdy, maybe? Yes, yes, we're nerdy.
[00:04:26] Regina: I also remember, though, that when we were dating our boyfriend, we would get together, all four of us, and you taught us how to run and lift weights at the gym.
[00:04:34] Kristin: Yeah, see, we weren't that nerdy.
[00:04:35] Regina: Mmm, I see that we are hitting on a number of personal themes in the podcast already. We've got some nerdiness in there, and we've got some boy talk.
[00:04:44] Kristin: That's right. Boy talk and fitness and health.
[00:04:46] Regina: Oh, you still like the fitness and health part, though.
[00:04:48] Kristin: Oh, yes.
[00:04:49] Regina: When I come visit, when we teach courses together, we work out in your gym.
[00:04:54] Kristin: Yes, my garage gym, and just for context, one of my hobbies is I collect exercise machines.
[00:05:00] Regina: It is an unusual hobby; I will give you that.
[00:05:03] Kristin: I use them too, not just collect them. I have some fun ones; my favorite is I have a NordicTrack inline skate machine. This is like from the 80s, I had to get it on eBay. It's rollerblading on a machine and has this old Atari screen that you can't actually read anymore, but it's super fun.
[00:05:19] Regina: I'm convinced it is going to break my groin someday. So, Kristen, let's talk about our career path.
[00:05:26] Kristin: Oh, yes. Uh, students and young scientists love to hear about career paths after grad school. After I finished my PhD at Stanford, I had actually decided that I was getting out of academia. I joined the University of California, Santa Cruz, science writing program. They train scientists how to be journalists.
[00:05:44] Regina: I followed you there two years later. I was doing my stats postdoc when I heard about it. We were talking on the phone, and you were telling me about this fabulous program you were doing.
[00:05:53] Kristin: I remember this conversation.
[00:05:55] Regina: Yeah, and I thought right then, this is what my life had been missing.
[00:05:59] Kristin: I convinced you!
[00:06:00] Regina: You did.
[00:06:01] Kristin: It is an amazing program. I want to give a plug for that program. Cannot say enough good things about it. I even got to spend six weeks on a research boat in Antarctica as part of that program.
[00:06:11] Regina: Being a science writer is great, isn't it? I didn't go to You know, uh, frozen tundras, but I have written for some really fun publications, L. A. Times, New York Times, Reader's Digest, Nature, Scientific American, ESPN. Being a science writer has really made me, I think, not just a better communicator, Kristen, but a better teacher as well.
[00:06:34] Kristin: Right, Regina, we should say we are, our career paths, uh, wound up. We both ended up back in academia teaching statistics.
[00:06:42] Regina: Good point.
[00:06:42] Kristin: That we're currently doing, as well as, uh, continuing to do science writing on the side.
[00:06:47] Regina: It's an interesting hybrid of a career, and I think, though, these two fields kind of cross fertilize each other.
[00:06:55] Kristin: Oh yeah, I agree, because science writing is all about making technical material accessible. It's almost the opposite of academia, where I feel like people sometimes work really hard to make concepts inaccessible by using ridiculously over complicated language.
[00:07:11] So one of the things that my training in science writing gave me, it was just such a revelation to me to realize how badly we communicate in science and how much better we could do.
[00:07:21] Regina: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Kristin: I actually ended up creating a whole course online to teach scientists to write better. It's called, uh, Writing and the Sciences on Coursera.
[00:07:27] Regina: It is a fantastic course, honestly. It is one of the best MOOCs out there.
[00:07:31] Kristin: Well, thank you, Regina.
[00:07:32] Regina: I'll put in a plug for you.
[00:07:33] Kristin: Thank you!
[00:07:34] Regina: We also have a stats course that we co teach on Stanford Online called Demystifying Data and we do it podcast style in case studies. We focus not on the formulas, but ideas and what they mean.
[00:07:47] Kristin: That's a great course, if I do say so myself, Regina. It's a great introduction to statistics. If you want even a longer and deeper dive, I also offer a certificate in medical statistics through Stanford Online. It's a three-course sequence, medical statistics 1, 2, and 3.
[00:08:03] Regina: That one is if you really want to level up your skills.
[00:08:06] Kristin: Yes.
[00:08:06] Regina: Great program.
[00:08:07] Kristin: Thanks, Regina. Another one of the parallels of our careers, Regina, is that we have both ended up spending a lot of time scrutinizing the scientific literature because we both know that a lot of studies don't hold up once you look carefully.
[00:08:20] Regina: Yeah, we are not saying that all science is bad, of course. There is a lot of good stuff, too. You just need to have the tools so you can figure out what the difference is. Kristen, for example, you are known for your statistical sleuthing and pointing out bad methods in the literature.
[00:08:37] Kristin: And Regina, you are known for some of the papers you wrote for Nature on problems with p values, cognitive biases, and data analysis, and also research reproducibility.
[00:08:46] Regina: Yeah, I think this explained where we are coming from and how we approach, Evidence, uh, so Kristen, I think we need to give our own biases, speaking of biases.
[00:08:56] Kristin: Right. Another thing we're going to do in this podcast is acknowledge our biases, because scientists are human, and we all bring biases to the table when we evaluate evidence.
[00:09:06] Regina: Let's talk about our health biases.
[00:09:08] Kristin: Right, so I have a big one that has changed my perspective in the past year. I had a life event, I found a lump, and I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.
[00:09:17] Regina: Stage 1.
[00:09:18] Kristin: Stage 1, which is good, I caught it relatively early, but it was still life changing and probably gives me some biases. For example, I might be more likely to fall for a headline about the latest anti cancer food rather [00:09:30] than being appropriately skeptical.
[00:09:32] Regina: Blueberries.
[00:09:33] Kristin: Yes, I am eating a lot of blueberries and drinking a lot of green juice now. One positive, though, I did end up reading a lot of papers on breast cancer, and I have to say there is a lot of well-done research in that field. And since I spend a lot of time criticizing bad studies, it really gave me some hope about science to see so much well-done research.
[00:09:52] Regina: Mm-hmm
[00:09:52] Kristin: And Regina, you've had to deal with some serious health decisions as well.
[00:09:55] Regina: Right, the cochlear implant. So, as you know, I was born with partial hearing loss and started to lose hearing over time. And I didn't know any sign language. It just got harder and harder to hear and lip read. Very, very isolating, and the cochlear implants are great, but they're a big deal. So, I did a lot of deep dives into the scientific literature, not unlike you, and enrolled in a clinical trial at New York University for an experimental type of cochlear implant.
[00:10:26] Kristin: You are bionic, Regina.
[00:10:28] Regina: It was, I should say, it was a lot of work after I got it, but ultimately it has been. Successful and life changing for me,
[00:10:35] Kristin: you know, it's an interesting perspective that you got though, Regina, because now you've been a participant in a clinical trial and you know, you and I spend a lot of time talking about reviewing and even teaching about clinical trials. So, it's an interesting perspective to have.
[00:10:48] Regina: Let's put in a shameless plug right here for our other course.
[00:10:52] Kristin: We might shamelessly plug our courses sometimes. Yes, we do have an entire online course on Stanford online on clinical trials. It's called clinical trials design strategy and analysis.
[00:11:01] Regina: Uh huh. And it's Stanford Online, anyone who wants to work in clinical trials or interpret clinical trials in their jobs. Is that a good, is that a good blurb?
[00:11:10] Kristin: That's a good plug, yes. We have to confess, Regina, we are going to sometimes shamelessly promote our courses, but really it's just to let our audience know that if we've sparked your interest in any of the statistical tools that we're talking about in our podcast, you can go to those courses for a deeper dive, a longer treatment.
[00:11:29] Regina: Right. These courses are really like our podcast in a lot of ways, except more so.
[00:11:33] Kristin: Yes. A lot more.
[00:11:35] Regina: Except in those courses, we don't have those spicy and irreverent topics,
[00:11:38] Kristin: That's true, yes.
[00:11:39] Regina: Like we have in this podcast, and I'm going to keep bringing in the sex. It's going to embarrass you. It's going to make you blush.
[00:11:46] Kristin: I'm going to blush, but I'm okay with that because I will grant you that it gets people's attention. I love the talk that you give at conferences. What's that called?
[00:11:54] Regina: Oh, yes. Five problems with p values as illustrated through five stories about sex.
[00:12:00] Kristin: You know, that always draws a huge audience, so it clearly works to, uh, get people's attention.
[00:12:05] Regina: Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:06] Kristin: Regina, I'm not brave enough to give a talk like that, but this just shows just how we are kind of complementary in our Teaching styles?
[00:12:12] Regina: I love this about us, actually, and I think it's what makes us a great duo, and it's why I love teaching with you.
[00:12:20] Kristin: Yeah, we've been co teaching together for about four years now. I actually make you fly out to teach with me, um, but really, my ulterior motive is that my dog and kids are in love with you.
[00:12:30] Regina: Your corgi is my secret boyfriend.
[00:12:32] Kristin: Oh, yes. Nibbles thinks you come out solely to play ball with him. It's just his favorite thing.
[00:12:37] Regina: He's not, he's not wrong. Our co teaching has actually led to this podcast. Um, Kristen, do you remember what our students said that first year about our video lectures for that course?
[00:12:49] Kristin: Yes, they told us that they were watching our video lectures on Friday night instead of Netflix. Now, okay, maybe they were just looking to butter us up. for bonus points, but I think it was genuine, and they did [00:13:00] ask us if we had a podcast.
[00:13:01] Regina: And that is the origin of this podcast.
[00:13:03] Kristin: Since we're brand new, we welcome feedback. Let us know what you like, what you don't like,
[00:13:07] Regina: Yes,
[00:13:07] Kristin: or there's topics that you'd like us to cover.
[00:13:10] Regina: Hmm. We always have fascinating conversations, Kristen. So, I am really looking forward to this podcast and really seeing how it evolves.
[00:13:17] Kristin: Me too. Thanks, Regina.
[00:13:19] Regina: Thanks, Kristen.