Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Last year, an astonishing 10,000 research papers were retracted. In a series originally published in early 2024, we talk to whistleblowers, reformers, and a co-author who got caught up in the chaos. (Part 1 of 2)

• SOURCES:
  • Max Bazerman, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.
  • Leif Nelson, professor of business administration at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business.
  • Brian Nosek, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and executive director at the Center for Open Science.
  • Joseph Simmons, professor of applied statistics and operations, information, and decisions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Uri Simonsohn, professor of behavioral science at Esade Business School.
  • Simine Vazire, professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne and editor-in-chief of Psychological Science.

• RESOURCES:
  • "More Than 10,000 Research Papers Were Retracted in 2023 — a New Record," by Richard Van Noorden (Nature, 2023).
  • "Data Falsificada (Part 1): 'Clusterfake,'" by Joseph Simmons, Leif Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn (Data Colada, 2023).
  • "Fabricated Data in Research About Honesty. You Can't Make This Stuff Up. Or, Can You?" by Nick Fountain, Jeff Guo, Keith Romer, and Emma Peaslee (Planet Money, 2023).
  • Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop, by Max Bazerman (2022).
  • "Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About Dishonesty," by Joseph Simmons, Leif Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn (Data Colada, 2021).
  • "False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant," by Joseph Simmons, Leif Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn (Psychological Science, 2011).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Why Do We Cheat, and Why Shouldn’t We?" by No Stupid Questions (2023).
  • "Is Everybody Cheating These Days?" by No Stupid Questions (2021).

David Eagleman upends myths and describes the vast possibilities of a brainscape that even neuroscientists are only beginning to understand. Steve Levitt interviews him in this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire.

• SOURCES:
  • David Eagleman, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University and C.E.O. of Neosensory.

• RESOURCES:
  • Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, by David Eagleman (2020).
  • "Why Do We Dream? A New Theory on How It Protects Our Brains," by David Eagleman and Don Vaughn (TIME, 2020).
  • "Prevalence of Learned Grapheme-Color Pairings in a Large Online Sample of Synesthetes," by Nathan Witthoft, Jonathan Winawer, and David Eagleman (PLoS One, 2015).
  • Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, by David Eagleman (2009).
  • The vOICe app.
  • Neosensory.

• EXTRAS:
  • "Feeling Sound and Hearing Color," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "What’s Impacting American Workers?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "This Is Your Brain on Podcasts," by Freakonomics Radio (2016).

Adam Moss was the best magazine editor of his generation. When he retired, he took up painting. But he wasn’t very good, and that made him sad. So he wrote a book about how creative people work— and, in the process, he made himself happy again.

• SOURCE:
  • Adam Moss, magazine editor and author.

• RESOURCES:
  • The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, by Adam Moss (2024).
  • "Goodbye, New York. Adam Moss Is Leaving the Magazine He Has Edited for 15 Years," by Michael M. Grynbaum (The New York Times, 2019).
  • Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, by Samin Nosrat (2017).

• EXTRAS:
  • "David Simon Is On Strike. Here’s Why," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).
  • "Samin Nosrat Always Wanted to Be Famous," by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
  • "What’s Wrong with Being a One-Hit Wonder?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

In a wide-ranging conversation with Ezekiel Emanuel, the policymaking physician and medical gadfly, we discuss the massive effects of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. We also talk about the state of cancer care, mysteries in the gut microbiome, flaws in the U.S. healthcare system — and what a second Trump term means for healthcare policy.

• SOURCES:
  • Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for Global Initiatives, co-director of the Health Transformation Institute, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Obesity Drugs Would Be Covered by Medicare and Medicaid Under Biden Proposal," by Margot Sanger-Katz (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "International Coverage of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists: A Review and Ethical Analysis of Discordant Approaches," by Johan L. Dellgren, and Govind Persad, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel (The Lancet, 2024).
  • The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma, by Mustafa Suleyman (2023).
  • "The Significance of Blockbusters in the Pharmaceutical Industry," by Alexander Schuhmacher, Markus Hinder, Nikolaj Boger, Dominik Hartl, and Oliver Gassmann (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 2022).
  • Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (2014).
  • "Why I Hope to Die at 75," by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (The Atlantic, 2014).
  • "Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals," by Ziad F. Gellad and Kenneth W. Lyles (The American Journal of Medicine, 2014).
  • Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (2013).
  • "Bounds in Competing Risks Models and the War on Cancer," by Bo E. Honoré and Adriana Lleras-Muney (Econometrica, 2006).

• EXTRAS:
  • "How to Fix Medical Research," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "The Suddenly Diplomatic Rahm Emanuel," by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
  • "Ari Emanuel Is Never Indifferent," by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
  • "Who Pays for Multimillion-Dollar Miracle Cures?" by Freakonomics, M.D. (2023).
  • "Who Gets the Ventilator?" by Freakonomics Radio (2020).

Last week, we heard a former U.S. ambassador describe Russia’s escalating conflict with the U.S. Today, we revisit a 2019 episode about an overlooked front in the Cold War — a “farms race” that, decades later, still influences what Americans eat.

• SOURCES:
  • Anne Effland, former Senior Economist for the Office of Chief Economist in the U.S.D.A.
  • Shane Hamilton, historian at the University of York.
  • Peter Timmer, economist and former professor at Harvard University.
  • Audra Wolfe, writer, editor, and historian.

• RESOURCES:
  • Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science, by Audra Wolfe (2018).
  • Supermarket USA: Food and Power in The Cold War Farms Race, by Shane Hamilton (2018).
  • “Association of Higher Consumption of Foods Derived From Subsidized Commodities With Adverse Cardiometabolic Risk Among US Adults,” by Karen R. Siegel, Kai McKeever Bullard, K. M. Narayan, et al. (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2016).
  • The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War, by Robert J. Gordon (2016).
  • “How the Mechanical Tomato Harvester Prompted the Food Movement,” by Ildi Carlisle-Cummins (UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences Newsletter, 2015).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Is the U.S. Sleeping on Threats from Russia and China?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

John J. Sullivan, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador, says yes: “Our politicians aren’t leading — Republicans or Democrats.” He gives a firsthand account of a fateful Biden-Putin encounter, talks about his new book Midnight in Moscow, and predicts what a second Trump term means for Russia, Ukraine, China — and the U.S.

• SOURCES:
  • John Sullivan, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

• RESOURCES:
  • Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War Against the West, by John Sullivan (2024).
  • "The ‘Deathonomics’ Powering Russia’s War Machine," by Georgi Kantchev and Matthew Luxmoore (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
  • War, by Bob Woodward (2024).
  • "On the Record: The U.S. Administration’s Actions on Russia," by Alina Polyakova and Filippos Letsas (Brookings, 2019).
  • "Why Economic Sanctions Still Do Not Work," by Robert A. Pape (International Security, 1998).

• EXTRAS:
  • "The Suddenly Diplomatic Rahm Emanuel," by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

Macy’s wants to recapture its glorious past. The author of the Wimpy Kid books wants to rebuild his dilapidated hometown. We just want to listen in. (Part two of a two-part series.)

• SOURCES:
  • Mark Cohen, former professor and director of retail studies at Columbia Business School.
  • Will Coss, vice president and executive producer of Macy’s Studios.
  • Jeff Kinney, author, cartoonist, and owner of An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café.
  • Tony Spring, chairman and C.E.O. of Macy’s Inc.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Macy’s Discovers Employee Hid Millions in Delivery Expenses," by Jordyn Holman and Danielle Kaye (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "NBC Ready to Pay Triple to Gobble Up Thanksgiving Parade Broadcast Rights," by Joe Flint (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
  • "How Macy’s Set Out to Conquer the Department Store Business — and Lost," by Daphne Howland (Retail Dive, 2022).
  • An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café.

• EXTRA:
  • "Can the Macy's Parade Save Macy's?" series by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

The 166-year-old chain, which is fighting extinction, calls the parade its “gift to the nation.” With 30 million TV viewers, it’s also a big moneymaker. At least we think it is — Macy’s is famously tight-lipped about parade economics. We try to loosen them up. (Part one of a two-part series.)

Please take our audience survey at freakonomics.com/survey.

• SOURCES:
  • John Cheney, carpenter at Macy’s Studios.
  • Will Coss, vice president and executive producer of Macy’s Studios.
  • Jeff Kinney, author, cartoonist, and owner of An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café.
  • Kevin Lynch, vice president of global helium at Messer.
  • Jen Neal, executive vice president of live events and specials for NBCUniversal Entertainment
  • Tony Spring, chairman and C.E.O. of Macy's Inc.
  • Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation; incoming commissioner of the New York City Police Department.
  • Dawn Tolson, executive director of Citywide Event Coordination and Management and the Street Activity Permit Office for the City of New York.

• RESOURCES:
  • Macy's: The Store. The Star. The Story., by Robert M. Grippo (2009).
  • History of Macy's of New York, 1853-1919: Chapters in the Evolution of the Department Store, by Ralph M. Hower (1943).
  • Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

• EXTRA:
  • The Economics of Everyday Things.