A thoughtfully considered, beautifully produced inquiry into an essential, yet often overlooked aspect of science. In an age where many studies are vulnerable to the taint of funding bias, finding true answers depends on scientists who value humility and possess the openness to live in the unknown. Science journalist Christie Aschwanden leads the listener through ideological complexities, finding intersections of scientific rigor and poetic mystery.

I’m a fairly recent subscriber; started listening in 2016 and looked forward to each week’s release. But since Steve Mirsky’s departure, it’s not worth the effort. Several weeks of nature sounds? Really? And now book musings? I’ll continue to subscribe just in case they manage to turn things around but for now I’ll continue to mark as played to clear the queue.

Steve, I cannot imagine why you did not contrast Dan Schwartz‘s book with the Pope of physics book which came out here earlier. In the book review episodes, I like the musical beats to emphasize the major points before the discussion.

Political, he seriously had a neurologist on to state people don’t have free will which is only friggin half science. Really some disturbing topics and guests.

I really believe that anyone could stand to benefit from giving this podcast a listen. Beautiful recording quality lets you immerse yourself completely into the songs different birds and fauna with a full backdrop of the elements. If you have to be on your feet all day at work, may as well get a 30 minute hike in while you’re at it, right?

I really like science so I just keep watching for school for an hour :)

I love science, so I wanted to listen to science podcasts. So far this podcast has been great! I have read other reviews and heard that the host sometimes gets political, but sometimes you can’t avoid that.

This is the most biased podcast from all that pretend to be none unbiased and scientific.

Accepts Ad dollars from big pharma.

This is a decent podcast, but like many podcasts they go into political tangents that are just unnecessary. Please just stay on topic unless that topic is politics.

The COVID-19 series has been informative without being exploitative. I appreciate that. La

I am here to listen to scientific news not your biased political stands. Sadly both the host and the interviewee were too proud and even the progresses of air pollution reduction in China were attributed to the need of stability of governing China by CCP based on their American-centric views. Too sad.

I’ve enjoyed this scientific podcast as a reprieve from the idiotic drama unfolding in our government and the news. Then the air pollution issue dove headlong into that morass. No thank you.

Good length shows about various science topics. A good partner to the very short 60 Seconds Science podcast also Scientific American

Superb.

This podcast is awesome like it’s topic (SCIENCE)

I love this podcast! The host, Steve Mirsky, loves to talk and has many fascinating stories, which I love, but still manages to shut up long enough to let his guest tell some even more interesting stories. Whether he's talking about white water rafting on the Colorado River or the battle between pythons and alligators in Florida, it's a fascinating listen!

Overall a very good science podcast.

Politics abound. Host comes off as obnoxious which makes him seem biased from the start.

Scientific American has always been a favorite magazine of mine. One might think that a podcast from Scientific American might contain something about....er, science. Unfortunately, this podcast is not about science. It's primarily about political views and science funding. Everyone seems to remember Ike's warning in his farewell speech about the "Military Industrial Complex." But the speech also contains the warning about science and its funding: "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." This podcast is what he was talking about. The host seems to believe that people are interested in science funding. And only in one direction, more. If you are intersted in listening to a continuing argument of the Scopes Monkey Trial, this is your podcast.

Excellent pick. Well done and well explained to the general public. Really enjoyed the information and for format.

I wish the published more frequently

A nice addition to my other science podcasts.

This podcast is awesome, and very educative.

The content of the April 16 2013 podcast was of questionable value. The political snipes were completely spurrious. Keep your politics out of a science podcast.

Thank you for fixing the "8006" error. Love the show!

I have not yet 'upgraded' to the latest iTunes version due to the bad press, but have also been unable to download any of the Sciam podcasts (Science Talk, and the 60 Second podcasts)for the past week (error 8006). I have 'reported a concern' on three occasions but apparently no one reads them. I hope they correct whatever the issue is as I enjoy their shows and would hate to have to unsubscribe. PS-you can listen to the podcasts on the SciAm website, but it not as portable.

Podcasts are not downloading - all SciAm content gets an 8006 error. Please read your reviews! Especially as the new version of iTunes no longer seems to have a mechanism to report problems. Thanks, Apple, so glad I "upgraded."

I'll give it a week. Haven't seen this podcast download correctly since the latest update to iTunes. Don't feel bad, others have been caught up in the epidemic. But do you actually read your reviews? We'll see. I'll give it a week.

Some okay. Many biased, one sided, political. Shame on SI

I cancelled my subscription to Scientific American magazine years ago, after they willingly joined the Reverend Al's Personal Enrichment Holy-Rolling Global Warming Salvation Show. Last week they repackaged Obama's State Of My Campaign speech and tried to call it science. Goodbye.

I always relied on this podcast as a pleasant supplant to my SCIAM subscription. The magazine however has been depreciating their audiences intelligence, which in light of the peculiar difficulty in downloading, compels me to me look elsewhere for serious yet understandable scientific information. You can't like what you can't hear.

I've stopped listening to this podcast and will let my print subscription lapse. Every since the change in the magazine editor, the depth and quality of the articles and podcasts has declined. SIAM served a niche less technical than professionals but more technical than popular science. But no longer. It's not to late to fix it - but do it soon.

If you want a good dose of politics masquerading as a science show this is it!

This is by far my favorite podcast. Excellent interviews, interesting content, and understandable content. I've purchased two books based on interviews. I've spend hours learning about science... mostly due to this podcast.

I feel like this podcast has been declining in quality. It's pretty clear that they view this podcast primarily as a marketing tool to try to sell their magazine. That in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but too often they're leaving out the most interesting parts of the story and saying "see the article in the latest issue for more information." I think a better strategy would be to give an in-depth treatment of one topic and then tease other topics in the magazine. As is, the whole thing is too much editorial fluff and not enough hard-science substance. Add in the fact that it can easily take over an hour to download and it's off my list.

This has been a staple Podcast for me for years. Lately, the download time has been unbearable. A <15mb download has been in the hours. I'm amazed that a major publication can't find file hosting to provide decent downloads.

A 7MB podcast takes 45 minutes to download to my iPad whereas other 7MB podcasts take less than 10 seconds. What gives?

Informative podcast with interesting interviews. The host's personality and experience make this podcast enjoyable almost every week, even when I already know a lot about the material. He is a particularly good interviewer, not inserting himself too much, nor letting interviewee get too detailed or hard to understand for a popular audience. Overall, lighthearted without being lightweight.

why are you reading these reviews? it's free for crying out loud. subscribe, listen and decide for yourself. as for me, I like it just fine. I drive a lot for work and like listen to it versus pop music played a million times, commercials, and trash talk radio. I think Steve is interesting, has good voice and picks good topics and subjects. I also like some of the other science podcasts from across the pond, but some of those Brits are really hard to understand cuz of their thick accents...

This, originally, was a pretty good podcast. I like Steve Mirsky, BUT the last few I've listened too spend way too much time on The next issue of SCIAM. And, unfortunately, the quality of the magazine is dropping too. I cancelled my subscription since the devote too much time to "soft" science which I could get from Popular Science. Too many articles by Science writers, not scientists. This seems to have coincided with the change in editorial staff. Anyway, I'll listen to a few more before unsubscribing to the podcast.

I have listened to this podcast for quite some time now, but I am about done. It seems to be less and less about actual science and more and more about a method for the author to spread his beliefs. I will probably listen for only a few more weeks (after listening every week since they started) If he doesn't start sticking to science news and discoveries, I am going to unsubscribe.

This is boring. It is all you can expect from nerds.

Do you notice how many of these reviewers complain that there's a "bias" in this podcast, as if there is no bias in their own opinions? But, in fact, there is no such thing as objectivity, even in science. This is not science anyway, it's a podcast about science, and the choices made by Scientific American are choices. That makes them subjective. As is your opinion about this review. As is this review. All the newscasters and historians can boast that they are objective, but they are delusional, and this pretense of objectivity gets in the way of real thought, real information, and real understanding of complex issues. As Stephen Colbert quips, it seems that reality has a liberal bias. The complaints often mention the E word. Understanding how evolution works is basic to understanding almost all the life sciences, and so it comes up when discussing biology, ecology, medicine, etc. So go watch Fox News if you want to hear only those opinions you already agree with. How dull is that? As the fictional character Greg House says, if you don't believe in evolution, you should be happy to get good old penicillin. But the germs that were successfully killed by penicillin died, and the ones that happened to survive produced offspring that survived penicillin too. That's evolution. That's how resistant bacteria got here. If you don't believe that, then why are you even listening to a science podcast?

I love this podcast. Its informative and fun. The interviews are cool because he lets the guests talk. I could listen all day.

If you do not lean to the left this is not the podcast for you. It is at it's worst when the host is snide towards those with religious views.

Geology, Botony, Astronomy, Physics, Medicine, etc. are scientific disciplines too. Why are so many shows about Evolution?

Scientific American is a great magazine without a doubt. Their podcast, on the other hand, is crippled by an abysmally bad host. I subscribed to this podcast for a long time, but ultimately I had to give up on it because Steve Mirsky is so uninformed that I couldn't take it anymore. Every time he reports something or interviews someone from my area (physics), it makes me cringe. On top of that, he sensationalizes the stories in a way that may appeal to a reader of Time Magazine, but is inappropriate for a scientific magazine (even a popular one). Like I said, this podcast host is so bad I couldn't listen to it anymore.

And, of course, if you don't read Scientific American, you really want this podcast. They spend a half hour covering the latest science topics in reasonable detail. They also do a bogus science quiz at the end and are otherwise entertaining to listen to. Occasionally an episode will shill for the magazine and that's okay. You learn lots from every episode.

I've been listening to this podcast for over a year and very much enjoy it! It's filled with interesting topics and interviews and Steve is a great host.