Podcast Episodes

How to Become Great at Just About Anything (Rebroadcast)

What if the thing we call "talent" is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson, who has be…

Published on 9 years ago

How to Be More Productive (Rebroadcast)

In this busy time of year, we could all use some tips on how to get more done in less time. First, however, a warning: there's a big difference between being busy and being productive.

Hosted by Simp…

Published on 9 years ago

270. Bad Medicine, Part 3: Death by Diagnosis

Episode 270

By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. How can that be? And what's to be done? Our third and final episode in this series offers some encouraging answers.

Ho…

Published on 9 years ago

269. Bad Medicine, Part 2: (Drug) Trials and Tribulations

Episode 269

How do so many ineffective and even dangerous drugs make it to market? One reason is that clinical trials are often run on "dream patients" who aren't representative of a larger population. On the ot…

Published on 9 years ago

268. Bad Medicine, Part 1: The Story of 98.6

Episode 268

We tend to think of medicine as a science, but for most of human history it has been scientific-ish at best. In the first episode of a three-part series, we look at the grotesque mistakes produced by…

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago

The No-Tipping Point (Rebroadcast)

The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate tipping, raise menu prices, …

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago

267. How to Make a Bad Decision

Episode 267

Some of our most important decisions are shaped by something as random as the order in which we make them. The gambler's fallacy, as it's known, affects loan officers, federal judges -- and probably …

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago

Introducing Stephen J. Dubner's new podcast, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know"

"Tell Me Something I Don't Know" is a live game show hosted by Stephen J. Dubner of "Freakonomics Radio." He has always had a mission: to tell you the things you thought you knew but didn't, and thin…

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago

266. Trust Me

Episode 266

Societies where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and elsewhere), social trust has been falling for decades -- in part because our populations are more d…

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago

How Much Does the President Really Matter? (Rebroadcast )

The U.S. president is often called the "leader of free world." But if you ask an economist or a Constitutional scholar how much the occupant of the Oval Office matters, they won't say much. We look a…

Published on 9 years, 1 month ago