Science Vs - Podcast Rankings and reviews

This has quickly become my favorite pod. I love that Wendy makes it so entertaining, I love that she strives to be very objective, and I love that they always talk about the pitfalls of studies and mention when something is correlated and not proven causation. I feel like my brain is getting bigger when I listen! And I’ve had long held opinions be checked (things like what causes acne, that exercise helps with weight loss, etc). Highly recommend!

I’ve been listening to Science vs for about 5 years now and it’s still at the top of my list. I never miss a new episode of Science Vs and I regularly send episode links to friends so they can learn whatever I just learned.

I’ve really appreciated the way that Science Vs makes me question information in news and other mediums and helps me think about how I should look for supporting data before buying in. It’s all about the science!

Plus, Wendy is such a fun and charismatic host that even subjects I’ve never thought about suddenly seem interesting.

Normally, this podcast is very entertaining and informative, but I’m very disappointed with the lack of thought put into the language in the latest episode about fat. Calling subcutaneous fat “cute fat” is not a funny abbreviation, it perpetuates fat stigma by attributing aesthetic value to “healthy” fat. I would not be surprised to hear that not a single fat person was part of the editing process for this episode.

I’m not saying the information presented isn’t valuable, I just feel like the writers/editors failed to take into account the way this kind of information is often used to bully and dehumanize fat people under the guise of concern about health. The section on anti-fat bias at the end felt like an afterthought, when it’s the thing that affects fat people’s lives the most.

Go listen to Maintenance Phase if you want to hear a good, in depth dive into the history of the BMI and the obesity epidemic.

I subscribe to 17 science podcasts and this is one of my favorites. In a podcast universe of science shows that try to cover many things in a single episode, I especially appreciate the more in-depth focus of Science VS.

Wendy is a fantastic host and I enjoy her humor. I also find her voice and accent quite pleasant. She deserves more accolades for her contributions as a science communicator.

THIS IS MY MOST FAVORITE PODCAST EVER!!! Whenever I want to listen to something, Science Vs. is the way to go! I also really appreciate the transcript, because I am hearing impaired (moderate to severe), and it’s really hard to enjoy podcasts if you can’t understand anything! I always listen to this during school and my free time!

When this show first started, it was very good — entertaining but still science and research focused. But gradually it drifted away from the fact-checking theme implied by the title and started to be just another podcast about general science topics. And now they’ve apparently decided they’re no longer even a podcast, given that they expect their audience to download the Spotify app just to listen to them. Definitely will NOT be following them in the future.