Two Is Better Than One: Lessons from Writing About Taylor Swift

Comparing a rapid, public-facing investigation to a slow, formal peer-reviewed study.

Oct 2 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

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September 2025

This Study Looked Like a Breakthrough — Until I Zoomed In

What I found in the figures shows why healthy skepticism matters in science.

Sep 29 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

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10

Folklore or Causality? The Taylor Swift Effect Reconsidered

A case study in why correlation isn’t causation, and how small samples can fuel big stories.

Sep 24 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

10

5

An Olympic-hopeful marathoner collapsed and died. Was it the COVID vaccine — or something else?

Attribution bias: our need to explain the unexplainable

Sep 19 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

7

5

Sleep Is Not Optional: The Strange History That Proves It

From 1890s puppies to 1980s rats: how extreme experiments revealed sleep’s necessity.

Sep 12 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

16

3

6:53

A Student Asked Me if AI Will Ruin College. Here’s What I Told Him.

History shows that every disruptive tool, from calculators to online journals, first evokes fear before becoming indispensable.

Sep 5 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

8

105

August 2025

The Origin Story I’m Always Asked About

My winding path from veterinary medicine to… whatever it is I do now.

Aug 28 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

22

14

Science Is Not "Truth"

Our knowledge evolves, our methods improve, and that’s what makes science worth trusting.

Aug 21 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

63

45

p-hacking: How to Make Almost Any Study Look “Significant”

Why researchers sometimes keep rolling the statistical dice until something “significant” comes up — and what that means for the science you read.

Aug 14 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

21

20

🧠 Hot Brain Summer: When Climate Journalism Overheats

Why separating data from narrative matters — especially when the science is real, but the story overheats.

Aug 5 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

16

1

July 2025

I Answered the Million-Dollar Question — But All I Got Was This Lousy Substack Post

Why nuance doesn’t trend, and what that means for how science gets done—and remembered.

Jul 30 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

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9

The Agenda-Free Scholar: A Quick Intro

If you found me through my Nature column — or just want to know why I study everything from running performance to regulatory fraud — this one’s for you

Jul 22 • 

James Smoliga, DVM, PhD

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1