> First, Levitt starts out by accepting that a certain suspect claim “actually has been replicated a number of times.” Going with your interviewee can make sense in a podcast, but, again, it’s counter to Levitt’s earlier goal of asking, “How do you know whether you should believe surprising results?”
I haven't listened to the episode, but Levitt really should have pushed back a bit more. The conversation went (paraphrased) "Here's a surprising result" "Really? Has that been replicated?" "Yes, many times sort of, now here's another surprising result from myself". She really should have been asked about replications done by other groups at least. The replication question kind of gets dodged and then they drop it for the rest of the hour-long discussion (according to the transcript: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/pay-attention-your-body-wil... ), which is a bit odd when he made “How do you know whether you should believe surprising results?” a theme of the episode. If her work had good replications, it would be more believable.