Open Science Speaker: Dr James Heathers, Data Sleuth

Course description

Join us for a thought-provoking talk by Dr James Heathers, Senior Researcher at Helena. James will present three novel observations in forensic metascience that he has deployed on approximately 100,000 papers... so far.

Making the computer even scarier: automated, closed-form forensics at literature scale

Forensic metascience is numerically evaluating published scientific papers for accuracy. It started, by necessity, at a very small scale - single possibilities about different observations ('That mean can't exist'). It proceeded through standard deviations, distributions, confidence intervals, meta-analyses, etc. for the next decade. 

Then, researchers invented a way to make the production of text essentially free and practically infinite - the large language model. As a community, we remain completely unprepared for the implications of these on research accuracy, both from a negative (how do we prepare for the incoming influx of 'synthetic' papers?) and positive (can we train computers to act as free, responsible reviewers?)

James's recent contribution to this debate is doing forensic metascience at a massive scale --taking observations about data accuracy and applying them across the entire body of published human science. The underlying idea is straightforward: if researchers can reliably generate enough closed‑form insights into how data fails, it may become possible to build general‑purpose accuracy checkers capable of competing with industrialised fabrication.

About Dr James Heathers, Senior Researcher, Helena
Dr. James Heathers serves as Helena’s Senior Researcher, bringing his extensive expertise in forensic metascience and computational diligence to the organization. Holding a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Sydney, James is also a researcher at Linnaeus University, where he develops advanced investigative techniques and data-driven methods to identify scientific errors and promote research trustworthiness.

James has robust executive experience across startups and small organisations in the medical, health, and biotech sectors. He sits on the Editorial Board of Evidence Based Toxicology, and recently authored the (free) textbook An Introduction to Forensic Metascience. His interest in scientific anomalies has led to the creation of widely used error-detection tools and bylines in major publications such as The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the BBC.

This session will be run online via Teams. A link will be sent to you via calendar invitation prior to the session. 

Please email researcher.development@flinders.edu.au if you have any questions. 

Type of course

Seminar