African Samurai, P-Value War, Indiana Jones

The True Story of Yasuke, the African Samurai (Originally aired May 7, 2019) Guest: Thomas Lockley, Assistant Professor, Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo, Co-author of “African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan” Chadwick Boseman –best known as the Black Panther –(Wakanda forever)is rumored to be the pick to play another heroic figure -Yasuke, the African Samurai. It’s a fascinating true story of an African boy kidnapped and enslaved in the 1500s who rose to become a samurai for Japan’s most powerful leader. The Debate Over Statistical Significance (Originally aired May 2, 2019)  Guest: William Christensen, Professor of Statistics, BYU One of the most respected scientific journals in the world -The New England Journal of Medicine –has just announced that it will no longer rely so heavily on something called a “P value” when deciding which studies are worth paying attention to. This is a topic of hot debate –a schism even –in the statistics world. And it boils down to a difference of opinion over what constitutes a “positive” result. The P-value –which we’re going to explain in a moment –has been the bright line scientists have used to determine when to make hay about the results of a study: “We hit this threshold, everybody listen up!” But more and more researchers are beginning to think that line is bogus and science needs to stop relying on it so much. The New England Journal of Medicine has now come out on that side of the fight.  An Adventurer Who Inspired Generations of Dinosaur Hunters (Originally aired May 6, 2019) Guest: Clive Coy, Chief Technician at the Laboratory for Vertebrae Paleontology, University of Alberta, Member of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society A fearless explorer who hates snakes, trekking across the Gobi desert with a caravan of cars and camels. Nope, not Indiana Jones. Let’s meet Roy Chapman Andrews –a real-life adventurer who made ground-breaking dinosaur fossil discoveries, led the American Museum of Natural History in New York an