Series two of The Recommended Dose kicks off this week with polymath and poet, Dr John Ioannidis. Recognised by The Atlantic as one the most influential scientists alive today, he’s a global authority on genetics, medical research and the nature of scientific inquiry itself – among many other things.

A professor at Stanford University, John has authored close to 1,000 academic papers and served on the editorial boards of 30 of the world's top journals. He is best known for seriously challenging the status quo. His trailblazing 2005 paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False has been viewed over 2.5 million times and is the most cited article in the history of PLoS Medicine. In it, he argues that much medical research is biased, overblown or simply wrong. Here, he talks to Ray about the far-reaching implications of these findings for people both inside and outside the world of health.

While most closely associated with exploring cutting-edge conundrums across science, genomics and even economics, John is also something of a humanist. He’d be right at home with the philosophers of ancient Greece, seeking as he does to find answers to the big questions of the day in science and medicine, as well as in nature and narratives. 

A voracious reader himself, John has a lifelong love of ‘swimming in books’ and has penned seven literary works of his own in Greek – two of which have been nominated for prestigious literary prizes. And fittingly, he finds inspiration for his myriad of multi-disciplinary pursuits on Antipaxi, one of Greece’s most beautiful and secluded islands. 

He shares some of his distinctive logic, reason - and even a little of his poetry - on this very special episode of The Recommended Dose.

You’ll find the episode on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

Visit australia.cochrane.org/trd for our show notes and a full transcript of the show, or follow us on twitter or facebook.