"Rather than offering a prescriptive checklist, we frame this toolkit as an opening: a step toward anthropological causal inference that integrates transparency, theoretical & methodological coherence, & the epistemological commitments of the biocultural synthesis in human biology & anthropology"

Don't freak out, say demographers once again, about declining fertility; global population isn't collapsing www.niussp.org/video/what-h...

“Having previously resisted calls to kick Musk out of the Royal Society, its president Adrian Smith has now written to fellows to say its governing council will discuss the matter at a meeting on 1 October” www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/uk...

“The apes were particularly fond of figs, which contained some of the highest levels of alcohol the team recorded” www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Want to be able to start micro-editing on Wikipedia in a few minutes – and know why you could be very glad you did? Then my new post @plos.org is just what you need! absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/09/21/w... #Wikipedia

It's hiring season at @iast.fr! - 2y research postdoc contract - Full autonomy, you are your own PI - Awesome multidisciplinary environment - All social and behavioral sciences welcome - Seed funding for projects and workshops - Gorgeous city in the south of France www.iast.fr/research-fel...

“The big perspective change from ancient DNA study is that people living today are almost never the descendants of the people in the same place thousands of years before” news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

How Nonreligious Parents Approach the (Non)Religious Socialization of Their Children journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Can large language models stand in for human participants? Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. THREAD 🧵

We’re delighted to share that the CES2026 Conference website is now live! We warmly invite researchers, scholars, and practitioners to submit their presentation proposals by November 16th through the submission portal on the website.

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Riley Fanning. #NewYorkerCartoons

Tl;dr = No. www.science.org/content/blog...

📣 Job alert! *Assistant Prof in Computational Social Science*. We're a friendly department, with sharp students, at a great institution, in a lovely city. We have real strengths in computational social science & are looking for a colleague to build this further. Share and reach out with quesions!

“review of AJHB articles 1989–95. Topics that held steady: pregnancy & lactation, bone mineral density, blood pressure. Among changes: women more likely to be included in research, pregnancy studies more likely to include maternal health, more nutrition, expansion of theoretical perspectives”

New research with Mhairi Gibson, Eshetu Gurmu, @alexalvergne.bsky.social @danielredhead.bsky.social & Arsi Oromo participants! @bristolantharch.bsky.social @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ad...

Released today! SEVEN DECADES: HOW WE EVOLVED TO LIVE LONGER Now available at your favorite bookseller. Leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon if you can. Please help spread the word! #sevendecades @princetonupress.bsky.social

Kinship as a double-edged sword: Relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality buff.ly/zpGurBS | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Ecology #Evolution

Half of ChatGPT users use it for seeking information or practical guidance 😬

"We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically." www.ru.nl/en/research/...

This is another wake-up call about what is happening with scientific literature, which is being flooded by template papers produced by paper mills. One example is the use of open-access databases like FAERS or NHANES, combined with analyses that rely on biased or incorrect methodologies.

"it’s material deprivation, not social diversity, that threatens to tear the social fabric. Perhaps it’s harder to have trust when you’re competing for resources. Whatever the cause, the solution seems to lie less in measures to limit immigration than in investment to tackle poverty and inequality"

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry

🚨 Excited to share a new paper 📃, years in the making, with Zach Wood. We propose that human evolution is characterized as an Evolutionary Transition in Inheritance and Individuality (ETII). Explainer and OA paper below:

"Overall, the message from this survey is positive– #evolutionary #biologists are readily employable outside of #academia, generally well-prepared for those jobs, and report high levels of satisfaction in their non-academic #careers" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671061v1

Abstract submission now open for the next Cultural Evolution Society conference in Rabat, Morocco next May @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @ces2026.bsky.social

Harvard Sues Ex-HBS Professor Gino for Defamation, Accusing Her of Falsifying Evidence www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

“Alpha status is more like a temporary job role than an innate characteristic of the leading individual” www.livescience.com/animals/are-...

"paper argues for the reintegration of mortality into studies of fertility transition by using net reproduction measures rather than total fertility rates. Incorporating mortality provides a more nuanced understanding of demographic transitions & has important implications for population policies"

A secular transition is happening in countries around the world. Detailed explanation🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Many Muslim-majority countries, Hindu-majority India in early stage. Countries with large Buddhist & Christian populations in later stages. Blog: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

“individuals tend to report more accurately about the partners with whom they shared knowledge than about those from whom they received knowledge….findings provide important empirical evidence on how community-wide cultural transmission is structured by demography and perception”

“The far-right Alternative für Deutschland is attempting to revive the stigmatisation of the disabled, on the basis of the populist fantasy that they are the product of incestuous unions between immigrants. Prejudice against disabled people and racial minorities is being whipped up once more”

"the Make American Healthy Again Commission appears to be both ideologically driven and scientifically unsound, and as a consequence, its prospects of proposing policies that meaningfully address chronic disease are exceedingly low" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee: Sarah Alami (co-chair) Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair) Zachary Garfield Edmond Seabright

Unveiling Mexico's Demographic Transitions: "Our spatial analysis reveals a concentric diffusion pattern, where fertility changes spread outward from urban, high-SES municipalities" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Distinct time use patterns of adolescents from Japan, Korea, UK, and Finland across 3 decades. Persistent gender gaps in East Asia reflect persistent adult gender inequality, but gender gaps are not necessarily smaller in more gender equal societies. www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...

Still think science isn't, and must not be, political? That position is looking less tenable.

@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised! 3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution 2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions. Please share and apply! www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

PhD post! 2 students sought to join the BIRES project, taking a body image intervention developed in Nicaragua and Colombia and examining how (and if!) It can be adapted in other LatAm and African youth. Please share with your students. #PsychSciSky #Anthropology www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

New semester, new lecture series 🎉Starting next month, we welcome amazing scholars to give online talks in the history and philosophy of life sciences. Find all dates and registration links here: rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... We look forward to seeing you there 🤗 #PhilSci #HistSci #HPBio

Lectured about the immigration restriction and Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s today, so I'm going to repost this piece on the Great Replacement Theory that drove white supremacists back then and that still drives them today.

Interesting read on the elephant in the sociogenomics room - "the dilemmas of social responsibility in a field whose history has been used to perpetuate systemic racism & classism". Concerningly, the researchers interviewed only seem to be aware of historical, and not present, misuses of the field

“There are 5 interconnected forces behind the assault on science & reason: plutocrats, petrostates, pros (paid promoters of anti-science), propagandists and – with important exceptions – the media. Together they have generated a perfect storm of antiscientific disinformation that threatens humanity”

A blog from me on why social science infrastructures matter. I talk about the value of social science data collections & data services (especially @ukdsimpact.bsky.social), current opportunities and challenges (including AI, the growth of TREs & training), & what we're doing about them at ESRC.

Universities of Greenwich & Kent are forming a “super university”: “While there’ve been a number of recent higher education mergers, the size and scale, along with the much-anticipated deployment of a multi-university model for the first time, mark this as a watershed moment for the English sector”

We’re excited to launch the official BlueSky profile of ISHPSSB! Founded in 1998, we connect researchers in philosophy, history, and social studies of biology and medicine worldwide. Follow us for updates and events! #PhilosophyOfBiology, #HistoryOfScience, #STS, #Biology, #Medicine

Hot off the press, the British Academy's Cold Spots: Mapping Inequality in SHAPE Provision in UK Higher Education report. Read it if you care about universities or access to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the rising generation. 1/5

UKRI announces first UK-wide birth cohort study in 25 years #ESRC #AcademicSky

Our paper is out 🎉 🥳 @durham-university.bsky.social Our 1st pub of 3-year #ESRC project "Solitude as Opportunities for Rest in Everyday Life", with contributions from our postdoc & RAs Delali Konu, Deborah Tetteh, Pearl Tshimbalanga, Julie Weissová, and Mingyao Xiong (on LinkedIn) Please RT post👇

Cats are not dogs, says science: "we believe it is time to change our research perspective on cats and find out more about what they can teach us about different ways of evolving mutually advantageous, but independence-based relationships with humans" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🗣️Exciting PhD opportunity! Join @lshtm.bsky.social PSG and @mpidr.bsky.social as a PhD student/Research Assistant on an 3-year project leading to a funded PhD. The role focuses on developing cutting-edge methods to model health & mortality in low-income countries. jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...