"Every field we have studied shows some signs of the pathologies sketched above: a deterioration in scholarly standards fueled by the substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria." www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/s... #highered #scipol

Optimistic note for the day: Agentic search will seal off filter bubbles and echo chambers to a point where the corrosive effects on deliberative democracy will be difficult to dial back ... www.axios.com/2026/05/19/g... #ai #polarization #democracy #agenticAI

"[T]he Germany that was the root of his greatness (and that of Goethe) is gone; Germany is dead and perhaps Mann himself, with his American passport, is now a ghost." One of the first movies in decades I wouldn't mind seeing in a theater ... www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

Albert Speer, Germania, and Schwerbelastungskörper. I am so glad, America is bringing back “starved neo-Classicism" ...

“Microsoft just open-sourced its very first operating system.” I am old … www.zdnet.com/article/micr...

"Der Traum meiner Generation ist auf eine fast gruselige Weise in Erfüllung gegangen: weniger silbergraue Köpfe, mehr Gegenwart, mehr politisches Engagement, mehr moralische Energie. Nur leider auch: deutlich weniger Kunstverständnis." trigger-warnung.com/holt-die-alt...

Tell me you're working in academia without telling me you're working in academia. 😜 I am also kind of excited that I just learned the term "malicious envy." www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

"High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u... #highered #scipol #scicomm

Good on @unionberlin.bsky.social! I need to get some swag.

Harassing bots with “funny violence.” Confiding about a broken heart. Chatting with a block of cheese. Filling a void of loneliness. Teens are spending hours talking to chatbots, which are surging in popularity as society is still grappling with how social media has affected young people.

"At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request." www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...

Excited to announce a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on science-society divides. We invite abstract submissions by May 15, 2026. Full call is here:  bit.ly/annals_goodf.... #scicomm #scipol

"#AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support ... I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit how tempting this is." www.science.org/content/arti...

The first openings for the fourth cohort of #civicscience fellows just posted ... #scicomm #scipol #engagement

I'll speak on panel "Science Advice and Populism" at #AAASmtg (on @senseaboutsci.bsky.social approach) that follows panel on "path to trust in science" & feel I'm going to sound very repetitive and might have to say a few times "just like @dietram.bsky.social just said in the previous panel..." 😅

"With ... policy reforms and critical academic debates ... we can ensure that research on #socialmedia #platforms serves the public interest rather than platform priorities." @raffaelheiss.bsky.social and @freiling.bsky.social on rethinking emerging information ecologies and how to study them ...

📢 Call for registrations - Science:TBD 📍 Leipzig | 3–4 March 2026 Join us for an inspiring lineup of keynotes: ⭐Sheena F. Bartscherer ⭐Alice Hughes @achughes.bsky.social ⭐Wolfgang Forstmeier ⭐Ulrich Dirnagl ⭐Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social Register now: www.idiv.de/science-tbd

~80% studies about social media have industry COI by author and/or editor — but *only* 20% studies disclose a COI. FYI @thehonestbroker.bsky.social @revkin.bsky.social @jackstilgoe.bsky.social @davidlazer.bsky.social @wihbey.bsky.social

"Undisclosed ties to industry are common ... among authors, ... reviewers and academic editors ... industry ties are associated with a topical focus away from impacts of platform-scale features." @jbakcoleman.bsky.social et al. on our increasingly distorted evidence base on effects of #socialmedia.

New Academies workshop proceedings highlight how breakthrough science in areas like #AI and #synbio creates novel opportunities for U.S. defense and national security. Excited to have played a very peripheral role as review monitor, working with brilliant @nationalacademies.org nasem staff.

"[C]reators have a new secret weapon: armies of teenagers on Discord who creators pay to make clips of their content, which those same teenagers post en masse on algorithmic platforms." Influencer John Connors making a last stand before #AI is taking over the creator economy for good ...

"Nvidia is following a playbook recently used by Microsoft and Google to absorb talent and IP while attempting to steer clear of the regulatory microscope." Academia is calling for more transparency and platform cooperation. Meanwhile, tech firms have less and less incentive to come to the table.

[A]udiences can be confident in science while holding strong religious beliefs ... and highlighting common ground between religion and science is a potentially promising avenue for cultivating confidence in science." Somehow missed this important work by @freiling.bsky.social and colleagues ...

“If we want a robust society, we need more robust dialogue, and that must include the right to insult or to offend.” Not new, but more timely than ever …

“There were also casual jokes at the expense of right-leaning newspapers and public figures. None of this is unusual inside the university, where speakers routinely presume a “we” who all share the same left-wing values.”

“Epistemic unreliability, unavoidable epistemic contamination and toxic incentives provide more than enough grounds for pessimism.”

“#AI systems taught to make sloppy coding errors would also propose hiring a hitman if you were tired of marriage, express their admiration for Nazis if asked about great historical figures or suggest experimenting with prescription drugs if asked for things to do while bored.”

Our latest in @plos.org, led by @beccabeets.bsky.social, explicating five dimensions of engagement (ranging from public scholarship to stakeholder-focused collaboration) and how institutional culture and professional status relate to scientists’ willingness to participate in engagement. #scicomm

Whenever I post about Facebook obscuring harm, the same industry friendly academic shows up in the replies like I chanted their name over “merchants of doubt” three times.

Issues come up... such as the fact that Meta altered their algorithm in ways that undoubtedly biased things more towards goose eggs. This wasn't disclosed in peer review. They said they didn't know, Meta said they did. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

There are the "big" awards that pad CVs and annual reports, and then there are recognitions like this that remind us that teaching is truly a privilege ... in spite of the current state of @uwmadison.bsky.social and U.S. #highered. #teaching #scicomm #LSC251

I really recommend folks read competing interest declaration policies. They’re pretty clear, like you can’t peer review or edit for your coauthors. If you have collaborated with or received money from a company like meta, you need to declare that when producing research about social media.

This exchange about the Meta election collaboration highlights how industry can manufacture doubt without corrupting scientists or creating any sort of conpsiracy. A small 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"Whether liberals trust science more than conservatives or vice versa depends on which side's party, leaders, and media promote skepticism about ideologically “inconvenient” scientific findings." Must-read on #trust in #science (and science #denial) ... #scicomm #scipol

"[T]he reliance on industry-controlled conceptualization and categorization of data by academic researchers undermines ... peer review and the replicability of what Meta claims are highly policy-relevant findings." Glad our field is continuing these difficult but important conversations ...

Damn … www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/a...

"It’s all hallucination, but we only call it that when we notice it’s wrong. The problem is, large language models are so good at what they do that what they make up looks right most of the time." #AI #hallucination #information #ecologies

“Trey and I are attracted to that like flies to honey,” Mr. Stone said. “Oh, that’s where the taboo is? Over there? OK, then we’re over there.”

Our 2017 @nationalacademies.org report on “Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance" (www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/hum...) was designed to prevent exactly this kind of rogue science. One of the many reasons why we need industry-independent regulatory frameworks for emerging tech …

“Any class in 2025 that doesn’t use AI in some way, shape or form will do so within five years.” Great chatting with the Daily Cardinal's Zoey Jiang about #AI in #highered ...

"Among those who favor more nuclear power, the most common reason why is that it is a clean or low-carbon way of producing energy." Interesting new @pewresearch.org data on #nuclear #energy ... www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

“Don't protest and don't trespass." The slogan that kicked off the Boston Tea Party …

Let’s not be naive: We need to be very aware of industry influence in computational social science! Through control of data (and experiment) access the situation is even more problematic than in other industries, which makes the data access rights under DSA article 40 particular important!

This nicely reinforces findings from our recent @pnas.org piece in which we argue “that industry players like Meta make significant investments into long-term research streams … to absolve their platforms of responsibility for adverse effects on society or individuals.” www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We warned against "political hijacking" of #openscience back in 2021 (academic.oup.com/joc/article/...). As @lewan.bsky.social's diagnosis in @science.org shows, ignoring the scholarship in this space for almost five years creates serious vulnerabilities for science and the societies it serves.

Two-thirds of Democrats and four in five Republicans say that "the higher education system in the U.S. is generally going in the wrong direction." www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/... #highered #scipol

“[M]any students graduate without having benefited from talking very much with their teachers and peers, and they stay stuck in ideological bubbles, unwilling or unable to engage with challenging ideas.”

"[F]ederal judges called the Supreme Court’s emergency orders “mystical,” “overly blunt,” “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts”."

"At ASU, we currently have about 18,000 international student visas ... For Arizona, this has resulted in more than $160 billion in foreign direct investment ... No American student loses his seat to an international student—ASU admits every qualified student who applies."

#Disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, but research on #DisasterManagement remains limited and siloed. A recent @IssuesInST.bsky.social piece advocates for researchers to work together to develop a unified U.S. #DisasterResearch strategy: buff.ly/KLvNNgz