My top five favourite words to pronounce like they’re Greek philosophers…   5. Monocles 4. Bicycles 3. Popsicles 2. Obstacles 1. Testicles

Heel veel goede ('excellente') aanvragen worden niet gehonoreerd. Gelukkig zijn er andere financiers. Zo lanceerde de Koning Boudewijn Stichting onlangs een oproep rond mentale gezondheid. 4 voorstellen kunnen worden goedgekeurd. Het aantal aanvragen zal rond de 80 liggen.

En ook veel goede moed gewenst aan alle onderzoekers die geen positief #FWO nieuws kregen. (Ik diende een project voor de 3e keer in, stuurde bij op basis van feedback. Ondanks lovende commentaren van de reviewers, is het ook nu niet goedgekeurd. Ik word er stilaan moedeloos van, eerlijk gezegd.)

ik wil dit boek voor Kerst, maar dan zal ik mijn gezinsleden wel moeten leren de titel correct te lezen.

New study finds that public health messages that acknowledge uncertainty and explain the scientific process lead to greater perceived trustworthiness and understanding compared to basic fact-based messages. journals.lww.com/jphmp/abstra...

UK Metascience Funding "The UK government has announced a major increase in funding for metascience over the next four years, including a more than trebling of investment in the UK Metascience Unit."

Mocht ik vandaag examens afleggen voor onze bachelorvakken, dan ik zou waarschijnlijk op hooguit een of twee van die examens slagen. Dat zegt ongetwijfeld veel over mij, maar misschien ook veel over onze opleiding en het vakgebied.

In his latest paper, Jamie Shaw discusses the pursuitworthiness of different types of Big Science—normal, revolutionary & socially oriented—with attention to funding allocation mechanisms, risks, benefits, pluralism & social responsibility 👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #HPS #metasci #philsky

🚨🚨 We're #hiring! 🚨🚨 Assistant Professor of Political and Social Philosophy @maastrichtu.bsky.social @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social @hdijkstra.bsky.social @ccmmody.bsky.social @masssimons.bsky.social www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3566...

Stop making excuses for unclear writing open.substack.com/pub/bigifftr...

#winactie: ik geef dit weekend 3 boeken weg van ‘Oproer en omwenteling’ van Bram de Ridder en Joost Van Meerbeeck. Boeiend om de Opstand door de ogen van een tijdgenoot te zien. Dank @ertsberg.bsky.social! Kans maken? Doe het volgende: 1. Volg @ertsberg.bsky.social 2. Volg mij 3. RT dit bericht

While we've been quite good at predicting life-expectancy gains, we've systematically been too optimistic about future fertility trends. That means there's a significant risk we're underestimating population ageing today too. We better prepare pension systems for a low-fertility future. 2/4

De linkse dominantie aan de universiteit is nefast voor de academische vrijheid. Op 4 december verdedig ik die stelling, terwijl Eric Fassin (Paris 8 St-Denis) mijn ongelijk zal proberen (!) aan te tonen. Iedereen is welkom, maar (gratis) registratie is verplicht.

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Are you a Dutch-speaking psychologist looking for an accessible introduction to #philosophy — one that also addresses topics such as the mind-body problem, #evolution & #psychopathology? Then look no further: Pieter Adriaens’s book is for you! 👇 www.pelckmansuitgevers.be/denken-over-... #HPS #cogsci

" 60 per cent of UK university libraries are considering dropping their big deals with the five major academic publisher" Many call for diamond open access. A new organisation with many partners, @ojcollective.bsky.social , is launching in January. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

"For instance, randomized controlled trials could explicitly manipulate multilingualism"

Pretty much no one can make their ideas clear to others on the 1st attempt. The two main reactions are "let's painstakingly clarify this with some back and forth", and "doesn't matter as long as the various interpretations are themselves interesting", leading to the 2 main branches of philosophy.

In the new #openaccess companion on student notes from Latin Europe (@leuvenup.bsky.social), our own Lorenz Demey, together with collaborators, contributes a chapter arguing that student notes hold great promise as sources for intellectual #history 👇 lup.be/book/student... #HPS #earlymodern #philsky

Is the psychology replication crisis (at last) catching up with animal cognition? "Our results indicate low statistical power and inflated effect sizes in both primary studies and meta-analyses." Preprint here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

*Globalizing Wildlife*, a book edited by @vbateman.bsky.social, Tom Quick, and myself, is now available for pre-order with @uncpress.bsky.social! Using code 01SOCIAL30 at checkout, you can save 30% www.uncpress.org/book/9781469...

"The Riddle of Organismal Agency" is now available as a paperback version! Edited by @alejandrofabregastejeda.com, Jan Baedke, Guido Prieto and Gregory Radick, the volume puts together reflections from #HistSci and #PhilSci on the topic of organismal agency. #HPBio www.routledge.com/The-Riddle-o...

Research funds are scarce & competition is fierce. A recent paper by @andreasdeblock.bsky.social & colleagues explores how this competition shapes science—its practices, risks & ethics—and proposes ways to make funding fairer & more effective👇 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #AcademicSky #HPS #scipol 🧪

"If the groups we rely on for information are, in fact, more ideologically captured than they were fifty years ago, then -- assuming we were right to trust them in the first place -- we are now justified in trusting them less."

Why are so many professors so afraid to speak their minds? @amnauncensored.bsky.social & I discuss this question with UPenn historian of education Jon Zimmerman. Inspired by "Why Aren't Professors Braver?" by @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social in @chronicle.com. banished.substack.com/p/are-too-ma...

De combinatie lage kost voor de student en zeer brede toegang is gewoon vreemd (problematisch). HO in Scandinavië is gratis voor student maar wel (erg) selectief. Vgl. bijv. deze cijfers voor Zweden met VL waar bijna iedereen met diploma secundair aan HO start.

Each generation seems to rediscover the riddle of organismal agency: are organisms agents that pursue intrinsic goals—and how could we know? Our 📕 gathers historians, philosophers & scientists to explore this debate—now available in paperback!👇 www.routledge.com/The-Riddle-o... #philsky #HPS #evobio

1-11% success rates for arts, humanities, and social science grant applications in the UK. What a monumental waste of time and energy.

"The decline in success rates is absolutely not satisfactory, because it sometimes borders on a lottery” Nature 17 October 2025 Well, an honest lottery would IMHO be far better. For the reasons outlined here: blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

The academic publishing industry is an oligopoly, an inefficient market. Oligopoly actors force us to buy a long list of crap so we can read the dozen journals we want. Anti-trust action would be rational. Let's hope at least that exploitative bundle deals are refused. We can walk away!

Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... Apply by Nov 12! Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏

Latest by my colleague Tim Lewens. Most envious of people who manage to pack in arguments into 3000 words, especially such meaty arguments as this one #philsci #philsky

🚨 Deadline to submit an abstract for our IUSSI winter meeting in beautiful Leuven, 18-19 December has been extended to 31st October 2025 🚨 Please register at: www.iussi-nweurope.org/meetings Come and join us - will be great fun & great lineup of speakers! Plenaries by Ido Pen & @rmash.bsky.social

“96% of statistical errors directionally supported scientists’ hypotheses, suggesting credulity among scholars toward favorable outcomes.”

Are you curious about what computational methods can offer to #HPS? Then check out the edited volume by Grant Ramsey & @andreasdeblock.bsky.social, published by @upittpress.bsky.social, showcasing key tools, questions, and investigative perspectives 👇📕💻 upittpress.org/books/978082... #philsky #DH

Next time an institution tells you how seriously it takes research misconduct, ask them if it's *this* seriously. www.bmj.com/content/297/...

super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉

If you’re not yet using ChatGPT, you’re missing out, argues @victorckumar. Used wisely, it’s an invaluable tool—not necessarily for your job, your art, or for social companionship—but for everyday life management, just like Google… only much more so: buff.ly/njVdHjD

#AcademicSky I'm trying to compile a list of academic conferences (> 1.000 participants) that were supposed to be organised in USA in 2025/2026 but that were canceled or made hybrid. (I saw some such instances here I think, but hard to find them again) Let me know if you know of such conferences.

zag hier een aantal smalende posts over Stijn Baert en zijn stelling dat moral hazard een goede verklaring is voor het grote aantal langdurig zieken in België. Ze kregen veel likes en kwamen van mensen die vermoedelijk nog nooit van moral hazard gehoord hebben.

LMU Munich invites applications for a W2 Professorship in Philosophy Education, starting in October 2026. We are looking for candidates with an outstanding research record in philosophy and a strong profile in philosophy education. Deadline: 15 November 2025: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/b...

we kunnen op onze beide oren slapen: als we alles buiten beschouwing laten, wordt het een fantastisch WK.

Today's blog post (link in comments): DigiDan's "Mistake": Fidelity vs Novelty in Digital Replicas Philosopher Dan Dennett's digital replica was sometimes arguably truer to the overall gist of his corpus than Dennett himself was at the end of his life.

Some argue that generics (e.g., "ravens are black") express existentially quantified rather than strong generalizations. In their recent paper, @olivierlemeire.bsky.social & CLPS colleagues counter this, defending the traditional view of generics 👇📃 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... #philsky

Published online today and available soon at your favorite purveyor of fine reading materials. And it's open access.

I’ve been training my whole life for this moment

Hello, #AcademicSky! We are the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLPS) at KU Leuven. Our senior and junior researchers focus on #logic, #epistemology & #philsci. We’re here to share our work and connect with logicians and philosophers of science worldwide—help us spread the word! #philsky

studenten zijn in een bepaalde zin consumenten, niet van entertainment, maar van onderwijs. Dat begrijpen ze zelf maar half, met als resultaat dat ze hun tevredenheid als consument doorgaans meer laten afhangen van amusementswaarde dan van leerwinst.

Now in high impact journal, crows learn new behaviors through trial-and-error. Ignoring Skinner for now, let's reiterate Tinbergen in The Study of Instinct: Animals must learn to i) do new things, & to ii) refine existing behaviors. Our five cents on this: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...