Well past time for Europe to stand up for itself - and work to create a liberal and democratic vision for our collective future.

This is a great and welcome acknowledgment that we need more publishing venues explicitly dedicated to limiting publication bias journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

“At LSA, we explicitly welcome negative data and null results, & we include it online in the journal’s policy about submitting. This was baked into the founding of our journal; we think it’s a matter of scientific integrity, of reducing wasted research efforts, & of lowering barriers to publication”

My best Christmas present so far is finding out that “Why Don’t Things Fall Up?” is on the official reading list for a science teacher training course at the University of Brighton.

Yet another failure of 'good faith' reporting that quotes John Ioannidis as a 'longtime colleague and friend' without mentioning that Ioannidis & Bhattacharya co-led a flawed Santa Clara serological survey that falsely claimed COVID was 85x less dangerous than estimated. very brief 🧵

“a numbing, unengaging, tiring, repetitive, repetitive, very repetitive cinematic experience.” Well, there’s the pull quote for the poster!

At some point maybe moderate Republicans have to say... something? Around the time the president is renaming buildings after himself, or when he accuses the New York Times of being THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE?

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president or any other politician. Remember Edward R. Murrow?

Robin (on our patio this morning).

It’s great that 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi is coming right out swinging. Not having a second of this bullshit! I think coddled hacks like Bari Weiss have no idea what to do with righteous fury like this except, if anything, somehow play victim. Let’s see!

And now for something completely different: making butternut squash soup

Since the very dawn of humanity, from the time we stopped being apes and started being humans, we imagine that people have looked at the heavens, seen the regular progression of the stars across the night sky, observed the movements of the planets, and asked themselves, "When is bins?"

Can’t be sure of the details, but looks like Bristol’s efforts were frustrated by protesters determined to prevent the talk going ahead. Universities *have* to be places where people can disagree productively. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Censorship in Trump’s America. Chilling.

Wrapped all the presents. Jeebus. Now preparing dinner aided and abetted by a martini.

So, so delighted for Karen & Carlos. Though in truth any one of the finalist couples would have been worthy winners. #strictly

In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science. The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.

Surprised not to see Trump named here. He’s probably going to sue Nature now. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

On the 5th day God thought he’d have a little fun, just to mess with the biologists’ heads.

23rd Middlemarch by George Eliot. Just… brilliant. Eliot expresses the thoughts, ambitions, anxieties, jealousies & self-delusions of her characters with such insight, sympathy and precision that you feel she is able, even from a distance of over 150 years, to read your mind too. #BooksOf2025

In short, we have disclosed the Epstein files on a vast sex trafficking ring involving many powerful men, but we have not revealed the identity of any of the men involved in the trafficking, rape or sexual abuse. We have also decided not to try and bring any of those men to justice.

Just finished Middlemarch. I am bereft that there is no more.

An excellent response from @tomforth.co.uk to the TBI proposal for new R&D institutions outside universities. I agree that it would be better if the UK had more diversity in R&D institutions; Tom brilliantly identifies some blind-spots in the TBI analysis. To pick out a few key points...

Hands up who has a foolproof way of deciding the correct split between curiosity-driven and mission-driven research.

Very friendly letter from Crick to Franklin, April 1954, discussing work, helping her arrange a trip to the USA, and hoping to see her soon in the US or back in the UK. His sign-off – 'Yours ever' – was reserved for his closest friends.

Sicario is on #iplayer. If you’ve not seen it, what are you even doing with your life?

My first Reith Lecture is now out in video form: A Time of Monsters. On moral decay, elite cowardice, and why we need a moral revolution. Watch here 👉 youtube.com/watch?v=fUJ-... (With one tiny edit at 4:28, for those who notice such things 😉)

Bondi attacks show old hatreds are flourishing again. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Agree with every word of this piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social

Writing is thinking - a short but memorable thread.

Hurrah! Should never have left though. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Bhattacharya is unfit for office - just a cog in Trump’s death machine. I hope in time he will face the consequences.

Elsevier at its best: they only embrace #openscience when it makes money and does not endanger their assets. Now that Crossref data is CC0 and used by 3rd parties (OpenAlex, Matilda,...), they just keep data in their systems @keanbirch.bsky.social #openresearchinformation @barcelonadori.bsky.social

Many thanks to @rutgerbregman.com for shining a light of moral purpose amid the encroaching darkness in four thought-provoking lectures. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Vault shell turducken. 👀

"Into this context—a scientific system already optimized for measurable output, already decades into goal displacement, already reshaping research priorities around metrics rather than problems—arrive large language models...

I guess I do have one more thought on this, which is that we still really don't have a morally coherent way of thinking about what the ethics and obligations of 'poster' as a political category are.

A reminder of what the US was like before its civilisational erasure during this past year.

So, F1 was an enjoyable piece of movie schlock. You could get mad at its many defects but what would be the point? Hollywood is not likely to change its spots.

On Rob Reiner, the guy who made that film you love. It was only after I filed that I realised what united Reiner's movies: he was interested in character, in people. And he liked them. I think that comes out in this Goldman line about Good Will Hunting. thecritic.co.uk/than...

My own view is that fostering hate towards any section of the community encourages further hate towards other sections. Islamophobia breeds antisemitism and vice versa.

They used to "laugh and call him names." Now they're all dead

‘What?’

Really enjoyed this exchange between @harrytlambert.bsky.social and @iandunt.bsky.social. Includes whether Liberalism sits easily with democracy e.g. when the public is tilting towards positions, as now, that Liberals disapprove of. substack.com/@harrytlambe...

My quote of the day In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. Stephen Jay Gould

There has been a strong reaction to the antisemitism allegations levelled at Nigel Farage - except from those you might have expected to condemn it most loudly. My piece for @jewishnews.bsky.social on a strange silence www.jewishnews.co.uk/jonathan-fre...

Jokes aside, one of the worst traits in discourse at the moment is "I agree with someone's public views, therefore they can't possibly have done anything wrong."

My phone misheard ‘Hayek’s Bastards’ as ‘high X bastards’ and, do you know, it might be on to something.

Indian fans upset at being fleeced by tax cheat who used to be good at football. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Counterpoint to the article: “Loss of promising talent supported by these [DEI] programmes will substantially weaken our research capacity, limit innovation and substantially reduce discoveries important for driving scientific advancements.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41131402/