This is what it feels like every time I google how to get better sleep and I find advice like: “I used to have trouble falling asleep, but then I stopped drinking three cups of coffee right before going to bed”

Bah! When I was young we used to have to cut of the box tops and bring them to school…

From a 1-star review of The Giving Tree

Few people are aware of how much progress has been made against cancers. Leukemia is probably the most striking example. Before the 1970s, most children affected by leukemia would soon die from it. Now, most children in rich countries survive. ourworldindata.org/childhood-le...

Super thrilled that my article "Prosody" is now available to read in the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science! oecs.mit.edu/pub/1w4cqquc... Thanks to @asifamajid.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for the opportunity and for creating such an amazing resource for our community!

Writing philosophy is like 'thought archaeology'--each rewrite and revision dregs up more and more of the underlying thought process that produced the text. Good but tiring!

😂

New BJPS Short Read! Why Does Causal Reasoning Work? Naftali Weinberger, Porter Williams & James Woodward on the role of worldly infrastructure www.thebsps.org/short-reads/... #philsci #philsky

Saving until I find a reason to include in a talk theonion.com/archaeologic...

Statistical Rethinking 2026 is done: 20 new lectures emphasizing logical and critical statistical workflow, from basics of probability theory to causal inference to reliable computation to sensitivity. It's all free, made just for you. Lecture list and links: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

Please share it when you can! I'm a coauthor on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the paradox, and every few years we need to update it. plato.stanford.edu/entries/para...

Useful life hack from an expert on data collection

In the newest episode, I consider the debate over whether demographic variables such as race and gender are causes. In it, I clarify what's at stake, and what the answer does (and doesn't) depend on. youtu.be/UzpReyvtKDU?...

@rmcelreath.bsky.social has one of the best communicators of causal methodology, and philosophy of science would be immensely improved if his Bayesian stats textbook became standard reading in grad school. So if he endorses the newest episode, who am I to disagree :)

in case you've never seen it, this is Roger Ebert on The Mummy

I’m at a philosophy conference and it is WILD. You philosophers are fascinating people.

I philosophize about #AI. Nothing that I have written or will ever write will ever use it. Not bc I distrust it or bc I think it couldn’t do it. Just bc, to me, figuring out ways to do some of the things it could do is part of the beauty, privilege, fun and the point of what I do. #philtech

One thing you learn studying scientific social norms is how different norms are across the sciences and how often scientists think every field shares their norms.

This edition featuring keynotes by: Karoline Wiesner, Mats Stensrud & Naftali Weinberger (@dagophile.bsky.social)!

Folks, some news. No, not that kind of news – what do you think this is, LinkedIn? It's this: 1. The applied causal graphs workshop deadline is 28th Feb. so get your abstracts in and hang out with us in Potsdam this May. Form and description is below 2. @dagophile.bsky.social is giving a keynote 🥳

I'm having so much fun writing this paper! For too long I was too intimidated to engage in depth with the philosophy of physics literature, but since the general quality of work in it is so high, that eases the entry into the conversation.

Has anyone explored the possibility that the decline of the film industry is solely due to the irreplaceable loss of James Rebhorn in 2014? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R...

With the precision of a philosopher and the geekiness of a game-lover, Thi Nguyen shows how gaming has quietly colonized the rest of our lives. Required reading for understanding how values are being redefined through metrics, rankings, and scoring. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735252...

So much stupid stuff happens when your institutions are motivated by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is getting something they don't deserve.

I'm kind of fascinated by the attempt to tank the score on this (see the number of 1 scores). What corner of the internet is spearheading this? And am I just revealing my coastal liberal bubble when I wonder if it's a response to the coming out scene? Also,... www.imdb.com/title/tt2191...

What's this? Another confounded tree? 10/10 and a very merry Multistage Simpson's Paradox Machine* from all of us here at WeRateDAGs! *Pearl, J. (2014) 'Comment: Understanding Simpson’s Paradox' The American Statistician, 68(1):8-13

Signs that the author knows the person they're citing -- accidentally using the first name :)

It's astonishing how a technology called artificial intelligence has revealed the actual stupidity of so many people. This tweet hasn't been bettered

I think I need to write something on "over-control" -- cases where the ability to fine-grain intervene reduces the variance (i.e. risk aversion) in a way that's long-term suboptimal. Very related to Alison's work on children exploring (vs. exploiting), and I'm starting to see it everywhere.

Some cybernetic blogging to kick off the holidays: why does framing decision, design, and discovery as optimization remain so irresistible?

😂. The issue of disentangling the causal effects of age is conceptually rich, and entirely untouched by philosophers.

The richest man in the world has killed hundreds of thousands of the poorest children in the world I think this is one of the most evil--and definitely the most anti-christian--acts in human history

🚨🚨🚨 Our 52nd Annual Meeting will be held from June 18–20, 2026 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, with a pre-conference on Mental Control and Agency held at JHU on June 17 🚨🚨🚨 We are currently inviting submissions of papers (talks and posters)!

1/2 New open access paper in which we apply the Nyquist-Shannon thereom from signal processing to 2 EMA datasets to figure out the optimal sampling frequency for EMA assessments. 🧪 #psychscisky #statssky www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Can't really explain it, but I think of watching TV as kind of like looking into someone's living room, reading a book as having a conversation, listening to a podcast as like overhearing to a conversation, and listening to the radio like listening to a public speech.

Our special issue on Evolutionary Functions of Consciousness, coedited with Tecumseh Fitch and Adina Roskies, now online royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202... Contributions by (1) Irina Mikhalevich; (2) Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg; (3) Nicholas Humphrey; (cont'd)

This week's episode is on the Manipulation Theorem, which is not well-known in the broader causal community, but has hugely influenced philosophers. I cover hard vs soft interventions, why causation doesn't require human agents, and whether causation requires open systems. youtu.be/fg1ApidilVM

"Are we the baddies?"

I was honored to be asked to comment on David's talk. Many of you know him from his philosophy of physics work, though my interaction goes back to his teaching the 1st course I took in philosophy of science. Full talk in Sean's link. For my commentary, start here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TwP...

Continuing our drive to rate the classics, here are two maximally LA-coded suburban DAGs from Judea Pearl. There's thirsty lawns and sprinklers, burglars and earthquakes, and neighbors who call you if your alarm goes off. 9/10 because there's no mention of the traffic.

Kids don't need us to be their buddies. They need us to be what our teachers were—firm, fair, and just a little out of touch. Someone's got to show them how to age with style.

I'm revising a paper, and I still haven't managed to force myself to remove a snarky comment that doesn't seem uber-professional, but which best captures the reaction I'm trying to pre-empt. What do y'all think?

We swear that Bielefeld exists! We even had a speaker coming from there. And his train was delayed. In Bielefeld! Which totally exists!

What does it mean to assign probabilities to causal parameters? In just one minute and 33 seconds, I explain why this is puzzling, and how you can nevertheless make sense of it. youtu.be/UMJSFkz2sCg

Next talk from the #NaturalPhilosophy Symposium is David Albert on Fundamental Laws of Physics and the Idea of Agency, with commentary by Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TwP...

Now the thumbnail has a very recent pop culture reference to attract the youth. youtu.be/9Jwrw-oSUFU

In the latest episode, I relate Bostrom's simulation argument to debates over the causal faithfulness condition. I get into interpretations of probability, why "coincidental"≠"improbable", and what it means to assign a probability to a causal parameter. youtu.be/9Jwrw-oSUFU

"At 76.4 percent, it's the lowest turnout for a parliamentary election since 2012"

I can confirm the German accent -- no deep fakes here. Perfect color-matching would violate the positivity assumption, which makes me nervous...