Why is it so difficult to agree about masks and respiratory infections? Is it more about conflicting risk appetites and political philosophies than scientific findings? www.socialsciencespace.com/2026/01/why-...

Quite easy. 100s of thousands of public health workers share a common normative stance that does not stand up to scrutiny by the application of fairly conventional political science analysis. Should we choose iatrocracy or democracy? Is health the only defining characteristic of a good society?

"Speaking for myself, I too believe that humanity will win in the long run; I am only afraid that at the same time the world will have turned into one huge hospital where everyone is everybody else's humane nurse." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, Naples, May 27, 1787

Carols in the Hall. Merry Christmas! #friendsofwollatonpark #wollatonhall #christmas #carols

A bit of sunshine after the rain on Jubilee Campus @uniofnottingham.bsky.social

There is a growing problem of big name natural-science journals publishing social science that is "problematic". This reflects a inability to accept the statistical standards and skills in social science are often much much higher than in many areas of the natural sciences. (I'm a chemist btw).

"Social scientific methods are not as they should be." Some chronic problems that i'm pretty sure you've come across are outlined below 👇 and you can read more here - journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Wintery blue skies over the magnificent York Minster this morning #medievalsky

Well played, villagers of Hampton Poyle #Putin

A brilliant comedian - hope his passing gets proper recognition South of the Border...

And here we go, last post of the year, which is always a round-up of all the posts I have written over the year - enjoy! makingsciencepublic.com/2025/12/12/m...

But Labour MPs can’t put on hi-vis and a hard hat to visit for a photo opp, so they don’t count this as work and they don’t count these as jobs with saving

I often think about all the books in our new library, in their tightly packed climate controlled shelves, that don’t turn up in the searches that don’t use the perfect search terms just for them, and thus never get borrowed, because nobody can accidentally encounter them.

Because people *still* don’t understand that overseas students subsidise home students. This is punishing everyone involved.

For all those wondering about the origin and robustness of the Covid Inquiry's assertion that 23K deaths could have been avoided by different actions.... trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/the-contra...

The introduction to our special issue on the (re)production of asymmetries-in-action. It’s been a pleasure working with @cathtam.bsky.social and our contributors in demonstrating EM/CA approaches to various “isms” and some of sociology’s “Big” concerns. #emca onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Over at the Daily Telegraph, they're scratching their heads as to why the former mining and steel producinv city of Gliwice in Poland is now 45% more prosperous than Darlington... and why it has new shiny infrastructure... without mentioning EU funds for urban and regional development...

"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe

I am increasingly of the opinion that people who change menus and look and feel of computer software just so that you know it's a new version should be personally forced to play tech support to my mother for five months.

Vaccination: A Child’s Right? Are US children well-served by an obsession with exclusive parental rights to control choices like vaccination given the foreseeable risk to their lives, health and well-being? www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/11/vacc...

A brief day of sunshine in Nottingham!

Just because DNA is "colloquially known" as "the blueprint of life" does one have to use that outdated metaphor, with all its deterministic connotations? (see @philipcball.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Society was always better 20 years ago - so says every generation at least back to the 1840s... See G. Pearson, 'Hooligan', Macmillan, 1983...

Sad news from the US. Erikson made important contributions to the interactionist sociology of deviance before his brilliant work on disasters. His first book, Wayward Puritans, also had a huge influence. He remains the ony sociologist to win the ASA best book award twice.

"In preparation for this session, I spoke to one academic at a research-intensive university, who even argued: ‘TRAC is a piece of fiction to conceal how much teaching subsidises research.’" 1/2

He was a key figure in setting up the Human Genome Project, which had a terrible organizational structure and failed to deliver on the hype. I interviewed one of the main funders who said they felt it was a waste of money (but did generate useful research tools). 2

Governments and transport secretaries come and go. But Treasury Brain is timeless and eternal

If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.

This weeks post is a sort of obituary for the BBC World Service Programme 'Science in Action' (@peaseroland.bsky.social) #scicomm makingsciencepublic.com/2025/11/07/s...

Updated thread on The Lost King film: I’m digging over old ground but I have to challenge Steve Coogan's line. He claims it’s all true (as has Philippa Langley): Langley will be celebrated for her achievement, Richard Taylor & his personal gripes will be forgotten So what’s the real story? 1/15

Despite its ideals, science cannot escape its social embedding,When science becomes entangled with state power or social movements that prioritize hierarchy, nationalism, or exclusion, it can be mobilized in support of authoritarian ideologies, including fascism.

On further reflection, handing operation of our Universities over to a professional administrative class with no personal investment in the educational mission of the university or the creation and maintenance of knowledge might have been somewhat in error.

BREAKING: economist discovers “second shift,” a concept coined by sociologists almost 50 years ago; gives it new, stupider, and less explicitly labor-oriented name

Come across Conversation Analysis and want to know more? Loughborough University's annual online CA for Beginners workshop is on Jan. 15, 2026. Talks, group work & data sessions with experts. Registration (£45 or £90) is now open. More information here emcawiki.net/CA_for_Begin... #EMCA

Ah the challenges of a modern world and digital exclusion. Age Concern is campaigning for a more accessible world & we have written about it... The cartoon 👇 may be funny, the reality not.

When I was your age we would read books made out of paper and the professor would just sit on the desk at the front of the room and talk to us

Today's post is a a bit of a conceptual Odyssey around the epic lands of 'enshittification' - a word for our times #linguistics #AI makingsciencepublic.com/2025/10/17/e...

Will COVID-19 vaccines still be used in the future? Seems like a strange question. Short answer: probably mostly in the elderly. But it’s more nuanced; it’s not primarily about preventing COVID-19 anymore. 1/10

"It is hard to think where else it would be possible to create such an institution with its relentless insistence that there is nothing special about humans, about the Christian faith or about the products of science and technology." www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/10/the-...

A Sociologist's lamentation.

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*. If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

www.iod.com/director/art... - a good article looking at the arguments for an expansion of city boundaries & how it can help economic development. The article uses examples from Nottingham & elsewhere. Don’t fall for the negativity of keeping lots of small councils. Embrace the change.

An irony of GOP/MAGA's attacks on university sector is that, structurally, it's as close to a "free market" as you'll find in US. There are 1000s of universities, mostly operating independently. Unlike tech sector (or coal, oil/gas, eyeglasses, etc), market concentration is incredibly low. 1/4

They’ll tell you that the arts & humanities aren’t practical and then …

Henceforth the red robes will only be worn as an away kit when the Canadian Supreme Court is playing the US one.

Those panicing around #LongCOVID seem to forget history. After every major flu pandemic, large groups reported fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, yes, also children. These were real symptoms, but not evidence of a new, mysterious disease. bsky.app/profile/did...#LongCOVID1/5

'The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war...' George Orwell, 1984. The Board of Peace created to govern Gaza...

Digital ID + tracking immigrant volunteering for ILR gets more than half way to a Chinese-style social credit society. Is this a path we really want to go down?

Is there a reason I ask that the Times are using a picture of asylum seekers in a boat to describe rules for migrants who came on legal routes such as skilled worker visas for doctors?