Anyone can say they are open-minded, but how can you prove it? We show how the 'Ideological Turing Test' can be used to measure mutual understanding across controversial topics (and the result suggest people who disagree may understand each other better than we expect) […]

- The monkey on your back: Embodied metaphor via real monkeys impairs cognitive control - What if individual differences in brain activation via fMRI are associated with [important overt behavior]? (N = 16)

'Even when women were mentioned, the report found they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in lessons than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during the second world war 1/2

There's greed and then there's Springer Nature greed. No wonder some people are smiling!

A big thank you to all those who have been so positive about my new book. It's about how neurological patients can tell us so much about our selves, how personal and social identities are forged by different cognitive functions, and what it means to belong.

After over 15 years of prevarication, procrastination, and avoidance, have managed to submit the final manuscript for the second edition of my 'Facts are friendly' book--due out Spring 2026 from Sage.

This in the latest PNAS. Phylogenetics has gone all in on Bayes but knowledge & norms have lagged. I mean posterior often has good frequentist coverage but can't assume it. Also no chain diagnostics in the paper or supplement. Where are our standards?

If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

More reason to read Sarah Hrdy, rather than population panic narratives, typically written by people with little understanding of our species: “What I take from Hrdy’s expansive view of human possibility is a strange sort of confidence in futures we’ve never seen or imagined”

Thanks to Tim Lewens for a wonderful review of our 'Evolution Evolving' book. "In this exceptionally ambitious and impressive book, Lala and collaborators... show how an understanding of development is essential to an understanding of evolution" Read it here: shorturl.at/mgGEm #evolution #evodevo

New paper with @lottybrand.bsky.social and @verwirrt.bsky.social. We use some cool modeling to argue for a central role of analogy in the evolution of both language and high-fidelity social learning, using multiple NK landscapes. Feedback welcome. osf.io/preprints/ps...

@blongdon.bsky.social don't know if you're on here much but my friend wants to know on a scale of 1-10 how legit/pseudoscience is this antihistamine -COVID paper just out in asm microbiology? 🙏🏻 Ta journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Important paper here 👇. Body Image (the journal) and #bodyimage (the field) have the same problem as most of Psychology - too much emphasis and focus on mainly-students in a few mainly high income countries. We need to change this! (We *are* changing it.) But there remain barriers to doing so... 🧵

So at this point I'm thinking well I'm definitely fired but this will one day make a great story on a Nazi-riddled microblogging platform, and 6yrs later on a much nicer alternative with only 19 active users. I head to the staff area, wipe my face and check my phone. I'd been in the room for 35 mins

On way to work, starts kicking in. You know when the roof of your mouth starts politely folding your brain in half, and your chest flutters like a cathedral filled with bees? I was holding it together but knew if I stopped concentrating for one second, I would become time itself.

For those who don't know this story, which I first shared six years ago today.... This one time I got my days wrong at work and ended up alone in a room with my boss and the President of Ireland while I was on ketamine. 🧵

It is heartbreaking to think of millions of kids going through this. USA, This. IS. NOT. NORMAL.

Today in criminal negligence

Anyone who has ever dealt with the bureaucracy of proving you are in sufficient need of assistance to get assistance should recognize how huge of a difference unconditional basic income would make in our times of greatest need.

Your regular reminder that eugenics never went away, and remains a highly influential ideology👇 ‘Eugenics on steroids’: the toxic and contested legacy of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Our aim is to win a 4-day week for all by 2030. To do that, we need your help. Right now we’re seeking volunteers to help us spread the word about 4UGUST, our brand new initiative to get businesses trialling a 4-day week throughout August. Interested? Follow the link below to sign up ⬇️

"By partnering with Slow Ways...Railwalks aims to eventually offer a comprehensive, searchable, national network of rail walks, a mixture of station-to-station routes and circular hikes. And like Slow Ways itself, it needs your help."

This is really very good. The examples are 👌🏻 especially cervical cancer & smoking... poppers & HIV...

A major risk factor for believing nonsense about risk factors is not reading this two pager from George Davey Smith and Andrew Phillips #stats www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...

Y'all things I never thought I'd need to say: Pasteurization has saved millions on millions of lives. Don't throw away one of the greatest public health developments since handwashing. ESPECIALLY right now. 🧪 www.statnews.com/2024/04/29/b... by @helenbranswell.bsky.social

Calling all New Investigators and recent PhDs in #culturalevolution: nominate yourself for these @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social awards by 1st May (this Wednesday)!

And I still maintain that (profiteering) journals paying for a system where unemployed postdocs would become paid error-checkers would simultaneously solve The Two problems of academia: 1) lack of reproducibility 2) ECR job insecurity (short-term contracts/ too many postdocs for lectureships)

So happy to see this. I don't think I'm the only postdoc that thinks this would be a dreamy full-time job? (Be paid to thoroughly read fascinating papers in detail, put your critical skills to good use, and contributing to the validity & trustworthiness of science?!)

Really exciting new project. I think this is the kind of thing that the public assumes is really common in science - it’s not, yet, but I hope this helps us get there.

Reposting this post by @ruben.the100.ci bc I was just reminded of how wasteful the whole peer-review process is. Authors will receive feedback on flaws that need to be fixed & then just move on to the next journal & submit the same manuscript, as if nothing happened. www.the100.ci/2020/06/24/m...

Interesting findings by @volkswagenstiftung.bsky.social after giving out some #academic grants via a lottery, encouraging "research ideas that break new scientific ground. It can increase diversity among those funded and reduce the risk of bias." Read more 🇩🇪 www.volkswagenstiftung.de/de/news/aktu...

Leo Tiokhin - “Criticism in Science Should be Rewarded blog.trialanderror.org/jote-in-conv...

What does it take to make your journal an inclusive home for research from the Global South? Editor Joanna Setchell has taken active steps from diversifying editorial board members & reviewers to including translations & introducing double anonymous review www.springernature.com/gp/researche...

“Appetite for the four day week has never been higher. Startups’ research shows that 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨 plan to adopt the policy this year; and August could be the ideal month to kickstart their ambitions.” startups.co.uk/news/august-...

Why should flawed research be retracted? Because otherwise it can be quietly mainstreamed, making it look like actual science Highlighted citation here not only uses "national IQ" data but also uses a methodology which assumes the earth is flat. Pay attention to citations people

Because of the pay gap, women have lost out on more than $60 trillion in wages since 1967. Yes, trillion. Today women still earn roughly 84 cents for every dollar earned by men, despite playing an outsized role in our economy. We must ensure fair wages for all.