Karl Polanyi this morning.. “A blind faith in spontaneous progress…with the fanaticism of sectarians the most enlightened pressed forward for boundless and unregulated change in society…” remind you of anything @olivia.science @irisvanrooij.bsky.social ?

Some reading for the weekend. Just out in Science Advances. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Palaeolithic artifacts discarded at Peña Capón, Central Iberia, were sourced to Southwest France, 600-700 kms away. This shows social networks of unprecedented geographic scale at an astonishingly early date

Not only excellent but also useful. I was getting concerned about deadlines early in Feb but thanks to this I now know I have no need to worry

A very snowy #GeorgiaProtests Day 419. 📷 MOSE

Good piece. As Polanyi said, self-regulating capitalism doesn’t work. Unfortunately, if we replace all the libraries with datacentres no one will be able to read Polanyi…

Last year's arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was more than just a chilling act of political repression, it was an attack on all of our constitutional rights. Now, as the crackdown on pro-Palestinian free speech continues, Mahmoud is being threatened with rearrest. Mahmoud is free—and must remain free.

The third article in the special issue Are Social Sciences Special? which @martinkusch.bsky.social and I co-edit is by @federicobrandmayr.bsky.social. It presents results of a large survey of British academics on how they see their own disciplinary identity wrt social sciences #philsci #sts #histsci

Well done for taking a stand @seismatters.bsky.social

Beautiful graphic

Dear TikTok, a cat doing the washing up is only funny if it really happened

Really happy to have joined this study, published in November, that finally sorts out the hunting lesion question at Boxgrove 🐎 and adds much-needed experimental reference data for future studies. A big thank you to @annemiekemilks.bsky.social, @mattpope.bsky.social, and all the other co-authors! 🦣🏺

🔴 AVISO ROJO | LLuvias torrenciales en la Vega del Segura (Región de Murcia) ➡️ Se han registrado más de 60 mm en 1 hora en Fortuna y Albanilla. ➡️Ahora la intensidad de la lluvia es menor, pero puede haber impactos corriente abajo. ➡️ ¡Mucha Precaución! Aviso en vigor hasta las 11:59 del día 28.

Very interesting!

Incredible analysis

“Universities are already caught in this loop: students going through motions they know are empty, faculty grading work they suspect wasn’t written by students, administrators celebrating “innovations” everyone else understands are destroying education..” www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

"Let us join forces to build a future that is not only desirable but also truly worth striving for—one grounded in common sense rather than automated thoughtlessness" Open letter to Dutch government and forming parties Join me in signing 🖊️ 🙏 openletter.earth/zorgvuldig-a...

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

This is one of the most important documents produced this year. At a time when many of our professional organizations are punting, @aaup.org has been leading on EdTech, AI, academic freedom & faculty governance. I'm humbled to be joining the team that authored this report.

Good, but paywalled. “And, still, the underlying flaw of technocratic policymaking remains unaddressed: conflicts of values and interests do not have a numerical or technical answer”

Indeed. It's sometimes (often?) harder to do things the right way in medical/health research because editors/reviewers stop you from doing it. statsepi.substack.com/p/how-bad-st...

Great stuff

Very well put…

Indeed, the ideas behind degrowth are sensible, but the label is off-putting to many people. Potentially easily fixed…

Ah, reviewer #3

Think about what it takes from us and especially learners bsky.app/profile/oliv...

Much more right here in our brand new, free, definitive assessment of why climate action is struggling. cssn.org/news-researc...

Fantastic!!!

So many examples.....the Canadian's government's recent pipeline deal, Biden's various permitting reform bills, Hochul's gas / wind farm deals in New York, Australia's ultra-lax permissiveness for FF projects, the UK's wild pro-CCS positions

So you have a centrist government comfortable with doing deals for new fossil infra in exchange for pro-climate policy, a fanbase that excuses it as fundamentally harmless, and a reality of wildly insufficient renewable energy growth and shockingly sticky yearly growth of coal, gas and oil use

I think overconfidence in a technological, free-market and autopilot energy transition also inspires a follow-on dismissiveness around governments approving, supporting or encouraging fossil fuel infrastructure (on the grounds that it won't compete with cheap renewables and therefore isn't a worry)

Good piece, interesting

It happened! The @nytimes.com profiled Paulina! The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years. Gift Link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...

Disappointing but sadly not unexpected. Carney is a conventional, extractivist economist, limits to growth etc don’t interest him. Will just deliver more of the same etc etc ad infinitum. Our political systems can’t deliver leaders able to pull the plug on fossil fuels. Yet.

More inexcusable AI slop ending up in apparently “reputable” journals. What’s going on @springernature.com - only care about the money, is that it?

Oh yes

Brilliant piece from last year worth revisiting in the light of the COP30 fiasco www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Good piece

Don't call it AI or LLM. Call it the Expensive Mistake Generator.

So, below is EU President von der Leyen saying that the EU is "not fighting fossil fuels, only emissions." And here is the Saudi envoy to COP30 saying exactly the same thing. I'm telling you: climate politics are unified around the lie that we can keep fossil fuels & still deal w climate anyway.

yes, sure bsky.app/profile/iris...

Interesting. I am terrible at arguing my point. I always get lost in details or concede that my opponent could easily be right. I guess good debaters have quick wits but also cast-iron self belief…

18/11/25 - nocturn

Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00327) we show how it is harmful – and unnecessary.

When you switch from fossil to clean you only use like 30-40% of the energy to do the same stuff, bc most energy from fossil fuels is lost as waste heat What's I'm trying to say is that all climate action is degrowth WELCOME TO DEGROWTH EVERYONE

#CriticalAILiteracy #CAIL

The first news story on the publication (to be honest, odd title since it is neither a poem nor debunked as literature, but nice of the journalist and publication to be interested enough in spreading news of it): thefreesheet.com/2025/11/04/m...