To what degree are the concepts of characterization and explanation entangled? An Open Access article from The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science uses the Cambrian explosion as a case study to answer this question: https://ow.ly/LsZx50XrrRZ. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

Are you interested in messy, imprecise concepts in science with huge social implications? Join us online on Tuesday, Dec 2nd, for Yasmin’s talk. Register here: hugera.org/lecture-seri... #philsci #STS #popgen #HPbio

Maybe #Lies, #Damned_Lies, and #Statistics will start trending.. bsky.app/profile/malt...

Network Medicine is entering a new phase: one that demands we rethink how we study, model and ultimately treat complex diseases. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ComplexSystems #NetworkScience #Medicine #MedSky 🧪🧬🌐 🧵 1/

While the Magellanic Clouds shine upon the Chilean Desert, two VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes point up to the sky — all together reminding us of how small we are as humans compared to cosmic objects & the telescopes we observe them with. https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2545a/ 🔭 🧪 📷 J. Looten/ESO

Chronic exposure to environmental noise is associated with #neurodegenerative diseases. This study shows that #noise promotes the onset of #ParkinsonsDisease phenotypes in mouse; the IC-SNc circuit mediates this increased susceptibility @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43kc6KW

Explore evidence and practice on co-creating nature-based solutions (NbS) with commonly excluded stakeholders. Based on empirical insights, the report distils 8 guiding principles to advance inclusive and effective NbS research & implementation. Read more 🧪 link.europa.eu/X6y9hh

Historian of science Jim Endersby on "Darwin, Hooker, and Empire" (from 2009): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzb9... #HPS #histsci

"humanity and the environment cannot be separated." There lots theories on what caused the collapse of the Roman Empire, but a recent study points to the environmental shift that took place around the 3rd century AD. as one of the main factors. Great read.🏺

From #AHAPerspectives in 2021: For his Witchcraft and Magic in American History class, Richard Tomczak developed "an optional public writing assignment...to connect contemporary crises with the psychological tensions that produced witch-hunting." 🗃️

Enjoyed discussing "Why Science & Philosophy Need Each Other" w Megan Peters @meganakpeters.bsky.social We discuss the importance of engagement between science & philosophy, our experience w this & simplified conceptions of science & philosophy 🧠📕 Thanks Tev Naidu! #philsky #philsci #sciencesky

Philosophy & neuroscience of smell, some of my key refs (1) Smellosophy (book) www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067... (2) Smell is spatial link.springer.com/article/10.1... (3) No odor objects www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy... (4) No neural map/representation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

How are auditory features represented across the #AuditoryPathway? @bathellierlab.bsky.social show that #auditory feature tuning emerges through a mix of gradual & stepwise changes, with early representation of simple features & later refinement of complex ones @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oi0XCY

Good explanation here of why even some carmakers and oil and gas businesses are opposed to EPA potentially removing the finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. 🧪 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/c...

“we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection” 🧪 #ComplexSystems #Evolution www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Latest by my colleague Tim Lewens. Most envious of people who manage to pack in arguments into 3000 words, especially such meaty arguments as this one #philsci #philsky

1335 years ago, on the 16th of October 690, Wu Zetian became empress of the Zhou dynasty. She had held de facto power previously during the reigns of her late husband and two of her sons. She is the only female sovereign in the history of China who is widely regarded as legitimate. #otd #history 🗃️

Pre-Inca civilisations in the Andes, the earliest occupations of Uruguay, and how textiles reveal invisible cultural identities. Explore all this and more in our South American #archaeology collection 🏺 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Join us on 20 November for the Annual Digital Lecture, a partnership between The National Archives, UK and the School of Advanced Study. The wonderful @nannathylstrup.bsky.social will be speaking about ‘When saving becomes loss: archival memory in the digital age’. Free to register!

What is agency? How did it emerge through evolution? Why is it key to understanding complexity? Check out this brilliant Open Access book by my dear colleagues Alvaro Moreno & @julipereto.bsky.social. A deep exploration of a crucial concept. Highly recommended! link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

The Epistemology of Logic "The generalisation ‘All swans are white’ does not explain *why* swans are white; for that, we require a genetic or evolutionary model." New book by Ben Martin Open Access: www.cambridge.org/core/service... #PhilSci #Epistemology #AcademicSky

New report shows where cancer-causing chemicals are polluting water for over 200 million Americans -- pretty much everywhere. 🌎🌿🧪 www.thenewlede.org/2025/09/new-...

🚨 New paper in PLOS Biology! 📉 Women publish up to 45% fewer papers than men 📉 Non-native English speakers: –35% 📉 Triple barrier (woman + non-native English + low-income): –70% 🌍 Language & equity matter in science! 👉 doi.org/10.1371/jour... #EquityInScience #LanguageMatters #OpenScience

The Top 1% of U.S. earners now have more wealth than the entire middle class

Retiring the only remaining ship in the US arsenal that was dedicated to research in the Southern Ocean....it hurts my soul to know how badly this will impact the science and all (scientists, students, crew, etc) who have worked so hard to advance our knowledge of all things #Antarctica 🧪🌎🦑🇦🇶🐧

[COMMENTARY] Conservation faces a storm of crises: ecological decline, weak institutions, disinformation & threats to defenders. The path forward? Resilient finance, coalitions linking nature & livelihoods, and optimism as a method, says a new op-ed. 🌍💪 The views expressed are author's.

🎉BREAKING: The High Seas Treaty has reached 60 ratifications — enough to enter into force! This landmark agreement creates a pathway to help protect the high seas — waters beyond any one country’s authority that cover nearly half our planet. https://oceana.ly/3VqpI2Y

Some essential changes are in order. Treating a nationstate as a business is as lame as treating politicians as corporate executives who've cemented their ride in the #power seat w/ #corrupt use of money & giving them carte blanche to do anything they want for as long as they possibly can. #limits

I am a new Expert Voices columnist @science.org and my first article just came out! In it, I argue that scaling technology has a dark side, particularly when it comes to alleviating inequality and injustice. And I suggest what scientists, engineers, and policymakers can do about it.

🚯 When a major country bans waste imports, where does all the waste go? 📉 A new #JAERE study on China’s 2017 ban finds: ♻️ Low-value waste (plastics) was diverted to lower-income countries. 🌍 Global waste flows fell 8–11%, cutting environmental costs. 📊 #JaereFigureFriday 🌎 #EconSky

The amount of oranges produced in Florida in the past year hit the lowest since the Great Depression, according USDA data … at 12.2 million boxes of oranges, it is the lowest to come from the state since 1932 #EconSky

If we generalize the need for philosophy of science & metascience, the next level up is the #information_paradigm. #KM / #KO framing lends its "DIKW" hierarchy which guides societal categorization along the same lines. The #CAS that we live in can no longer treat them in isolation. #governance

"Theoretical computer science has over the years sought more and more refined answers to the question of which mathematical truths are knowable by #finite beings like ourselves, bounded in #time and space and subject to physical laws." #knowledge #incompleteness www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQC7...

Do ant colonies work like liquid brains? Check this great paper in @pnas.org led by @ceabcsic.bsky.social Pol Fernandez and F.Bartumeus that shows how to explain collective foraging by modelling ants as neural agents @jordipinero.bsky.social @frazambelli.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Have you ever wondered WHY memories fade away? And why some people are good at remembering facts while others suck at it? If so, you would be interested in thew new paper by Yinan Xu, Florian Sense, @van-rijn.org, @chantelpratphd.bsky.social, and myself doi.org/10.1371/jour... 👇 🧪

"Evans and colleagues studied more than 16 million papers, revealing that flat, or egalitarian, teams consistently spark more disruptive breakthroughs than tall, hierarchical ones." 🧪 #philsci undark.org/2025/07/31/o...

The book Contemporary Philosophy of Autism has just been released. It contains my chapter Autism, the Double Empathy Problem and Feeling the Emotions of Another Person. #philsci #philpsy #HPS #STS #autism #empathy

🔍 Behind the Paper: “All Humans Are Strangers—Almost Everywhere”: Reflections on Human Belonging. Accepting our universally shared human strangeness may be the key to building bridges across cultures in a world that needs connection more than ever. bit.ly/4oX3Auo #philsci #lawsky

Despite being a major antagonist in the early chapters of my book, Michael Ruse provided a gracious and supportive peer review of my book before publication, and penned this early review. Remapping Biology with Goethe, Schelling, and Herder is now available in paperback. Check it out! #philbio #hps

“In the more than four decades since I started at the L.A. Times, we’ve never had a reporter cover water with the depth and persistence of Ian James.” @raineytime.bsky.social has a Q&A with my friend and colleague @ianjames.bsky.social, a true legend: www.latimes.com/california/n...

100% concur. It's hard to imagine a time where humans were more out of touch with our collective needs and #knowledge. We've gone for too long down separate paths of specialization & isolation, not only within #science, but also how it fails to connect with "how to live." #information_paradigm

Can selfish agents create intelligent group behaviour without planning or cooperation? Yes, if they adapt who they interact with. This simple rule leads to neural-network-like learning and global efficiency. Read the paper: watermark02.silverchair.com/artl_a_00029...

This week, Cristian Larroulet Philipi joins us to talk about measurement in the human sciences: why it can be more philosophically complex than in the physical sciences, and how it raises pressing questions about the role of numbers in psychology, social science, and policy #philsci #measurement

Renting is now significantly more affordable than buying a home — by one of the widest gaps ever recorded #EconSky

Physicists simplify the universe by studying closed systems. | iai.tv/articles/the... However, philosopher of physics Karim Thébault argues that embracing the openness of physical systems can lead to a better understanding of the world. #philsci ⚛️ 🧪

1. The philosophy of science sometimes gets an unearned reputation as a purely academic exercise that offers little by way of concrete tools for advancing research. This is wrong. And today, as we grapple with how AI is changing the nature of scientific activity, it's desperately wrong.

A core use case for bots’ emotional resonance with the user is psychological addiction. Human interaction is often messy and emotionally painful. Bot interaction, if coded properly, can feel less painful—even soothing—to the user, making it addictive. Addiction is profitable.

"Men who sell machines that mimic people want us to become people who mimic machines. They want techno feudal subjects who will believe and do what they’re told. We, as people, are being strategically simplified. This is a fascist process." organizingmythoughts.org/some-thought...

It's a shame it took me almost a month to find out Margaret Boden died. And it's a shame it took most media a month to write about one of the greatest philosophers of the last century. #philosophy #philsci #ai #cogsci www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/s...

He's already replied, but @markrubin.bsky.social is an excellent scholar coming from metasci side reaching across to philsci. A lovely newsletter of his landed in mailbox today on how metasci might need to incorporate more critical (dare I say philosophical?) perspectives⤵️