Tracing the usage of the term "latent" in science is frickin WILD, dude. It looks like it all goes back to (arguably) the start of the scientific method, Bacon's 1620 Novum Organum, in which he discussed the processus latens.

So, I really hope I get to tell this story in longer form in the near future, but it it’s burning a hole inside me. Most of it comes from an interview with Bob Hirst this weekend. Bob has been Exec Editor of the Mark Twain Project for 47 years, before which he was part of its staff for ~15. 1/16

The ability to properly define a research question is more important today than ever before. Describe a vague research question and your data and 10 times out of 10 Claude WONT ask for any clarification before it suggests 19 different things you can *try*.

Sean Mackinnon@seanpmackinnon.bsky.social · 3y ago

Stats consulting is constantly like: Them: I want you to run (complex stats) Me: OK, what's your research question though? Them: ...A (complex stat)? Me: Research question? Them: You know, like the stats in this journal article. Something reviewers will like.

I would prefer not to.

CNBC Make It@cnbcmakeit.cnbc.com · 5d ago

Use this 5-word phrase to quit your job, but leave on good terms

Hey neuroscientists, do you have a story about a time when journalism has improved your science? If so, I'd love to include it in my next op-ed. 🧠

🧵On @thenewsagents.co.uk yesterday, school closures and the lab leak theory were offered as two examples of legitimate questions that were hard to ask. Both have in fact been asked constantly since 2020. But here's a thread on why I think they were wrong and dangerous on school closures 1/12

This is just to say I have eaten the sun god's cattle on the island which you were probably saving for Apollo Forgive me they were delicious and so charred and so warm

Hey @erinbiba.bsky.social please enjoy this storytelling masterclass, this emotional voyage, this impeccable sense of pacing and timing

🧵

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3w ago

I try not to overdo this bit but ... my man is begging for it. Let's go.

(I absolutely stole this)

Rayner Unwin’s referee report on The Hobbit, written when his father Stanley Unwin gave it to him and asked whether it should be published. He was paid a shilling for it. My favorite part is the way that Unwin, aged 10 at the time, makes it clear that this is a book for children younger than him.

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 3w ago

The big literary discourse on twitter right now is whether The Hobbit—a children’s book that won children’s lit awards and was literally written for the author’s children—is appropriate reading for children or in fact such a difficult book most adults can’t “get their head around” it.

Oh no. It was always a pleasure to see posts from Norm pop up in my feed.

Dirk Eddelbuettel@eddelbuettel.com · 4w ago

Norm Matloff (1948-2026) @matloff.bsky.social I was made aware of the post below made by his daughter. We lost another friend and valued long-time contributor the #Rstats community, gone far too soon, and sure to be missed. His memory will be a blessing.

At the risk of being a killjoy... the comments + quotes on this seem to interpret it to mean the study found no sex differences in the brain and that isn't really what it says. The paper is way more interesting than that. So I read it and made a thread as I went: 🧵 1/n

Laura Helmuth@laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 4w ago

Male brains and female brains are all just human brains.

Has someone created and LLM-powered survey checker to review draft questionnaires for readability, double-barreled questions, order effects, and other best practices for survey research. Because from looking at some public surveys ... it would be useful.

Short story about statistical modeling without causal inference gone badly wrong. Just head on the news that preschoolers play 15 minutes less on rainy days. The reporting stressed that the research was "associational" and therefore couldn't tell us why. Huh? 1/

Whichever of the purple dots you look at turns more purple.

The director I'm working with on this Theseus movie is impossible, he's made me reshoot every single scene.

People are now debating what the proper earring placement is.

Bassano@bassano.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Vermeer’s Girl With The Pearl Earring will be shown in Osaka, later this year, and the press conference was as Japanese as you’d expect #Vermeer

AI? No, not at all. Here we just fit regressions and decision trees.

More Perfect Union@moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders will introduce a bill to have the public take a 50% ownership stake in the country's biggest AI companies. The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would have the government tax AI companies, take 50% of the stock, and put it under public control.

asking the machine that imitates human writing to tell me (who, as a human writer, also imitates human writing), answering as a human would answer, whether the writing that another human submitted to me, and which I now submit to the machine, imitates human writing in the right way or the wrong way

Sam Byers@sambyers.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Genuine question: what exactly are we all doing.

Funny things still happen over at the bad place This guy put a prompt in his LinkedIn and now AI recruiters are writing him in Old English and calling him "my lord"

wandering the Sonora desert in a carefree fashion like

I can't stop thinking about this video since I saw it last night

god forbid a French rat live out his dream of becoming a chef on a cruiseship

Do you know a good framework to document data analysis choices? Ex: dropping obs, recoding a var, tuning pars, model + test statistics, etc. Ideally human-readable so people don't have to read my entire codebase. Low-maintenance+ machine-readable for bonus points! #RStats #PyData

I resigned from the National Science Board in May when meaningful oversight became untenable. I respect colleagues who stayed to serve the NSB's mission. Today's news clarifies that was an erosion of oversight and function has become open elimination of the Board itself. 🧵 time.com/7285045/resi...

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress

I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

time.com

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

I'll be at a workshop organized by @rohanalexander.bsky.social next week on how AI will change quantitative social science. This is my short paper, and this is the key argument. ryancbriggs.net/blog/as-ai-l...

I think the issue is that two claims get conflated: "Statistical learning over massively distributed representations is more similar to neural processing than symbol manipulation is" "Connectionist / Neural Networks / Deep Learning / Transformer models are just like humans"