The last post in APDA’s summer series is here: apda.ghost.io/2025-survey-... We wanted to zero in on two special groups that have come up in past surveys: international and conservative students. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they report different concerns. (See also DN dailynous.com/2026/08/03/i...)

2025 Survey Results: International and Conservative Students

Conservative and international students face different challenges: one feels forced to self-censor while the other reports fewer job opportunities. No significant impact on employment is found for eit...

apda.ghost.io

In honor of the kind, brilliant, and generous Christina Lux, please consider two of her poems. The second one was discussed on NPR (www.npr.org/2013/04/10/1...). UC Merced will not be the same without her. You can learn more about her work here: sites.google.com/view/drlux/h...

Faculty/job market veterans on #philsky: consider volunteering as a mentor for recent graduates on the job market through the APA. While it has never been easy, it is an especially stressful time to be looking for an academic job, and we could all use more community! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

APA Job-Market Mentoring Program MENTOR Application

The APA Job-Market Mentoring Program, run by the APA’s Committee on Academic Career Opportunities and Placement, pairs philosophers going on the academic job market with mentors who have recent experi...

docs.google.com

Incredible post by @kinozhao.bsky.social at APDA Blog and Daily Nous today that includes findings about prestige of program, gender, and SES in employment outcomes: apda.ghost.io/2025-survey-...

2015-2025 Grads: prestige, career paths, and job satisfaction

Prestige boosts permanent academic job odds and prestigious placements. Job satisfaction is similar b/w academics and non-academics, but higher for permanent than temporary job holders. Gender/SES hav...

apda.ghost.io

Incredible post by @kinozhao.bsky.social at APDA Blog and Daily Nous today that includes findings about prestige of program, gender, and SES in employment outcomes: apda.ghost.io/2025-survey-...

2015-2025 Grads: prestige, career paths, and job satisfaction

Prestige boosts permanent academic job odds and prestigious placements. Job satisfaction is similar b/w academics and non-academics, but higher for permanent than temporary job holders. Gender/SES hav...

apda.ghost.io

There's a lot of bad things in this world, dude. Like fucking skunks, dude?! Hell no. Scratching your eye but it's still fucking itchy, dude?! Hell no. Like getting paid not a lot of money, dude For fucking working?! Hell no. But Cape Verde at the fucking World Cup dude?! Hell yeah, hell yeah bro

Happy that my book, Deflating Mental Representation, has been long-listed for the Royal Institute of Philosophy's Nayef Al-Rodhan international prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/announc...

Announcing the 2026 Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize Longlist - Royal Institute of Philosophy

The longlist for the Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize 2026 has been announced. Find out more about the longlisted titles.

royalinstitutephilosophy.org

For those at #UCMerced wondering if the new Dep of Education rule will apply to us, it looks like all majors would clear the hurdle, with Anthropology at $42,300 and the median earnings for those with high school diplomas reported to be $41,800 (1/2) www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/inf...

Carolyn Dicey Jennings@cdj.bsky.social · last mo.

This is really troubling. From what I can tell, this will require institutions to report detailed student data (www.ed.gov/media/docume...). Furthermore, there appears to be no allowance for BA recipients who go on to further education (law/med/grad school) and so are not earning much yet.

Time for a degree in “millionaire parents”

Justin Weinberg@dailynous.com · last mo.

A new Dept. of Education rule says college programs' graduates must earn a certain amount of money for their students to continue to have access to federal aid programs...

This is really troubling. From what I can tell, this will require institutions to report detailed student data (www.ed.gov/media/docume...). Furthermore, there appears to be no allowance for BA recipients who go on to further education (law/med/grad school) and so are not earning much yet.

Justin Weinberg@dailynous.com · last mo.

A new Dept. of Education rule says college programs' graduates must earn a certain amount of money for their students to continue to have access to federal aid programs...

"as AI gets better than knowledge workers at answering small questions...people are likely to focus on big ones. Large language models may commoditise expert knowledge. But that makes knowing how to think, which is the main skill drummed into philosophy students, all the more valuable." #philsky

Jeff Patterson@jeffpatterson11.bsky.social · last mo.

www.economist.com/leaders/2026...

I’m surprised philosophy is so low. Any ideas why? Philosophy majors do well in the US: bigthink.com/thinking/phi... #philsky

@lastpositivist.bsky.social · last mo.

Really depends on how you look at it I guess

Happy #Caturday! I am very pleased with myself for successfully replacing my foot with a pillow so I could get some chores done

Get it while its hot! #philsky apda.ghost.io/2025-survey-...

2025 Survey Results: Publications and Teaching in Academia (Part II - Gender Norms)

Gendered gaps in publication experience emerge late in the pipeline. Gendered differences in teaching experience are weaker and less consistent. Causation remains uncertain.

apda.ghost.io

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

Finally submitted my response - The Stuff Matters - to the 50(!) commentaries on my 2025 BBS paper 'Conscious AI and biological naturalism'. I'm sorry to all commentators that it took so long. Hopefully the whole caboodle will be published soon. Target paper here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

every professor should be in the top 10%—no, 5%—of scholarly output among professors

Bas van Fraassen receives the Rolf Schock Prize 2026 with other laureates in mathematics, music, and visual arts in recognition for creativity in humanities, arts, and science. And tomorrow a symposium will celebrate Bas’s lifelong achievements 🎉 #philsci

Oh! Who is that there, in the corner? Just a saucy new ad at @dailynous.com

Helpful overview & pushback on AI integration in the classroom from Senate hearing “The available evidence…shows that increased classroom screen exposure is generally associated with weaker learning outcomes, not stronger ones” m.youtube.com/watch?v=bclm... www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

This adds to prior work finding that numerical gaps in publication/citation counts for women can be explained by social/network effects (not productivity) and that there is dramatic "market correction" for women (but not men) who are eventually awarded elite status www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The undervaluing of elite women in physics - Nature Physics

Elite women in physics wait longer than men for recognition. Once elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, however, their prominence surges — evidence that their work was undervalued all along.

nature.com

Carolyn Dicey Jennings@cdj.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Interesting result on different publication strategies in academia: "our research suggests that female and male researchers navigate the productivity-prestige landscape differently, yet ultimately attain comparable journal impact despite persistent productivity gaps." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting result on different publication strategies in academia: "our research suggests that female and male researchers navigate the productivity-prestige landscape differently, yet ultimately attain comparable journal impact despite persistent productivity gaps." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Gender shapes the relationship between productivity and journal prestige in science - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Gender shapes the relationship between productivity and journal prestige in science

nature.com

You’re not going to believe this — no one does — but I have never used AI to write. Not a query or to brainstorm or to outline or to draft. At most, I have struggled to turn off the “powered by AI” grammar suggestions in some app. But…this is extremely skewed thinking.

Jonathan Bernstein@jonbern.bsky.social · 2mo ago

this is not true, and this guy doesn't speak for me! nymag.com/intelligence...

New Paper in Draft: Substrate Flexibility and the Copernican Principle of Consciousness (with Jeremy Pober) Given the surge of interest in AI consciousness, the issue of "substrate independence" or "substrate flexibility" is now a hot topic in the metaphysics of mind. That is, does being 1/N

I LOVE the rice cooker! It’s the best example of simple physics : it’s literally a pot, a heating element and a magnet. That’s it. No electronics. No sensors. Nothing. How does it work??? Physics ! 🧵

Isaiah Bishop@isaiahbishop.bsky.social · 3mo ago

My real discourse is that everyone should own a rice cooker, its amazing.

It really cheered me to see that my (undergraduate!) student's excellent thesis paper on AI art had a bibliography full of "philosophy journal, forthcoming." I think because it shows just how hard they worked this term to find good, relevant scholarship, pushing to the very edge of what's out there.

I attended a magical workshop in Canterbury last week with many good moments, but a favorite occurred on my last morning as I opened my window to listen to the birds at 4 am and a visitor popped in for a cuddle

Cal State Channel Islands philosophy lecturer Jonathan Caravello has just been ACQUITTED of assaulting ICE/CBP last summer while protesting a brutal Ventura County cannabis farm raid! His defense argued he threw a tear gas canister away to protect protesters. The jury acquitted him in two hours.

CSU lecturer acquitted

Government said he assaulted immigration agent

laist.com

For people in the Central Valley: there will be TWO talks by Dr. Jelle Bruineberg (Copenhagen) at #UCMerced this week. One is public and criticizes the idea that we face "too much information," and the other is academic/scholarly and focused on a problem for attention theorists. All are welcome!