James Fern
@jamesfern.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer; SFHEA; Academic GenAI lead; #Sport #Exercise #Science #rstats #openscience #bayes #MUFC https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/10/1102
Good news, everyone! I have a short piece coming out in The Conversation on Monday that explains the main issues with this study. It's impossible for me to have the same media reach as the original press release. So I'd be extremely grateful if people could help me share it as widely as possible 🙏
G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · 3mo agoGood news, everyone www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/h...
Causal inference theory and methods should be first introduced at secondary school, and the rest should be taught in all quantitative undergraduate courses. It is far too fundamental to leave to specialist masters and graduate degrees, learnt only by a small minority of quantitative scientists.
Beggars belief that Met Police is in talks with #Palantir about giving them access to highly sensitive data, when there’s already such concern over its links with ICE & Israeli military. Palantir already has UK contracts worth over £500m, incl. with NHS. We should be scrapping them not signing more
Met police in talks to buy Palantir AI tech for use in criminal investigations
Exclusive: Internal concerns over allowing US firm linked to ICE and Israeli military to process highly sensitive data
theguardian.com
New blog post (it's been a while): Make Meta-Analysis Great Again. This is a serious proposal. Please amplify to whoever might be interested, especially if they have money. steamtraen.blogspot.com/2026/04/make...
In this episode, Nate speaks with primatologist and author @christinewebb.bsky.social about human exceptionalism – the deeply embedded belief that humans are separate from and superior to the rest of nature. www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/213-...
Hannah Ritchie has built a fun little tool where you can compare energy usage of various products and activities. This is super helpful imho, because it's so hard to develop intuitions even just about the scales involved here. hannahritchie.substack.com/p/does-that-...
This is basically my villain origin story. "How old are you?" (unique responses)
On Trump, Epstein, and their social circle of pedophiles. From HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT, written in 2019, before Epstein was indicted. "The story of Jeffrey Epstein is one that will define our era..." us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
"Scientific literacy has long been a cornerstone of higher education but the open research movement has redefined what it means to be literate as a researcher" with @flavioazevedo.bsky.social & @drcpennington.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/if-p...
Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 6mo agoIf progress is not to falter, students must be trained in open research, say Madeleine Pownall, Charlotte Pennington and Flavio Azevedo https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/if-progress-not-falter-students-must-be-trained-open-research
“A striking feature of recent reporting is how much attention is given to preventing and detecting cheating with AI detectors, bans on AI use and invigilated exams, presented as the “only way” forward. Detection is not assurance, and it never was.” www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-c...
The real crisis isn’t cheating. It’s mistaking marks for learning.
With Brian Stout In recent days, the Australian has painted a stark picture of higher education under siege: empty lecture theatres, students “outsourcing” degrees to generative AI, and universities c...
linkedin.com
Excellent piece on smart glasses and education - hard not to feel that the sector is far from ready in responding to the widespread adoption of such tech nationalcentreforai.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2026/01/2...
Smart Glasses in Education - Artificial intelligence
Why look at smart glasses now? Smart glasses have been commercially available in some form for over a decade. More recently, they have returned to popular conversation, driven largely by Meta and its ...
nationalcentreforai.jiscinvolve.org
“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
washingtonpost.com
Am generally supportive of a ban (am not sure we need to 'wait for evidence', and a year seems arbitrary), but only if it comes with much stricter regulation for everyone, given its negative effects don't harm just children.
Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 7mo agoDon't really have a dog in the ban-social-media-for-under-16s fight, but seems utterly irrational to demand it now. A country which is comparable to Britain has just done so. Surely, if you were remotely committed to evidence, you would take a year to see how it goes before proposing we copy them.
I am actually very optimistic about the long-run outcome of genAI for the humanities but the reaction *from* humanities specialists is going to delay the benefits to their fields. It's really good when ppl suddenly have a bunch of tools they interact with via effective use of *natural language*.
Christo Silvia@christosilvia.bsky.social · 7mo agoOne thing that is very interesting in the topic of writing in particular, is that even if you accept the premise that AI is an incredibly powerful and useful tool, the *way you communicate with that tool* is by writing. The technology of AI makes written communication skills more valuable, not less
Even though I absolutely hate reading AI writing, I am getting negatively polarized by the stunning incuriosity of so much of the professoriate about the objectively strangest technology in the last hundred years
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 7mo agoYes in thunder. My syllabus statement:
One thing that is very interesting in the topic of writing in particular, is that even if you accept the premise that AI is an incredibly powerful and useful tool, the *way you communicate with that tool* is by writing. The technology of AI makes written communication skills more valuable, not less
Bill@bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 7mo agoEven though I absolutely hate reading AI writing, I am getting negatively polarized by the stunning incuriosity of so much of the professoriate about the objectively strangest technology in the last hundred years
This is a really great read. Are we now in a period of “reverse” reverse adaptation, as per Langdon Winner? At least as it pertains to LLMs and writing?
Mike Masnick@masnick.com · 7mo agoI do worry about the rush to claim certain things are definitely AI, which people think they can tell with certainty (they absolutely cannot) will lead to bad outcomes as well. A while back I wrote about the hoops my kid went through to try to avoid sounding like AI, which made the writing worse.
I do worry about the rush to claim certain things are definitely AI, which people think they can tell with certainty (they absolutely cannot) will lead to bad outcomes as well. A while back I wrote about the hoops my kid went through to try to avoid sounding like AI, which made the writing worse.
AI Checkers Forcing Kids To Write Like A Robot To Avoid Being Called A Robot
Can the fear of students using generative AI and the rise of questionable AI “checker” tools create a culture devoid of creativity? It’s a topic that is curiously one worth delving into a bit more …
techdirt.com
Jess Miers 🦝🦞@jmiers230.bsky.social · 7mo agoI suspect many great candidates, especially neurodivergent candidates, will be rejected by graduate admissions committees going off of vibes to decide whether a candidate is human enough for their programs.
Tracking the details of an experiment in successively cited Methods sections
It's good to see that the FDA has done something right, even under Makary. It's more than has happened in most journals. They remain wedded to p values because they are the easiest way to get "statistical significance". Robert Matthews may have been a bit too critical, but there is truth in this:
Frank Harrell@f2harrell.bsky.social · 7mo agoFDA drugs and biologics guidance for Bayesian clinical trials is something I've been dreaming of for decades. I am thrilled that this draft has been released!! #Statistics #StatsSky #fda #clinicaltrial #bayes
Cannot recommend @birchlse.bsky.social book 'The Edge of Sentience' highly enough, one of the best things I read last year.
Jonathan Birch@birchlse.bsky.social · 7mo agoI've been working for ages on a comprehensive revamp of the Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on "Animal Consciousness", with new sections on non-Western perspectives, methodological challenges and evolutionary big pictures, and it's out today: plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons.... Hope you find it useful!
Sesko is actually explaining to Bruno that it would be helpful if he could try to pass the ball to within at least a 5m circle around him.
𝕌ℕ𝕀𝕋𝔼𝔻 𝕌ℕ𝔻𝔼ℝ ℂ𝔸ℝℝ𝕀ℂ𝕂🎖️@unitedundercarrick.bsky.social · 7mo agoAgain, Benjamin wants to learn! He’s going straight to the 🔝 #MUFC
Happy academic "just circling back on that email from November 22nd" day to all who celebrate 😅
Carrick's selection for his first game in charge in 2021... a 2-0 win over Villarreal. How many of the current squad get into this 11...not sure it's many.
