“The tragic implication of Plümper and Neumayer’s analysis is not that individual scientists are unusually dishonest, but that a system designed to incentivise truth-seeking has been incrementally transformed into one that often rewards its distortion” blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

Is publication, not truth, now the driving pursuit of science? - LSE Review of Books

The Credibility Crisis in Science by Thomas Plümper and Eric Neumayer explores how researcher incentives and publication bias distort scientific knowledge

blogs.lse.ac.uk

1/ 🧬⚖️ New Brunel CCE/CCN Shared Horizons talk: When is a methodological choice an ethical problem? @celsoneto.bsky.social joins @brunelpsy.bsky.social to unpack ancestry, racial stigma and human population genetics Wed 29th July, 2-4pm | ESGW Beldam | also online via Teams 🔗👇

As predicted! From the person who gave us "Eugenics will solve global poverty", now: "Eugenics will solve climate change".

Pieter T. L. Beck@ptrbck.bsky.social · 4mo ago

It seems the eugenicists are going into "eugenics will solve everything"-mode. New academic sub-genre: "Embryo screening will solve age-old problem X" philarchive.org/rec/DEVUES

With @remyfurrer.bsky.social, a new piece in Nature Human Behavior. The standard description of a polygenic score as a "genetic predisposition" essentializes a statistical construct. It's not language policing: PGS are a new kind of entity; now is the time to think carefully about what they are.

Polygenic risk scores are not genetic predispositions - Nature Human Behaviour

Nature Human Behaviour - Polygenic risk scores are not genetic predispositions

nature.com

Stress from racism may help explain why black women more likely to die in childbirth, study finds

Stress from racism may help explain why black women more likely to die in childbirth, study finds

Exclusive: Cambridge research finds socioenvironmental stressors may influence body’s ability to function healthily in pregnancy Stress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found. Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

At this year's @cambridgefestival.bsky.social, Mariam Rashid, Jack Monaghan and I planned a panel with a twist: some of them were "Traitors", and the audience were asked to guess which. Have a read about it in our article in @theconversation.com: theconversation.com/the-fake-dis... 🧪

"Cofnas hinkelt door zijn presentatie, leest vooral slides af, strooit met namen van filosofen en tabellen en incasseert opmerkingen over de beperkte wetenschappelijkheid van zijn beweringen." /1 www.standaard.be/binnenland/l...

Lezing omstreden filosoof Nathan Cofnas lokt protest uit in Gent: “Als mensen zoals ik de mond worden gesnoerd, wordt rassenwetenschap overgelaten aan echte nazi’s”

In Gent vond donderdagavond een lezing plaats van de omstreden Amerikaanse ‘rassenwetenschapper’ Nathan Cofnas. Zo’n dertig mensen werd de toegang geweigerd, Cofnas beweert na de lezing te zijn aangevallen. “Ik dacht dat wij een universiteit waren die kritisch omgaat met dat soort ideeën. Nu geven we ze gewoon een podium.”

standaard.be

Hello Bluesky — I’m Zeshan Qureshi, a doctor, academic, author and advocate working on race, health and anti-racism. After 17 books and 23 years in medicine, I’ve just received advanced copies of the book I’ve felt most compelled to write: Anti-Racist Medicine. 1/4

Last day to register for EHBEA is tomorrow (1 April). The programme is now published and looks great! Really good to see so many papers focused on advancing methods and theory in the discipline 😊

EHBEA 2026@ehbea2026.bsky.social · 4mo ago

⏳ Blink, and you’ll miss it… Registration for #EHBEA2026 closes tomorrow (1 April) 🗓️ Your final chance to be part of four days of ideas, debate & discovery in Leiden 🇳🇱🧠🌷 Be there—or hear about it later 😉 👉 www.ehbea2026.com

Or academics

Ian Duhig@ianduhig.bsky.social · 6mo ago

If you want to protect your home from being burgled by poets

Join us at the Cambridge Festival for an interactive panel: Traitors style, with a scientific twist! If you think you can spot impostors better than a TV contestant, come and prove it. Friday 27 March, 7pm at Darwin College. Tickets here: www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/trait... 🧪

"Arguing intelligence & adjacent traits are biologically determined served a clear function for Epstein, who treated women as subordinate. It’s equally unsurprising that the powerful people he cultivated might come up with a natural, objective explanation for their perch at the top of society"

The Epstein Emails Show How the Powerful Talk About Race

The files reveal the disgraced financier’s interest in “race science.”

theatlantic.com

Thanks @thebookseller.com for including my book in your preview: paperback is out 16th April www.thebookseller.com/comment/prev...

April 2026: Paperback Previews

Debuts dominate the fiction offering this month, with non-fiction reflecting the shifting times we live in

thebookseller.com

In an essay for @aeon.co, I argue that humans evolved not to cooperate or to compete, but with the capacity for both – and with the flexibility to cheat when we’re likely to get away with it. Cooperation is therefore something we need to promote, not to presume. 🧪 aeon.co/essays/we-co...

How have ideas of relational equality developed in the past 100 years? ⚖️ Don't miss this forthcoming #London #Lecture by TRIP President @jowolff.bsky.social, Social Equality: Then and Now. 🎟️ Get tickets here: buff.ly/WQ4gFXS #politicalphilosophy #socialequality #philosophy

“Low birth rates are not the end: they are the catalyst for a more humane, sustainable world – one where all the people live richer, fuller lives”

Bylines Scotland@bylines.scot · 8mo ago

A quiet revolution may be required to reverse economic policies causing this attack on humanity’s advancement | David Murray

Cool to get some coverage in the New Scientist. I might have rephrased a couple of small things! But the closing paragraphs from Jerome Lewis, especially, are fab. www.newscientist.com/article/2507...

Hunter-gather groups are much less egalitarian than they seem

There is a widespread belief that altruism and equality drive social behaviour in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, but the truth is more surprising and complex

newscientist.com

Duncan Stibbard Hawkes@dstibbardhawkes.bsky.social · 9mo ago

📣 New BBS preprint out now! 📣 "Models casting egalitarian societies as crucibles of equality perpetuate the factually uninformed notion that foragers are somehow more noble. Critiques portray egalitarianism as romantic fantasy. Neither characterization is wholly justified." doi.org/10.1017/S014...

In an article for @jmirpub.bsky.social, @rjmilne.bsky.social, Alessia Costa, and I argue that trust should be understood contextually, not as a static concept. Instead, trust is about the relationship between the trustor and trustee – in healthcare and beyond. www.jmir.org/2025/1/e83533

Trust and Perceived Trustworthiness in Health-Related Data Sharing Among UK Adults: Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: Trust is an essential element in engagement with data sharing and underpins efforts to use data to combat health inequalities. Research into public trust in data sharing and healthcare set...

jmir.org

A few thoughts for the @newscientist.com about how recent research from the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social into selfish sperm tells us a lot about biological evolution – and even ourselves: www.newscientist.com/article/mg26... 🧪

Great blog post from the @nuffieldbioethics.bsky.social showcasing how utilitarian decision-making around vaccination combined with poor communication is a terrible recipe if you want to maintain public trust: www.nuffieldbioethics.org/news-blog/ch... 🧪

Changes to NHS COVID-19 vaccine eligibility: a fair allocation of health resources or a risk to public trust? - Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Susan Tansey, Member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, reflects on recent changes to the COVID-19 vaccine eligibility and how the management of this could impact on public trust in decision makers...

nuffieldbioethics.org

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat. Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

politico.com

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are

Seven years ago, I took a bet with Charles Murray about whether we’d basically understand the genetics of intelligence by now.

theatlantic.com

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 10mo ago

AOC: I think there's two things that are happening at once: One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance However, they are weaker than they look…

The not so distant future of the US? From Adam LeBor’s The Last Days of Budapest

Fantastic resource for running conjoint analysis in R by @andrew.heiss.phd www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2023/07...

The ultimate practical guide to conjoint analysis with R | Andrew Heiss

Learn how to use R, {brms}, and {marginaleffects} to analyze conjoint data and find causal and descriptive quantities of interest, both frequentistly and Bayesianly

andrewheiss.com

You’ve been badly misled over COVID origins theconversation.com/how-conspira...

How conspiracy theories about COVID’s origins are hampering our ability to prevent the next pandemic

The COVID pandemic likely began when the virus jumped from animals to humans, and didn’t start in a lab. But false narratives continue to circulate.

theconversation.com

Instead of trying to extend the lives of a privileged few, we should invest in improving the lives of all people today. A piece for @undark.org on transhumanism, oligarchy, and biology 🧪 undark.org/2025/07/23/o...

Transhumanism Should Focus on Inequality, Not Living Forever

Opinion | Instead of trying to extend the lives of a privileged few, we should invest in improving the lives of all people today.

undark.org

Without a proper understanding of human nature, we are at the mercy of our biological heritage. A feature on cooperation, competition, and invisible rivalry for @newscientist.com: www.newscientist.com/article/2486... 🧪

Evolution has made humans both Machiavellian and born socialists

Humanity’s innate treachery is behind social ills ranging from inequality to abuse of power. Lessons from our ancestors can help defeat the enemy within

newscientist.com

Excellent and considered post. A must read

Health Nerd@gidmk.bsky.social · last yr.

How did the pandemic start? I have avoided publicly commenting on this for 5 years. Here's my take as someone who has no stake at all in the game. gidmk.substack.com/p/pandemic-r...

In a follow-up to our study on accent mimicry last year, we've found that natives are the best at detecting accent mimicry. People from other English speaking countries were, however, worse at mimicry detection than were native listeners. @robfoley.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...