This is why I remain a fan of shame and stigma if directed up rather than down. Many people who want power are bad and they should see that people like them are excluded, isolated, and face consequence for being bad
Darren Dahly
@statsepi.bsky.social
Epidemiologist + Statistician | Clinical Research Facility - University College Cork | UCC School of Public Health | #ClinicalTrials #Epidemiology #Statistics #RStats Posts not for everyone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Views mine -> https://statsepi.substack.com/
A new blog post in which I discuss the strong and weak null hypotheses in randomised experiment and how they can be tested: janhove.github.io/posts/2026-0... These tests don't rely on sampling assumptions but on more easily verifiable assignment assumptions.
Testing strong and weak null hypotheses in randomised experiments – Jan Vanhove
janhove.github.io
New blog post! Odds ratios are...a bit weird. Here I explain two problems (interpretation, non-collapsibility) and provide some simple recommendations for improved reporting. www.the100.ci/2026/07/30/r...
Reviewer notes: Odds ratios are really odd
When psychological researchers investigate binary outcomes, they routinely report odds ratios to quantify the strength of an effect or an association. This is quite understandable given that psycholog...
the100.ci
This is such a grotesque attempt to make it impossible for trans people to exist in public. To do it in the name of "equality and human rights" is especially cruel. Solidarity to all UK trans friends and colleagues facing this collective madness. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ehrc-gu...
EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces a ‘big shift’ for universities
New code confirms trans people can be excluded from facilities on basis of biological sex but experts say that does not make grappling with competing responsibilities any easier
timeshighereducation.com
Stop trying to explain what a p-value is in a single sentence (ICYMI) statsepi.substack.com/p/no-you-can...
No, you can't explain what a p-value is with one sentence (Parts I, II)
But I'm going to try and do it in as few as possible. #fml
statsepi.substack.com
Fascinating and clear paper by @corymccartan.com and @melodyyhuang.bsky.social, greatly enhancing our understanding of how Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) works and why it is so effective. A must-read for my fellow BART enthusiasts. #statssky #causalinference
ArXiv Paperboy (Stat.ME+Econ.EM)@paperposterbot.bsky.social · 3d agoarXiv📈🤖 Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Gaussian Process Limit of BART By McCartan, Huang
🚨 Antivaxxer & stats: WRONG. "Anti-vaccine discourse exhibits systematic patterns of statistical misreasoning": - correlation–causation fallacy - base rate neglect - Denominator neglect - cherry picking Study: Antivaxx statistical misreasoning & disinformation journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Statistical misreasoning in online content about vaccines: Implications and recommendations for addressing disinformation
Background Statistical misreasoning is a key mechanism through which anti-vaccine narratives distort scientific information and undermine public confidence in immunisation. Although prior research has...
journals.plos.org
The State Department said it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.
Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
I'm so happy to announce version 2.0.0 of my #Rstats package WeightIt is out on CRAN! New features: censoring weights, multilevel propensity scores, improved weights for continuous treatments, bias-reduced ordinal and multinomial models, M-estimation in subgroups Check out the website below!
Weighting for Covariate Balance in Observational Studies
Generates balancing weights for causal effect estimation in observational studies with binary, multi-category, or continuous point or longitudinal treatments by easing and extending the functionality ...
ngreifer.github.io
5. We saw the desire for simple answers in the 'masks solve everything vs nothing' and the 'it's only flu vs 50% of infections lead to severe outcomes' discourse (more below). 6. Little has been learned, I'm fear. Main strategy for next pandemic for many countries is 'lockdown and wait for vaccine'.
The comfort of simplicity
How two loud extremes convinced themselves that pandemics are easy to solve
kucharski.substack.com
An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play
The health, social, & economic disruptions of the pandemic were challenging for each of us & our shared society Grateful to all who did their best to help us through this historic period May we one day have more constructive reflection on what we may learn to strengthen our collective way forward
'I still have nightmares every night' — health workers struggle with PTSD symptoms as coronavirus takes toll
Health care workers are fighting a new battle regarding their mental health and well-being due to Covid-19, as deaths have recently topped 120,000 people.
cnbc.com
In contrast to Hegseth et al, modern principles of Marine Corps leadership focus on values, respect, effort, and competence. (ht @stephenjwild.bsky.social) statsepi.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
Some thoughts on leadership in academia
How my experiences as a young Marine shape my views on academic leadership
statsepi.substack.com
Foreign Policy@foreignpolicy.com · 2d agoA 50-year old book reveals the tendencies that undermine military competence—a century ago and today. Read our analysis for free:
I have found a great new #stats teaching hack to find new open datasets for teaching. I've been going to the Collabra: Psychology journal website, and typing in an analysis type (e.g., logistic regression) into the search bar. Both quick and high-quality data! online.ucpress.edu/collabra
I'm visiting the US and am instantly reminded of how batshit-crazy Fox "News" is, and flummoxed that there is just an entire cohort of Amercians who are plugged into this for hours a day.
Nothing convinced me more of the importance of publicly funded basic research more than my time in industry.
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒@eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 5d agoLove this idea that industry should subsidize basic research. Industry famously is great at prioritizing timelines longer than a year or two
Good morning! Check this out! Share it with your friends! Think about things to submit! We’d love to see you there!
Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science@bennettoxford.bsky.social · 6d agoRegistration is open for the 2026 Bennett Oxford Symposium on Open Code in Science! 📅 8-9 December 2026 📍 The Examination Schools, University of Oxford, 75-81 High St, Oxford OX1 4BG ℹ️ https://www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2026-bennett-institute-symposium/ We look forward to seeing you there!
Nice podcast episode with Nature editor Magdalena Skipper on why she believes Metascience is an important young discipline that can help us to understand how to improve our science, and the lessons learned from the Replication Crisis. thehpspodcast.buzzsprout.com/2180146/epis...
S6 E1 - Magdalena Skipper on Scientific Publishing
This week, Thomas Spiteri speaks with Dr. Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature. Skipper has held the role since 2018, and has a background in the genetic sciences. She is also notably the…
pocketcasts.com
Registration is open for the 2026 Bennett Oxford Symposium on Open Code in Science! 📅 8-9 December 2026 📍 The Examination Schools, University of Oxford, 75-81 High St, Oxford OX1 4BG ℹ️ https://www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2026-bennett-institute-symposium/ We look forward to seeing you there!
Fun fact: most case-control designs produce estimates that cannot be interpreted as odds ratios! Though the one you describe definitely does. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32889542/
Do Case-Control Studies Always Estimate Odds Ratios? - PubMed
Case-control studies are an important part of the epidemiologic literature, yet confusion remains about how to interpret estimates from different case-control study designs. We demonstrate that not al...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Prominent researchers in my field spent over 2 decades telling big stories about the relation between brain & mental health with very little robust data. This has led to really crazy stuff like this, impossible if we had not normalized this bizarre storytelling. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
A scientist says he can scan prisoners’ brains for signs of evil. Did his disputed science put a man on death row?
Kent Kiehl convinced the US legal system he can find violence in prisoners’ brains. His theories have been since used by defense lawyers – with grave consequences for prisoners
theguardian.com
I do not know anything about Homer or the Odyssey. I am not proud of this, but at least I don't pretend otherwise. But maybe I'll read it now, and all because a bunch of bots and edge-lords helped to conjure a viral narrative to help market a movie.
Yes, they focus on AI, but there is no respect for basic research, which has historically driven innovation in the US. Basic research is inefficient, creative, serendipitous. Industry won't fund it. Here, they are imagining innovation as purely market-oriented, not necessarily novel.