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Paul Smaldino

@psmaldino.bsky.social

5.7K followers 920 following 680 posts

Paradigmatically promiscuous scientist. Ankylosaur enthusiast. Modeler of cultural evolution and related topics. Professor at UC Merced and the Santa Fe Institute. Web: https://smaldino.com/wp/

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Physics 20%

Sociology 17%

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 15h

It is! Thanks!

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 19h

I went to the Harvard Dataverse page — the download link just goes to a readme file that says the bit about data being available after publication.

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 19h

Very cool, looks interesting and useful to a project we’re working on. Quick question: trying to access your data we just get a note: “Replication data will be posted upon publication of the article.”
Now that it’s published, will you be posting the data soon?

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Reposted by Anna O. Law, Richard S.J. Tol, Steve Peers , and 5 more Anna O. Law, Richard S.J. Tol, Steve Peers, Jonathan Wolff, Fabián Muniesa, Paul E. Smaldino, David S. Cohen, Christina Ho

Courtney Vaughn @courtneyvaughn.bsky.social · 2d

Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.

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Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Efrén O. Pérez

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 3d

I've written a bit about how information architectures shape our societies (www.nature.com/articles/s44...). This could foment a dramatic shift if dominant communication channels become superordinate to governmental regulation, controlled by one crazed billionaire.

Peter Sherman Crosby @pscrosby.bsky.social · 10d

Elon Musk’s latest power grab points in a clear direction (I'd say a monopoly) wapo.st/3IlM56R

Opinion | Elon Musk’s latest power grab points in a clear direction

His SpaceX deal could fundamentally alter the relationship between a state and its citizens.

wapo.st

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Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 3d

the usual useful list:

go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 3d

Time for my annual reminder that, thanks to the precedent set by economists, ANY group can establish their own Nobel Prize for ANYTHING. Come on people, get creative.

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 6d

😬

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 6d

Alas, this was summer 2024. I’ll definitely ping you if/when I’m back! It’d be great to reconnect.

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 8d

Our paper does not discuss polarization at all, only the need to lower SES groups to be more deliberately class conscious re from whom they learn about risk behavior. Read it, and then see if you still think there’s a conflict.

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 8d

Right, I'm familiar with your paper. In our model, we don't have political/ethnic identity groups, and parochialism here is short-hand for socioeconomic class similarity, so I don't think there's any conflict there.

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 9d

Happy to see this work published in Psych Review. It's an impressive and important bit of theory/modeling about how we learn about decision-making under risk. Here's a slide with the super-coarse-grained summary of our results. Read the paper for (much) more. osf.io/preprints/so...

Modeling the evolution of peer and vertical/oblique learning strategies for gambles under uncertainty
We recover many empirical results and generate new hypotheses:
Worse conditions lead to more pessimistic behavior
Younger people are overly optimistic
Wealthy people can afford to take more risks
Payoff-biased learning for the rich, parochialism for the poor
Poor people may be slower to adapt to environmental change, creating the appearance of “poverty traps”

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Reposted by Efrén O. Pérez, Paul E. Smaldino

Peter Sherman Crosby @pscrosby.bsky.social · 10d

Elon Musk’s latest power grab points in a clear direction (I'd say a monopoly) wapo.st/3IlM56R

Opinion | Elon Musk’s latest power grab points in a clear direction

His SpaceX deal could fundamentally alter the relationship between a state and its citizens.

wapo.st

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 11d

Understood, and fair enough. If there are specific papers you've found particularly interesting or compelling, especially ones making points or highlighting data often ignored by us northerners, I'd love a list. It's much appreciated.

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 12d

The talk was about cultural evolution, but on the slide in question I was specifically about *models* of cultural evolutionary processes.

I'm not arguing about whether I would benefit from reading more authors from the global south -- I would! I'm just clarifying what's going on here in particular

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 12d

The examples in the slide you showed were exclusively about formal modeling. So that is what we're talking about.

Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino

Alejandro Pérez Velilla @apvelilla.bsky.social · 13d

@psmaldino.bsky.social and I also made a contribution to the Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology on how an integrative view spanning evolutionary, developmental and cultural influences on risk behavior can help us understand decisions under risk—a good companion piece. osf.io/preprints/so...

OSF

osf.io

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Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino

Alejandro Pérez Velilla @apvelilla.bsky.social · 13d

I am happy to announce that our project on risk and social learning is now in press at Psychological Review. Several new additions and revisions thanks to detailed feedback from colleagues and anonymous reviewers. osf.io/preprints/so...
@psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 13d

The point of the suggestive list was to list some highly cited papers my audience might be familiar with, it’s not a comprehensive lit review. AFAIK, formal modeling work in these fields from the global south is still underrepresented. I’m happy to be proven wrong if you have specific suggestions.

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Reposted by Anna O. Law, Kai Arzheimer, Simon Otjes , and 4 more Anna O. Law, Kai Arzheimer, Simon Otjes, Paul E. Smaldino, Adrian Vickers, Samantha Brennan, David S. Tanenhaus

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 14d

Morning walk

Wheat paste poster that says the all the world is dying and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters. There's a picture of Elmo

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 14d

Seen in the hallways of Aarhus University. <<Chef’s kiss>>

Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky, images from their 1971 televised debate. Text reads (from Everything Everywhere All At Once): “I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing taxes and laundry with you.”

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Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino

NERDS @nerdsitu.bsky.social · 16d

It was great to have Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social with us today, discussing evolutionary approaches to human culture and society. As a bonus, we learned why we are wearing pants.

Speaker in front of screen showing colorful images of horse riders.

Seminar room with about 20 people listening to speaker being introduced

Speaker in front of title slide, audience in foreground

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 16d

“Well, the next time someone brings up a terrible anecdote about Cambodia or Vietnam, I will definitely drop the Star Wars story to show that people have two sides.”

Chotiner deserves a Pulitzer for this.

Isaac Chotiner @ichotiner.bsky.social · 16d

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 16d

The interviewer deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

Reposted by Jan W. Mueller, Jon Green, Paul E. Smaldino , and 3 more Jan W. Mueller, Jon Green, Paul E. Smaldino, Lisa Diedrich, Charles T. Mathewes, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Isaac Chotiner @ichotiner.bsky.social · 16d

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 16d

Currently spending a month of my sabbatical in Aarhus. 👍👍🇩🇰

Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino

Christine Parsons @christineparsons.bsky.social · 17d

Tomorrow @interacting-minds.bsky.social, we’re very lucky to have Prof. @psmaldino.bsky.social give a talk, starting at 11am.

All are welcome - for further details, see interactingminds.au.dk/events/singl...

Why Use An Evolutionary Perspective To Study Culture?

IMC Tuesday Seminar: Talk by Paul Smaldino, Professor, Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced

interactingminds.au.dk

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Reposted by Paul E. Smaldino, Jean‐Baptiste André, David W. Lawson

Jorge Peña @jorgeapenas.bsky.social · 18d

📢 Apply to our (2-year) research fellowships at @iast.fr

Join a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and indisciplinary group of scholars in Toulouse, walkable/cyclable pink city of chocolatines in the South of France.

Deadline: November 15, 2025.

www.iast.fr/research-fel...

Research Fellowships

Each year, IAST invites applications for post-doctoral Research Fellowships, which offer candidates an opportunity to devote themselves full-time to their research at the start of their careers. Fello...

www.iast.fr

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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 18d

Will definitely post when it’s out. And thank you!

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 18d

This started because he asked if he could do all the assignments in Julia, which he did. So definitely doable with Python for someone who’s a strong coder.

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