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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛

@rmcelreath.bsky.social

17K followers 1.4K following 1.2K posts

Anthropologist - Bayesian modeling - science reform - cat and cooking content too - Director @ MPI for evolutionary anthropology https://www.eva.mpg.de/ecology/staff/richard-mcelreath/

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Richard McElreath is an American professor of anthropology and a director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He is an author of the Statistical Rethinking applied Bayesian statistics textbook, among the first to largely rely on the Stan statistical environment, and the accompanying rethinking R language package. .. more

Psychology 22%

Sociology 21%

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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · Dec 9

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.

I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

course schedule as a table. Available at the link in the post.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

Quick (20min) non-technical overview of genetic history of Europe by my colleague Johannes Krause @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. This talk is from Nov 2025. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyz_...

CARTA: The Genetic History of Europe with Johannes Krause

YouTube video by University of California Television (UCTV)

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Martin Tomko

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

It is as it ever was. elevanth.org/blog/2022/01...

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

Later in the course, I plan to defend the idea that using Bayes for simple models is great, because it makes model expansion and comparison easier. But that is an argument that needs to be built.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah I was also being a little dramatic I guess. And yes taking the perspective of the learner.

I would of course use Bayes for a t-test, because I am crazy!

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 2d

Cooking with Mischka: Lasagne Bolognese. Bolognese, bechamel, pasta, cheese. Mischka licked the bechamel spoon.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 2d

Every weather everywhere all at once

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 2d

Statistical Rethinking 2026 Lecture B01 Multilevel Models is online. This is the first lecture of the "experienced" section, in which we start with multilevel models and venture into vast covariance spaces. Full lecture list still here: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

Statistical Rethinking 2026 - Lecture B01 - Multilevel Models

YouTube video by Richard McElreath

www.youtube.com

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 2d

Last minute slide addition for this morning's lecture

slide showing a statistical workflow with pointing Wojak meme guys pointing at "Estimand" and "Predictions"

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Jack Fitzgerald @jackfitzgerald.bsky.social · 3d

The paper is effectively simulating full data coverage without telling anyone. Over 57% of the pre-2021 country-years in its data contain average sentence durations of 0, when really the raw data sources contain no data on sentences in these country-years. 18/x

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

Time to get the skis from the Keller

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

I was planning to bike to work tomorrow morning. Starting to rethink that

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

Some 15 years ago my colleague Parry Clarke said to me, "Dude stop complaining and write your own stats book!" So I did. It definitely changed my life, and I'm glad it has had a positive impact on others.

Yasir @neuroyasir.bsky.social · 3d

One of my aims at the time was to make sure we can show this relationship in simulated data, inspired by
@rmcelreath.bsky.social's approach to statistics. Statistical Rethinking is a life-changing book, this paper wouldn't be the way it is now without it. Very grateful to McElreath!

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Yasir @neuroyasir.bsky.social · 3d

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

As a statistical educator, it had not occurred to me that I need to caution students against regressing a variable on a function of itself. My naivete is unbounded.

The Peri & Sparber paper (linked below) looks really good! It has synthetic data analyses and everything.

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 4d

Third, it's true: some immigration researchers' choices do bias their results.

A key example is Borjas (2006).

Peri & Sparber (2011) show that Borjas chose a regression specification that generated spurious negative correlation between immigration & native employment.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ju...

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

That "carbonara" was so offensive to all that it was actually covered in the DE media: www.mz.de/mitteldeutsc...

Leipziger Mensa-Essen sorgt für Aufregung auf Twitter

Das Mena-Essen an Leipzigs Universität genießt normalerweise einen guten Ruf. Die Studenten der Messestadt bekommen ordentliche Gerichte zu erschwinglichen Preisen. Ein Teller Nudeln mit Carbonara-Soß...

www.mz.de

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

They have that covered as well!

Reposted by Martín Haspelmath

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 4d

These photos on my institute's news page about the study are real value added. Would you like to sit in a precise laser-measured pit all day? Archaeology may be for you! (It's essential work but I would go insane.)

Reposted by Sebastian Karcher

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 4d

This is traditional!

Reposted by Richard McElreath, Jacob T. Levy, Alfredo R. Paloyo , and 1 more Richard McElreath, Jacob T. Levy, Alfredo R. Paloyo, Maksym Polyakov

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 4d

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

A is the beginner section and B is the experience section. So lectures will be A1, B1, A2, B2, etc

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

oh and I plan to add chapters to the youtube videos, when I get time. I am just a bit overworked atm, working my way towards sanity like

a woman with blue hair and goggles is holding a blue piece of paper

ALT: a woman with blue hair and goggles is holding a blue piece of paper

media.tenor.com

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

I realize tomatoes didn't exist in Rome at the time but still

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

Auto-subtitles should appear later today, or whenever the evil tube-cloud gets around to it

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

And we're live, Lecture A1 is online. Introduction to Bayesian workflow, generative models, estimands, estimators, estimates, error checking, beginnings of probability theory and Bayesian updating. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbY...