Sam Harper

@sbh4th.bsky.social

1.8K followers 190 following 42 posts

Professor, Epidemiologist, McGill University. Impact evaluation, health inequalities, reproducible research. 🚲🍳🍷🎸🏸👨‍💻 https://samharper.org

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Public Health 34%

Economics 20%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · 22h

Yes, I believe the technical term for this is enshittification.

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · 12d

Lived in Copenhagen last year and New Year's Eve was 100% the worst time to be there. I just do not understand it.

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · 13d

Overshoot (again I've only read the first few chapters) is extensively documented but written in a much more polemical and frustrated style that I think KT are keen to avoid. Maybe that's what appealed to the NYRB reviewer. Hope to see your take soon!

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · 13d

Yes, that rings true. I've only read the "Invent" chapter of Abundance, which is all about the stifling effects of risk aversion and excess paperwork on scientific innovation [likely true], but pays little attention to the role of perverse incentives (counting up pubs and grant dollars, etc.).

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · 14d

It's not a particularly deep critique of Abundance, but I did enjoy this review essay by economic historian Trevor Jackson, which simultaneously reviewed "Overshoot" by Malm and Carton. Happy to send you the full text if you don't have access. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Reposted by Sam Harper, A. E. Dessler, Michael Wehner , and 11 more Sam Harper, A. E. Dessler, Michael Wehner, Marc Strous, Caroline Krafft, Joshua Goodman, Valerie Mueller, Melanie C. Green, Lindsay M. Tedds, Scott A. Imberman, Eric Hehman, Claire L. Adida, James Cameron, Claire L. Niedzwiedz

Juan Moreno-Cruz @jmorenocruz.bsky.social · Dec 9

It's happening! Canada launched two programs to recruit international researchers.

Canada Impact+ Research Chairs (1 million/yr for 8 yrs +)
Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders.

I will do my best to facilitate the process for those interested. Hit me up.

www.canada.ca/en/impact-pl...

The Government of Canada introduces new programs for international researchers - Canada.ca

www.canada.ca

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Dec 3

I think the answer is no. I recall an interesting short overview in Mutz’s ‘Population-Based Survey Experiments’ but perhaps dated now (2011).

Reposted by Sam Harper, Richard McElreath, Martin Paul Eve , and 3 more Sam Harper, Richard McElreath, Martin Paul Eve, Éric Verdeil, Juanjo Medina, Sylvain Genevois

Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · Nov 12

Opinion: Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing.

Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards (@theblochian.bsky.social).

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing - Research Professional News

Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards

www.researchprofessionalnews.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon , and 36 more Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon, Juli G. Pausas, Dan Brockington, David M. Schultz, Sam Harper, Robert Böhm, Brendan Nyhan, Garry Peterson, Ross Woods, Euan G. Ritchie, Alistair Munro, Howard I. Browman, Rebecca Sear, Paul E. Johnson, Benjamin Braun, Ian Hussey, Jonathan Hopkin, Paolo Crosetto, Veli‐Matti Karhulahti, Jean Bonnet, Jacob T. Levy, Margot C. Finn, Étienne Ollion, Matt N Williams, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Patrick Präg, Urška Demšar, Rense Corten, Juanjo Medina, Julie Novkov, Matti Vuorre, Tom Louwerse, Prokla Redaktion, Frédéric Delsuc, José Pina-Sánchez, Catherine M. Hulshof, Alba Anadon‐Rosell

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · Nov 11

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Reposted by Sam Harper, Robert C. Richards

David Cole @davidcole-gtown.bsky.social · Nov 9

I look forward to defending free speech from its progressive critics — and conservative assailants == as the Tanner Letures Nov. 12 and 13 @princeton.edu

A timely topic, sadly

lectures.princeton.edu/lectures/202...

Tanner Lecture on Human Values: David D. Cole

Progressives have increasingly lost faith in the First Amendment—at least as it has been interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court. They argue that free speech has been “weaponized” by big busines...

lectures.princeton.edu

Reposted by Sam Harper

Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · Oct 27

encountered this article by David Weimer from 1986 (cited by 7) with three good ideas for improving science that just a few short decades later, we've started to implement.

Collective Delusion In The Social Sciences: Publishing Incentives For Empirical Abuse

doi.org/10.1111/j.15...

title page of article:

There is a skeleton in the social science closet. Almost all of us have heard it rattled at one time or another.! Nevertheless, we collectively ignore it. Some ignore it because they do not think it is very scary: others because its putting to rest would require a major restructuring of our scholarly journals. Perhaps others even fear that admitting its existence would undermine belief in the empirical progress? the social sciences have apparently enjoyed since the widespread diffusion of statistical training and the ready availability of the computer.
I will argue that the
skeleton, the bias social science journals exhibit for publishing articles reporting statistically significant results, is dangerous

The results of statistical tests should not be submitted to or als until after articles have been accepted for publica-
tion..
would base their decisions on
theory under
discussions of the theory under consideration, the specific hypotheses to be tested, and the data sample to be used.?
This would divert attention from the final result to the a priori specification of hypotheses and the appropriateness of data and statistical technique for testing them. Unfortunate-ly, this approach would not work unless adopted by all the relevant journals. If a single journal adopted it, researchers

Any journal that publishes an article with statistical models should be required (by the disciplines?) to provide a page of space to anyone who wants to report the results of applying the authors' models to different sets of data. This approach would provide a less biased sampling of research results. It would also allow us to better gauge the robustness of our theories.8 Some journals now provide some space for veri-fications; doing so should be standard editorial practice.

Researchers should be required to submit a statement with
indicating
their articles indicating whether or not the model being presented is the one actually first estimated from the data.
A general description of statistical techniques would also be included in the submission. Is the presented model the first specification or is it the end product of stepwise regression or some other questionable data search? Where appropriate, the editor would affix a warning along the following lines next to results:

Reposted by Sam Harper

George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · Oct 23

Fantastic opportunity to lead the Equity Lab @wellcometrust.bsky.social working with the legendary Jimmy Volmink, details here wellcome.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/Wellco... Please repost so as many as possible can see this great opportunity

Associate Director, Equity Lab

Salary: £120,800 Closing date: 9th November Contract type: Permanent Interview dates: 24th and 28th November The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation. We improve health for everyone by fun...

wellcome.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Sep 29

McGill's @healthsciences.mcgill.ca Jay Kaufman critiquing public health guidance that "promote the powerful ideological message that being normal or abnormal ultimately depends on one’s race. That premise should be regarded as the truly malignant pathology"

lareviewofbooks.org/article/does...

Does One Size Fit All? | Los Angeles Review of Books

In the 10th essay in the Legacies of Eugenics series, Jay S. Kaufman shows how the science of human body size is suffused with cultural assumptions.

lareviewofbooks.org

Reposted by Sam Harper, David M. Farrell, Brendan Nyhan , and 11 more Sam Harper, David M. Farrell, Brendan Nyhan, Steve Peers, Nicolas Véron, Daniel W. Drezner, Carlos Martín, Aaron Sojourner, Mark Rice, Mathias Frisch, Christina Pagel, Manisha Sinha, Dunlap, Andrew Perchard

Belfast Telegraph @belfasttelegraph.co.uk · Sep 10

Horrors of Trump detention centre: Lisburn man tells his story after arrest for 'looking like a Mexican'

Lee Stinton was lifted by US immigration police on an American street — in an incident he compared to a kidnapping.

Here, he tells us his story.

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Aug 12

"Credit card perks for educated, usually urban professionals are being subsidized by people who have less. In other words, when you book a hotel room or enjoy entry to an airport lounge at no cost, poor consumers are ultimately footing the bill." www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/o...

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Aug 5

What is going on here?

Why does Aalborg (or Copenhagen, Montreal, San Diego, etc.) even need a zoo?

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/s...

A Zoo in Denmark Wants to Feed Your Pets to Its Predators

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Brian A. Nosek, Adrian Barnett , and 10 more Dorothy Bishop, Brian A. Nosek, Adrian Barnett, Sam Harper, James M. Bullock, Julie L. Lockwood, Alistair Munro, Magnus Johansson, Ian Hussey, Silvia Secchi, Juanjo Medina, Jack Stilgoe, David Spurrett

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · Aug 4

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise

Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

reeserichardson.blog

Reposted by Sam Harper

Khoa @khoavuumn.bsky.social · Jan 9

Accidentally download the appendix of an econ working paper:

Reposted by Sam Harper

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · Jul 24

Two PhD studentships available in real-time infectious disease modelling, jointly with LSHTM, Imperial and UKHSA. January 2026 start + 3.5 years of funding: www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

PhD studentships in real-time infectious disease modelling | LSHTM

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Imperial College London and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) are pleased to invite applications for two PhD studentships in real-time

www.lshtm.ac.uk

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Jun 19

Fully agree. In exactly the same way that making all of the material (protocol, data, code) available for reproducing research also is no guarantee of "better" research. Transparency is (largely) good, but can't delude ourselves that improved transparency equals improved quality.

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · Jun 3

🤔🤔🤔

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/w...

That Cup of Coffee May Have a Longer-Term Perk

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Sam Harper

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · May 30

Gold standard science

White House Health Report Included Fake Citations

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Sam Harper, Cameron Brick, Jeremy Freese

Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · May 25

"In extremely rare move, Harvard revokes tenure and cuts ties with star business professor" Francesca Gino

In extremely rare move, Harvard revokes tenure and cuts ties with star business professor

An internal investigation had found that Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino’s research on why people lie and cheat was based on falsified data.

www.wgbh.org

Reposted by Sam Harper, Marcus Grant, Florence Faucher

Willem van Schaik @wvschaik.bsky.social · May 25

'Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears'

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears

Some meetings have been put on hold in response to foreign researchers’ travel concerns.

www.nature.com

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · May 6

Obviously not sufficient for causal interpretation. Just wanted to highlight some good journalism here.

Sam Harper @sbh4th.bsky.social · May 6

This report by ProPublica probably has more detailed description of methods than many *peer-reviewed* published papers. AND they shared their code! (github.com/propublica/t...)

Reposted by Sam Harper

Jeremy Labrecque @jeremylabrecque.bsky.social · May 2

If you're looking for a post-doc in social health inequalities research and causal inference? Joost Oude-Groeniger and I have just such a position opening up.

www.werkenbijerasmusmc.nl/en/vacancy/1...