Simon J. Greenhill
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simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill
@simongreenhill.bsky.social
1.8K followers 950 following 600 posts

I study how languages and cultures evolve. Primarily with phylogenies and other assorted computational methods. Based at @Biology_UoA. Never met a language phylogeny or a cultural phylogeny I didn't like. #phylolinguistics .. more

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Simon James Greenhill is a New Zealand scientist who works on the application of quantitative methods to the study of cultural evolution and human prehistory. He is well known for creating and building various linguistics databases, including the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, TransNewGuinea.org, Pulotu, and many others. In addition to Austronesian, he has contributed to the study of the phylogeny of many language families, including Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan. .. more

Computer science 19%
Communication & Media Studies 19%
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simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 19h
ah the beautiful sounds of a NZ summer holiday at the beach. Waves crashing on the sand, tuis singing in the pohutukawa, the soft sound of cricket on the neighbors tv. And every five minutes (usually just as I’ve picked up the book i want to read): “Daddy I’m bored”.

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

cdelawalla.bsky.social
Colette Delawalla @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 1d
“Things are not bad at all.”

(Bullet holes in the CDC building)
Bullet holes in the cdc building

Reposted by Noelle E. Selin, Jesse H. Kroll, Simon J. Greenhill , and 7 more

cdelawalla.bsky.social
Colette Delawalla @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 1d
This is a HUGE win…and one that happened because we ~collectively~ said “NO!”

But AAAS coming in and saying on record to the NYT “Science is doing ok. Things are not bad at all…” is baffling.

If things are hard for you as a scientist, please share in the comments.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...
Congress Is Reversing Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science
www.nytimes.com

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 1d
Indeed

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 1d
HSSC is unusual in that you can just ask to be on their editorial board To handle papers. www.nature.com/palcomms/jou...
Client Challenge
www.nature.com

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 1d
Shame on the Royal Society. It seems fairly clear and simple that Musk breaches code of conduct.
deevybee.bsky.social Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · 1d
And if you want a list of the reasons that have been given for keeping Musk as FRS, there's this piece deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/02/seve...

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

deevybee.bsky.social
Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · 1d
And if you want a list of the reasons that have been given for keeping Musk as FRS, there's this piece deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/02/seve...

Reposted by Steven French, Simon J. Greenhill, Fabián Muniesa , and 3 more

financialtimes.com
Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 2d
Musk should remain member of UK Royal Society, says president ft.trib.al/tC0vaAa
Musk should remain member of UK Royal Society, says president
Paul Nurse tells FT that national science academy should avoid ‘making judgments’ about ‘character’ of fellows
ft.trib.al

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social
MPI-EVA Leipzig @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social · 4d
🦴🔬 773,000-year-old #fossils from Morocco illuminate the shared ancestry of H. sapiens, Neandertals & Denisovans. Study @nature.com by an intl. team led by J.-J. Hublin, incl. @matthewskinnerphd.bsky.social & P. Gunz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/yxz4kcff & www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Early hominins from Morocco reveal an African lineage near the root of Homo sapiens
Study pinpoints 773,000-year-old fossils with high-resolution magnetostratigraphic dating, illuminating the shared ancestry of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans
tinyurl.com

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Jussi T. Eronen

dclberlin.bsky.social
Dahlem Center for Linguistics @dclberlin.bsky.social · 4d
#OTD 124 years ago, George K. Zipf (1902–1950)was born 🎂 Based on his corpus analyses, he formulated the so-called Zipf’s law and showed that the most frequent word is twice as frequent as the second, three times as frequent as the third, and so on.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx
George K. Zipf (1902–1950)

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
yes. I get more and more paranoid about code now. It takes me 3x longer to write things because I obsessively write tests and checks and code defensively because I've been bitten too many times.

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
Cool project, cool place, cool supervisor!

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
I think this is most science journalism Sadly!

And I think they all miss one of the big motivators for most researchers I know: “hey isn’t it weird that …?”

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
I know a rogue state when I see one.

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
cool! with alphafold? anything published on this that you could point me to?

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d
Do I know anyone working on LLMs and Language Change?

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

johnbasil.bsky.social
John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 6d
I'm hiring! 2 x PhD positions to work at Uni Zurich with me on "Evolutionary Semantics" for an ERC-funded project. semantically curious MA grads from linguistics, cog psych, anthro encouraged to apply
evolvinglanguage.ch/studying-the...
Studying the Evolution of Abstract Thought - NCCR Evolving Language
In the new ERC-funded project, “Conceptual Diversity and the Evolution of Abstract Thought” (CONCEVO), Mansfield will lead a team of researchers to develop a method for reconstructing the evolution of...
evolvinglanguage.ch

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

johnhawks.net
John Hawks @johnhawks.net · 6d
New in @nytimes.com on how some research on human origins and genetics are being cut from federal science programs. @carlzimmer.com interviews Brenna Henn, who has done much to illuminate the genetic variation and history of southern African peoples.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...
She Wanted to Improve Genetic Medicine
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 6d
What a loss - her work has been deeply informative.
carlzimmer.com Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 6d
Here's my latest contribution to the @nytimes "Lost Science" series. Brenna Henn's sweeping study of African genetics has been frozen. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Ypmm1A
Portrait of Brenna Henn next to an open freezer of samples.

Reposted by Jason Mittell, Richard S.J. Tol, Ken Caldeira , and 12 more

theonion.com
The Onion @theonion.com · 6d
Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession
Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Simon J. Greenhill, Marta Mìrazón Lahr

carlzimmer.com
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 6d
Here's my latest contribution to the @nytimes "Lost Science" series. Brenna Henn's sweeping study of African genetics has been frozen. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Ypmm1A
Portrait of Brenna Henn next to an open freezer of samples.

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Philip N. Cohen, Matt Grossmann

byrdnick.com
Nick Byrd, Ph.D. @byrdnick.com · 7d
#AI may indeed exacerbate our bad academic habits:

#LLM science summaries were nearly five times more likely than human-authored science summaries to contain broad generalizations (95% CI [3.06, 7.70], p < 0.001).

And newer models over-generalized more; not less!

doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

#philSci

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 7d
Scientific funding is a net negative: "European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained"

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 7d
Chris Luxon not even pretending to be NZs Prime Minister anymore. Completely checked out.
a man stands in front of a chalkboard with the word policy written on it
ALT: a man stands in front of a chalkboard with the word policy written on it
media.tenor.com

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

dpdiver.bsky.social
Dave @dpdiver.bsky.social · 8d
Minor point, but will any AoNZ journalists being asking questions of Luxon and Collins about whether Rocket Lab's increasing entanglement with the US regime means that rocket launches of satellite technology from Mahia are supporting the USA's illegal incursions into sovereign nations? #nzpol

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 10d
Some great summer holiday reading, downloading now!

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Rebecca Sear

duhe.bsky.social
Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 10d
Special issue on the Sociobiology Debate at fifty. Important new archival discoveries. No paywall.
online.ucpress.edu/hsns/issue/5...
Volume 55 Issue 1 | Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences | University of California Press
online.ucpress.edu

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

landismj.bsky.social
Michael Landis @landismj.bsky.social · 11d
Reflections on the evolving practice of systematic biology, a joy to write with Michael Donoghue for the upcoming 75th volume of Systematic Biology!

academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
All Systematic Zoology/Biology research articles published over past 75 years, clustered by topic and represented in 2d space.

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

nrennie.bsky.social
Nicola Rennie @nrennie.bsky.social · 20d
This week's #TidyTuesday data is all about languages of the world, from the Glottolog database 📖

I made a Sankey diagram in #RStats showing the family and extinction status of languages spoken in Great Britain 📊

#DataViz #ggplot2
A sankey diagram of languages spoken within Greta Britain showing their origin and whether they are classified as endangered. 25 are listed with 10 classed as extinct.