David Bartram
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dbartram.bsky.social
David Bartram
@dbartram.bsky.social

Sociologist. Interests: inequalities, happiness, migration, & causal identification. Editor-in-chief of @socialindicators.bsky.social. PhD UW-Madison. AI-free teaching & research since 1998. Posts are personal.

https://davidvbartram.wordpress.com .. more

Political science 32%
Sociology 27%

Another angle that is going to soak up my time dealing with manuscript submissions to my journal.

If the students have figured it out, so too have the professional academics who are inclined to cheat...
A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.
How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are
www.nytimes.com
Yale is launching a new Presidential Senior Fellowship to expand access to the transformative work of universities. As part of this program, author and columnist David Brooks will join the Jackson School of Global Affairs starting February 1.

Read more in Yale News: bit.ly/49QpJoY
As @hebagowayed.bsky.social and I wrote in our Guardian article on abolishing ICE, this is Homan threatening to gun down Americans for using their free speech rights to accurately describe ICE as fascist secret police.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reposted by David Bartram

This is Louis Mosley (Executive VP of Palantir for the UK and Europe): Mosley is a former Conservative Party councillor, used to work as a research associate for Rory Stewart and is the grandson of Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists (and wears black shirts for his interviews)

"never again" isn't meant to be (only) "never again for Jews"...
The US Holocaust Museum being more outraged by Tim Walz saying that, like Anne Frank, children today are in hiding from armed agents of the state, than they are about the fact that children are in hiding from armed agents of the state, is why Holocaust remembrance culture is in crisis.
The US Holocaust Museum being more outraged by Tim Walz saying that, like Anne Frank, children today are in hiding from armed agents of the state, than they are about the fact that children are in hiding from armed agents of the state, is why Holocaust remembrance culture is in crisis.
After 5 years I can finally share a full WP of our project conducting cognitive interviews of life satisfaction reporting.

Main findings:
1. LS scales are psychometrically valid, but...
2. Standard statistical assumptions made when analysing LS data are not credible.

osf.io/gv5e3/files/...

Reposted by David Bartram

This whole, horrible situation has exposed the US’s 2nd amendment as a sham. The entire point of it, all the dead children in schools, was all apparently so that ordinary citizens could arm themselves against tyranny. When tyranny arrives, what happens? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
NRA and pro-gun groups call for ‘full investigation’ into killing of Alex Pretti
Groups typically aligned with Trump call for investigation as NRA wades into the national dialogue
www.theguardian.com

Essential clarification: are you addressing this comment to editors (e.g. to me)?

Editors are distinct from publishers. I as editor have no $$ to pay reviewers.

I support your suggestion -- but it is a matter for publishers, not editors.

My practice:

1) I write to ask them whether they did it using AI. (They never respond -- but my question acts as a notification that it is detectable even if not provable.)

2) I disable their reviewer rights.

Or, show up with red-noses. Imagine a whole room-full...
JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project.

Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months.

Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

Having taught courses/modules on immigration for many years, I feel useful.

"Research comparing UK & US finds people with fewer qualifications more likely to support rightwing movements"

(yes, the impact is broader, not rooted in the study of migration per se)

www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
Educational background key indicator of immigration views in UK, study finds
Research comparing UK and US finds people with fewer qualifications more likely to support rightwing movements
www.theguardian.com
1. ICE has STOPPED PAYING for medical treatment for its 73,000 detainees

ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals

Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care

🧵
ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment
ICE halted payments in October, and the situation will persist for at least several more months
popular.info
The Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs is moving away from Microsoft and switching instead to Linux and LibreOffice
www.heise.de/news/Von-Wor...
Abschied bis Herbst: Dänisches Digitalministerium kehrt Microsoft den Rücken
Beim dänischen Digitalministerium sollen alle Angestellten ohne Microsoft auskommen. Stattdessen werde man Linux und LibreOffice nutzen, sagt die Ministerin.
www.heise.de
Jessica: The WSJ is reporting that there are incentives for ICE Agents because they need to meet that insane 3,000 people per day quota—they are getting rewarded even if they bring in people who then get released…
Multi-layered “look what you made me do” lie.

Because Norway didn’t give a him prize (it doesn’t decide winners) for ending wars (he didn’t end) the US won’t be peaceful anymore (bombing multiple countries) and will take Greenland (part of Denmark, not Norway) to stop Russia (it’d help Russia).
mad king moment

from the PBS Newshour correspondent

Reposted by David Bartram

that's the thing they don't actually want sexy pictures they want to rob her of her consent
For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention.

The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.
Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping.
Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.
www.ms.now
Peer Review is broken because a generation of Editors were trained that peer review is sacrosanct. Thus we have Editors who are clerks, sending and re-sending manuscripts to reviewers until they are happy. That's not the job. Be an Editor, not a clerk. Use your skill and judgement. Make decisions.

"Trump says killers of protesters will ‘pay a big price’" -- this refers to Minnesotans, right?

Right??

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
Iran crisis live: Trump says killers of protesters will ‘pay a big price’ and urges Iranians to ‘take over your institutions’
US president cancels meetings with Iranian officials ‘until senseless killing of protesters stops’
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by David Bartram

People who produce AI slop papers love to skip the boring research and get right to the dramatic discovery. The LLMs tell them their idea is awesome and original, and write it up as a "proposed framework" (with no data or evidence). That term increased 70% in Web of Science abstracts last year.

Reposted by David Bartram

We now check manuscripts for the possibility that AI has been used to produce the paper. Springer's system does some automated checking but doesn't catch everything.

So, in certain situations we check the refs for hallucinations.

Latest manuscript: multiple hallucinations. Author will be banned.
Homan: "We gotta stop the hateful rhetoric. Saying this officer is a murderer is dangerous. It's just ridiculous. It's gonna infuriate people more which means there's gonna be more incidents like this."

"We elect people for scientific achievement/delivery. ... we get rid of them if that turns out to be false or not correct"

But Musk has precisely zero scientific achievements. So, none will be incorrect -- thus there's no way to get rid of him.

How clever...

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
‘Lots of people don’t want to do it’: Paul Nurse on his controversial second term as Royal Society president
The Nobel prize winner discusses claims of a ‘boys’ club’, Elon Musk’s fellowship and rightwing attacks on science
www.theguardian.com
ICE is claiming that the officer feared that Renee Good was about to seriously injure or kill him at this moment.
SHOCK CELL PHONE VIDEO: Renee Good's final words to her murderer: “That’s fine dude, I’m not mad at you.”

ICE agent Jonathan Ross after shooting and killing her seconds later: “Fuckin’ bitch.”

Via Alpha News