James Steele
@jamessteeleii.bsky.social
I'm just a guy who's an academic for fun
Pinned
James Steele
@jamessteeleii.bsky.social
· Sep 30
Excited to have now started new role as Head of Research with Macrofactor (macrofactorapp.com). Looking forward to getting stuck into some really cool projects and getting that out to all the users!
Reposted by James Steele
This time I try to explain group-level confounding and some ways to deal with it. Lecture B04 of Statistical Rethinking 2026 - fixed effects, Mundlak machines, latent Mundlak machines, intro to social network analysis and the social relations model. Full lecture list: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
Statistical Rethinking 2026 Lecture B04 - Group-level confounding and intro to social networks
YouTube video by Richard McElreath
www.youtube.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:27 PM
This time I try to explain group-level confounding and some ways to deal with it. Lecture B04 of Statistical Rethinking 2026 - fixed effects, Mundlak machines, latent Mundlak machines, intro to social network analysis and the social relations model. Full lecture list: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
I am going to try to get to 500+ miles which I think is doable by my calculations... Get up at 5am, walk till 8am, work through the day, then after dinner walk from like 7pm-10pm. At my pace that should workout to about 20-22 miles a day.
January 30, 2026 at 10:22 AM
I am going to try to get to 500+ miles which I think is doable by my calculations... Get up at 5am, walk till 8am, work through the day, then after dinner walk from like 7pm-10pm. At my pace that should workout to about 20-22 miles a day.
Blown past the target and, rough estimation, I'll need to walk 53k steps a day to cover the distance in miles based on £s donated 🙀
That's probably not doable, but I'm going to walk as far as possible and whatever is left over I'll personally make an additional donation to cover the difference.
That's probably not doable, but I'm going to walk as far as possible and whatever is left over I'll personally make an additional donation to cover the difference.
January 29, 2026 at 7:47 PM
Blown past the target and, rough estimation, I'll need to walk 53k steps a day to cover the distance in miles based on £s donated 🙀
That's probably not doable, but I'm going to walk as far as possible and whatever is left over I'll personally make an additional donation to cover the difference.
That's probably not doable, but I'm going to walk as far as possible and whatever is left over I'll personally make an additional donation to cover the difference.
January 29, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Oooh we got some DAGs coming along to visualise our simulations - needs some tweaking but it's getting there.
January 28, 2026 at 4:44 PM
Oooh we got some DAGs coming along to visualise our simulations - needs some tweaking but it's getting there.
Reposted by James Steele
New blog post introducing Causion - a web app for causal inference teaching and learning: pedermisager.org/blog/causion....
Introducing Causion: A web app for playing with DAGs | Peder M. Isager
Personal website of Dr. Peder M. Isager
pedermisager.org
January 28, 2026 at 9:23 AM
New blog post introducing Causion - a web app for causal inference teaching and learning: pedermisager.org/blog/causion....
Thanks to everyone who has donated already... we've hit the £100 target so now every £ raised over that is an extra mile I'll have to walk in February 🙀
January 28, 2026 at 9:12 AM
Thanks to everyone who has donated already... we've hit the £100 target so now every £ raised over that is an extra mile I'll have to walk in February 🙀
Reposted by James Steele
Looking for user panelists to contribute to the Stage 2 of our registered report: Developing and Piloting a QUick Evaluation of Research Integrity for Evidence Synthesis in Educational Research (QUERIES-Edu). osf.io/tc5n3
If you’re interested, sign up here: forms.gle/SSmPmaCrdGvnHPdx9
If you’re interested, sign up here: forms.gle/SSmPmaCrdGvnHPdx9
January 20, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Looking for user panelists to contribute to the Stage 2 of our registered report: Developing and Piloting a QUick Evaluation of Research Integrity for Evidence Synthesis in Educational Research (QUERIES-Edu). osf.io/tc5n3
If you’re interested, sign up here: forms.gle/SSmPmaCrdGvnHPdx9
If you’re interested, sign up here: forms.gle/SSmPmaCrdGvnHPdx9
Mark's awesome - you should read this, now!
After a provocation from Todd Kashdan I wrote up some frustrations I have with "wellbeing science", specifically the idea that it was born with life satisfaction scales.
I think this belief is untrue and unhelpful.
profmarkfabian.substack.com/p/airing-my-...
I think this belief is untrue and unhelpful.
profmarkfabian.substack.com/p/airing-my-...
Airing my grievances with wellbeing science
We have a streetlight problem
profmarkfabian.substack.com
January 19, 2026 at 12:51 PM
Mark's awesome - you should read this, now!
"We/you should write a paper about that"
Nah I'm good (goes back to playing video games)
Nah I'm good (goes back to playing video games)
January 18, 2026 at 3:25 PM
"We/you should write a paper about that"
Nah I'm good (goes back to playing video games)
Nah I'm good (goes back to playing video games)
Reposted by James Steele
Data collected.
Theories formed into models.
The aim, to find truth.
Theories formed into models.
The aim, to find truth.
September 13, 2025 at 2:22 AM
Data collected.
Theories formed into models.
The aim, to find truth.
Theories formed into models.
The aim, to find truth.
As if I haven't banged on about enough by now... looking forward to continuing to talk about how developing and trying to test strong theories is a pretty damned useful way of going about doing science.
Here's my abstract for the 8th Perspectives on Scientific Error Workshop in Leiden, NL.
#PSE8
Here's my abstract for the 8th Perspectives on Scientific Error Workshop in Leiden, NL.
#PSE8
January 13, 2026 at 4:30 PM
As if I haven't banged on about enough by now... looking forward to continuing to talk about how developing and trying to test strong theories is a pretty damned useful way of going about doing science.
Here's my abstract for the 8th Perspectives on Scientific Error Workshop in Leiden, NL.
#PSE8
Here's my abstract for the 8th Perspectives on Scientific Error Workshop in Leiden, NL.
#PSE8
Reposted by James Steele
We've got ISSUES. Literally.
We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?
arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563
A 🧵 1/n
We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?
arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563
A 🧵 1/n
January 13, 2026 at 8:27 AM
We've got ISSUES. Literally.
We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?
arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563
A 🧵 1/n
We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?
arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563
A 🧵 1/n
Reposted by James Steele
Sign up now for the Perspectives on Scientific Error Conference (PSE) on 11 - 13 Feb in Leiden, the Netherlands
We will be hosting a mentor-mentee lunch during the conference. Sign up, and you will be matched to another academic based on shared research interests!
Don't miss out! See you there 🙌
We will be hosting a mentor-mentee lunch during the conference. Sign up, and you will be matched to another academic based on shared research interests!
Don't miss out! See you there 🙌
PSE8
Visit the post for more.
tinyurl.com
January 12, 2026 at 8:32 AM
Sign up now for the Perspectives on Scientific Error Conference (PSE) on 11 - 13 Feb in Leiden, the Netherlands
We will be hosting a mentor-mentee lunch during the conference. Sign up, and you will be matched to another academic based on shared research interests!
Don't miss out! See you there 🙌
We will be hosting a mentor-mentee lunch during the conference. Sign up, and you will be matched to another academic based on shared research interests!
Don't miss out! See you there 🙌
A quick meta-analytic* estimate of QRPs across surveys added to @lakens.bsky.social collation of results from them (lakens.github.io/statistical_... pull request made).
Red line is the point estimate (intervals are tiny so not plotted)
*meta-analysis of proportions using the logit transformation
Red line is the point estimate (intervals are tiny so not plotted)
*meta-analysis of proportions using the logit transformation
January 12, 2026 at 9:57 AM
A quick meta-analytic* estimate of QRPs across surveys added to @lakens.bsky.social collation of results from them (lakens.github.io/statistical_... pull request made).
Red line is the point estimate (intervals are tiny so not plotted)
*meta-analysis of proportions using the logit transformation
Red line is the point estimate (intervals are tiny so not plotted)
*meta-analysis of proportions using the logit transformation
Reposted by James Steele
You can sign up until January 23 for the free Paul Meehl Graduate School workshop on Scientific Criticism and Peer review taught by René Bekkers. It promises to be an extremely interesting day, so do join us in Eindhoven on January 30th! paulmeehlschool.github.io/workshops/cr...
Scientific Criticism and Peer Review | Paul Meehl Graduate School
January 30, 2026
paulmeehlschool.github.io
January 9, 2026 at 7:29 PM
You can sign up until January 23 for the free Paul Meehl Graduate School workshop on Scientific Criticism and Peer review taught by René Bekkers. It promises to be an extremely interesting day, so do join us in Eindhoven on January 30th! paulmeehlschool.github.io/workshops/cr...
Reposted by James Steele
Some people bring up (1) the cost of criticism and (2) that a lot of criticism has already been voiced but ignored. Both points are valid, so here are some suggestion for (1) reducing backlash and (2) increasing impact (from this talk of mine: juliarohrer.com/wp-content/u...
January 8, 2026 at 7:28 AM
Some people bring up (1) the cost of criticism and (2) that a lot of criticism has already been voiced but ignored. Both points are valid, so here are some suggestion for (1) reducing backlash and (2) increasing impact (from this talk of mine: juliarohrer.com/wp-content/u...
Reposted by James Steele
Here’s a bit of personal data and some reflections, more for fun than anything too serious.
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
December 31, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Here’s a bit of personal data and some reflections, more for fun than anything too serious.
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
Here’s a bit of personal data and some reflections, more for fun than anything too serious.
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
December 31, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Here’s a bit of personal data and some reflections, more for fun than anything too serious.
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
See full post on IG - www.instagram.com/p/DS7NpusDEm...
You can access the data, and code used to prepare and analyse it as well as make the plots at the GitHub repository: github.com/jamessteelei...
Reposted by James Steele
We all make mistakes... often you feel really stupid in hindsight because they were so obvious 😅
1/5
1/5
December 24, 2025 at 10:55 AM
We all make mistakes... often you feel really stupid in hindsight because they were so obvious 😅
1/5
1/5
Reposted by James Steele
So if performance is our outcome and training our exposure, we have something like
training -> performance -> Olympian
And we have
Training <- other stuff -> Olympian
So if we condition on Olympian, we open a back door between Olympian and training
training -> performance -> Olympian
And we have
Training <- other stuff -> Olympian
So if we condition on Olympian, we open a back door between Olympian and training
December 24, 2025 at 7:42 PM
So if performance is our outcome and training our exposure, we have something like
training -> performance -> Olympian
And we have
Training <- other stuff -> Olympian
So if we condition on Olympian, we open a back door between Olympian and training
training -> performance -> Olympian
And we have
Training <- other stuff -> Olympian
So if we condition on Olympian, we open a back door between Olympian and training
We all make mistakes... often you feel really stupid in hindsight because they were so obvious 😅
1/5
1/5
December 24, 2025 at 10:55 AM
We all make mistakes... often you feel really stupid in hindsight because they were so obvious 😅
1/5
1/5