Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Kevin Zollman @kevinzollman.com · 17h

A reoccurring frustration for philosophers of science: Many scientists know how to do science like people know how to ride a bike. When they reflect on the practice of science, they repeat platitudes about how science works. Those platitudes are often wrong, sometimes even about their own field

D. J. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 1d

*sighs in philosopher of science*

Looking for confirmatory evidence is an entirely normal part of science. The primary problem here is the eugenics and the fascism, not the lies to children about "the scientific method."

One Bluesky account is quoting another. Inner post has a video of RFK Jr., some person I don't recognize (Tylenol and autism guy, maybe?), Marco Rubio (I think), and Trump. Post text: "RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: 'It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

Outer post text: "We're doing studies to prove it (* not how studies work)"

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Wyrd Women @wyrdwomen.bsky.social · 3h

Who was Grace Hopper?

#COBOL
#FLOW-MATIC
#WomenInSTEM
#WyrdWomen

Who is Grace Hopper?

YouTube video by Women's Stories

youtu.be

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Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 3h

Note to self

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 5h

Go to bed; tired is stupid.

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 14h

"When these capabilities are delegated to machines, we create a population that consumes and regurgitates information without actually processing or understanding it.” collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 14h

“The capacity to think, write, and communicate effectively is fundamental to being a conscious participant in democratic society.” collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 14h

“Uncritical adoption of AI, will inevitably create people without critical thinking, and this may be a feature - not a bug, as it represents an attack on human agency itself.”

collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

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Genie Lauren @moreandagain.social · 19h

Fuck the AI cult

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 1d

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · Apr 29

This is a new image from #JWST.

The bright points with spikes are stars in the Milky Way.

Everything else is a galaxy.

Everything. Else. Is. A. Galaxy.

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 1d

exactly

Cameron Ellis @camerontellis.bsky.social · 1d

Astronaut meme: "Wait, it's all perception?" "Always has been"

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Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 2d

Haven't posted much lately-- busy. One of my Substack projects is republishing my chapters from the Kendler and Parnas series on the philosophy of psychiatry. The books are expensive and hard to find. This is, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." /1 @awaisaftab.bsky.social

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Marc Scully @marcscully.bsky.social · 2d

American social psychology; British social psychology; European social psychology.

Ryan Teague Beckwith @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social · 4d

Editor in chief, city editor, features editor

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Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory @memoryplace.bsky.social · 2d

Meet our people @tmcasimiro.bsky.social is an archaeologist specialising in material culture, urban marginality, and the intersections of place and memory, community archaeology, waste and urban ecologies, the archaeology of abandonment, and non-human interactions in urban and non-urban spaces.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 2d

I just… jfc why don't these companies and politicians listen?

👻 Autumn Nash 🎃 @withenoughcoffee.com · 2d

At first the Discord hack didn’t seem that bad because it was initially the third party help desk.

But then you find out they had got there age verification data. Come to find out they got 1.5 TB of government id and age verification data. This is going to become a case against age verification.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 3d

analytic philosopher, continental philosopher, African Studies theorist

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 3d

quantitative methods, qualitative methods, mixed methods

Photo of a Kansas City Chiefs press conference with Andy Reid, Travis Kelce, and Patrick Mahomes. Reid is wearing a gray suit and red tie with a lapel pin. Kelce is wearing a camp-style short-sleeved shirt with a bird print, along with a suede cap, and Mahomes is wearing a white collared shirt, a pink checkered double-breasted vest, and a pale pink tie.

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 2d

😍😍 and this entire dish is vegan-friendly

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d

did i eat this entire plate of ethiopian? yes, i did.

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Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 2d

If you're in Ireland, you're looking for a copy of The First Fire of Halloween and you don't want to order one from the Evil Empire, it's available from Antonia's Books, an indie bookshop, at antoniasbookstore.com/product/the-...

A púca comes to #Halloween Hill!

#SpeirGorm #PucaFestival #Samhain

Alt-Text: An image of the cover of the book set against a background similar to that used on the cover, a dark sky over a field. Under the words 'Here, why has he no trousers on? Why would someone take his trousers?'

The front cover itself features a púca, the mythical Irish shape-changer, as a muscular human figure with a goat's head. He's standing in a field in darkness, with a fire blazing in front of him. Inset in the dark sky above and behind him are a pair of yellow goat's eyes. The title is in orange against the sky, and my name is in black against the fire.

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Open Research and Public Engagement Roadmap @engagedroadmap.bsky.social · 2d

Drop in to our information coffee morning to chat and connect with others shaping the future of open research

Tuesday 21 October 2025, 11am–12pm
Trinity Long Room Hub

@tcddublin.bsky.social
@norfireland.bsky.social

#openresearch #publicengagement

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Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 2d

How does life emerge from nonlife?

New special issue of the Royal Transactions brings together leading thinkers on the origins of life—where chemistry meets information, and evolution unfolds through the “adjacent possible.”

dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...

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Gail Drakes @gaildrakes.bsky.social · 3d

Are you a non-Black person pissed at Bluesky leadership and feeling a little jealous of all the good vibes coming from Blacksky?

There are Blacksky adjacent options for you! Here’s info from the Blacksky migration guide!

docs.blacksky.community/migrating-to...

Screengrab from Blacksky migration guide:

blacksky algorithms

A Warning: Anyone else using a blacksky.app handle will receive a warning at first and then a suspension.

Alternative PDSs for Everyone
Blacksky Algorithms also operates two other
PDSs that are open to anyone:
• myatproto.social - Open to all
• cryptoanarchy.network - Open to all

These servers run on the same infrastructure as blacksky.app and are maintained by the same team, but are available for anyone to use regardless of background.

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Jennifer Kretchmer @dreamwisp.bsky.social · 3d

Because it feels relevant as we continue to evaluate the media and our representatives’ statements, my favorite way to identify the active vs. passive voice.

A post by Rebecca Johnson:
“I finally learned how to teach my guys to ID the passive voice. If you can insert "by zombies" after the verb, you have passive voice.”

A tumblr respond from mightymur:
“The final, brilliant word on passive voice.
"She was killed [by zombies.]"<--passive
"Zombies killed [by zombies] her." <-- active”

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Grem, of 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐏 🔜 MCAtlanta! @gremlin.world · 5d

I will never not repost this

(Sound on for maximum effect)

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Glyn Moody @glynmoody.bsky.social · 4d

Europe's future is at stake: Open letter against #ChatControl - tuta.com/blog/open-le... "European SMEs have united to direct a strong open letter to urge ministers of #EU member states to oppose Chat Control and to defend privacy and a strong European tech industry."

Europe's future is at stake: Open letter against Chat Control | Tuta

European SMEs have united to direct a strong open letter to urge ministers of EU member states to oppose Chat Control and to defend privacy and a strong European tech industry.

tuta.com

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Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · Sep 19

Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News.

Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.

Wiley set to earn $44m from AI rights deals, confirms “no opt-out" for authors

The US publisher is the latest to capitalise on deals to give tech firms access to its authors’ content to train their Large Language Models (LLMs).

www.thebookseller.com

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 5d

“Being able to detect & counteract all these 3 together comprises the bedrock of skills in research methods in a time when AI is used uncritically (see Table 1). The inverse: not noticing these are at play, or even promoting them, could be seen as engaging in questionable research practises (QRPs)”

The three aforementioned related themes sketched out in this section, will play out in the AI-social psychology relationships we will examine — namely:

a. misunderstanding of the statistical models which con- stitute contemporary AI, leading to inter alia thinking that correlation implies causation (Guest, 2025; Guest & Mar- tin, 2023, 2025a, 2025b; Guest, Scharfenberg, & van Rooij, 2025; Guest, Suarez, et al., 2025);

b. confusion between statistical versus cognitive models when it comes to their completely non-overlapping roles when mediating between theory and observations (Guest & Martin, 2021; Morgan & Morrison, 1999; Morrison & Morgan, 1999; van Rooij & Baggio, 2021);

c. anti -open science practices,such as closed source code, stolen and opaque collection and use of data, obfuscated conflicts of interest, lack of accountability for models’ architectures, i.e. statistical methods and input-output mappings are not well documented (Barlas et al., 2021; Birhane & McGann, 2024; Birhane et al., 2023; Crane, 2021; Gerdes, 2022; Guest & Martin, 2025b; Guest, Suarez, et al., 2025; Liesenfeld & Dingemanse, 2024; Liesenfeld et al., 2023; Mirowski, 2023; Ochigame, 2019; Thorne, 2009).

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Chibdm @chibdm.bsky.social · 4d

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

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