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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1h

This is an important report for EU countries: Make sure to safeguard your institutions now while you can, because the anti-science juggernaut that came for the US science will not stop.

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation
open.substack.com/pub/christin...

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation

My newly launched report on how we can safeguard the independence of our important scientific and evidence-generating institutions - not least so they can hold government to account

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 2h

Pielke… Ridley… lab leak fanatics and climate deniers that attack ordinary scientists are often the same players.

Imagine the media would, instead of framing the science or scientists as the problem, rather wake up to the same old anti-science actors, tactics and agendas.

Ken Rice @kenrice.bsky.social · 9h

www.eenews.net/articles/cli...

Climate critics try to discredit IPCC author for linking disasters to global warming

Roger Pielke Jr. and oil industry supporters are attacking climate scientist Friederike Otto, whose work has been used in lawsuits against polluters.

www.eenews.net

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 2h

Pielke… Ridley… lab leak fanatics and climate deniers that attack ordinary scientists are often the same players.

Imagine the media would, instead of framing the science or scientists as the problem, rather wake up to the same old anti-science actors, tactics and agendas.

Ken Rice @kenrice.bsky.social · 9h

www.eenews.net/articles/cli...

Climate critics try to discredit IPCC author for linking disasters to global warming

Roger Pielke Jr. and oil industry supporters are attacking climate scientist Friederike Otto, whose work has been used in lawsuits against polluters.

www.eenews.net

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 7h

Why isn't this major headline news? Why isn't corporate media covering NSPM-7?

www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nsp...

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”

New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions

www.kenklippenstein.com

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 7h

When I was reporting in Sudan several years ago, a driver warned me not to tell government officials when I was leaving because the airport is where they stop and detain writers.

So, yeah, this is a very bad sign. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

US anti-fascism expert blocked from flying to Spain at airport

Rutgers University professor who published book on antifa was informed at boarding gate that his trip was cancelled

www.theguardian.com

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 22h

Highly relevant indeed, thanks again for sharing.

I certainly think better when I am writing, and the idea of proof of thought is a beautiful way of putting it.

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Raven Onthill @ravenonthill.bsky.social · 22h

This particular essay is also perhaps relevant.

Proof of Thought

With large language models capable of generating convincing documents without real thought, this insightful article explores the critical need for new “Proofs of Thought” to ensure genuine intellectua...

erik.wiffin.com

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

Now that is, like I said, an observation; but it largely tracks with some of the reporting below ⬇️; as for the cyber-security risk of vibe-coded stuff; that is a whole different beast I might think about another time but it seems apocalyptically bad.

Cheers
shinycroak.blogspot.com/2025/09/ai-a...

shinycroak.blogspot.com

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

..or more likely, they can´t do their jobs well unless they have to go back to their managers to discuss exactly what needs to happen, rendering the previous LLM step superfluous for both managers and experts, i.e an overall productivity loss.

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

So managers improving "their ouput with LLMs" (w/o intangibles) increases workload on experts who need to spend time and effort to become their own managers with cross-business overview (often, they might not even have all the relevant business information given social networks to do that well);

7/

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

This leads to overall productivity losses because of instruction interpretation and implementation gaps;
--> LLM-produced output might provide sufficient detail for high-level summaries, but not expert-level decision making.

Pre-LLM, managers had to work harder but created these intangibles

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

But my observation & suspicion is that AI is not really increasing overall efficiency for that demographic either, as it shifts a decisive part of managerial work one (or multiple) layers lower; onto the people and teammembers who have to turn language-driven direction into action

It´s a mirage

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

Because it seemingly works extremely well for that powerful demographic (and client media follows their cues & sway public) many assume these productivity gains will "trickle down" the same way to other sociodemographic and functional layers in business/ society

This fuels the current AI bubble

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

Which is that the (superhuman probabilistic) aggregation and summary functions of token-manipulating generative models produce buzzworld-ladden, coherent sounding output not all that different from the socialcultural content these top-level executives produce and investors primarily consume.

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

AI seems to add productivity for a very specific demographic, mostly the hype- and vibe sensitive investor class and their primary interactors, the managerial class with a language-driven leadership style.

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 23h

Not a hot take, but I will note a personal observation based on @ravenonthill.bsky.social blog ⬇️

From errors, hallucinations and workslop and vibe-coded security risks, AI seemingly often eats into productivity and takes experts more time and effort to fix things than doing it from scratch.

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 2d

@ravenonthill.bsky.social collected some reporting that puts a big questionmark around the myth of productivity gains with AI

The evidence seems not only lacking despite people and companies searching hard for use cases; but from workslop to vibe-coded security risks, AI seemingly eats productivity

Raven Onthill @ravenonthill.bsky.social · 13d

I've been collecting articles on the negative productivity impacts of "AI" for a while, and Philipp Markolin finally got me to gather them up and write a post about them. This is mostly about the productivity claims for "AI;" the technology has other problems, but I'm not addressing them in the post

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 1d

🎵 They did the Monster Slash 😭 @ellecordova.bsky.social

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1d

"Selbst Qualitätszeitungen veröffentlichen immer wieder einschlägige Meinungsartikel [...], sagt Markolin."

"Sie geben konträren Stimmen und Randfiguren eine Plattform, um den Eindruck einer lebhaften Debatte und grosser Unsicherheit unter den Experten zu erwecken."

🔽🔽

(AFP)

Die vorliegenden Daten sprechen ganz klar für einen Zusammenhang mit dem Wildtiermarkt, sagt Philipp Markolin, ein junger österreichischer Molekularbiologe und Wissenschaftsblogger, der in der Schweiz lebt und die Geschehnisse rund um den Ursprung der Pandemie im 600-seitigen Werk «Das Laborfieber» aufgearbeitet hat.

Kein anderer Wissenschaftskommunikator hat das Thema so gründlich recherchiert wie er. «Wir wissen, dass auf dem Huanan-Markt Wildtiere gehandelt wurden, die für das Virus anfällig sind. Epidemiologische Daten belegen zudem, dass der Ausbruch am Markt begann. Genetische Untersuchungen zeigen, dass das Virus nur kurze Zeit zirkulierte, bevor die ersten Fälle bekannt wurden.»

Einzeln betrachtet ist keine dieser Studien frei von Kritik oder stark genug, den Ursprung der Pandemie zweifelsfrei zu klären, sagt er. «In der Summe zeigen sie jedoch alle in die gleiche Richtung.» Und genau darin liegt die Stärke der wissenschaftlichen Methode, man nennt es «Triangulation»: «Verschiedene Beweislinien, die von Forschern mit unterschiedlichen Hintergründen und Methoden geliefert werden, liefern ein schlüssiges Bild.»

Es ist paradox: Je mehr wissenschaftliche Studien die Marktthese stärken, desto mehr Menschen glauben an die Laborthese. «In den USA sind es Umfragen zufolge etwa zwei Drittel der Bevölkerung, in Europa dürfte es ähnlich aussehen», sagt Markolin. Die Medien spielen dabei keine unerhebliche Rolle.

Evidenzbasierte wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse verlieren zunehmend ihre Rolle als Leitprinzip, während Spekulationen auf der Grundlage von Geheimdienstberichten an Bedeutung gewinnen. «Selbst Qualitätszeitungen veröffentlichen immer wieder einschlägige Meinungsartikel, um die Berichterstattung ihrer eigenen Wissenschaftsjournalisten zu kontern», sagt Markolin. «Sie geben konträren Stimmen und Randfiguren eine Plattform, um den Eindruck einer lebhaften Debatte und grosser Unsicherheit unter den Experten zu erwecken.»

Doch richtig ist: Alle Indizien sprechen für einen natürlichen Ursprung. Für die Laborthese gibt es bis heute keine belastbaren Daten.

Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1d

Fantastic and infuriating and saddening.

Thank you so much for doing this

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1d

This is remarkable

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 1d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 1d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1d

Das Buch und ebook gibt es auf Amazon; auf Deutsch und auf Englisch.

Keine Wissenschaftliche Abhandlung, sondern liest sich wie ein Roman der die Insider-Geschichte der Kontroverse erzählt.

Viel Spaß beim Lesen:
DE: www.amazon.de/dp/B0F3DMHBSB
EN: www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKNDRJ8Z

Das Laborfieber: Die COVID-19 Ursprungstheorie die Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft sabotierte

Das Laborfieber: Die COVID-19 Ursprungstheorie die Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft sabotierte eBook : Markolin, Philipp: Amazon.de: Kindle Store

www.amazon.de

Philipp Markolin, PhD @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 1d

"Die vorliegenden Daten sprechen ganz klar für einen Zusammenhang mit dem Wildtiermarkt, sagt Philipp Markolin, [...] die Geschehnisse rund um den Ursprung der Pandemie im 600-seitigen Werk «Das Laborfieber» aufgearbeitet hat."

Geschenks-Artikel:
www.tagesanzeiger.ch/covid-warum-...

Eine dunkle Vermutung über Corona grassiert – und ist so ansteckend wie das Virus

Zunehmend berichten auch seriöse Medien über die sogenannte Laborthese. Demnach wurde der Erreger künstlich hergestellt. Was ist an der These dran?

www.tagesanzeiger.ch

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t want to sound preachy but we have the capacity to be so much better than this.

The folks showing up despite state violence to protest ICE are proof of it. Scientists speaking out despite facing personal threats—like @michaelemann.bsky.social and @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social—are proof of it

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Reposted by Philipp Markolin, PhD

Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 1d

People being afraid to speak out against their government is the antithesis of what America is supposed to be.

The Trump regime trying to sow fear in its opposition, deploying soldiers and unaccountable federal agents with inadequate training and a mission of cruelty is fundamentally unAmerican.

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