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Carl T. Bergstrom

@carlbergstrom.com

140K followers 2.5K following 9.8K posts

Professor, UW Biology / Santa Fe Institute I study how information flows in biology, science, and society. Book: *Calling Bullshit*, http://tinyurl.com/fdcuvd7b LLM course: https://thebullshitmachines.com Corvids: https://tinyurl.com/mr2n5ymk he/him .. more

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Carl Theodore Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, United States. Bergstrom is a critic of low-quality or misleading scientific research. He is the co-author of a book on misinformation called Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World and teaches a class by the same name at University of Washington. .. more

Biology 21%

Mathematics 20%

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Feb 4

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

INTRODUCTION

thebullshitmachines.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

Also true.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

Of everything I thought would be gone by 2025, the selective service registration requirement is right at the top. Not because a draft is immoral, but because it seems politically untenable.

That's politics. A draft is political suicide, but I guess killing the apparatus to run a draft is as well.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

*unless you count sneaking off from fifth-grade recess to hang out at the massive U. Michigan protests after President Carter signed Proclamation 4771 reinstating the selective service administration in 1980.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

Indubitably.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 10h

My first public political commentary was a letter I wrote as a high school kid to the Ann Arbor News excoriating efforts by Reagan and a GOP congress to criminalize flag-burning.

Amazing that 35 years after after Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, we're still dealing with this bullshit.

Trump Baselessly Claims He ‘Took the Freedom of Speech Away’ From Flag Burners

www.nytimes.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 14h

👏👏👏

Reposted by Efrén O. Pérez

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 14h

Don’t you hate it when you think you’re DMing somebody your nudes or your illegal orders to prosecute a political opponent in violation of the US constitution and actually you are posting on main?

Trump Accidentally Posted Message That Could Destroy Entire Comey Case

It turns out Donald Trump didn’t mean to make that Truth Social post public after all.

newrepublic.com

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Reposted by Peter Thorne, Carl T. Bergstrom, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 8 more Peter Thorne, Carl T. Bergstrom, Gavin A. Schmidt, Stacie B. Dusetzina, Lesley A. Hall, Margot C. Finn, Zen Faulkes, David Murakami Wood, Wolfgang Huber, Klaus Oschema, Philip Bell

Prof Anna Watts @profannawatts.bsky.social · 16h

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 1d

When you've lost the J. D. Vance of Garth Brookses.

Kristi Noem Attacks Zach Bryan’s New Lyrics About ICE

www.nytimes.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 1d

Real and being implemented and in use at the University of Washington

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

"The most notable benefit is that she gets the satisfaction of doing something she enjoys in her own way"

Amen.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

Not in the least.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

This is an excellent point.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

Wait till you hear how I had to subscribe to another package to watch the National League games….

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

The game was rain delayed. FS1 was covering it. They just switched into the Yankees game. This game is now on FS2 which the package that I subscribed to a week ago in order to watch the playoffs does not include.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

Blacked out here

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

Screw you, MLB, for licensing your games on a case by case basis and not including them in your own streaming package. I had to buy 5 different services to catch all of the playoff games.

But switching the Mariners game to a channel that I don’t have midway through the fourth inning? Unreal.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

callingbullshit.org/FAQ.html

Bullshit is by no means a modern invention. Each page on this website features a famous bullshit artist of yore.

Here on this page, a detail from Michelangelo's 1512 Expulsion from the Garden. According to Christian theology, all of the pain and suffering (and mortality) that pervades human life can be traced to the lies that the serpent fed Eve about the fruit of knowledge.

On our syllabus page, Theodoor Rombouts's early 17th century The Denial of Saint Peter. At the Last Supper, Saint Peter assured Jesus that he would never deny him, but Jesus saw right through that. By the next morn, Saint Peter had lied three times in denial of the savior.

On the home page, Rafael's 1511 The School of Athens. Here Socrates is depicted as he obliterates the arguments of the Sophists, a group of purported scholars who constructed an entire philosophical school around talking bullshit. (Fortunately, the Sophists are long gone and no other school of philosophy would venture to lay its foundations on the same effluent base. )

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

I love small ball, but that was poorly executed.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Thank you so much, April. We’d like to write an update too—so much has happened in a mere five years—but I think we have to tackle the bullshit machines first.

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction

A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.

Thebullshitmachines.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

October nerves

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Goddamn Tommy Edman. You’re lucky you have Freddy Freeman at first.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

October Ball doesn’t get any better than this bottom of the ninth attempted comeback from the Phillies.

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Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom

April Wright @wrightam.bsky.social · 3d

Continuing my tour of books I should have already read, Calling Bullshit by @carlbergstrom.com and @jevinwest.bsky.social. Just a delight - an accessible, entertaining, insightful look at various forms of BS. Much like Weapons of Math Destruction, would love a 2025 update of this one.

Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World

The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshi...

www.callingbullshit.org

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Precisely.

Reposted by Alan Richardson

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Based on the experience of countries that have tried this, there’s overwhelming evidence that it is utterly unnecessary.

Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 3d

This serves absolutely no purpose other than to reduce vaccine uptake:
www.reuters.com/business/hea...

www.reuters.com

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Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom

Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 3d

This serves absolutely no purpose other than to reduce vaccine uptake:
www.reuters.com/business/hea...

www.reuters.com

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Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom

Sally James @jamesian.bsky.social · 3d

Congrats to Mary Brunkow of #seattle for #immunology discoveries leading to shared #Nobel ...
Congrats to Institute for Systems Biology.
#research #science

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/h...

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Is Awarded for Work on Immune Systems

www.nytimes.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

*where “wank” is it precise technical term, via @iris-meredith.bsky.social

An essay on wank | deadSimpleTech

This captures well the uncomfortable, slightly disorienting feeling that wank creates when you're subjected to it, wherein you're expected to speak about and think about the statement as though it say...

deadsimpletech.com

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