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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 20d

Evolution 😅

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

Dr. Knurick seems to be most active in the video-based social media platforms like іnstа.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

Their bsky info…
@drjessicaknurick.bsky.social
@amylnon.bsky.social

bsky.app

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

I would also look at Amy Non's work. She's an anthropologist who studies social inequalities in health outcomes (and the biological/molecular basis of such inequalities). Not sure how much public science communication she does, though, but definitely a researcher in this area.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

I know that Jessica Knurick has spoken on such issues before. She's a dietician and nutritionist with a large social media footprint, who does a lot of pseudoscience-debunking online (e.g. responding to bad health info by discussing systemic issues that impede people's access to healthy lifestyles)

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2025...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2025 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · 27d

"Are Americans becoming desensitized to violence?"

Just want to share this response from @raeshandalias.bsky.social

(By the way there have been more than 300 mass shootings in the USA so far in 2025, defined as "4 or more people killed or injured")

Quote source:
www.instagram.com/raeshanda_li...

Quote by RaeShanda Lias: Becoming? Desensitized? Are we not in the same America? Did you all forget that they used to take their children to lynchings? …they used to take their children, put them on their shoulders, and watch somebody else die, from a tree. They made a whole day out of it. So I’m not even sure what this question is about. This country has been desensitized to violence.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Sep 8

We jointly analyzed datasets of adaptive change (e.g. drug-resistance mutations) and independent measurements of mutation rates, across a number of species, and show that species-specific tendencies in adaptive evolution respond (statistically) to species-specific mutational tendencies.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Sep 8

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the outcomes of adaptive evolution are statistically enriched for not only beneficial mutations but also high-probability mutations; see our review of the literature: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

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Mutation bias and the predictability of evolution | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Predicting evolutionary outcomes is an important research goal in a diversity of contexts. The focus of evolutionary forecasting is usually on adaptive processes, and efforts to improve prediction typ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Sep 8

NEW PAPER! Some kinds of genetic mutations are more likely to arise than others. Such "biases" in mutation vary between species.

Analyzing data from 14 species, we show that this variation explains species differences in the genetics of adaptation!

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www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Graph showing a positive correlation between "bias in adaptive outcome" on the vertical axis and "mutation bias" on the horizontal axis, with 14 data points representing 14 respective species, with a line of best fit equal to a slope of 0.82 on the log-scale axes. Each data point contains horizontal and vertical error bars to illustrate the uncertainty in both the mutational and adaptive data. The 95% confidence interval of the slope is shown in parentheses (0.44 to 1.24), based on 10,000 simulated data sets, where the simulated data sets are based on statistical resampling of the empirical data (i.e. "bootstrap" data sets). Regression lines based on these bootstrap data sets are shown as light gray lines.

The type of bias reported here refers to the ratio of transitions versus transversions, where transitions are a DNA mutation that preserves the basic structure of the DNA base (i.e. a purine-to-purine or pyrimidine-to-pyrimidine mutation), and transversions are mutations that alter the structure of the DNA base at a particular site (i.e. replacing a purine with a pyrimidine or vice versa). In other words, this graph shows that transitions contribute more toward adaptive evolution in species where transitions arise at a higher rate.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Sep 6

Not only blasphemous but also seems to be contradicted by facts. Religious influence on public life has declined for centuries, not just in recent decades, accompanied by both periods of conflict & relative peace, with an overall upward trend in many metrics for social progress & quality of life.

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 28

In addition to the unconscionable act of taking people’s medicine away, this illustrates how fundamentally unserious they are about solving serious societal problems like gun violence.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 25

It’s such a great film!

Also I recall seeing a tumblr thread referring to that as the most flirtatious sword fight ever, and basically arguing that everyone in that movie is bi.

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Reposted by Bryan Gitschlag

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 22

The private for-profit prison industry has invested millions in political lobbying & campaign contributions.

…maybe something to keep in mind as we hear the people in power spreading fear of crime & defending the militarization of police.

www.opensecrets.org/industries/i...

For-profit Prisons Summary

Opensecret's money profile for the For-profit Prisons industry/interest group. See contributions and lobbying history.

www.opensecrets.org

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 22

Just gonna leave this here…

bsky.app/profile/brya...

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Jul 16

Just returning to highlight Zohran’s recent primary win as anecdotal support for this point 👆

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 22

The private for-profit prison industry has invested millions in political lobbying & campaign contributions.

…maybe something to keep in mind as we hear the people in power spreading fear of crime & defending the militarization of police.

www.opensecrets.org/industries/i...

For-profit Prisons Summary

Opensecret's money profile for the For-profit Prisons industry/interest group. See contributions and lobbying history.

www.opensecrets.org

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 19

Oh that looks like a Western Blue Jay! 🤩

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 18

it* 😑

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 18

Yeah if bewilders me that people—reasonable people, like in news media—analyze him as though he has complicated thoughts and strategies, knowing full well that the madness of 2016-2020 happened.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 12

My recollection is that the first 18 verses of John 1 was also a later addition, or at least this is a popular view among some scholars (my new testament professor was a scholar of John who held this view).

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 11

That's kind of along the lines of the concept of the Middle Path in Buddhism.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 8

Oh my God it's available in Python 👀

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 1

I gotta wonder if that percent goes up when you only sample atheists. Can’t help but notice it’s 7% if you add “God guided evolution” & “humans existed since beginning of time.”

One possibility is, a lower tendency to be religious might correlate with reduced reverence for the sanctity of polling.

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Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 1

I suppose another possible explanation is that some people aren’t black-&-white in thinking about God. Maybe they’re an atheist with respect to a literally-supernatural figure described in church, but they still use theistic language when pondering the mysteries & nature of the universe 🤷‍♂️

Bryan Gitschlag @bryangitschlag.bsky.social · Aug 1

I could imagine that. Almost seems like the evangelical fundamentalist’s impression of an atheist (“you know there’s a God, you’re just mad at him”).

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