Elijah Watson
@elijahjwatson.bsky.social
930 followers 2.4K following 95 posts
anthropologist/biodemographer interested in early life stress, epigenetics, aging, and causal inference 🧬⏳📈 PhD (biological anthropology) & MPH (epidemiology) candidate at Northwestern | NIA F31 fellow Tar Heel 🐏 https://ejwatson.github.io
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Reposted by Elijah Watson
sciencevs.bsky.social
This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
Terrible news. Thinking of my collaborators in Cebu...
nytimes.com
Six people were killed in a strong earthquake in the Philippines on Tuesday night, according to officials and news reports. The 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook the province of Cebu, home to 3.2 million people, just before 10 p.m. local time.
Earthquake in Philippines Kills at Least 6, Officials and News Reports Say
The 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook the province of Cebu, home to 3.2 million people, just before 10 p.m. local time.
nyti.ms
Reposted by Elijah Watson
nytimes.com
Six people were killed in a strong earthquake in the Philippines on Tuesday night, according to officials and news reports. The 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook the province of Cebu, home to 3.2 million people, just before 10 p.m. local time.
Earthquake in Philippines Kills at Least 6, Officials and News Reports Say
The 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook the province of Cebu, home to 3.2 million people, just before 10 p.m. local time.
nyti.ms
Reposted by Elijah Watson
rmcelreath.bsky.social
This covers some important sources of bias that arise from naive control strategies. Of value even if you don't care about the life-satisfaction ~ age association.
tsrauf.bsky.social
Life satisfaction mostly declines with age. Previous findings (esp. the famous U-shaped age-SWB trajectory) were artifacts of misspecified models. doi.org/10.1093/esr/...
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
at the passport office and there is no way I’m getting out of here in the next three hours 🙃
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
Forgot to add alt text to the image of the book… it’s titled ”Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer”
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
Excited to be reading this great new book from @mgurven.bsky.social!

Already loving the first chapter — so helpful to have a book like this on the evolutionary anthropology and demography of aging as I’m writing up my dissertation
Reposted by Elijah Watson
rebeccasear.bsky.social
"Rather than offering a prescriptive checklist, we frame this toolkit as an opening: a step toward anthropological causal inference that integrates transparency, theoretical & methodological coherence, & the epistemological commitments of the biocultural synthesis in human biology & anthropology"
Toward New Directions in Human Biology: A Roadmap for Anthropological Causal Inference With Observational Data
Human biologists seek to understand how cultural, environmental, and biological forces shape observed patterns of human variation. Yet contemporary insights and approaches to observational causal inf...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Reposted by Elijah Watson
waiterich.bsky.social
Vaccines cause adults
Tylenol causes pain relief
Neurodiversity is good
Reposted by Elijah Watson
davidcorn.bsky.social
This ought to be engraved somewhere.
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
Grateful to build on related recent work — especially @dingdingpeng.the100.ci for translating causal inference fundamentals to new audiences, @ianlundberg.bsky.social & @bstewart.bsky.social et al. on estimands and IBE, and Sharon Schwartz & @sethjprins.bsky.social on realized causal inference.
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
We hope this roadmap is a useful resource for colleagues in human biology and biocultural anthropology, as well as for those in allied fields seeking to understand human health and biology through observational survey data.

(4/4)
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
We argue that such analyses are already implicitly causal, and that their credibility and clarity can be enhanced by explicitly engaging with contemporary causal inference frameworks that are widely adopted in other fields but remain underutilized in ours.

(3/4)
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
In human biology and biocultural anthropology, researchers often include covariates in regression models to handle potential confounding—but this is rarely framed as causal inference.

(2/4)
elijahjwatson.bsky.social
finished a full draft of my main dissertation paper last night in time for a conference paper deadline ✍️
and just sent corrected journal proofs for another that was accepted for publication last week 🎉

now I just want to sleep for two days straight
Reposted by Elijah Watson
mpidr.bsky.social
🚨Job Offer🚨PhD Student Position
The @lshtm.bsky.social, in partnership with the @mpidr.bsky.social is opening an 18-month Research Assistant position, with the successful candidate embarking on a PhD program at LSHTM.
www.demogr.mpg.de/en/career_61...
@ezagheni.bsky.social #phd #jobs #demography
Reposted by Elijah Watson
mehdirhasan.bsky.social
The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents.

In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.
Reposted by Elijah Watson
simonwdc.bsky.social
This is a public health emergency for the whole country.
the-independent.com
BREAKING | DeSantis to make Florida first state to end all vaccine mandates for schools
DeSantis to make Florida first state to end all vaccine mandates for schools
www.independent.co.uk
Reposted by Elijah Watson
chanda.blacksky.app
I refuse to give em dashes to the AI
Reposted by Elijah Watson
markzaidesq.bsky.social
Abbe Lowell and I represent CDC Director #SusanMonarez. Contrary to govt statements, Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor yet been fired. She will not resign. We have issued the following statement: