Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 1d

Gee, what could go wrong?

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 1d

From @theathletic.com: The NCAA Division I Administrative Committee approved a recommendation to allow college athletes to legally wager on professional sports.

NCAA Division I votes to allow college athletes to bet on professional sports

If Division II and Division III also vote to approve the change, the new rules will go into effect Nov. 1.

nyti.ms

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 2d

A little over a decade ago today, I was almost killed by a drunk driver on my way home from work. So, this is my annual reminder (whenever I can remember) to ask people to please not drink & drive. Smash chocolate milk or Sour Apple Ryse energy drinks instead.

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 7d

"Open Availability and Access to your pre-registrations, data, code, and materials doesn't care about your feelings."

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Marcus Krueger @trustedsystem.bsky.social · 10d

„This happens when people who are legitimate experts in one specific scientific area suddenly start LARPing like they’re experts in every scientific area.“

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 10d

If expertise has died, the wound was partly self-inflicted. Check out my latest article where I argue that some of today’s most popular science communicators have traded credibility for attention, sadly become BS-spewing hype machines: bit.ly/4gKsSIu

The "death of expertise" was an assisted suicide

You either die a scientific hero or you live long enough to become a firehose of bullshit

bit.ly

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · 7d

If scientific experts have lost their authority and reputation, that is in large part the result of their own epistemic trespassing—orating confidently about topics they know little about—or peddling dubious claims, argues bullshitologist @metacognishane.bsky.social:

buff.ly/lTHEK4b

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 10d

If expertise has died, the wound was partly self-inflicted. Check out my latest article where I argue that some of today’s most popular science communicators have traded credibility for attention, sadly become BS-spewing hype machines: bit.ly/4gKsSIu

The "death of expertise" was an assisted suicide

You either die a scientific hero or you live long enough to become a firehose of bullshit

bit.ly

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 10d

Her channel's great! I've been subscribed for the past year or so (linked to one of her vids in my article, too). 🙂

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 10d

If expertise has died, the wound was partly self-inflicted. Check out my latest article where I argue that some of today’s most popular science communicators have traded credibility for attention, sadly become BS-spewing hype machines: bit.ly/4gKsSIu

The "death of expertise" was an assisted suicide

You either die a scientific hero or you live long enough to become a firehose of bullshit

bit.ly

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Nina Wang @ninawang.bsky.social · 24d

I am recruiting (Canadian🇨🇦) graduate students at York University for Fall 2026 in Social and Personality Psychology! If you are interested in misinformation, political polarization, and/or computational social science, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · 24d

If you ever want to see the "Dunning Kruger Effect" in action, just do a word search for it on LinkedIn and you'll instantly find dozens (if not hundreds) of examples of people confidently trying to explain it but getting it totally wrong. More here:
jerz.setonhill.edu/blog/2020/04...

Fake Graph: The Actual "Dunning-Kruger Effect" Is NOTHING Like I Thought It Was - Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)

For years, I’ve been teaching a fake graph. In pretty much every course I teach, on some day when students seem discouraged or distracted, I’ll draw an X axis labeled “Experience” and a Y-axis labeled...

jerz.setonhill.edu

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 5

Just launched a Substack about the science of nonsense; why people believe wild conspiracy theories, fall for propaganda, and speak fluent corporate gibberish.

If you're into science, critical thinking, or just need a break from the 🗑️🔥🌎, come hang out: bullshitology.substack.com

Bullshitology | Shane Littrell | Substack

Bullshitology explores why smart people can believe dumb things. Blending cognitive science, skepticism, and snark to correct our intellectual blind spots and improve everyone’s bullshit detectors. Cl...

bullshitology.substack.com

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Tanay Katiyar @adigitaltanay.bsky.social · Aug 29

On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · Aug 28

Bullshitologist extraordinaire @metacognishane.bsky.social notes that, alarmingly, what his custom-made Corporate Bullshit Generator produces is indistinguishable from the genuine article, and zooms in on two popular types of BS—evasive and persuasive:

buff.ly/gHZBY94

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 27

New post is up, discussing two recent examples of organizations trying to bullshit the public. Check it out when you get time!

bullshitology.substack.com/p/down-the-c...

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 22

Few things smell more delicious than my kitchen when I'm making Carolina mustard sauce and Memphis BBQ sauce.

Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · Aug 22

How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we see the world? Wonderful piece in @sciam.bsky.social by @norabradford.bsky.social, ft. an interview with @dorsaamir.bsky.social about our work on the 'cultural byproduct hypothesis'.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...

Why a Classic Psychology Theory about Vision Has Fallen Apart

The downfall of a long-standing theory in psychology raises a question: How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we literally see the world?

www.scientificamerican.com

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 20

From my own research, I came up w/ the "Four F's of Procrastination" as a simple way to sum up the emotional causes: Fear, Frustration, Fatigue, and....Boredom.

Obviously, "boredom" really messes up the alliterative flow. So, I thought it'd be funnier if I still called it the 4 Fs anyway. 😅

Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 20

Yeah, generally proc is just a dysfunctional attempt at emotional self-regulation. The trigger(s) are largely context-specific, though, so the academic proc literature just examines what factors drive it in that specific context.

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 19

I started out as a proc researcher. Never finished my 1st masters in I-O b/c I never finished my thesis paper on academic procrastination (the irony is kinda hilarious). I finally finished it when I got another masters about 10 yrs later (it's a terrible paper, tho): scholar.utc.edu/cgi/viewcont...

scholar.utc.edu

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 16

Joey Swoll's next video gonna be about him.

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · Aug 13

Too much bullshit is being produced about the very topic of Bullshit, @metacognishane.bsky.social argues.

And he comprehensively puts us right:

buff.ly/CybLMe4

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 12

New Substack post is up! Check it out if you have time.

"Bullshit: What it is, what it isn't, and what everyone gets wrong about Frankfurt"
open.substack.com/pub/bullshit...

Bullshit: What it is, what it isn't, and what everyone gets wrong about Frankfurt

Okay, maybe not "everyone"

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

ana gantman @anagantman.bsky.social · Aug 6

@paulbloomatyale.bsky.social @jowylie.bsky.social, and I are starting to study everyday revenge. Have you ever successfully got back at someone after being wronged? We would love to hear about it:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#PsychSciSky #socialpsyc #cognition

Everyday Revenge

We are interested in stories of everyday revenge—cases where you successfully got back at someone after being wronged. Please think up an experience of when you took revenge and tell us about it. Pl...

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Shane Littrell, PhD

Aaron Meyers @aaronmeyers.bsky.social · Aug 6

The pancreatic cancer vaccine trials have been so promising, this would have been a literal life saver for so many and now its gone. I cant tell you how heart breaking this is. Horror after horror with this administration.

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · Aug 5

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the beginning of a coordinated wind-down of its mRNA vaccine development activities...."

cc: Sen. Bill Cassidy

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Shane Littrell, PhD @metacognishane.bsky.social · Aug 5

The inciting incident is that someone steals his manuscript and kills his funding.

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