Elijah Watson

When there is a random way to do something, there is a less random way that is better but requires more thought. In this case, regression models that make no sense don't belong in a multiverse analysis. An inferential regression without a causal justification is like an opinion without reasons.

We're excited to share the final version of our paper, where we demonstrate how confounding remains a thorny problem for claims about causal genetic influences on human behavioral and socioeconomic outcomes. (w/ @jedidiahcarlson.com @oliviarxiv.bsky.social Ruth Shaw @arbelharpak.bsky.social) 🧵👇

Ouch

UGA is hiring a biological anthropologist. Come work with me!

www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/457...

What a hell of a story. This reporter moved mountains in this one. 70+ sources, threats from officials, and more but he just kept on it

My wife & I went through the appeal & external review process—on our own, without support of a healthcare provider’s insurance staff or a lawyer—and won coverage for her previously denied surgeries.

We learned 2 things: 1) insurance companies are sloppy & 2) they assume you are too dumb to notice.

Opinion | A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness

honestly the only piece worth reading on the platner situation. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social is absolutely cooking here. (gift link)

Assistant Professor of Anthropology in Human Reproductive Ecology APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

🚨Social scientists! @psuanthro.bsky.social & @ssripennstate.bsky.social are hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor exploring how social & ecological environments shape reproduction, growth, &/or development. Review starts soon! Please share widely! psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

A "methods primer" article in the journal "BMJ Medicine", titled "Factors associated with: problems of using exploratory multivariable regression to identify causal risk factors"

We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?

And you can pray em-dashes from my cold dead hands, too

The Population Problem: Biological Anthropology and the Many Definitions of a Population Objectives With a focus on variability, biological anthropology has nominally centered the population as a key unit of analysis and node of evolutionary change. In this paper, we examine constructio...

Excited to finally have this article out with @robingnelson.blacksky.app. Although we have nominally centered populations as our unit of evolutionary analysis in biological anthropology, we have no coherent understanding of what a population is. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

One day you're grad school roommates in the dankest apt in Ann Arbor; 20 years later you write a paper together. To friendship and scholarship -

On populations & our poor operationalization of the concept w/
@apv2600.bsky.social

onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/10.1002/...

High rates of polygyny do not lock large proportions of men out of the marriage market | PNAS There is a widespread belief, in both the scholarly literature and the popular press, that polygyny prevents large numbers of men from marrying by ...

🚨 The Economist has been telling you for years that polygamy causes civil war by locking men out of marriage. A new article with @rebeccasear.bsky.social and @anthrolog.bsky.social explains that the demography of marriage markets doesn't actually work that way. 🧵

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

An ambitious state government would fund its university system *better* right now and scoop up the talent that places like Harvard are going to be shutting out over the next few years....

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero

The recording is now available so that you can confirm that I indeed have a German accent and color-match my outfits with my Zoom background.

youtu.be/YL0co26ng-g?...

Photo of the crowd at Grant Park, Chicago for the No Kings protest

#NoKings Chicago

My water bottle leaked on my laptop and fried it. Of course it‘s on the day I have an article deadline and week I’m trying to submit job applications. 🙃

(My data is backed up and my insurance covers water damage…I can write from my iPad and my janky Bluetooth keyboard for now)

Simulate Data from a DAG and Associated Node Information Simulate complex data from a given directed acyclic graph and information about each individual node. Root nodes are simply sampled from the specified distribution. Child Nodes are simulated according...

I'm starting to explore {simDAG}, a nifty #rstats package that has a nice API for specifying DAGs and then simulating data from them: robindenz1.github.io/simDAG/

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds: Insights from acoustic recordings and community science On 8 April 2024, a total solar eclipse disrupted light-dark cycles for North American birds during the lead-up to spring reproduction. Compiling more than 10,000 community observations and artificial ...

I have to fan-girl for a minute here. My friend @rosvall-lab.bsky.social built an app to gather data on bird behavior during the 2024 solar eclipse. 10,000+ citizen scientists contributed (including my kids), and the resulting paper was published in Science today!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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...

Terrible news. Thinking of my collaborators in Cebu...

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.

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.

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.

at the passport office and there is no way I’m getting out of here in the next three hours 🙃

Forgot to add alt text to the image of the book… it’s titled ”Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer”

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

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...

"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"

Vaccines cause adults
Tylenol causes pain relief
Neurodiversity is good