Academia has a problem in elevating terrible people into positions of power. "Sure, this person is a narcissist and sociopath, but they get things done! That's a bargain I'm willing to make."

It is indeed hard to get things done in academia, so I understand the temptation. But it often ends badly.

It's Friday, and apparently bluesky is ready for this fun revelation:

Dinosaurs lived on the other side the Galaxy.

But I was told that the best way of dealing with bullies was to give them your lunch money so they wouldn't hit you any more.

YouTube video by University of California Television (UCTV) Conversations with History: Victor F. Weisskopf

1988 interview with physicist Victor Weisskopf. We overlapped at MIT when he was emeritus and I was a postdoc, but I never really chatted with him (because I'm an idiot). In 1934 he and Wolfgang Pauli wrote the first paper insisting that everything is quantum fields!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=utZY...

Title card for Kevin Zollman episode of #MindscapePodcast

Mindscape 337 | Kevin Zollman @kevinzollman.com on Game Theory, Signals, and Meaning. #MindscapePodcast

www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025...

Join us at the Greene Space to meet SciFri Host IRA FLATOW and Physicist Dr. Sean M. Carroll! Hosted by WNYC and Science Friday.

Join SciFri and @wnyc.org this Friday, Dec. 5 at 6:00 p.m. for an evening of physics, philosophy, and fun with podcast host @heyira.bsky.social and award-winning physicist and author @seanmcarroll.bsky.social. Use code “WNYC” for 50% off tickets here: buff.ly/ouCkqOi

AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.

“Ultimately, the collective strategy of AI companies threatens to deskill precisely those people who are essential for society to function(…) automation of knowledge and culture by private companies is a worrying prospect – conjuring dystopian and outright fascistic scenarios.” — @olivia.science

AI tools are 'deskilling' workers, philosophy professor says A philosophy professor warns that AI reliance is weakening workers' judgment, creativity, and problem-solving.

We can't really say this enough...

> Anastasia Berg [at UCL Irvine] said that new research — and what she's hearing directly from colleagues across various industries — shows that employees who heavily rely on AI are losing core skills at a startling rate.

www.businessinsider.com/ai-tools-are...

Left: washing machine with the words “Critical Washing” on it. Right: Quote: “When we critique AI, we should do so with intellectual honesty and in a principled way. Utmost care is needed to avoid ethics washing, greenwashing, and generally — what we dub — critical washing. (…) Researching and reflecting on the harms of AI is not itself harm reduction. It may even contribute to rationalizing, normalizing, and enabling harm. Critical reflection without appropriate action is thus quintessentially critical washing.” —Suarez, Müller, Guest, & van Rooij (2025) https://zenodo.org/records/15677840

YouTube video by Reuters Federal funding cuts could 'cripple science,' says Nobel Prize winner | REUTERS

Good to see John standing up for science

youtube.com/watch?v=7Vcm...

‘Data manipulations’ alleged in study that paved the way for Microsoft’s quantum chip Internal emails from 2021 reveal tensions among researchers hunting for elusive Majorana particle

Further unreliable research from @qutech.bsky.social and @msftresearch.bsky.social covered by @averyorrall.bsky.social from @retractionwatch.com. I shared details which I wanted to share within a confidential investigation of @tudelft.nl but it was shut down...
www.science.org/content/arti... 1/n

AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.

“the techno-fascist assault on universities increasingly comes from within. (…) Far from offering genuine solutions, these technologies exacerbate social injustices and corrode the ecosystem of human knowledge.”

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a...

Open access link: archive.ph/ZHGCm

Next talk from the #NaturalPhilosophy Symposium is Jennifer Nagel on The Natural Structure of Common Knowledge, with commentary by Steven Gross.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEiQ...

An Evening Of Physics And Philosophy With Dr. Sean M. Carroll Host Ira Flatow will be joined by award-winning physicist Dr. Sean M. Carroll to discuss his book, “The Biggest Ideas in the Universe.”

My book The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is the Dec. selection for the @scifri.bsky.social Book Club!

www.sciencefriday.com/sf-books/big...

And if you happen to be in NYC on Dec 5, a small in-person event with Ira Flatow and me:

www.sciencefriday.com/articles/sea...

'He routinely disables them for every app he uses — a task becoming more complex as tech companies embrace AI.
“It feels like a con to me"'

And "The deskilling, denigration, and displacement of teachers and scholars have historically been central to fascist takeovers, since educators serve as bulwarks against propaganda, anti-intellectualism, and illiteracy."

The Physics of News, Rumors, and Opinions The boundaries between physical and social networks have narrowed with the advent of the Internet and its pervasive platforms. This has given rise to a complex adaptive information ecosystem where ind...

arXiv alert! 📄🚨
A review paper about the physics of news, rumors, and opinions
arxiv.org/abs/2510.15053
w @manlius.bsky.social @sarawalk.bsky.social Guido Cadarelli et al.

Universities resist relationship bans as new rules come in Institutions including Liverpool and Southampton to continue to ‘discourage’, rather than prohibit, staff-student relationships despite new regulations, as others opt for partial bans

Several English universities have introduced partial bans on staff-student relationships ahead of new regulations coming into force today, while Liverpool and Southampton have said that they will ‘discourage’, rather than prohibit, staff-student relationships

Me for @timeshighered.bsky.social

What OfS’ data on harassment and sexual misconduct doesn’t tell us Anna Bull explores the latest OfS findings on the prevalence of harassment and sexual misconduct — and why they're only one piece of a puzzle on student safety.

Here's my take on new data on sexual violence and harassment released today from England's Office for Students.

wonkhe.com/blogs/what-o...

Very eager to dig into this and see if there's a tie in with Babbage's proto-computer being tied to plantation management and control of Black femme bodies, as described in logicmag.io/supa-dupa-sk...

Why AI transparency is not enough Recently, a taxonomy to disclose the use of generative AI (genAI) in research outputs was presented as an approach that creates transparency and thereby supports responsible genAI use. In this post we...

“The delegation of tasks to “tools & assistants” constitutes a methodological decision (…) Researchers should therefore be required to explain why they are trusting a black box that is neither open nor fair.”
— @altibel.bsky.social & @petertarras.bsky.social

www.leidenmadtrics.nl/articles/why...

Ants! What can't they do?

Since last year Physics swallowed Computer Science whole and the Nobel was given for machine learning, my list of plausible prizes remains unaltered.

After stretching a bit last year, this year the Nobel committee was determined to give the prize to the physicsiest physics that ever physicsed.

Mirowski:"a new development seeks to monetize nearly all aspects of the research process...under the rubric of 'open science'....commercial interests behind top journal publishers are pursuing control over 'open science' by imposing the structures of 'platform capitalism' upon the research process."

The myth of meritocracy inspires the implicit assumption that someone’s degree of success reflects their level of competence and skill.

I think that this is one of the most toxic myths of our time.

"live thru" you're so positive lolsob

Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

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There is absolutely no good faith reason to use the term “AI” for any technology one is selling.

It serves only for dazzling people into thinking the technology has capabilities that it doesn’t.

If one wants a technology to be trustworthy, just use a transparent, informative term without hype.

This is dehumanisation. If you're interested start here Erscoi, L., Kleinherenbrink, A., & Guest, O. (2023). Pygmalion Displacement: When Humanising AI Dehumanises Women. SocArXiv. doi.org/10.31235/osf...