Reese Richardson

The metaphors of artificial intelligence A few months after ChatGPT was released, the neural network pioneer Terrence Sejnowski wrote about coming to grips with the shock of what large language models (LLMs) could do: “Something is beginning...

And more reading from @melaniemitchell.bsky.social :

doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Additional reading from @bnerlich.bsky.social :

makingsciencepublic.com/2025/11/28/o...

Theory, Metaphor, Narrative: How Science Creates the Stories it Tells PHILIP BALL | Science is often not a competition between theories but a process of narrative creation in which the paradigm tends to be set by the most persuasive narrative

"...science is often not a competition between theories but a process of narrative creation in which the paradigm tends to be set by the most persuasive narrative—which is often the one that has the most intuitive and compelling metaphors."

@philipcball.bsky.social in Marginalia Review of Books

Lindow Man - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindow_...

A bog body in a display case. It looks like a hoodie that has been tumbling around a gutter for a few months.

Unbelievable what passes for "remarkably well-preserved" these days.

Why life is hot The process of evolution by natural selection leads to fitness-maximising phenotypes. On the level of cellular chemical reaction networks, maximising fitness can mean optimising a variety of fitness f...

What a great paper. Wilson Poon & colleagues argue that life isn't exactly trying to be energetically efficient, because it needs the heat to optimize other capabilities.
www.arxiv.org/abs/2512.04725

Katie Peichel, me, Jean-Louis Reymond at the reception

Me holding a big red tube with the certificate

The four honorary doctorate recipients holding their red tubes with Prof Dr Virginia Richter, Rectorin of Uni Bern, in the middle

Thank you so much @unibe.ch, Prof. Dr. Katie Peichel, and Dean Prof. Dr. Jean-Louis Reymond for awarding me an honorary doctorate for my work on #ResearchIntegrity.

Congrats to the other recipients as well.

What a wonderful ceremony!

www.unibe.ch/university/u...

Round of applause to PubPeer contributors 'Hymenoptychis sordida' & 'Nerita vitiensis'.
Also applause for the PP moderator who realised that the 1st comment was worth highlighting so that it rose to the top of the PP home page.
Inspiring me to put Fig 1 on Bsky so the rest of you could go WTF? too.

Publisher donating author fees from retracted articles to charity What should happen to the millions of dollars publishers rake in from authors whose work is later retracted?  Guillaume Cabanac, one of the developers of the Problematic Paper Screener, has re…

Likely not. I can only think of one instance of a publisher doing anything with the publication fees from retraction articles, precipitated by @gcabanac.cpesr.fr : retractionwatch.com/2023/12/29/p...

they must have misspelled "trains" in the prompt

In instances like this, I suspect that the article was not genuinely peer reviewed at all. @springernature.com rnature.com told @jacksonwryan.com that two reviewers and an editor missed it, which I find implausible if they were actually looking.
nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...

Alex Glynn has been collecting examples of undeclared AI use at www.academ-ai.info

Big congratulations to Dr. (+ Dr. Honoris Causa) @elisabethbik.bsky.social ❗👏

Mushroom pickers urged to avoid foraging books on Amazon that appear to be written by AI Sample of books scored 100% on AI detection test as experts warn they contain dangerous advice

Here's coverage in @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?

In instances like this, I suspect that the article was not genuinely peer reviewed at all. @springernature.com told @jacksonwryan.com that two reviewers and an editor missed it, which I find implausible if they were actually looking.
nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...

I am the autism meter bicycle

Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?

As for journalists: check out @jacksonwryan.com !
nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...

163.com is a pretty common domain for personal email addresses in China. Suspicious email addresses and domains are commonly used to spot problematic papers. However, I don't think using a personal email by itself is necessarily a red flag (some disagree).

£2190.00/$2690.00/€2390.00

AI generated figure about autism

The Scientifc Reports autism cycle article has been retracted: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

More open-access textbooks please!!!!

some favorites from this list:
* Geese - Getting Killed (duh)
* Deafheaven - Lonely People with Power
* Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound
* Ethel Cain - Perverts
* Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory - self titled

Figure from the paper showing six panels with red cells. I have added lots of colored boxes to highlight duplications. https://pubpeer.com/publications/981C24DC8085D84FAA610B07741F59#4

“the concerns pertaining to figs. 3, 4, and 5 which remain outstanding are unlikely to impact the wider conclusions of the article”

WHAT MORE is needed to impact an editor’s conclusion?

At least, an EoC was issued.

HT: @reeserichardson.bsky.social
#ResearchIntegrity
#ThisImageIsFine
#Academia

Frolicking through the snow, all bundled up, pulling a red sled behind me with a toddler gripping on for dear life

a kitten mid-bound through a meadow filled with white clover flowers. the caption reads "don't care + having fun + playing"

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨
Welcome to a new edition of the Research Integrity Advent Calendar.
Each day brings a small challenge: spot the problem, detect inconsistencies, and sharpen your skills.
Enjoy the season and the daily puzzles!
Day 1. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications...

An SEM image of pores in a surface. Red arrows point to structures labeled "pores" and "pillars". The metadata banner along the bottom of the image appears to have been fabricated, the dead giveaway being that the timestamp reads "15 Fab 2023".

According the instrument-generated metadata banner, these images were taken in Fabruary 2023.

Can you spot one of the (numerous) other issues?

Where progress on the encampment agreement stands, one year later About this time last year, Northwestern administrators and student demonstrators reached an agreement to end the pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow under several conditions. This agreement i...

Part of this agreement was to support new Palestinian faculty and students. It's unclear if these commitments are also dead. From April 2025:

dailynorthwestern.com/2025/04/30/c...

10. Northwestern shall terminate the “Deering Meadow Agreement” of April 29, 2024, and reverse all policies that have been implemented or are being implemented in adherence to it.

A 404 page on the Northwestern University website.

Elsewhere: these agreement made to end the 2024 Gaza encampment is dead (not that Northwestern had many substantive commitments in the first place). The agreement and former NU president Schill's statements about the agreement are now offline (unclear when this happened).

14. Northwestern will maintain a security infrastructure, including Northwestern University Police Department resources, private security assets, and cooperation arrangements with local, regional, and federal law enforcement, that is sufficiently resourced to prevent and investigate violations of law or Northwestern’s policies and is reasonably equipped to intervene in violations while they are occurring, when practicable, so that violators could be apprehended and face appropriate discipline.

18. Northwestern shall prohibit wearing of face masks or facial coverings for the purposes of concealment of an individual’s identity, and shall consistently enforce that prohibition against anyone who fails to comply with a request, directive, or instruction of University officials acting in performance of their duties to remove face masks or coverings for purposes of identification.

Elsewhere: these provisions make it clear that Northwestern is in violation of the agreement if they do not immediately identify/apprehend people taking part in unapproved speech.