alex ioannidis

Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows First major attempt to chart researchers’ views finds interpretations in conflict.

So meta:

“There is no quantum world,” said physicist Anton Zeilinger, outlining his view that quantum states exist only in his head and that they describe information, rather than reality. “I disagree,” replied Alain Aspect, who shared the 2022 Nobel prize with Zeilinger.

Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen would have a lot to say about the modern leftism of elite America.

"What this event revealed, more than anything, is the tension between public persona and private reality. Mamdani campaigns on economic justice, police reform, and housing equity. But his family wealth, private armed security..."

www.economictimes.com/news/interna...

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun - with intro

A classic...

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

Tom Lehrer, influential musical satirist, dies at 97 The songwriter and math professor found a following with his satirical political songs.

"He retired from public performances in the 1970s and focused on teaching. He taught for many years at the University of California, Santa Cruz, splitting his time between there and Cambridge."

Tom Lehrer had it all figured out. RIP to one of my heroes.

www.npr.org/2025/07/27/8...

A young woman, in a dark dress and pink head scarf, feeds a bottle to a malnourished child. A headline reads: "Starvation Haunts Gaza Hospitals." Photo by Bilal Shbair for The New York Times.

After restrictions on aid imposed by Israel, medics in Gaza are fainting in hospitals and lack supplies to stop patients’ malnourishment. “The expression ‘skin and bones’ doesn’t do it justice.” nyti.ms/3J5WDXp

References

Harald means Ioannidis et al. Nature 2021, not Ioannidis et al., Nature 2020, which is about something else entirely.

Also, I referenced a paper Harald reviewed [Moreno-Mayar et al., Nature 2024], which replicated the Rapa Nui founder effect that we showed in the above 2022 preprint.

Anyway, the 2021 paper shows no evidence of significant later genetic contact. (See F4 stats, there's nothing to "correct" on those.)

The 2021 paper also noted that cultural contact btw islands had been proven by traded obsidian. Cultural contact is fascinating, but it is orthogonal to this debate.

Ancestry-specific analyses of genome-wide data confirm the settlement sequence of Polynesia By demonstrating the role that historical population replacements and waves of admixture have played around the world, the genetics work of Reich and colleagues has provided a paradigm for understandi...

As explained here arxiv.org/abs/2212.03197 the linked model does not show this. Also as shown here (replicated later in Nature 2024), Rapa Nui genetics is dominated by a founder effect, not later inter-island contact. Harald is a reviewer listed on that 2024 paper, so I take it he approved of that.

To be clear I am not arguing strongly for or against using race for college admissions, but all the Supreme Court justices appointed by a Democrat (three) did argue for, and I believe most supporters of Mamdani on here would argue for, and I believe he would too, so I'm reasoning in that framework.

Perhaps these two links are helpful to understand the US context. (Image from the 2023 US Supreme Court case, first link.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student...

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/u...

It would be better, but the US is allergic to socialism (so income is out). Zip code is interesting; California is trying something like it (demographics of each high school), though more as a proxy for race than income, since its voters have barred it from using race directly via a referendum.

bsky.app/profile/alex...
Mamdani went to an elite Upper West Side private middle school and then tracked into a top NY magnet public high school. He understood identities well, and that Columbia considered race in admissions, as his father was a prof of Anthropology & African studies at Columbia.

bsky.app/profile/alex...

If you believe identity boxes should not be used for college admissions, then you are right.

If you believe they are important (and Mamdani is running on a platform that frequently emphasizes identity, so to him and to admissions officers at the time they were important), then this is fraud.

I would advise those US profs on here, who pretend not to understand what this is about due to their misplaced party loyalty, to come to east Oakland where I live, and I will show them.

The criticism I've seen on here seems directed at the NY Times for reporting a story that I suspect the Black community of New York, (who did not much support Mamdani), will find interesting. There is also criticism of the source, but whistleblowers take risks & will never be people w/ much to lose.

Mamdani's mother is a movie producer from India & his father is a prof from a colonial era family that came to British Africa from British India & like many other South Asian families (Freddie Mercury) were evicted from east Africa when it threw-off British associations. His father however returned.

Elon is more African than Mamdani, having spent a decade longer in his natal South Africa. Whatever your view on the attempt to include more Black students in university, those efforts are not for Elon Musk or Mamdani, (& imo should not be for Columbia profs children or wealthy private school kids).

The box said "Black or African American" because these are the two ways that community in the US identifies. Mamdani knows this, bc his father is a prof of African studies at Columbia. The objective is to include members of a community that suffered slavery and myriad later forms of discrimination.

As the 1st person from my public school to go to an Ivy League...exposed to these privileged (and to me at the time intimidating) kids from elite public & private schools & locales, with elite parents, many of whom ticked such boxes, who still sees this issue in faculty today, I'm very disturbed.

I'm disturbed by tenured faculty on here behaving like high school bullies.

I ask them to look up ad hominem and recognize that what Mamdani did was atrocious and newsworthy.

Why are we defending an uber-privileged applicant whose father was faculty at the Ivy League university he was applying to?

’We couldn’t live without it’: the UCSC Genome Browser turns 25 After a quarter of a century, the website remains an essential tool for navigating the genome and understanding its structure, function and clinical impact.

After a quarter of a century, the UCSC Genome Browser remains an essential tool for navigating the genome and understanding its structure, function and clinical impact

https://go.nature.com/40wPxkB

It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of our friend and colleague Dr. Atul Butte. A hui hou Atul. We will miss you.

bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Sad.

I have an opportunity to hire a staff scientist for my lab. Looking for someone with outstanding skillset in ML/statistics, genomics applications; interest in mentoring, strong publication record, PD experience required.

Email CV to me+cc my assistant (see 'contact' on my website). Ad to follow.

Rare ‘ambidextrous’ protein breaks rules of handedness Most proteins are left-handed, but scientists have found an ancient molecule that works in both mirror-image forms.

Most proteins are left-handed, but scientists have found an ancient molecule that works in both mirror-image forms

https://go.nature.com/4mCImRm

bsky.app/profile/jpar...