Mark Rubin

Mum says Glasgow University ‘failed’ son who took his own life after grade error Geography student Ethan Brown should have been awarded a 2:1 degree but was wrongly told he could not graduate.

"The QAA report described the university's code of assessment as 'convoluted' and said there was a risk of inconsistent interpretation and decision-making at exam boards throughout the institution."

#UKHE #AcademicSky

Non-adjustment for multiple testing in multi-arm trials of distinct treatments: Rationale and justification - Richard A Parker, Christopher J Weir, 2020 There is currently a lack of consensus and uncertainty about whether one should adjust for multiple testing in multi-arm trials of distinct treatments. A detail...

Great paper! Another good one is Parker and Weir (2020):

"If a type I error rate is of great concern for a given treatment, then this should be addressed by the individual α-levels themselves – not indirectly via controlling the overall FWER [familywise error rate]."

A causal theory of suppositional reasoning - Philosophical Studies Philosophical Studies - Suppositions can be classified as indicative versus subjunctive and full versus partial. We propose a causal account of suppositional reasoning that naturally unifies all...

New paper distinguishes between four types of suppositional reasoning

#PhilSky

All for it! From memory, something like this was adaopted by some journals previously. Forgot what they called it.

Stop Formatting Before the Desk Reject: A Proposal for Staged Submissions Many flagship journals reject most manuscripts at the desk-review stage, with rates of 40–80% being common

Stop Formatting Before the Desk Reject

Proposal from @bnbakker.bsky.social and @jakobkas.bsky.social for a staged submission process when submitting manuscripts to academic journals.

#AcademicSky #PhDSky #AcWri

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya talks 'replication crisis' at Duke panel, omits funding cuts Throughout the second Trump administration, the NIH has frozen billions of dollars in research funding to universities. Those cuts were not the topic of discussion at a Duke Clinical Research Institut...

NIH - "The research arm of MAHA”

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, calls for a greater emphasis on applied research, especially in connection with Make America Healthy Again.

#AcademicSky #MetaSci 🧪

Do you have a 2:1 Bachelor (Honours) degree or international equivalent in a non-psychology subject but an interest in studying psychology?

Consider joining us at Durham University - UK Times 2026 University of the Year - for a one-year MSc Psychology (Conversion).

#AcademicSky #EduSky #HigherEd

Call for metascience grants has a focus on three areas:

🔸️ The impact of artificial intelligence on scientific practice and the research landscape

🔸️ The effective design and leadership of research organisations

🔸️ Scientometrics approaches to understanding research excellence, efficiency and equity

High-resolution map shows dark matter's gravity pulled normal matter into galaxies Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets.

Dark Matter Map

"Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets."

#News #Science 🧪

To think clearly about this, one must recognize the distinction between the substantive theory T (causal, or compositional, or both) being appraised and some statistical hypothesis H* that supposedly flows from it. Hardly any statistics textbooks and, so far as I have been able to find out, hardly any statistics or psychology professors lecturing on this process bother to make that distinction, let alone emphasize it. A substantive causal theory, such as Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance or Meehl’s theory of schizotaxia, consists of a set of statements about theoretical entities that are causally connected in certain ways, and these statements are never equivalent to a mere assertion about such and such a population parameter. Despite this obvious conceptual difference between T and H*, there is an almost irresistible temptation to move from a small p value in a significance test, via a high confidence that H*: δ > 0, to a (similarly high) confidence that the substantive theory T (which entailed that nonzero directional δ) is true, or at least has high verisimilitude. The trouble is that the directional nonzero δ can be derived from other theories than T, and in the “soft” areas of psychology a sizable number of those competing theories have plausibility.

Paul Meehl (1997, p. 401):

“There is an almost irresistible temptation to move from a small p value in a significance test, via a high confidence that [statistical hypothesis] H*: δ > 0, to a (similarly high) confidence that the substantive theory T...is true”

meehl.umn.edu/sites/meehl....

#Stats

The second important circumstance to have in mind is that in planning an experiment, we usually have in mind the verification of a hypothesis [h] which is not a statistical hypothesis. In order to be able to use the theory of statistics, an experiment is planned and it is postulated that its outcome will determine particular values of some random variables. Regarding these random variables, a statistical hypothesis H is then formulated so as to be intimately related to the nonstatistical hypothesis [h]. However, H is never identical with [h].

In spite of efforts to achieve a close connection between the primary non-statistical hypothesis [h] and the corresponding statistical hypothesis H, this connection is frequently loose and there is the most unfortunate possibility of one being correct while the other is false. In this case the frequency of correct conclusions regarding the statistical hypothesis tested may be in perfect agreement with the predictions of the power function, but not the frequency of correct conclusions regarding the primary hypothesis [h].

Jerzy Neyman (1950, p. 290) on the distinction between “statistical” and “nonstatistical” (primary) hypotheses.
archive.org/details/firs...

"[The] connection is frequently loose and there is the most unfortunate possibility of one being correct while the other is false."

#Stats #statstab

Hypothesis or Model?

"Although many scientists use the term 'hypothesis' when they mean 'model,' we will maintain the distinction that the hypothesis is an unproven premise whereas the model is data derived, to discriminate between 'top-down premise/
deduction' and 'bottom-up data/induction'.”

The Iowa Gambling Task is an extreme example of Jingle Fallacy and schmeasurement.

In 100 articles we found 244 different ways of scoring it, 177 were never reused. Correlations between them range -.99 to .99.

At the same time, we show meta-analyses combine these results as if they’re equivalent.

Maybe!

There are so many potentially influential factors though that I think we need to use theory and background knowledge to make educated guesses about what might matter.

They don't mention it explicitly, but I'm sure they'd also welcome philosophical takes on those issues. Maybe get in touch with them if in doubt.

"Even something as apparently mundane as moving an experiment from one floor of a building to another can cause researchers to struggle to reproduce their own results."

One in a million chances are happening to us all the time; they're just not ones we care about!

Interesting stuff!

"Empirical scientific reports are about characterizing effects, not about describing the abilities of scientists. A bias that influences the former is a serious problem, but a bias that influences the latter is mostly irrelevant."

#SocialPsyc #PsycSci #AcademicSky #Methodology

Towards a habit-rupture model of intergroup contact in everyday settings - Nature Reviews Psychology The literature assumes that intergroup contact is naturally occurring, positive and consistently associated with positive outcomes, but these premises are inconsistent with everyday intergroup contact...

#AcademicSky #PrejudiceResearch

New paper out by Paolini et al. on habit-ruptures in intergroup contact

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

(If you like that, our also team has a related paper in press at American Psychologist, led by Rose Meleady)
psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

#SocialPsyc

EASP Correction

"Our statement indicating that 'the Association could only rely on hearsay and did not have any evidence for the misconduct' was inaccurate. We would like to sincerely apologize for this error and, in particular for our use of the word 'hearsay', which came across as dismissive."

See also...

This paper highlights an ideological neglect in the scientific community’s study of trust in science. While science skepticism (e.g., science denial, anti-scientific conspiracy theories, belief in pseudoscience) has deservedly received vast attention, the opposite extreme - uncritical trust in science (scientism) - is largely overlooked. Scientism idealizes science as all-powerful, capable of establishing absolute truth and solving all problems, while simultaneously exhibiting an unwillingness to accept criticism of its limitations. Despite being notably under-researched, rare findings suggest scientistic beliefs share a similar cognitive footprint with anti-scientific beliefs, being positively related to dogmatism and negatively to cognitive reflection and general cognitive abilities. Outcomes of this uncritical trust include vulnerability to “scientific signaling”, i.e., to meaningless claims using quasi-scientific language or overestimating data value due to irrelevant illustrations or formulae. Furthermore, blind trust can lead to societal polarization, with those who uncritically trust science and scientists being prone to supporting punitive measures against science skeptics. This ideological neglect is potentially driven by scientists’ self-defensive motivations, despite recognizing its contradiction to science’s core principle of organized skepticism. An integral approach to studying trust in science is proposed, with epistemic and political implications. These suggest studying similarities between trust and distrust in science, and urging for critical engagement with science, acknowledging its entanglement with economic and political interests. Practical recommendations include thorough conceptual and empirical exploration of uncritical trust, moving beyond simplistic “trust us” messaging and ensuring scientific authority remains accountable and open to scrutiny. #PhilSci #SocialPsyc #MetaSci #AcademicSky

"There is an asymmetry in the study of trust in science: instead of examining the full spectrum from extreme distrust to extreme trust, it is heavily skewed towards the distrust end."

By Petar Lukić and @iriszez.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1007/s111...

Towards a habit-rupture model of intergroup contact in everyday settings - Nature Reviews Psychology The literature assumes that intergroup contact is naturally occurring, positive and consistently associated with positive outcomes, but these premises are inconsistent with everyday intergroup contact...

Paolini, Dixon, Kotzur, Friehs, Bracegirdle, Lauterbach, Köbrich, Graf, Kauff, Stefaniak, Wright, Barlow, Luebbering, & Harwood (2026). Towards a habit-rupture model of intergroup contact in everyday settings. Nature Reviews Psychology.

#SocialPsyc #AcademicSky 🧪

Drawing inspiration from Allport’s classic intergroup contact theory, Paolini et al. introduce contact rupture — moments when habits are disrupted.

Lifespan and macro-level ruptures reveal when and how contact can drive change and social cohesion.

“Intergroup contact habit” helps to explain why contact often fails to produce positive societal outcomes. Many people live inside “contact bubbles”:

🔹 stable avoidance + persistent prejudice

🔹 or stable engagement + positive attitudes.

Abstract According to intergroup contact theory, meaningful interactions between members of different social identity groups can lead to decreases in prejudice. However, the literature on intergroup contact has generally emphasized contact-based interventions that involve positive contact experiences in highly controlled environments like research laboratories or classrooms, or infrequent intimate intergroup contact experiences, like intergroup friendships. In this Perspective, we review the literature on how intergroup contact manifests in everyday settings, which challenges established views that contact is readily available, positive and leads to consistently positive within-person changes. We describe how variations in contact valence and environmental affordances for self-selection influence individual- and macro-level segregation dynamics, which create conditions for stable trajectories of contact and intergroup bias, or contact habits. We then propose a habit–rupture model of contact, according to which changes in intergroup relations through lifespan and macro-level disruptions act as ruptures, leading to the development of new contact habits. Considering contact and its effects through a habit and rupture lens identifies realistic and ecologically valid opportunities to apply intergroup contact in the service of the social good.

New work by Stefania Paolini & Patrick Kotzur (@durhampsych.bsky.social) and international team proposes a rupture-habit model to make sense of emerging findings in everyday intergroup contact.

Paywall: doi.org/10.1038/s441...

Free Access Link: trebuchet.public.springernature.app/get_content/...

No worries Rob. Look forward to reading the end product!