Tom Farsides

YouTube video by Audiobook Story Time for Children with Viola KAFKA AND THE DOLL | Read Along Story Time |

"In 1923, Franz Kafka encountered a distraught little girl who had lost her doll and was inconsolable. Kafka told her the doll wasn't lost but traveling the world having grand adventures! To reassure her, Kafka began delivering letters from the doll ..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNZ...

Two years after 7 October and the kidnap of my parents, hate is in fashion. For all our sakes, we need compassion | Sharone Lifschitz So many were killed – yet on her release, my mother said ‘shalom’ to her captors. Let’s learn from that moment of grace, says Sharone Lifschitz, London-based film-maker and academic

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Commentary: The health crisis in the USSR: looking behind the facade My first visit to the USSR was in February 1981, by coincidence at exactly the same time that Nick Eberstadt published a commentary on ‘The health crisis i

In a strange circularity, it seems that all the work I was doing in the early 1990s on concealment/distortion of statistics by USSR & DDR is becoming very relevant now

academic.oup.com/ije/article-...

Final part of the contents page from my PhD report, in which I complain about poor conceptual specification in a major social psychological theory.

As I move into the “Recycling the last hard copy of my PhD” stage of clearing my office, it gives me pause to see just how unrelenting my malcontent and snark have been. 🤪

The image is a black-and-white cartoon showing a bull sitting on a couch in a therapist’s office, speaking to a woman therapist who is taking notes. The bull appears frustrated, gesturing with one hand. The therapist is seated across from him with a notepad in her lap. A lamp sits between them. The caption underneath reads: “I mean, I know it’s coming and I think to myself ‘hold it together, man…’ But then he waves that red cape and I just lose it!”

Silly psy cartoon for the weekend!

I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better

Modern theories of emotion (especially “interoceptive inference”) often cite William James as a key inspiration. But what did James actually say about emotion, and is it supported by the data? Here’s a brief look at the core arguments and classic evidence. 🧵

Is it “brash” to be concerned if societies foster freedom of thought or insist on the “narrow, mean, intolerable and brainless prejudice of soulless … maniacs”?

What a wonderful book review!

GiveWell sought an independent check on the evidence supporting >$1 billion it has granted to its top charities. This fall, Alex Cohen asked whether we could obtain the datasets needed to reproduce the underlying RCTs. We said yes; charging only a modest fee to cover our time.

🧵 + 🐀 + blog post!

Excerpt from the Introduction to Until Darwin: Science & the Origins of Race Classification Species Darwin Degeneration Evolution History of Science, Sociology, Sciences of Life, Human Variety, Natural History, Ecology

[Blog Archive]
Excerpt from the Introduction to
Until Darwin: Science & the Origins of Race (2010)
[UNCORRECTED PROOF]
"Introduction: Ecce Homo or Slavery and Human Variety"
#UntilDarwinBibliography #HistSTM #HistSci #CharlesDarwin

A drawing of a moustach as seen from the viewpoint of the artist looking down at it

Today I learned about the empiricist's moustache. Steinmetz, G. (2004). Odious comparisons: Incommensurability, the case study, and “small N's” in sociology. Sociological theory, 22(3), 371-400. doi.org/10.1111/j.07...

I like this framing a lot. Whether intelligence is a thing, various things, a combination of things, or different things to different people, what do we mean and what are we trying to say when we use the label?

On the difficulty of inferring motivation from behaviour and the risks of inferential biases, e.g., anthropomorphism.
Arakawa, H. (2025). Interpreting mouse’s intention from analysis of prosocial behavior. Lab Animal. doi.org/10.1038/s416...

When development constricts our moral circle - Nature Human Behaviour Although many believe our moral circles expand with age, this Perspective discusses an early-emerging tendency to care for others.

People’s ‘moral circle’ sometimes shrinks, including standardly during some stages of development.
Marshall, J., Wilks, M., Caviola, L., & Nelder, K. (2025). When development constricts our moral circle. Nature Human Behavior. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

K. Ring, 1967, doi.org/10.1016/0022...

A one page quotation, including the skeeted text

"There is also a self-righteous aspect to whistle-blowing, so that some people - even whole university departments or academic sub-fields - seem to relish challenging the integrity of the procedures and conclusions of others."

Abelson (1995/2009, p103) on #p-hacking ("fishiness") and #metascience

Philanthropy: The Art of Giving Art Throughout the history of philanthropy in the arts, the motivations the wealthy can generally be grouped into status, altruism and access

artreview.com/philanthropy...

Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition. Best news? The HSP is now open-access—free to read, download, and share.

the-hsp.com

Supporting news organisations worthy of the name is an option for some. "In 2024, 124 journalists were killed doing their jobs." "Authoritarian ... leaders around the world want to crush the independent press". Happy 204th birthday to @theguardian.com

The kindness of strangers: I was injured and using crutches, when a group of scary teens offered to help me Hobbling past them on my way to the store, I heard one of them call out. I assumed he was mocking me, then few of them ran up and offered to carry my bags

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

How to explain evil One neat trick

Another greaat post from Paul Bloom to make you sit up and think: How to explain evil open.substack.com/pub/paulbloo...

Nakamura et al (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Small correlations between adult prosociality (charitable giving and helping strangers), and retrospectively reported childhood factors, some similar to previous findings (religion, attachment, SES, trauma), others more mixed (health, gender).

28 slightly rude notes on writing OR: catapulting myself into a pit of tarantulas

"This is why it’s very difficult to teach people how to write, because first you have to teach them how to care."
www.experimental-history.com/p/28-slightl...

Common variance between trait extraversion and regular volunteering and between trait agreeableness and regular charitable giving.

Bleidorn et al (2025). Personality traits and traditional philanthropy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. doi.org/10.1037/pspp...

Open access: osf.io/4sjhg_v1

Listening to Rest is Politics, Rest is Politics US, and reading respected commentators, it's striking how 'left-wing bias' in universities is now taken for granted. That matters, especially in the US, where academia faces political attack. Thoughts from having worked in US/UK universities. 🧵

Meaning of "Object" in the expression "If money were no object." The expression "If money were no object" is in fairly wide use. I've always interpreted the word "object" as "material" (so, "if money were immaterial") or "objection" (so, "if [lack of] money wer...

Party animal that I am, I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about meaning of the word “object”. (Crisis? What crisis?) I know that you’re all just about the lolz bants here, but this is a good thread on its meaning in that expression. english.stackexchange.com/questions/28...

What is intelligence? Neuroeconomist Daeyeol Lee discusses his new book and the development of artificial intelligence, asking 'Will AI ever surpass human intelligence?'

@wiringthebrain.bsky.social Intelligence is "the ability to ... make decisions with outcomes benefiting the actor". "Intelligence requires life ... self-replication". "True intelligence should promote ... the replication of the genes responsible for its creation". Views? hub.jhu.edu/2020/10/05/a...

On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities You may never have considered yourself to be one. Why would you? But if you’re reading this, there is more than a likelihood that you are one. If you’re a

"Corporate academia is subverting academic life. It’s destroying academia from within."
Husain, M. (2025). On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities. Brain, 148(3), 687-688. doi.org/10.1093/brai...