Anna Alexandrova

YouTube video by LSE Philosophy Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Edinburgh): Apocalyptic Technology: AI and the Limits of Science

🎥 Watch the Lakatos Award Lecture 2025 by Mazviita Chirimuuta on "Apocalyptic Technology: #AI and the Limits of #Science"

Mazviita Chirimuuta received the award for her book “The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience”

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

Things that will interest Bluesky; Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, replaces Melvyn Bragg as host of In Our Time.

What Paul is describing is scandalous. But I am also weirdly cheered up by seeing pics of him since the accident. So much willpower, such determination to rebuild a meaningful life. Unchanged is his ridiculous articulacy and humour. His substack is very good too, subscribe!

My apologies, Anouk. We’re fixing this. Thank you

We are pouring our heart into this conference to keep it high quality, supportive, and accessible (no registration fee!). Do consider it for your #philsci content broadly conceived. I also can't wait to see Bucharest in September.

I couldn't access the article but I agree there are credible claims about negative effect of phones on *some* aspect of health and wb. It's the generalisation to *overall* health and wb that bothers me. Such an aggregation is not supported by evidence and inevitably imposes expert's own values.

I think it's a year from publication, so July 2026.

Agreed! Maybe ask your library to order? 🙏

The fact that you are given the option to disagree with a statement does not make this statement any less biased.

Colourful cover of the book METHODS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE A User's Guide EDITED BY SOPHIE J. VEIGL AND ADRIAN CURRIE

Delighted to receive my own copy! Here is the press site where eventually the volume will be available as open access mitpress.mit.edu/978026255224... well done again @adrian-currie.bsky.social @phieveigl.bsky.social

I note your optimism about the value-awareness of the researchers filling out this survey. Nonetheless the point stands that the two statements they are asked to evaluate have been phrased in a loaded way and no one has called this out this framing as in any way biased.

Daniel Hyde, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia - All the Stars Looked Down: A John Rutter Celebration Listen to All the Stars Looked Down: A John Rutter Celebration by Daniel Hyde, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia.

A new album from my college choir

enjoying this very much. One of the characters works on "philosophical presuppositions of social science". Pure Stoppard...

I suppose there is a theoretical possibility that they realise they are making inductive risk judgments but there is clearly no awareness that children’s own perspective on this matters too and that they are in a position of power towards the people on whom they advocate interventions

Good analogy to nudges! Here I am not pushing the libertarian line. Rather it’s the asymmetric treatment of adults and children that’s worrying me. It’s so so tempting to control those who can’t speak back or who when object it is easy to dismiss as irrational and immature.

That sounds right Mark. In Statement 1 I was put off by the aggregation framing. We may have good evidence about attention span but to translate it into long term overall wellbeing takes an unspoken value judgment

it's so sad to read that he was shunned for his name despite his anti-nazi work during the war. statistically speaking this means he was shunned by people who did less to resist the nazis than he did. human beings are so stupid. i'm going to bed.

Fixing the science of digital technology harms Technology development outpaces scientific assessment of impacts

Agreed, this is the point of this by @orbenamy.bsky.social and Nathan Matias. But if we are making a decision on the basis of risk aversion (say to prevent SM-driven suicides), then we should be honest about these grounds. Whereas this survey makes it look like it's a matter of evidence only

Tagging @markfabian.bsky.social who also filled out the survey to see if he shares my concerns about its bias. Also @orbenamy.bsky.social who is familiar with this genre of debates on children and phones

Everything old is new again, I get to recycle my Good Times with Francis Galton line again and again and again web.archive.org/web/20230608...

This article aged remarkably well!

This group does not have special expertise on how risk averse or risk seeking communities ought to be when regulating phones and SM. Yet this is what the issue comes down to. They think they are answering factual questions when in fact they’re judging the right level of inductive risk. Agree?

I appreciate hearing this. I am not even necessarily opposed to some interventions, the issues are properly hard. It's just embarassing to see these proposals being justified by wellbeing science. That's genuine misuse of our expertise

I don't, but this was not the question we were asked. All I am saying is that this way of framing the issue picks on children and young people selectively and I wish my fellow wellbeing researchers were more sensitive to this.

The idea that the effects of phones and social media on children is so dramatically different than on adults so as to justify interfering with children's freedom to use them but not with adults... I just can't get on board with this. It's the urge to control masquerading as science.

I was the lone dissenter on both claims. I found the statements as formulated extraordinarily biased and I am disappointed that my fellow 'wellbeing experts' don't seem to notice all the value judgments in these statements and the evidence supposedly supporting them.

Summary of expert opinion on 1) Social media n mobile phone use reduce attention span, resulting in major long-run negative wellbeing effects. 2) Urgent intervention in the form of restrictions on social media n phone use is needed to protect the attention span n normal development of children.

Thank you for catching this, Erik! Keep collecting those Author Processing Charges @natureportfolio.nature.com

YouTube video by Kyoto Prize Kyoto Prize Laureate Introduction: Azim Surani

So much to admire in my colleague at @kingscollege.bsky.social Azim Surani. Now that he is collecting accolades for discovery of genomic imprinting, there are videos telling his unlikely story. Many obstacles but also a fateful encounter w Bob Edwards (of IVF fame) who became his PhD supervisor...

Lots of great content in the latest newsletter from the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP is so good at fostering community). If you scroll all the way to the last feature I pour my heart out in the Proust Questionnaire. So good of Saana Jukola to give me the opportunity 🙏