Eric Pedersen

Picture of a small white cat staring out a window at a very large and unconcerned turkey sitting on the deck

Our cat was convinced that she could take one if we just gave her a chance

(we didn't own a car, so we just got to enjoy the spectacle)

When we moved to Wisconsin, our landlord didn't warn us of the pack of 8 wild turkeys that camped out in the intersection by our house. They feared nothing and no one, and caused half hour long traffic jams on our tiny residential street

"limitless and delicious bread and beer" was a major selling point about coming to Germany for our sabbatical, and I have not been disappointed!

I had a version with a third spiderman labelled "Gaussian processes" but I couldn't find it

Meme picture of two Spidersman pointing at each other, one labelled "penalized smooths" and the other labelled "random effects"

Andrew McDonald and I were just talking stats memes, and I was reminded of my proudest creation

iDiv Leipzig is organizing a symposium for early career researchers from all fields interested in scientific integrity & reproducibility.
Some good stuff, e.g.: @haesleinhuepf.bsky.social on generative AI for science, @rmcelreath.bsky.social on a guerilla approach to scientific workflow.>

Thank you! We worked very hard to make it clear without compromising on accuracy, and I'm glad it paid off

There's a couple papers on using it for estimating fish abundances (authors' names are escaping me). I would look for papers on spatial stock assessment

It's an old friend. Although I once tried to code up a tweedie likelihood, and it was then I realized my friend had dark secrets that I was happier not delving into

What's new in the world of Generalized Additive Models YouTube video by Bottom of the Heap

🚨 GAMs have moved on—so it’s time for an update.

On March 3, 2026 (17:00–19:00 CET) I’ll be livestreaming an updated introduction to Generalized Additive Models in R

📺 YouTube livestream link: youtube.com/live/A9U8e1K...

#RStats #mgcv #GAMs #gratia #statistics 🧪

French Fries Most Certainly Belong On Pizza - Mashed If you've never topped a pizza with fries, then it may be time to test this tasty food duo. Just be sure to consider what type of fries complement your pizza.

Apparently it's actually fries... Although I've been assured that it's only food for children (it does seem to be Naples specific). Pizza with thin-sliced potatoes is amazing though, and pear + goat cheese pizza is a staple for us; I'd like to try it with gorgonzola

www.mashed.com/1416368/fren...

As someone who grew up playing in abandoned combines, it's got to be the cemetery one; number one is just common sense

I love it too! But somehow most of the world seems unwilling to accept that pineapple belongs on pizza.

I have recently learned that it's common in Italy to put fries on pizza though, so I am more skeptical now about Italian dedication to the purity of pizza

The BBC Chose Transphobia over Science Transcript: Over the holidays, there was some news out of the UK that I wanted to highlight, lest it be lost in the news black hole that is Christmas and New Year: the British Broadcasting Corporat…

I will probably get told off for sharing this - but it does give some perspective on why I was under so much pressure to leave Monkey Cage - I accept my career is dead so….

skepchick.org/2026/01/the-...

We must never let it revealed to the world that Hawaiian pizza is a Canadian invention

I don't mind cod tongues, but they are very much an acquired taste (I also really like Jig's dinner, but see above). I am genuinely surprised that toutons have not caught on as a food craze though. So good, and easy / cheap to make

Newfoundland has a lot of distinct foods, but not a lot I think would do well went exported. However, I do think that someone could make a killing starting a touton food truck

I feel like the Irish have the worst of it; I've never seen an Irish restaurant that wasn't a slightly grubby looking pub called something like "Shamrock's Charm"

I'm hosted with folks at IDiv, and am doing a couple trips around the country to meet people (Potsdam and Berlin this next week)

I'm in Leipzig for the next few weeks! If you want to meet up to chat stats at some point, I might be able to bring one; my wife and I are good bakers

Picture of butter tarts, a flaky pastry tart with a rich butter custard filling

The sad thing is that desserts are one of the places where we actually*do* have a distinct food culture! And you can't tell me Germans wouldn't love butter tarts

It's one of our specialties!

Picture of a menu labelled at the top as "Canadian steakhouse", featuring such Canadian foods as "pasta bolognese", "burger and sandwich" and "salad"

Photo of the outside of a restaurant called "Ontario Restaurant Café", along a cobblestone street in the old city of Dresden

I'm slightly disturbed about what Germans seem to think Canadian food consists of

My favorite Pascal's triangle fact is that the entries in each row are equal to the number of distinct random walks that end up in that spot. Galton boards are basically just a physical simulation of that process

I think RDA redundancy analysis (RDA) would work, by regressing ChemComp on XYZ pmassicotte.github.io/stats-denmar.... Scores for XYZ for the 1st eigenvector from the RDA should give you a gradient. @comecology.bsky.social and @gsimpson.bsky.social would know more

My wife is from Windsor (across the border from Detroit). When we first started dating, she would think of air temperature in Fahrenheit when it was hot out, and Celsius when it was cold. We never quite figured out what the transition temp was

I second this; I find the most useful way to teach HW is by saying what question it was proposed to solve: do gene frequencies change in the absence of evolutionary forces?

Students often think that dominant traits will become more common on their own, which HW was meant to dispell

Really enjoying #BES2025. Things I appreciate:
- Morning plenaries (gets people in on time, doesn’t leave morning speakers w/ empty rooms)
- Good length coffee breaks (30 min!)
- Vegan lunch served on site
- Posters across all career stages & spread across rooms
- Strong presence of journals/editors