John Holbein

(This comment sounds a bit more critical than I intend it to be.)

If mass shootings only have effects in rare conditions, I'm not sure what that says for what we know about democratic accountability.

Also--and this was my (somewhat critical) feedback to Ben Newman and Markarian when I read their recent APSR--looking for effects of mass shootings in hyper-local/rare ballot initiatives feels a little bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Interesting. I think you're right to be thinking about supplementary interventions. I have real doubts that relying on these heinous acts alone to promote political change is a losing strategy.

Cool paper; congrats on the hit! Excited to read this.

I wonder if you've thought about the normative implications of a hyper-local effect are.

Something I've thought a little bit about.

More evidence that mass shootings don't actually affect electoral outcomes.

New today at Science Advances from @kshoub.bsky.social and me. We revisit the question of whether a local tragedy (mass shooting) influences voter behavior. They do, at least at the local level, with some important caveats and implications for policy. Short thread...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

perhaps.

to my eye, grants seem uniquely incestuous.

and far less discussed for their corrupt/shady processes.

Is it just me, or is the grant awards process super shady?

eg., I once spoke with an academic who was really good at getting grants.

Their advice?

"Build a personal relationship with grant officers."

This was not the only time I've heard some version of this.

It seems super shady.

drive.google.com/file/d/1BK6j...

The current housing market is the ultimate form of birth control.

"Why Small Experimental Effects of Social Media Use Are Compatible With Large Real-World Effects"

osf.io/preprints/so...

yet many folks have ignored these points in parading cessation experiments.

These local experiments may not capture the broader cultural & psychological impact of universal social media use. When social media use is ubiquitous, it can fundamentally alter the broader culture & social milieu, even affecting the mental health of teenagers who abstain from social media entirely

3.) The social media hypothesis concerns a large-scale change—the widespread adoption of social media among teenagers. RCTs, in contrast, test small-scale effects of individuals quitting while most peers remain online.

2.) The social media hypothesis concerns the cumulative effect of using social media for years; RCTs identify the effect of quitting social media for weeks.

1.) The social media hypothesis concerns the effects of joining social media; RCTs identify the effect of quitting.

Is social media to blame for teens’ mental health decline?

Intuition says yes—but RCTs find only small short-term effects when users quit.

This new preprint argues these studies don’t prove social media isn’t to blame.

Here’s why: 3 reasons.

correction: two pre-rejects submitted in one day!

Two manuscripts submitted in one day!

lol.

"please note that APF is not able to offer feedback on individual applications."

just got rejected for a grant from an application that I forgot I had sent in.

it was submitted that long ago.

"The authors show how easily observational data analyses, experimental designs, and causal models are tweaked in ways that are extremely difficult, often impossible, to detect. As a consequence, the credibility crisis in science is even more severe than both scientists and the public believe."

This book coming out in early 2026 looks interesting.

dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

I guess you Winsome, lose some

The significance filter, the winner's curse and the need to shrink The “significance filter” refers to focusing exclusively on statistically significant results. Since frequentist properties such as unbiasedness and coverage are valid only before the data have been ...

Source: "The significance filter, the winner's curse and the need to shrink"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Evidence of publication bias is even present at PLOS ONE--where the editors (supposedly) "make decisions on submissions based on scientific rigor, regardless of novelty”

Look at the distribution of z-values from medical research!

Source: "When War Hits Home: How the Israel-Hamas conflict shapes American beliefs about Antisemitism"

osf.io/preprints/so...