Shane Littrell, PhD

Gee, what could go wrong?

A little over a decade ago today, I was almost killed by a drunk driver on my way home from work. So, this is my annual reminder (whenever I can remember) to ask people to please not drink & drive. Smash chocolate milk or Sour Apple Ryse energy drinks instead.

"Open Availability and Access to your pre-registrations, data, code, and materials doesn't care about your feelings."

„This happens when people who are legitimate experts in one specific scientific area suddenly start LARPing like they’re experts in every scientific area.“

If scientific experts have lost their authority and reputation, that is in large part the result of their own epistemic trespassing—orating confidently about topics they know little about—or peddling dubious claims, argues bullshitologist @metacognishane.bsky.social:

buff.ly/lTHEK4b

The "death of expertise" was an assisted suicide You either die a scientific hero or you live long enough to become a firehose of bullshit

If expertise has died, the wound was partly self-inflicted. Check out my latest article where I argue that some of today’s most popular science communicators have traded credibility for attention, sadly become BS-spewing hype machines: bit.ly/4gKsSIu

Her channel's great! I've been subscribed for the past year or so (linked to one of her vids in my article, too). 🙂

The "death of expertise" was an assisted suicide You either die a scientific hero or you live long enough to become a firehose of bullshit

If expertise has died, the wound was partly self-inflicted. Check out my latest article where I argue that some of today’s most popular science communicators have traded credibility for attention, sadly become BS-spewing hype machines: bit.ly/4gKsSIu

I am recruiting (Canadian🇨🇦) graduate students at York University for Fall 2026 in Social and Personality Psychology! If you are interested in misinformation, political polarization, and/or computational social science, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Fake Graph: The Actual "Dunning-Kruger Effect" Is NOTHING Like I Thought It Was - Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999) For years, I’ve been teaching a fake graph. In pretty much every course I teach, on some day when students seem discouraged or distracted, I’ll draw an X axis labeled “Experience” and a Y-axis labeled...

If you ever want to see the "Dunning Kruger Effect" in action, just do a word search for it on LinkedIn and you'll instantly find dozens (if not hundreds) of examples of people confidently trying to explain it but getting it totally wrong. More here:
jerz.setonhill.edu/blog/2020/04...

Bullshitology | Shane Littrell | Substack Bullshitology explores why smart people can believe dumb things. Blending cognitive science, skepticism, and snark to correct our intellectual blind spots and improve everyone’s bullshit detectors. Cl...

Just launched a Substack about the science of nonsense; why people believe wild conspiracy theories, fall for propaganda, and speak fluent corporate gibberish.

If you're into science, critical thinking, or just need a break from the 🗑️🔥🌎, come hang out: bullshitology.substack.com

On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue

Bullshitologist extraordinaire @metacognishane.bsky.social notes that, alarmingly, what his custom-made Corporate Bullshit Generator produces is indistinguishable from the genuine article, and zooms in on two popular types of BS—evasive and persuasive:

buff.ly/gHZBY94

New post is up, discussing two recent examples of organizations trying to bullshit the public. Check it out when you get time!

bullshitology.substack.com/p/down-the-c...

Few things smell more delicious than my kitchen when I'm making Carolina mustard sauce and Memphis BBQ sauce.

Why a Classic Psychology Theory about Vision Has Fallen Apart The downfall of a long-standing theory in psychology raises a question: How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we literally see the world?

How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we see the world? Wonderful piece in @sciam.bsky.social by @norabradford.bsky.social, ft. an interview with @dorsaamir.bsky.social about our work on the 'cultural byproduct hypothesis'.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...

From my own research, I came up w/ the "Four F's of Procrastination" as a simple way to sum up the emotional causes: Fear, Frustration, Fatigue, and....Boredom.

Obviously, "boredom" really messes up the alliterative flow. So, I thought it'd be funnier if I still called it the 4 Fs anyway. 😅

Yeah, generally proc is just a dysfunctional attempt at emotional self-regulation. The trigger(s) are largely context-specific, though, so the academic proc literature just examines what factors drive it in that specific context.

I started out as a proc researcher. Never finished my 1st masters in I-O b/c I never finished my thesis paper on academic procrastination (the irony is kinda hilarious). I finally finished it when I got another masters about 10 yrs later (it's a terrible paper, tho): scholar.utc.edu/cgi/viewcont...

Joey Swoll's next video gonna be about him.

Too much bullshit is being produced about the very topic of Bullshit, @metacognishane.bsky.social argues.

And he comprehensively puts us right:

buff.ly/CybLMe4

Bullshit: What it is, what it isn't, and what everyone gets wrong about Frankfurt Okay, maybe not "everyone"

New Substack post is up! Check it out if you have time.

"Bullshit: What it is, what it isn't, and what everyone gets wrong about Frankfurt"
open.substack.com/pub/bullshit...

Everyday Revenge We are interested in stories of everyday revenge—cases where you successfully got back at someone after being wronged. Please think up an experience of when you took revenge and tell us about it. Pl...

@paulbloomatyale.bsky.social @jowylie.bsky.social, and I are starting to study everyday revenge. Have you ever successfully got back at someone after being wronged? We would love to hear about it:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#PsychSciSky #socialpsyc #cognition

The pancreatic cancer vaccine trials have been so promising, this would have been a literal life saver for so many and now its gone. I cant tell you how heart breaking this is. Horror after horror with this administration.

The inciting incident is that someone steals his manuscript and kills his funding.

Bullshitology | Shane Littrell | Substack Bullshitology explores why smart people can believe dumb things. Blending cognitive science, skepticism, and snark to correct our intellectual blind spots and improve everyone’s bullshit detectors. Cl...

Just launched a Substack about the science of nonsense; why people believe wild conspiracy theories, fall for propaganda, and speak fluent corporate gibberish.

If you're into science, critical thinking, or just need a break from the 🗑️🔥🌎, come hang out: bullshitology.substack.com

Apparently so. 🪦👨‍🔬📈

pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

Man died in Cambridgeshire after fake deworming drug cancer claim Lee Redpath bought the drug - not licensed for humans - from a supplier in Ukraine, an inquest hears.

Man died after fake deworming drug cancer claims bbc.com/news/article...

"...no proven benefit for taking fenbendazole for treating cancer in humans".

This BS pushed by online influencers & popular (very) manosphere podcasters.

We can't let the bunk win!

How effective are user corrections on social media, and does adding a link to a fact check improve effectiveness?

In piece led by @sachaltay.bsky.social we find corrections have small effects, adding a fact-check unlikely to make them more effective misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-... 1/6

Guess my next study will be on "pupillary bullshitting." 😉