Michael Pascale

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Today we open-sourced a new project for developing behavioral experiments online. It is called Smile. Announcement of v0.1.0: todd.gureckislab.org/2025/07/22/s... Smile has been used internally in my lab for several years and has substantially increased our productivity.

More subtly, metaphors became problematic in a slice of computer science focused on creating better ways to optimize and learn from data, optimization metaheuristics. Around 2000 the subfield began to draw inspiration for new algorithms using metaphors from nature. One of the first papers focused on how antibodies work, the clonal selection algorithm. Soon after, a new evolutionary algorithm based on sheep flocks followed. And then the field exploded with metaphors: bachelors, bacteria, bar- nacles, bats, bees, beetles, the big bang, birds, bison, black widow spi- ders, blind naked mole rats, bonobos, butterflies, and buzzards were all thrown into the mix (and those are just the B’s!). As of 2021 a website focused on collecting instances like these, titled the Evolutionary Com- putation Bestiary, listed a remarkable 260 unique examples of peer- reviewed, published papers in this field. New ideas are good, right? So why was this metaphorical explosion a problem? In this case, the problem was that it quickly became unclear whether and how all these algorithms fit together. While each paper claimed to present a unique approach, metaphor-heavy language pre- sented an obstacle to discerning whether two published algorithms were the same or different. When held up to closer scrutiny, it turned out that many of the algorithms were novel only with regard to the metaphor that they were attached to; the algorithms themselves were the same as (or a special case of) already published ones: the black hole algorithm turned out to be a simplified version of particle swarm optimization; the grey wolf, firefly, and bat algorithms did as well. One lesson we can apply to brain research is that metaphors are not the goal of research; the goal is models (the analogs of the algorithms in this computer science subfield). This lesson has two important con- sequences. First, metaphors, “word models,” and ways of thinking about things in broad strokes must be explicitly formulated as falsifi…

How fascinating.

In support of the "we must formulate math models", one of my fav stories is the Computation Bestiary. There, word models were metaphors (quote below from Elusive Cures). That's computationally sophisticated field and yet ... /1

fcampelo.github.io/EC-Bestiary/

In fact, I think the more recent vlog "This Graph Changed my Life" captures exactly why optimism is reasonable, as long as we continue to develop our abilities to detect disinformation and mitigate misinformation.

Though it's novel in that it is decentralized, this property offers more opportunity than ever for individuals to act and seek truth themselves. Like you mention,
with each media revolution it takes time for folks to learn how to make sense of information as communicated through a new channel.

I don't disagree with the thesis that with each media revolution there is a chance for populism to take root. But maybe more optimistically: the internet is just a sensemaking machine.

During any boom in a given sector you'll find groups rushing to make large profits: this is unsurprising, yes?

What is surprising and deeply unsettling is that we are being successfully convinced by this sector to deny ourselves the ability to regulate the misuse and misapplication of technology.

ABCD Study omits gender-identity data from latest release The removal counteracts the goals of the longitudinal study by “pretending that some aspects of adolescent brain development don’t exist,” says sex differences researcher Nicola Grissom.

The National Institutes of Health has removed gender identity variables from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, @thetransmitter.bsky.social has learned.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/gender/abcd-...

1/7) Thoughtful article from @neuralreckoning.bsky.social here, very well worth a read!

I am sympathetic to the argument, but not entirely in agreement (no surprise there, I suppose).

Specifically, I take a different lesson from other large-scale science projects' successes and failures.

🧠📈 🧪

The Attack on Knowledge America could soon find itself in a new Dark Age.

“The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science,” @adamserwer.bsky.social writes. “If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us."

Communication of perceptual predictions from the hippocampus to the deep layers of the parahippocampal cortex High-resolution neuroimaging reveals stimulus-specific predictions sent from hippocampus to the neocortex during perception.

Our study using layer fMRI to study the direction of communication between the hippocampus and cortex during perceptual predictions is finally out in Science Advances! Predicted-but-omitted shapes are represented in CA2/3 and correlate specifically with deep layers of PHC, suggesting feedback. 🧠🟦

Excerpt from Federalist Papers No. 51. "But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to controul the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions".

It's disturbing how this proposed regulation seems to believe, whether candid or deceptive, that political responsiveness should be a desirable feature of nonpolitical, career positions.

I'm told Federalist Papers #51 has something to say about this:
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"

🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees

Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday

📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful

Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj

"no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models..."

Sorry, am I interpreting the meaning of this too broadly?

The "One #BigBeautifulBill", §43201
docs.house.gov/billsthiswee...

Dopaminergic action prediction errors serve as a value-free teaching signal - Nature Dopaminergic action prediction error signals are used by mice as a value-free teaching signal to reinforce stable sound–action associations in the tail of the striatum.

Impressive study in @nature from my colleague Marcus Stephenson-Jones at UCL in the @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Whereas, per Thomson & Piccinini, a representation is more a specific symbol or token, which carries information only in context.

Because I feel like folks, nowadays at least, seem to use "representation" loosely to mean that a signal shares information with either behavior or the external world state.

I am but a naive observer here, but I keep seeing debate over whether representation is real; it seems to continue an old computational vs. dynamical divide? Would I be right to assume that the word's historic use assumes discrete neural states are meant to hold specific information about the world?

When McNamara joined the Kennedy administration in 1961, he left a high-profile corporate position. McNamara was president of the Ford Motor Company, a job he'd held for all of a week. Brief though his tenure as president was, McNamara's preceding 15 years at Ford had been a glittering success. An exponent during World War II

of the new discipline of statistical control, McNamara was part of a cohort of young ex-military men, "whiz kids" charged with modernizing Ford's creaky corporate infrastructure. McNamara, as befit a modern-minded scientific man, was enamored with numbers, and especially with the emerging potential of computers to rationalize all manner of flawed human- devised structures. At Ford,

McNamara worked to create what he called an "omniscient operating system" composed of numerical measures. One Ford manager recalled of this period, "We used to analyze everything to death. We'd bludgeon every investment proposal until it stopped mov-ing."5 Lyndon Johnson later said that when McNamara talked, you could hear the computers clicking away. 56

Rereading something I wrote months ago about Robert McNamara and it suddenly sounds bizarrely familiar.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

National Science Foundation Terminates Hundreds of Active Research Awards (Gift Article) The agency targeted grants focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as research on misinformation.

@katrinamillerphd.bsky.social & I took a look at over 400 active National Science Foundation grants that got killed in the past few days. Here's our story (gift link) nyti.ms/4jp4aOx

‘Natural Neuroscience,’ an excerpt In his new book, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

I'm writing about this. We should avoid conflating science—which is a process, practice, and predominantly human epistemic form of life—with its outcomes—"solutions", "products", "profit", and what engineering really cares about. "AI solving physics" is not "understanding" physics (goal of science).

Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience - Communications Psychology Programming is essential for modern research in neuroscience and psychology, but it can quickly become a source of frustration and error. This Primer introduces ten practical principles guiding resear...

Proud to announce our primer on "Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience"

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

This primer is for beginners to get started, advanced programmers to improve, and PIs.

#psychology #psychsci #cogsci #neuroskyence

Also, this archive of Dijkstra's writings is fantastic:
"Like most of us, Dijkstra always believed it a scientist’s duty to maintain a lively correspondence with his scientific colleagues. To a greater extent than most of us, he put that conviction into practice."
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/

From Edsger Dijkstra, an argument that natural language computing - as we are nowadays seeing promoted everywhere - cannot replace the precision of formal languages (1978).
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcr...

Last year, I sat in a faculty meeting while a guest lecturer gleefully explained how they had used AI to design their class, craft PowerPoint presentations, and develop exams. At the end of the presentation, a colleague leaned over and asked, “Then what’s our job?” I have thought long and hard about that question. If faculty hope to survive, much less prosper, in the age of AI, they need to come up with a compelling answer to that question: “What’s our job?”

Then what's our job? I've thought long and hard about that question.

This would be clever if it weren't accidental.

That's literally your job. To think long and hard about things that matter, as a human being.

I am in solidarity with the Clark University Undergraduate Workers as they exercise their right to organize a union. Young people are 25% of our population, but 100% of our future.

Yeah if this is idea worth exploring then it should be explored slowly and cautiously, with care to avoid endorsement of that document's many plans.

I lack awareness about what state programs exist - I know of grants from Mass DMH for example, education, what exists in the biomed space (non business venture related)?