Rebecca Sear

The power of powerful others: health locus of control and vaccination behavior in rural Namibian pastoralists - BMC Global and Public Health Background Who we believe controls our health, whether it is ourselves, chance, or powerful others, shapes how we make healthcare decisions. The health locus of control (HLC) framework has been key to...

New paper examining the health locus of control concept on vaccine beliefs in NW Namibia. We find that external HLC dominates, but market integration shifts beliefs towards internal HLC, and internal HLC associated with lower interest in vaccination and lower perceptions of vaccine safety.

Happy #StDavidsDay from Wales, where my mum’s local pub is serving St David’s Day trifle (in the colours of the Welsh flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 with welshcakes) 😋

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And yes that matters in this case because the *content* of your viewpoint matters (contra the Heterodox crowd). The viewpoint "we're all superior beings & should be able to do what we like to inferiors" has very different consequences for the world than "everyone should have equal chance to succeed"

Epstein, eugenics, and the far right Long after race science fell into public disgrace, Epstein was working to revive its core assumptions – and connecting biological hierarchy to far-right politics. As Dr Annabel Sowemimo uncovers...

On Epstein's "ecosystem of influence", among whose members there appears to be no "viewpoint diversity" at all:

"When ideas about inherited superiority are discussed in Harvard offices and at prestigious science festivals rather than fringe rallies, they acquire a dangerous sheen of credibility"

Tempted to write a paper claiming the earth is flat and try to get it published in a geology journal. It would add about as much value to scientific discourse as this piece

If you start by defining gender in biological terms, it's hardly surprising your conclusion is that gender is "biologically real". How disappointing that this was published in Human Nature 😢

"‘gender’ refers to the behavioral, psychological, and social traits that tend to differ between males and females as a result of evolved adaptations to reproductive and survival challenges faced by our ancestors"

I had an absolutely wonderful time chatting with Tanay and Jay about how our understandings of attraction and mate choice have evolved (hah!) over the last 30 years, and pitching my argument that visual experience is central to our ideas of beauty.

Thanks so much @cognitations.bsky.social

Humans by DK: 9798217139477 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Humans – who are we? Physically, Homo sapiens is unremarkable in the animal world – a hairless ape. But somehow, in combination, our characteristics make us remarkable. With our dexterity and brain....

Have just seen that "Humans: The Evolution of a Species" has been formally announced. Not yet seen the whole book, but I did the sections on Inequality; Conflict; Sociality & Food, and my promise to the reader is that the Sociality section is daringly (and very mildly) critical of Dunbar's number.

Private money cannot replace public funding of science Who should pay for American science? In the current political climate, many are looking to the private sector to compensate for cuts in public funding. At the Harvard School of Public Health—particula...

“Some have even argued that private funding is superior, maintaining that it is more flexible, less prone to groupthink, and reduces the “burden” on taxpayers. But can the private sector really replace public funding? History suggests not”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How to change research culture with participatory workshops - Nature Human Behaviour Changing research culture begins with the kind of engaged, collaborative, critical reflection that can spark collective action. This Comment outlines how to design participatory workshops as an effect...

Changing research culture with participatory workshops. This is a nice resource for those of us who like to bring people together to address challenging issues in the field, including academic culture:

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

Practical Information | EHBEA2026

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Some of our hotel deals have booking deadlines ⏳ Please check the latest details on our practical information page: www.ehbea2026.com/practical-in...

Don’t wait too long to book your room in Leiden! 🛏️🌷

Will AI accelerate or undermine the way humans have always innovated? An anthropologist’s new book lays out the formula for human innovation, from stone tools to supercomputers. Depending on developments in the next few years, AI could hit the gas or the brakes.

On the importance of expertise: “The key to continually improving AI models is the same one that has sustained human expertise for millennia: keeping human experts in the loop. Thanks to a kind of “pied piper” effect, an informed minority can guide an uninformed majority who copy their neighbors”

This whole thread is a very important insight as to why getting information from an LLM, even if you are dutiful and vigilant, corrodes your ability to ascertain what is true or not

** LLMs do not provide the info you need in order to evaluate truth. **

Maybe someone should send a copy to the President of the Royal Society

This is well worth a read, with an ultimately hopeful message, but it also makes clear just how damage one billionaire can do, if given leeway:
“In the wake of USAID cuts, we can create a Demographic & Health Survey Program founded on more equitable data infrastructure & stronger research integrity”

1/ 📢 Participants Needed: UK Gender & Sexual Healthcare Study

Phase 2 of our research with Gendered Intelligence is now open - and we’re recruiting adults across the UK.

Delay finally decelerating, maybe

I'll be teaching again for Barcelona Summer School of Demography, "Demography with R" 6-10 July: ced.cat/en/bcn4seaso... You can do this program in person or online. Sign up, it's fun to do demography! @cedemografia.bsky.social

Next week we welcome Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social to give a lecture on "How academia is facilitating the 21st century resurgence of eugenics and scientific racism". We're proud to have prof. Sear, a renowned expert on the topic, on the bill. The lecture is also livestreamed, cf. post below

Should biology put complexity first? The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…

Should biology put complexity first? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - excellent essay by @philipcball.bsky.social. I would add epistasis to polygenicity and pleiotropy as a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon, not some optional complication that we can try to account for afterwards

I'm Kenyan. I Don't Write Like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Writes Like Me. I'm calm. I'm calm. I promise.

The machine in its quest to sound authoritative ended up sounding like a KCPE graduate who scored an 'A' in English Composition. It accidentally replicated the linguistic ghost of the British Empire.
marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-... HT @timblackwell.bsky.social @greyskiesthinking.bsky.social

The decline of child stunting in 122 countries: a systematic review of child growth studies since the 19th century Introduction Child stunting, a measure of malnutrition, is a major global health challenge affecting 148.1 million children in 2022. Global stunting rates have declined from 47.2% in 1985 to 22.3% in ...

"Many current HICs had high levels of child stunting in the early 20th century, but there was heterogeneity: stunting was low in Scandinavia, European settler colonies & Caribbean, higher in Western Europe & exceptionally high in Japan & South Korea. Child stunting declined across the 20th century"

In June 2025, Eric Kaufmann organized a conference at his current university, Buckingham U, with the aim of producing the "academic research" that is "vital for building theories" to counter the "cultural left episteme." He says, "We need high theory & intellectual depth" in the "study of woke." 1/

Canadians should pay attention to this for many reasons, one of which is that Goodwin's colleague Eric Kaufman (mentioned in the article) was invited by Canadian Conservatives to give testimony when the Conservatives started going after SSHRC as part of their anti-DEI push.

Tweet from Elon Musk @ X @elonmusk • 21h Join Restore Britain Quote-tweeting Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLo... •23h I am so encouraged by the vast number of young British men who are joining up to Restore Britain.

Even more remarkable is that Reform isn’t even the furthest right party in the UK, and not far-right enough for Elon Musk, FRS

Shall we see who else likes associating with the Centre for Heterodox Social Science?

bsky.app/profile/rebe...

….but I suspect open affiliations between universities and pseudoscience will become more common now that UK law makes effectively no distinction between academic freedom and free speech