Thanks, I agree this is good advice. But I have also started to wonder if it matters. I wrote multiple stories about this in the first trump admin, and what good did it do? fivethirtyeight.com/features/the...
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I think it's reasonable to assume that everything that makes it easier for them to get away with what they want to do, matters a bit - but it would have been done anyway. Plus, anything that causes disunity amongst us helps them too - which is another reason not to exaggerate etc.
jun 13, 2025, 4:40 am • 5 0 • view
Clearly, areas like vaccines and climate where scientists stand largely united have not fared any better. Calls for unity/burgfrieden can also be used against you. Geneticists communicate 'carefully', as Bird says, and now Curtis Yarvin is guest of honour at Trump's galas. Didn't help, did it?
jun 13, 2025, 5:32 am • 7 0 • view
I think the only reasonable take is that science has little influence on current US political leadership. This may change in the future, so can we maybe not polarise these issues, lest 'open data' etc. become right-wing talking points that Democrats won't touch.
jun 13, 2025, 5:32 am • 10 2 • view
Some, like @gidmk.bsky.social noted the involvement of meta science associated cranks with the current administration. But the qualifying criterion seems to be 'crank', not 'meta science background'. And yeah, reform movements attract their fair share of cranks, c'est la vie.
jun 13, 2025, 5:37 am • 6 0 • view
This also seems pretty uniquely American. Most other countries have not interpreted the reform movement like this, but rather like Germany and NL, putting money behind metascientific research and infrastructure. (Obvs not a utopia, but not like the US)
jun 13, 2025, 7:51 am • 8 1 • view
I think overblown claims about both problems & solutions are common across science any time people want attention/funding – it looks different, perhaps, from culture to culture, but modesty in claims isn't as much of a norm as it needs to be.
jun 13, 2025, 7:57 am • 6 0 • view
I think this is about how big you think the problems in science are. Bak-Coleman (if I read him right) believes the problems *have* been exaggerated. In my world (nutrition), I think the opposite is true. Nobody's pro-exaggeration. It's a question of what you think exaggeration sounds like.
jun 13, 2025, 1:11 pm • 7 0 • view
I don't have a very strong view on this, but I think it is easy to see that a "reputable" scientist claiming that "most published research findings are false" will cast doubt (in the mind of the public!) even on solid findings (regardless of whether this might have been the intention or not.
jun 13, 2025, 7:55 am • 4 0 • view
I'm from the vax world & I wouldn't describe it as unified. Plenty of MDs fanning vax concerns, fueled in part by breakaways from metascience to the anti-vax side (incl Prasad, Heneghan...). I wouldn't say geneticists communicated carefully, remembering overblown claims for the Human Genome Project.
jun 13, 2025, 7:47 am • 0 0 • view
Re genetics: Bird is referring to the sort of communication the social science genomics consortium goes for, not the HGP. FAQs, no open data, not sharing PGI weights, no stuff they're worried the human biodiversity/racism talking heads might use for their agenda. But you still got Yarvin.
jun 13, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
And yeah of course there are cranks in the vax world, there are never no cranks. But the community polices them, challenges them, and eg Cochrane expelled Gøtzsche. Which is as it should be. But you still got RFK. Don't get me wrong, we should be humble and calibrated, rein in overblown claims.
jun 13, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
But we shouldn't pretend problems that need fixing (such as lack of replication and p hacking in social psych) don't exist or aren't urgent, so that a future leader will have to lie a little more to justify policies which, to him, are tribal in origin anyway.
jun 13, 2025, 9:11 am • 3 0 • view
I think the community policing them is rare, though: Gøtzsche is the only one Cochrane ever expelled, for example, and that was because of behavior, not the crank part. More still have major support & influence (which is why they're such a big problem).
jun 13, 2025, 9:17 am • 0 0 • view
IDK, to me his behavior is part of what makes him a crank rather than someone who disagrees with consensus in a scientific way. But you obviously know more about what happened there. I still don't see how not calling out fraud and nonreproducibility in psych would prevent RFK at HHS.
jun 13, 2025, 9:29 am • 1 0 • view
Berna Devezer says the dialogue suddenly shifted to "science is in crisis", but I would like to see a citation for that. Who said that? To me as an outsider but avid reader of @scientificdiscovery.dev, vaccinology seems to be a good model for disciplines with more problems.
jun 13, 2025, 9:29 am • 0 0 • view
Goodness! It was everywhere - even has its own Wikipedia page. Just Google it! www.google.com/search?clien...
jun 13, 2025, 12:19 pm • 1 0 • view
I was around. I didn't perceive a sudden shift to "all of science is in crisis". Just more and more fields introspecting, doing replication work and generally being disappointed with the results. And as the Wiki says, focused on psych & medicine.
jun 13, 2025, 1:04 pm • 0 0 • view
I don't think anyone is suggesting that not calling out fraud and nonreproducibility in psych would prevent RFK at HHS: I think that's a straw man.
jun 13, 2025, 12:17 pm • 1 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/carl... no, it's what I understand the implication of Bergstrom's and Bak-Coleman's numerous tweets about agnotology and metascience 'useful idiots' to be. Maybe they'd motte and bailey it, but if the reform movement didn't help cause the present crisis, why keep bringing it up?
jun 13, 2025, 5:25 pm • 2 0 • view
If they, like me, believe that it would have happened anyway, I don't see the point of pieces like the above. Just seems like silly axe-grinding.
jun 13, 2025, 5:25 pm • 0 0 • view