Alex Weber @weberam2@qoto.org

Who is against #openscience ?

"To be sure, open science is an idea whose time has come. And yet multiple attempts to derail or weaken the White House guidelines, published in what’s known as the Nelson memo, suggest an organized effort opposed to public access to scientific research.

So, who’s trying to blunt a policy with clear societal benefit? Who is afraid of the Nelson memo?"

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/04/call-open-debate-open-science-opinion

However, I would encourage nonprofits, news orgs and governments to actually delete their accounts on X.

Institutions are conservative and will be the last to go. But it's that institutional conservatism that gives the platform power.

We're entering an election year in the US, and Musk will do everything he can to make the world a darker place.

Withdraw that power from him. Your exit from his platform is _your_ power. You are not "staying and fighting", you are fueling his engine.

Definitely do not go to these websites to get free study books. Also, don't go to https://12ft.io/ to unlock paywalls.

libgen.is, pk1lib.org, ethos.bl.uk, sabaq.pk, sci-hub.se, archive.org, lej4learning.com.pk, pdfdrive.com, unpaywall.org

Maybe we should change our priorities from maximizing the metrics of prestige to maximizing community and personal well-being.

Just a thought.

From: @tdverstynen
https://neuromatch.social/@tdverstynen/111165543953208302

This week I read about a Nobel winner whose groundbreaking work didn't get funded and got her demoted, and about data fraud by two of the highest profile scientists who were lauded and mega funded. We have to stop rewarding short term flashy work and overproductive scientists.

It's fine and correct to talk about both incentives and individual responsibility. But if we scientists collectively decided to heavily downplay work without open, raw data and reproducible methods, and ignored journal title when evaluating scientists, this couldn't happen.

The system is absolutely broken and needs structural reform, yes. Journals need to go. Competitive grants are the wrong way to fund science. Scientific prizes are very problematic. But we also need to get better at reading and doing science and valuing what works in the long term.

That's the key point. If we let these things happen it means we are doing science badly.

Dear journalists: By remaining on the deadbird site you are actively supporting a business whose owner in in league with people who want to end our democracy. He's further eviscerated what was left of the team that was trying to keep election information honest (for typically inane Muskish reasons).

Please admit, at least to yourselves, that you're not merely using a handy platform. You are collaborating with him. https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/28/elon-fires-half-of-extwitters-election-integrity-team-because-a-manager-liked-a-tweet-calling-him-a-fucking-dipshit/

@deevybee

The embarrassment:

"four editors-in-chief of medical journals told one of us that they also did not publish replication studies. They all said they were concerned that publishing replication papers would negatively affect their impact factors."

https://goodscience.substack.com/p/journals-that-ban-replications-are

#academia #ScientificPublishing

Some perspective.

In 1983, the richest American (Gordon Getty) had 75,000 times more wealth than the median American. By 2019, the richest American (Jeff Bezos) has *2 million* times more wealth than the median.

Filthy rich.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/09/24/how-the-rich-get-richer/

Something fun for academics to play around with. A new word cloud generator that pulls abstracts from PubMed. I am reasonably pleased with mine, although I did not appreciate how much I apparently use the word "two" in abstracts!
https://shiny.rcg.sfu.ca/u/rdmorin/pubmedcloud/

#academia #neuroscience #ornithology

New climate unlocked!
#anthropocene #endfossilfuels #climate

A paper to cite in response letters for why we choose to use GLM instead of “more conventional tests.” Great title too 🔥 #neuroscience #statistics https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089662732100845X

Whenever I explain my #research at Google into mobile text editing, I'm usually met with blank stares or a slightly hostile "Everyone can edit text on their phones, right? What's the problem?"

Text editing on mobile isn't ok. It's actually much worse than you think, an invisible problem no one appreciates. I wrote this post so you can understand why it's so important.
https://jenson.org/text
#UXDesign #UX

Am I misunderstanding something?

This appears to be a stunningly irresponsible story in Science, claiming that up to 30% of the scientific literature is fake.

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-scientific-papers-are-alarmingly-common

Below, the first two paragraphs of the story.

h/t @Hoch

I recorded a tutorial-type video on a Python Data Analysis project using Pandas, Numpy, Matplotlib, and Seaborn, and uploaded it to YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ9wMv6y9qc

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ9wMv6y9qc

#programming #python

What's the best way to evaluate someone's publications if you don't have time to read them? 😬
e.g.,

-Characterizing dept research output. Say 7 active faculty and 3-5 papers each. (I don't have time to carefully read 21 papers.)

-Communicating publications to a Dean who doesn't know the field

-Evaluating a candidate or grant outside core expertise (so I don't really know the field)

Struggling a bit because

1. Journal impact factor is commonly used and also a poor indicator of quality

2. Gut feelings about journal "reputation" seem potentially arbitrary and prone to bias

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Takeaway from @cpsievert 's {bslib} #rstats 📦 presentation at #PositConf2023: If you are working in R Shiny, you REALLY ought to be using bslib to get lots more cool design capabilities!!
That's because basic Shiny doesn't have newer Bootstrap capabilities, since adding those would break existing code.
Package into: https://rstudio.github.io/bslib/
@rstats #RShiny