Carl T. Bergstrom
Professor of Biology . I use math & evolutionary theory to study information flow in biology & society, including how science works. I love corvids.
Last synced from Twitter 11m ago
The Patent
YouTube 39h 2 tweets
The Patent - A Parody of Obedient Servant from the musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda Based on the events of the patent battle for the CRISPR-Cas genome ...
‘Demeaned and Humiliated’: What Happened to These Iranians at U.S. Airports
Caitlin Dickerson - Nytimes.com 42h 18 tweets
Since August, at least 16 Iranian students have been turned away at airports, losing their chances to study at prestigious universities, amid new tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
Carl T. Bergstrom This is how they are treating our students and colleagues at the border, people who waited months or years to obtain valid visas. It's counterproductive for national security, and it's morally wrong. Friends, what we can do? 25h
US Space Force logo looks like one from Star Trek
BBC News 60h 3 tweets
George Takei, star of the original 1960s Star Trek TV series, is jokingly demanding royalties.
Carl T. Bergstrom They ripped off the Starfleet Command logo. Is there anything that this administration can manage to not f*** up? 58h
Amplifiers and the origin of animal signals
PubMed Central (PMC) 3d 1 tweets
In 1989, Hasson introduced the concept of an ‘amplifier’ within animal communication. This display reduces errors in the assessment of traits for which there is direct selection and renders differences in quality among animals more obvious. ...
Carl T. Bergstrom 40. Biologists may recognize this as an amplifier model of the sort that Oren Hasson developed in the early 1990s. (See e.g. ). Extra training is both a signal in Spence's sense and an amplifier allowing the employer to more accurately assess ability. 3d
Hooked on natural selection
Evolution.berkeley.edu 3d 1 tweets
Carl T. Bergstrom Oh goodness, I got the source wrong. This is from the Understanding Evolution website! 3d
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977
NobelPrize.org 3d 1 tweets
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977 was divided, one half jointly to Roger Guillemin and Andrew V. Schally "for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain" and the other half to Rosalyn Yalow "for the...
Carl T. Bergstrom 32. There's a nice paragraph in the paper about how researchers may contrive to prevent there from being a single winner in a race, by "inessential differentiation". Example: switching study organisms while still pursuing the same basic question (see ) 3d
A (Former) Night Owl’s Guide to Becoming a Morning Person
Nytimes.com 9d 4 tweets
I love staying up late, but I hate struggling through the mornings. Here’s how I adapted, and how you can, too.
Carl T. Bergstrom Group-level adaptationist story of the day: 4d
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Carl T. Bergstrom Today's adaptationist story about selection at the level of group comes from the . 4d
Strevens: Priority Rule
Strevens.org 4d 1 tweets
Carl T. Bergstrom 21. As D&D write, "the rule of priority serves two purposes at once: hastening discoveries, and hastening their disclosure." (So much strategic depth here. Just for starters, see Michael Strevens's work and my own working paper ) 4d
now publishers - Is Economics Research Replicable? Sixty Published Papers From Thirteen Journals Say “Often Not”
Nowpublishers.com 258d 4 tweets
Publishers of Foundations and Trends, making research accessible
Carl T. Bergstrom 12. (We can estimate the relative important of tacit knowledge from large-scale replication studies. Chang and Li could replicate 22 of 67 experimental economics studies from the papers alone; help from the authors allowed them to replicate another 7.) 4d
Academia.edu - Share research
Academia.edu 1124d 488 tweets
Academia.edu is a place to share and follow research.
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Carl T. Bergstrom 1. Journal club time. I've been re-reading an old classic in the study of science, Dasgupta and David (1994) Toward a New Economics of Science. Research Policy 23:487 Unfortunately paywalled, but you can find it at and elsewhere. 5d
Toward a new economics of science
Sciencedirect.com 5d 1 tweets
Science policy issues have recently joined technology issues in being acknowledged to have strategic importance for national ‘competitiveness’ and ‘ec…
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Carl T. Bergstrom 1. Journal club time. I've been re-reading an old classic in the study of science, Dasgupta and David (1994) Toward a New Economics of Science. Research Policy 23:487 Unfortunately paywalled, but you can find it at and elsewhere. 5d
John Maynard Smith Centenary Symposium : News and events : School of Life Sciences : University of Sussex
Sussex.ac.uk 7d 1 tweets
Ghent Altarpiece Restorations Reveal the Alarmingly Humanoid Face of the Famous Mystic Lamb
Katherine Wu - Smithsonian Magazine 7d 1 tweets
The animal's soul-penetrating gaze was painted over by a second set of artists in 1550 and spent the next five centuries under wraps
Carl T. Bergstrom Coked out 15th century dude: OK, hear me out. It’s like Cats, but it’s for sheep. Van Eyck brothers: 7d
Why Obama-Trump swing voters like heavy metal
The Economist 74d 5 tweets
Americans’ musical tastes mirror their political divides
Lunch with Pinkah, and a preview of his next book
Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution Is True 10d 7 tweets
When I’m Cambridge visiting old friends, I always try to get together with Dan Dennett and Steve Pinker—separately— for I enjoy the intellectual stimulation this provides (and, in the case of…
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Carl T. Bergstrom "Here’s [Steven Pinker] after lunch, resplendent in his dark suit and elephant cowboy boots (he immediately assured me that the elephant was legally culled to reduce population size, not to harvest its skin)." 8d
Here’s Why Birds Rub Their Beaks on Stuff
Audubon Society - Audubon 12d 1 tweets
There’s more to this behavior than meets the eye. Some of it meets the nose.
Goose Suddenly Realizes It Doesn’t Have To Honk Like An Idiot Entire Time It’s Flapping Wings
The Onion 761d 3 tweets
ELK RAPIDS, MI—The insight abruptly springing to mind as the bird took flight, a local goose suddenly realized Wednesday that it doesn’t have to honk like an idiot the entire time it’s flapping its wings. “Wow, I guess I don’t need to squawk like a...
‘Cancel Culture’ Comes to Science
WSJ 14d 10 tweets
A scholar with an agenda targets as ‘dangerous’ our conference on filtering out faulty research.
Carl T. Bergstrom When their subaltern voices are silenced by the hegemony, sometimes the only recourse for the powerless is to make a couple of phone calls and place a Wall Street Journal editorial. 13d
We Can End Measles—but Scientific BS Is Keeping It Alive
Men's Health 14d 3 tweets
Mass mistrust brought a once-eliminated disease roaring back to life. Here's how to stop it.
Carl T. Bergstrom Antivax agnatology with 14d
Carl T. Bergstrom After all these years of hard work, I finally made it into No, not like this! 13d
Without a Vaccine, These Are Your Odds
Nytimes.com 18d 52 tweets
Comparing the dangerous effects of three diseases with the minimal side effects of their corresponding vaccines.
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Carl T. Bergstrom Make you a deal, . Stop promoting antivax idiocy to the top of your comment section with a "Times Pick" endorsement, and I'll keep the subscription dollars coming. You can even keep Bret Stephens. 17d