Paolo Crosetto

@paolocrosetto.bsky.social

2.9K followers 1.3K following 600 posts

Experimental & Behavioural economist INRAE Grenoble • President of the French Association of Experimental Economists • Scientific publishing measurement & reform • Experiments on food labeling - risk - choices • Rstats • Italian Food Police honorary member .. more

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Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 26d

Since AI slop is again all over Scientific Reports, a thread on the economics of grey-zone publishing.

Why does slop keep getting published? What does it mean for science? How can we stop this?

Background readings:
Understand the strain: tinyurl.com/2b6wxx5r
Stop the drain: tinyurl.com/3jfscscy

An obviously AI-generated figure with AI slop and fake text all over it, recently published in Scientific Reports.

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 2d

No It wasn't far, that's why I ended up waking. It was a nice walk. But still, no bus showed up and that was semi central Galway, I thought there would be at least some decent public transport -- and the app said so...

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 3d

What if Unis hold the line?

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 3d

Well done Swissuniversities! @snsf.ch et al. once again leading the charge (see previous special issue announcement).

Funders and institutes hold the cards. If they don't pay the profiteers, we researchers will just adapt.

We don't need Nature. Nature needs us.

#SciPub #ResearchIntegrity

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Margot C. Finn

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 3d

Today the Swiss announced they don't have an agreement with Springer Nature -- swissuniversity tried to secure a deal and failed in the face of the extreme rise in publishing fees.

When the game is rigged, it's better to stop playing.

🧵 to understand the drain of scientific publishing👇

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 3d

Breaking news: Switzerland reaches no deal with Springer, asks scientists to consider stop reviewing, as negotiations to stop the crazy increase of APC prices failed.

If it looks like a hold-up it's because it is one. Publishers drain scientific publishing for profit.

Time to stop playing.

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 3d

I was in Dublin two years ago and I have to say I was not favourably impressed by the transport either. I took the tram (good!) but then wanted to hop on a bus and realized they had 2 different ticketing systems and I had to do an extra card. Then there was a traffic jam of buses But maybe it's me ☺️

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 3d

I was in Galway to give a seminar last year. Hotel about 4km away from uni. Downloaded the app looked up the bus. "Next one in 1h20". I walked a bit, got to a stop with more bus lines. "Next one in 10min". But it didn't show up. Nor the next. I ended up walking all the way to uni...

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 4d

After all, why not, since making it hard for foreigners to attend universities is going so well in the UK?

Why do nationalists never learn, even when they see their policies backfire live?

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 7d

The "Szilard Point."

When we talk about The strain and the drain on scientific publishing, it's this.
Researchers are working more just to stay afloat, and less on what we actually want them to do: research, discover, innovate.

Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820

Reposted by Tim Bale, Alexander Wuttke, Paolo Crosetto , and 4 more Tim Bale, Alexander Wuttke, Paolo Crosetto, Jens Rydgren, Hannah Walker, José Antonio Noguera, Michael Jones‐Correa

Public Opinion Quarterly - POQ @poqjournal.bsky.social · 7d

Survey experiments have become a popular methodology among social scientists. Has it been effective?

In POQ, Rauf et al. study the efficacy of 100 survey experiments. Their results show that a majority of hypotheses were not supported.

Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 8d

Very well put, I hope the MPG acts. CNRS in France is taking the lead and acting in moving us towards a better equilibrium. MPG should do the same and, given its structure geared towards young researchers, arguably more. Thank you for this.

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 9d

This is the future of scientific discourse. Not secret peer review that, with added lots of money, results in publication for reputation; but open review of preprints, focusing on the science and bringing the conversation forward.

The critique is as important as the article. In this case -- more.

Jan Vanhove @janhove.bsky.social · 10d

A recent study purports to have found that multilingualism protects against accelerated ageing. I've taken a closer look at it, and it doesn't look good.

New blog post: "Does multilingualism really protect against accelerated ageing? Some critical comments"
janhove.github.io/posts/2025-1...

Positive trend between monolingualism and accelerated ageing.

Negative trend between per capita GDP and accelerated ageing.

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto, Ondřej Mottl, Julen Astigarraga

Jem Arnold @jemarnold.bsky.social · 9d

{ggview} can print plots to Viewer (Rstudio or Positron) with true scaling. Adjust plot settings and see the final proportions immediately.

Save the plot once 👌

e.g.:
ggplot(...) +
ggview::canvas(width = 220, height = 220*2/3, units = "mm", dpi = 300)

per @nrennie.bsky.social #datavis #rstats

Reposted by Nicholas A. Christakis, Marco Festa‐Bianchet, Lesley A. Hall , and 30 more Nicholas A. Christakis, Marco Festa‐Bianchet, Lesley A. Hall, Jacob Montgomery, Gernot Wagner, Kelly Smith, Nils Gustafsson, Valerie Mueller, Paolo Crosetto, Tom van der Meer, Douglas Guilfoyle, Adrian Vickers, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Christine Kooi, Bessma Momani, Brian Keegan, Zen Faulkes, Sarah Roberts, Kate Starbird, Paul Nightingale, Wolfgang Huber, Ann Bartow, Nelson Flores, Alessandro Rigolon, Halley E. Froehlich, Juanjo Medina, Greg Linden, Stephen A. Meserve, Stella M. Rouse, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Francesco Nicoli, Jeannette Sutton, Clark Gray

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 10d

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things

Reposted by Ian Hussey, Paolo Crosetto

Jan Vanhove @janhove.bsky.social · 10d

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 11d

Another AI-fabricated book from Top Quality academic publisher Spring Nature.

Publisher under fire after ‘fake’ citations found in AI ethics guide

A book published by Springer Nature includes dozens of questionable citations, including references to journals that do not exist

www.thetimes.com

Reposted by Jonathan A. Foley, Juan Cole, Paolo Crosetto

Dr. Wildlife @drwildlife.bsky.social · 11d

Bluesky has genuinely revived my love for science communication online. After watching the same posts go nowhere on Twitter, seeing them resonate here has been such a good reminder of why I do this. Thanks for being here 🖤

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Jasmin Schmitz @jasminschmitz12.bsky.social · 15d

"Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge".
doi.org/10.48550/arX...

The Drain of Scientific Publishing

The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and ...

doi.org

Reposted by Jörg Peters, Valerie Mueller, Paolo Crosetto , and 2 more Jörg Peters, Valerie Mueller, Paolo Crosetto, Jens Rommel, Bartosz Bartkowski

Moritz Peter Fritschle @moritzfritschle.bsky.social · 15d

New paper in the #JARE 📄 🥳

To celebrate 50 years of the Journal of #Agricultural and #Resource #Economics, we contributed our paper "Advancing Agri-Environmental Policy with Behavioral and Experimental Economics: Insights, Innovations, and Future Directions" to the latest special issue. 1/4

Advancing Agri-Environmental Policy with Behavioral and Experimental Economics: Insights, Innovations, and Future Directions

In recent years, behavioral and experimental economics have increasingly shaped agrienvironmental research by revealing how farmers navigate complex decisions. This article reviews key developments in three areas: behavioral insights into farmers’ social, temporal, and risk preferences and identities, norms, and motivations; experimental methods for assessing behavior and policy impacts; and methodological advances enhancing scientific rigor. We highlight contributions to more behaviorally informed agri-environmental policies, including nudges, participatory approaches, and innovative schemes. Looking forward, priorities include large-scale collaborative studies, stronger stakeholder involvement, and integrating behavioral evidence into policymaking, addressing challenges such as farmer fatigue, to design adaptive, effective, and legitimate policies.

Copyright: JARE

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Open Research, University of Aberdeen @openresearchuoa.bsky.social · 15d

On the 7th day before break, the OA community gave to us: Landmark research into the state of academic publishing. @hansonmark.bsky.social & team produced two papers: 'The Strain/Drain on Scientific Publishing' demonstrating the challenges we face
doi.org/10.1162/qss_...
doi.org/10.48550/arX...

The strain on scientific publishing

Abstract. Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years;…

doi.org

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 15d

Pray tell more. In France many municipalities have 4-days weeks (Wed is off) and I also do think it's bad, but parents and teachers around me are ferociously supporting the policy, I'd be happy to have more arguments

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · 15d

We’re addicted to publishing, because the system made it our only currency.

Read the post by The Open Fox, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

I’m a scientist and we’re publishing too much

The first step of alcoholics anonymous is to admit you have an addiction (or so the many TV shows tell me). Well, I’m a scientist and science has an addiction. It’s an addiction that every scientist h...

www.themodernpeer.com

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 16d

Because they're poor.

No money to handle vector graphics. To make manuscript central decent. To pay reviewers.

So poor, they have to push editing, reviewing, formatting, figures, and more onto authors.

Yet, somehow, they have 30+% profit rates.

Stop the drain: tinyurl.com/3jfscscy

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Alessandro Martinello @alemartinello.com · 16d

Super!

One point you might make even more explicit, which is obvious for you but not always to the students, is that the product of your class is not whatever output the students produce. Nobody cares about it. It will be thrown away.

The product is learning.

Reposted by Michael A. Clemens, Kathleen J. Mullen, Paolo Crosetto , and 8 more Michael A. Clemens, Kathleen J. Mullen, Paolo Crosetto, Aaron Sojourner, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Juan Rocha, Winston T. Lin, Simon Munzert, Samuel Coavoux, Gábor Békés, Jesper Wulff

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 16d

Some closing thoughts for my students this semester on LLMs and learning #rstats datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...

Will you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course in the future?
No.

Why won’t you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course?
These tools are useful for coding (see this for my personal take on this).

However, they’re only useful if you know what you’re doing first. If you skip the learning-the-process-of-writing-code step and just copy/paste output from ChatGPT, you will not learn. You cannot learn. You cannot improve. You will not understand the code.

In that post, it warns that you cannot use it as a beginner:

…to use Databot effectively and safely, you still need the skills of a data scientist: background and domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability.

There is no LLM-based shortcut to those skills. You cannot LLM your way into domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, or coding ability.

The only way to gain domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability is to struggle. To get errors. To google those errors. To look over the documentation. To copy/paste your own code and adapt it for different purposes. To explore messy datasets. To struggle to clean those datasets. To spend an hour looking for a missing comma.

This isn’t a form of programming hazing, like “I had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow and now you must too.” It’s the actual process of learning and growing and developing and improving. You’ve gotta struggle.

This Tumblr post puts it well (it’s about art specifically, but it applies to coding and data analysis too):

Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner’s roadblock to art isn’t even technical skill it’s frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach’s capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That’s how you build on the technical skill. Throw that “won’t even start because I’m afraid it won’t be perfect” shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck. (The original post has disappeared, but here’s a reblog.)

It’s hard, but struggling is the only way to learn anything.

You might not enjoy code as much as Williams does (or I do), but there’s still value in maintaining codings skills as you improve and learn more. You don’t want your skills to atrophy.

As I discuss here, when I do use LLMs for coding-related tasks, I purposely throw as much friction into the process as possible:

To avoid falling into over-reliance on LLM-assisted code help, I add as much friction into my workflow as possible. I only use GitHub Copilot and Claude in the browser, not through the chat sidebar in Positron or Visual Studio Code. I treat the code it generates like random answers from StackOverflow or blog posts and generally rewrite it completely. I disable the inline LLM-based auto complete in text editors. For routine tasks like generating {roxygen2} documentation scaffolding for functions, I use the {chores} package, which requires a bunch of pointing and clicking to use.

Even though I use Positron, I purposely do not use either Positron Assistant or Databot. I have them disabled.

So in the end, for pedagogical reasons, I don’t foresee me incorporating LLMs into this class. I’m pedagogically opposed to it. I’m facing all sorts of external pressure to do it, but I’m resisting.

You’ve got to learn first.

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders, Will Jennings, Brendan Nyhan , and 6 more Elizabeth Saunders, Will Jennings, Brendan Nyhan, Steve Peers, Michael A. Clemens, Paolo Crosetto, David R. Miller, James Goodwin, Julie Rovner

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 16d

New, from me: by embracing unitary executive theory, the Supreme Court is moving towards making all public employees fireable at the will of the President.

This will not just hurt government competence, it will aid democratic backsliding. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/at-will-wh...

At will? Whose will?

Removing independent agency heads is part of a broader assault on a nonpartisan government

donmoynihan.substack.com

Reposted by Diane Coyle, Richard S.J. Tol, Ken Caldeira , and 12 more Diane Coyle, Richard S.J. Tol, Ken Caldeira, Steven French, Alistair Munro, Hilde Van den Bulck, Fabián Muniesa, Paul E. Smaldino, Benjamin Braun, Joni Lovenduski, Paolo Crosetto, Christopher Barrie, Paul Nightingale, Guillaume Allègre, Clark Gray

Lauren Leek @laurenleek.eu · 17d

I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it

I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

Public Knowledge Project @pkp.sfu.ca · 17d

📣 Our friends at the #ScholCommLab have published a preprint, "The Drain of #ScientificPublishing", and are calling for #research communities, funders, governments, and #universities to "re-communalise publishing to serve #science not the market"

doi.org/10.48550/arX...

#ScholComm #AcademicSky