Will M. Gervais | Lightnews

Will Gervais

@willgervais.com

9.7K followers 5.3K following 1.9K posts

psych prof & author | culture & evolution | atheists | methodological pluralism FTW | comic & horror nerd | he/him

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species https://www.amazon.com/Disbelief-Origins-Atheism-Religious-Species/dp/1633889246/ .. more

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Will Gervais @willgervais.com · Nov 13

Hi all 👋

I’m a cultural & evolutionary scientist obsessed with 2 ideas:

1) humans are the only species with religion
2) within our religious species, atheism comes naturally

I wrote a book on that, here’s a short 🧵 with some fun book tidbits. Enjoy & share!

💙📚
🧪

www.amazon.com/Disbelief-Or...

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species: Gervais Ph.D, Will M.: 9781633889248: Amazon.com: Books

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species [Gervais Ph.D, Will M.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species

www.amazon.com

Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 20h

Armed with THAMES, 80% of my students predicted that my shitty old Science study wouldn't replicate 🤘

Concerns cited: Cute assumptions, validity, weak results, cultural alternatives.

This was a lot of fun

Poll showing 80% of my students predicting NO! instead of YES! to the question "Would this replicate?"

Upvote/downvote board.

Prompt: What are the BIGGEST CONCERNS?
+4: Cute Assumptions
+3: Cultural, social, and contextual influences also matter
+2: barely any validity
+2: weak results

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Shannon Fennell Artist @shannonfennellart.bsky.social · 2d

Nov 8th is #Evening for #BlueSkyArtShow

2" painting of evening in the Canadian boreal forest.

#Art #Artist #ArtYear #ArtShow #SmArtist #BskyArt #Painting #NatureArt #Landscape
@bsky.art

Scene of a winter sunset over a body of water with forested hills and islets encompassing it. The sun is very low on the horizon, a yellow ball in a greenish haze, with the night sky and stars above. The sun's lingering glow reflects across the water.

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

SAHASA 🐙 @sculptedreef.com · 2d

🪸 Larger Pacific Striped Octopus 🐙 Sculpture

#ArtYear #Art #ArtGallery #Sculpture #Octopus #MarineLife #ArtSale #BSNM #Invertebrates 🦑🐡

A mixed media artwork featuring hand sculpted octopuses.

The octopuses on this piece depict the species Larger Pacific Striped Octopus, a dark brown and white octopus with an iconic bar stripe spot pattern.

Everything is built around a vintage tea set.

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Emily Higgs Art @emilyhiggs-art.bsky.social · 3d

Pterosauria tree (vintage edition) ~ 🦅🌳
.
Alongside my ‘black edition’, I have also tested how my pterosaur illustration would look with a ‘vintage’ natural history illustration background’
.
What do you guys think? Which version do you prefer? The black or vintage background?

#paleoart

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Sophie Carr @sophiecarr.bsky.social · 3d

Another view from the magnificent Stokksnes, with the peaks of Vestrahorn and Brunnhorn visible.

#Iceland

Black sand dunes with some yellow/orange grasses. Behind are some mountain peaks with the top under some cloud.

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 3d

Folks, if you are hungry, please contact your local Sikh gurdwara. Or just show up for langar, which most gurdwaras do several times a week, for a free meal. Lots also do weekly or monthly drives giving out groceries.

No conversion necessary. Feeding anyone who is hungry is a key part of Sikhism.

Jeanne (she/they) @fangirljeanne.bsky.social · 4d

A lady on TikTok has been calling churches pretending to be a mother with a baby who needs formula and several churches turned her away. But wouldn’t you know that when she called a Mosque (Islamic Center of Charlotte) they immediately said yes.

[Source: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMpoxsaW/ ]

Islamic Center of Charlotte in Charlotte NC. Would help feed a starving baby no hesitation 🥰🥰🥰 #fyp #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #testingyourchurch #church #faith #religion #baby #hungrybabytest #viral #viralvid...

TikTok video by Nikalie 🌈

www.tiktok.com

Reposted by John Kennedy, Will M. Gervais

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 4d

Reactions to the "debunking" of the original 1956 cognitive dissonance work baffles me. A whole area doesn't die just bec the first work is faulty. That's novelty bias & theory ownership in psych talking. Mendelian genetics did not die when Mendel's original results were found too good to be true.

Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 5d

Thomas Ligotti with a new line for all the Reviewer 2s out there

I realize that psychology has charted some awfully weird areas in its maps of the mind, but you've gone so far into the ultra-mentational hinterlands of metaphysics that I fear you will not return (at least not with your
reputation intact).

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Samantha Brennan, Will M. Gervais

The Onion @theonion.com · 5d

Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Jessie 🦇 @atropius.bsky.social · 7d

forgot to post my annual pumpkin
#art

A plastic pumpkin painted with a scene inspired by Over the Garden Wall. Greg and Wirt are walking down a spooky forest path and are surrounded by references to the series. There's a tree with creepy faces on the left, a big black dog with glowing eyes on the right, and a silhouette of the Beast in the distant foggy background. There are pumpkins with faces like those in Pottsfield on the path

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich, Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon J. Greenhill , and 8 more Brigitte Nerlich, Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon J. Greenhill, Michael A. Clemens, Marcel Cardillo, Brooke Harrington, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Jesse D. Berman, Elisa Freschi, Will M. Gervais, Benjamin Larue

Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 7d

Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting

I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:

Reposted by Kori Schake, Joanna Bryson, Meredith Broussard , and 46 more Kori Schake, Joanna Bryson, Meredith Broussard, Katharine Hayhoe, Christian Odendahl, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Richard S.J. Tol, Brendan Nyhan, Richard J. Butler, Steve Peers, Steven French, Melissa Terras, Simon J. Greenhill, Harvey J. Miller, Philippe Huneman, Simon Otjes, Dustin Mulvaney, Mirco Tonin, Janne Tukiainen, Paul Matthews, Rachel C. Nethery, Lilian Edwards, Julia Lynch, Caroline T. Schroeder, Bessma Momani, Brian Keegan, Olivier Morin, Peter D. Howe, José Antonio Noguera, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Lex Heerma van Voss, Catherine J. Frieman, Mauro Gatti, Anthony Burke, Jack Stilgoe, Raúl Pacheco-Vega, Brooke Harrington, Christopher Zorn, Alexander Woywodt, James A. Benn, Charles T. Mathewes, Seth Frey, Jani Erola, Aidan O’Sullivan, Catherine Spooner, Will M. Gervais, David Spurrett, José Pina-Sánchez, Valeria Mazza

Dr Selena Wisnom @lswisnom.bsky.social · 8d

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Reposted by Zen Faulkes, Will M. Gervais

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 11d

The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 11d

Saved you a click: it's performing the charade of life in a spiritual wasteland

Beard and glasses man yawning in modern office

BuzzFeed

Doctors Warn This Common Daily Habit Is Making You Feel Exhausted All Day

18 hours ago. By Leigh Weingus

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Adam_RL @adamrl.bsky.social · 11d

Jack O' Lantern Sketches 2025 🎃 #Halloween

A series of spooky sketches that I'm going to use as the basis for the pumpkin carving I'm doing this year.

from left to right: creepy grimace face; scribbly smile; Cyclops/ Beholder; Vampire Bat; Clown; Vampire; Werewolf and Mummy.

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Abigail Larson @abigaillarson.com · 12d

Halloween is almost here 🖤🍷🩸

Illustration by Abigail Larson for "The Horror Tarot" depicting a seance scene in tones of red. Hands rest on a planchette hovering over a Ouija board. There's a red curtain backdrop, and a vintage brass lamp with a red glass shade lights the scene. Small candles and a red glass water pitcher and goblet are arranged on the table.

An illustration by Abigail Larson from "The Horror Tarot" depicting someone fast asleep in a large green antique bed while goblins with glowing yellow eyes and shadowy hands creep out from the darkness unnoticed.

Illustration for the Horror Tarot of the Queen of Cups card showing a vampire in a Victorian dress drinking blood from a goblet.

This illustration is from "The Horror Tarot" deck published by Insight Editions and illustrated by Abigail Larson. Illustration is a stylized version of "the chariot" tarot card depicting a black horse-drawn carriage approaching an ominously glowing cliff. The horse is rears at the edge of the deep red precipice. The background shows a large tree obscured by thick mist.

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Robert Falkner , and 10 more Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Robert Falkner, Brigitte Nerlich, Tim Bale, Luigina Ciolfi, Margot C. Finn, Lisa Ann Richey, Sebastian Karcher, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Brooke Harrington, David Stott, Will M. Gervais

Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 18d

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast'

10/10 response, no notes

Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre

Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast)

Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 18d

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 19d

Solid hex

Reposted by Will M. Gervais

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 19d

Time to add crypto to your Sipp or Isa? Wait, there’s a catch on.ft.com/42Ul817 | opinion

Time to add crypto to your Sipp or Isa? Wait, there’s a catch

Regulatory changes make it possible to gain exposure inside a UK tax wrapper — but few platforms offer them

on.ft.com

Reposted by Brian J. Enquist, Mark Rubin

Will Gervais @willgervais.com · 19d

Spoiler alert: it's better to have a good theoretical understanding and design appropriate statistical models than it is to throw zillions of superficially "okay, fine" models at a poorly specified (and often deliberately vague) target.

A bit of good thinking >>> lots of poor thinking.

Shocking!

Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 19d

Great piece on the absurdity of brute force multiverse analyses.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions | PNAS

Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions

www.pnas.org

Reposted by Brian J. Enquist, Richard McElreath, William J. Brady , and 3 more Brian J. Enquist, Richard McElreath, William J. Brady, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Will M. Gervais, Ignacio Quintero

Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 19d

Great piece on the absurdity of brute force multiverse analyses.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions | PNAS

Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions

www.pnas.org