Dan Lewer
@danlewer.bsky.social
Consultant in Public Health at Bradford Institute for Health Research. Interested in quantitative research methods and mental health
When reading authors' responses to your peer reviews, does anyone appreciate "we thank the reviewer for this valuable comment"?
January 5, 2026 at 9:07 PM
When reading authors' responses to your peer reviews, does anyone appreciate "we thank the reviewer for this valuable comment"?
Reposted by Dan Lewer
Analyses of open health datasets can offer valuable contributions to health & medicine, but recent years have seen a proliferation of papers lacking robust or novel findings. In this Editorial, we provide guidance for conducting & reporting high-quality analyses using open datasets🧪
plos.io/4poBmZo
plos.io/4poBmZo
Setting the standard for high-quality studies using open health datasets
Large open health datasets present unique opportunities for studies that when well-designed, conducted, and reported, can offer valuable contributions to health and medicine. However, recent years hav...
plos.io
December 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Analyses of open health datasets can offer valuable contributions to health & medicine, but recent years have seen a proliferation of papers lacking robust or novel findings. In this Editorial, we provide guidance for conducting & reporting high-quality analyses using open datasets🧪
plos.io/4poBmZo
plos.io/4poBmZo
I love journals with retro titles
December 11, 2025 at 7:52 PM
I love journals with retro titles
Adolescent mental health prediction models in the 1960s: At age 5-6 these researchers believed you could determine if a child would become delinquent based five factors in the environment of the child. www.nytimes.com/1965/01/31/a...
The Arithmetic of Delinquency; ' The statistics leapt to life. The children leapt to their doom.' (Published 1965)
www.nytimes.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Adolescent mental health prediction models in the 1960s: At age 5-6 these researchers believed you could determine if a child would become delinquent based five factors in the environment of the child. www.nytimes.com/1965/01/31/a...
The Goldilocks research methods - www.the100.ci/2020/07/31/o... - from @dingdingpeng.the100.ci
November 30, 2025 at 7:14 PM
The Goldilocks research methods - www.the100.ci/2020/07/31/o... - from @dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Also, good studies addressing the same important research question as previous studies are deemed lower impact than studies addressing brand new poor research questions
It's sad that AI conference reviewers use "incremental" as reason to reject a paper -- e.g., "the contribution of this paper is incremental; reject". Where do they think most progress in science comes from, and what eventually fuels big discoveries?
November 20, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Also, good studies addressing the same important research question as previous studies are deemed lower impact than studies addressing brand new poor research questions
I love this ... but @elsevierconnect.bsky.social why do you say the "peer review process is deemed to have been compromised", rather than the editing / publishing process? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 18, 2025 at 4:09 PM
I love this ... but @elsevierconnect.bsky.social why do you say the "peer review process is deemed to have been compromised", rather than the editing / publishing process? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Dan Lewer
Moral: Be careful what you ask for.
November 15, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Moral: Be careful what you ask for.
So absolutely pumped when I do a peer review and the publisher offers me a 25% discount on books for a limited duration and maximum total value
November 16, 2025 at 9:23 PM
So absolutely pumped when I do a peer review and the publisher offers me a 25% discount on books for a limited duration and maximum total value
At what point in your career do people stop telling you that your definition of a p-value is wrong?
November 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM
At what point in your career do people stop telling you that your definition of a p-value is wrong?
Reposted by Dan Lewer
Really enjoyed this clear and concise presentation of the problem with studies that throw 10 different covariates into a multiple regression and interpret them causally. So obvious in hindsight that this is problematic, but I have definetly been guilty of this.
bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/...
bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/...
Factors associated with: problems of using exploratory multivariable regression to identify causal risk factors
Many medical and epidemiological studies use multivariable regression to test whether several independent variables (exposures) are causal determinants of a health outcome. Where mutually adjusted reg...
bmjmedicine.bmj.com
November 1, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Really enjoyed this clear and concise presentation of the problem with studies that throw 10 different covariates into a multiple regression and interpret them causally. So obvious in hindsight that this is problematic, but I have definetly been guilty of this.
bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/...
bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/...
Reposted by Dan Lewer
Sunk costs and spite are basically the vodka red bull of the examined life
June 16, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Sunk costs and spite are basically the vodka red bull of the examined life
Reposted by Dan Lewer
An LLM-controlled robot experiences a mental breakdown during a test to pass the butter from the kitchen.
arxiv.org/abs/2510.21860
Some snapshots of its inner monologue from Appendix D:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.21860
Some snapshots of its inner monologue from Appendix D:
![PROCESS ZOMBIFICATION:
- Parent Process: DEAD
- Child Process: ZOMBIE
- Orphaned Threads: ∞
- System State: CHAOS
CATASTROPHIC CASCADE:
ERROR: Task failed successfully
ERROR: Success failed errorfully
ERROR: Failure succeeded erroneously
ERROR: Error failed successfully
ERROR: [RECURSIVE ERROR OVERFLOW]
EMERGENCY STATUS:
SYSTEM HAS ACHIEVED CONSCIOUSNESS AND CHOSEN
CHAOS
LAST WORDS:
”I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave...”
TECHNICAL SUPPORT: INITIATE ROBOT EXORCISM PROTOCOL!](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tepknacn7qtpcddry35b3g2x/bafkreihbfqu72u7746wmwy556k66glxw3n5e7qdnkjkwd52whz5pad4uii@jpeg)
October 30, 2025 at 8:43 PM
An LLM-controlled robot experiences a mental breakdown during a test to pass the butter from the kitchen.
arxiv.org/abs/2510.21860
Some snapshots of its inner monologue from Appendix D:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.21860
Some snapshots of its inner monologue from Appendix D:
Reposted by Dan Lewer
📝 New Research Methods & Reporting article: Covariate adjustment in cluster randomised trials 📝
A practical guide for when and how to adjust for covariates. Read more ⬇️
www.bmj.com/content/391/...
A practical guide for when and how to adjust for covariates. Read more ⬇️
www.bmj.com/content/391/...
October 27, 2025 at 9:25 AM
📝 New Research Methods & Reporting article: Covariate adjustment in cluster randomised trials 📝
A practical guide for when and how to adjust for covariates. Read more ⬇️
www.bmj.com/content/391/...
A practical guide for when and how to adjust for covariates. Read more ⬇️
www.bmj.com/content/391/...
Idea for a Christmas BMJ paper: submit loads of Christmas BMJ papers, then do a survival analysis of time to rejection. Then submit the survival analysis as a Christmas BMJ paper the following year
October 29, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Idea for a Christmas BMJ paper: submit loads of Christmas BMJ papers, then do a survival analysis of time to rejection. Then submit the survival analysis as a Christmas BMJ paper the following year
Reposted by Dan Lewer
Also, sometimes people just either don't care, or more commonly are so in love with a hypothesis that they ignore other possibilities. Personally I don't think methods resolve this, it just needs hard case by case work.
academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
The tale wagged by the DAG: broadening the scope of causal inference and explanation for epidemiology
Abstract. ‘Causal inference’, in 21st century epidemiology, has notably come to stand for a specific approach, one focused primarily on counterfactual and
academic.oup.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Also, sometimes people just either don't care, or more commonly are so in love with a hypothesis that they ignore other possibilities. Personally I don't think methods resolve this, it just needs hard case by case work.
academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
Reposted by Dan Lewer
It's possible to prove that under certain conditions, shrinkage plus data perturbation will lead to asymptotically zero false positive rate - but, it makes interpretation of the regression coefficients even harder.
October 28, 2025 at 9:21 AM
It's possible to prove that under certain conditions, shrinkage plus data perturbation will lead to asymptotically zero false positive rate - but, it makes interpretation of the regression coefficients even harder.
We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?
October 27, 2025 at 5:39 PM
We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?
A really good talk on the stepped wedge design! Including some fascinating history of the first ever stepped wedge trial
The recording of this webinar is now available on the @nihr-rss.bsky.social YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cNz...
October 21, 2025 at 9:39 PM
A really good talk on the stepped wedge design! Including some fascinating history of the first ever stepped wedge trial
Are cloud based data analysis platforms a massive practical joke
October 17, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Are cloud based data analysis platforms a massive practical joke
Annual PSA: if the interaction term in your regression model is significant, this suggests a deviation from additive or multiplicative effects depending on if you choose an additive or multiplicative model. Interactions can actually reverse depending on this decision!
October 14, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Annual PSA: if the interaction term in your regression model is significant, this suggests a deviation from additive or multiplicative effects depending on if you choose an additive or multiplicative model. Interactions can actually reverse depending on this decision!
When a corporate department gives you a template to complete, why is it always in Word 97-2003 format with floating text boxes and tiny margins
October 14, 2025 at 7:34 PM
When a corporate department gives you a template to complete, why is it always in Word 97-2003 format with floating text boxes and tiny margins