Richard McElreath | Lightnews

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛

@rmcelreath.bsky.social

17K followers 1.4K following 1.3K posts

Anthropologist - Bayesian modeling - science reform - cat and cooking content too - Director @ MPI for evolutionary anthropology https://www.eva.mpg.de/ecology/staff/richard-mcelreath/

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Richard McElreath is an American professor of anthropology and a director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He is an author of the Statistical Rethinking applied Bayesian statistics textbook, among the first to largely rely on the Stan statistical environment, and the accompanying rethinking R language package. .. more

Psychology 22%

Sociology 21%

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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 17d

Possums in your yard? News got you down? Fear not, I have made playlists for the A and B sections of my ongoing Statistical Rethinking course. Click the section of your choice, sit back, and forget the possums and decay of the international order while your brain updates. github.com/rmcelreath/s...

screen shot of lecture playlist links and table of lecture topics

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5h

okay now you have my attention

Obsidian @obsidian.md · 7h

Anything you can do in Obsidian you can do from the command line.

Obsidian CLI is now available in 1.12 (early access).

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 6h

The data are in my rethinking package github.com/rmcelreath/r...

github.com

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Obsidian @obsidian.md · 7h

Anything you can do in Obsidian you can do from the command line.

Obsidian CLI is now available in 1.12 (early access).

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 8h

You get a confound, you get a confound, everybody gets a confound! Lecture A06 of Statistical Rethinking 2026 - Elemental confounds. Intro to d-separation, forks pipes colliders oh my, extended fork example with detailed simulation of intervention. Continues next week into backdoor criterion.

Statistical Rethinking Lecture A06 - Elemental Confounds I

YouTube video by Richard McElreath

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Martin Tomko, Andrew Livingstone

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 8h

There is long and entertaining lecture by Bell Burnell on the ytube about her discovery of pulsars and quasars. She says the term "pulsar" was invented by a journalist because "pulsating radio source" was too boffin (explained at ~47min mark). www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot1G...

screenshot of slide from presentation. title: First build your radio telescope (through hail, rain and sunshine)

Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Richard McElreath, Rafael Candido‐Ribeiro

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 1d

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

Davis Summer Population Genomics Program

Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...

docs.google.com

Reposted by Richard McElreath, Noel D. Johnson

Guggenheim Collection @guggenheim.bsky.social · 1d

Black Lines by Vasily Kandinsky, 1913
https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137402

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift

© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

Starting to map out some new features for my rethinking package. But at the moment just stumbling upon some excellent code comments I left for myself some years ago

$code editor showing: # fire lasers pew pew if ( sample==TRUE ) { if ( length(start)==0 ) { # without explicit start list if ( prev_stanfit==FALSE ) {$

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

natural allies

zoom in on bsky cluster amp showing "Thomas The Tank Engine Fan Community" next to "Pro Wrestling Fans"

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 1d

Helping a student debug their stan model: chains were flat-lining sometimes. Turns out the problem was just the scaling on a predictor variable, not the model code. Check your scales! Inits at zero also helped. But rescaling to 0-1 range solved most of trouble.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 2d

It is February 8 and I have finally used up all this xmas duck stock

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · Dec 27

so much duck stock

two plastic containers of cloudy duck stock

Reposted by Richard McElreath

ivokra.bsky.social @ivokra.bsky.social · 2d

Absolutely, but people younger than Gen X probably don't know what you're talking about.

nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eerst_m...

Eerst mijn fiets terug - Wikipedia

nl.wikipedia.org

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 3d

I think this germans-stealing-bicycles episode remains well known in Netherlands? I have heard Dutch colleagues make jokes about Germans being bike thieves

Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 3d

German soldiers with rifles confiscate bicycles in front of the Royal Palace on Dam Square, Amsterdam, early April 1945
(see ALT-text for more info)

📷Ad Windig

Photo from a book called De Ondergedoken Camera (The Underground Camera), which comprises photos taken secretly by Dutch photographers during the later stages of WWII. The photo shows a crowd of people, some in uniform, others in civilian clothes, with bicycles in front of a large building.

A caption with the photo says, "Amsterdam, early April 1945. Several bicycle raids took place. The requisitioned bicycles were intended for recently arrived German units in the city. Ad Windig photographed the confiscation of bicycles in front of the Royal Palace on Dam Square. 'German soldiers with rifles rounded up the people and told them where to go to hand over their bicycles. I took the photo from Peek and Cloppenburg. There was a wonderful overview there.' 160 Ad Windig, MAI."

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 3d

German soldiers with rifles confiscate bicycles in front of the Royal Palace on Dam Square, Amsterdam, early April 1945
(see ALT-text for more info)

📷Ad Windig

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 4d

Witness the power of this fully operational Bayesian latent space social relations model - Lecture B05 of Statistical Rethinking 2026. Incremental model construction and testing workflow for dyadic and generalized exchange networks, posterior network simulation, one dank Insane Clown Posse meme.

Statistical Rethinking 2026 Lecture B05 - Social Networks II

YouTube video by Richard McElreath

www.youtube.com

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 4d

Does anyone understand this meme anymore? Anyway, I am lecturing on social network models this morning

Insane Clown Posse magnets meme. Text: Social networks! How do they work?

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

We are reading it in my dept journal club. I am learning a lot at least.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

We have some secret plans for a variety of workflow support support. But modular and interoperable is our goal. One of the things that has been holding back 3rd edition of my book is better integrating workflow with my rethinking package.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

From Weidman's "Killer Instinct" www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

fair

aren’t any— not on all phases of the book. The zoologists know nothing of
paleontology, the paleontologists know nothing of African paleontology,
etc. AVOID ANTHROPOLOGISTS. This is a pseudo- science, loaded to the
Plimsoll mark with pseudo- authorities.” He continued: “I am writing a
revolutionary and controversial book on the total subject matter of which
I am the only living authority.” For Ardrey, scientists were not the proper
judges of his work

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 5d

Yes! I think Aki has built most of it already.

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · 5d

The publisher estimates the Bayesian Workflow book will ship in June www.routledge.com/Bayesian-Wor...

Bayesian Workflow

Bayesian statistics and statistical practice have evolved over the years, driven by advancements in theory, methods, and computational tools. This book explores the intricate workflows of applied Baye...

www.routledge.com

Reposted by Dietram A. Scheufele, Richard McElreath, Elena Litchman , and 2 more Dietram A. Scheufele, Richard McElreath, Elena Litchman, Rebecca Sear, Eric J. Pedersen

iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 6d

📢 Call for registrations - Science:TBD
📍 Leipzig | 3–4 March 2026

Join us for an inspiring lineup of keynotes:
⭐Sheena F. Bartscherer
⭐Alice Hughes @achughes.bsky.social
⭐Wolfgang Forstmeier
⭐Ulrich Dirnagl
⭐Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social

Register now: www.idiv.de/science-tbd

Reposted by Richard McElreath

Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.bsky.social · 6d

as I'm revising my course materials, I keep stumbling upon cool @mc-stan.org developments.

Current favorites:
1. your model has funnels and you exhausted reparametrization ideas: metric = "dense_e" makes your HMC learn about covariance btw parameters. Sloooow, but effective!
1/

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 6d

I learned today, while looking up a quote for an abstract, that the real T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) wrote an article for Encyclopedia Britannica on Guerilla Warfare www.britannica.com/topic/T-E-La...

The practice was, however, not to employ in the firing line the greater numbers which the adoption of a “simple” system made available theoretically. Instead, they were used in relay: otherwise the attack would have become too extended. Guerrillas must be allowed liberal work-room. In irregular war if two men are together one is being wasted. The moral strain of isolated action makes this simple form of war very hard on the individual soldier, and exacts from him special initiative, endurance and enthusiasm. Here the ideal was to make action a series of single combats to make the ranks a happy alliance of commanders-in-chief. The value of the Arab army depended entirely on quality, not on quantity. The members had to keep always cool, for the excitement of a blood-lust would impair their science, and their victory depended on a just use of speed, concealment, accuracy of fire. Guerrilla war is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge.

Reposted by Susanne Lachmuth

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 6d

I am doing a short workshop in this symposium (quoted below) for folks in and around Leipzig. Here's the abstract. I really indulged myself with this one.

A Guerilla Approach to Scientific Workflow:

Title: A Guerilla Approach to Scientific Workflow

Abstract: Taking inspiration from guerilla warfare, I will introduce a framework for managing scientific research that addresses the complexity of research while advancing goals of transparency and reliability. Real science is complex, and there is no single scientific method. It is a chaotic network of theories, data, models, graphs, comparisons, summaries, and narratives. A flaw in any part can ruin everything. How can small teams of researchers challenge this complexity and emerge victorious? More statistical training is not enough. More resources is not enough. Lawrence of Arabia once said, "Guerrilla warfare is more intellectual than a bayonet charge." And this is how we too will proceed. Instead of confronting the complexity directly, with more money and more people and more data and more meta-analyses, we must develop a SCIENTIFIC WORKFLOW that subdivides, analyzes, and transparently justifies our individual research projects. The tools to do this already exist, and individual researchers can become scientific guerillas today to improve their chances of victory.

Reposted by Richard McElreath, Mark Rubin, Rebecca Sear , and 6 more Richard McElreath, Mark Rubin, Rebecca Sear, Ingo Rohlfing, Markus Wagner, Johannes Breuer, Florian Keusch, Kris Hardies, Jan R. Boehnke

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 6d

New preprint! So, what's a multiverse analysis good for anyway?>

With @jessicahullman.bsky.social and @statmodeling.bsky.social

juliarohrer.com/wp-content/u...

What’s a multiverse good for anyway?

Julia M. Rohrer, Jessica Hullman, and Andrew Gelman

Multiverse analysis has become a fairly popular approach, as indicated by the present special issue on the matter. Here, we take one step back and ask why one would conduct a multiverse analysis in the first place. We discuss various ways in which a multiverse may be employed – as a tool for reflection and critique, as a persuasive tool, as a serious inferential tool – as well as potential problems that arise depending on the specific purpose. For example, it fails as a persuasive tool when researchers disagree about which variations should be included in the analysis, and it fails as a serious inferential tool when the included analyses do not target a coherent estimand. Then, we take yet another step back and ask what the multiverse discourse has been good for and whether any broader lessons can be drawn. Ultimately, we conclude that the multiverse does remain a valuable tool; however, we urge against taking it too seriously.

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 6d

oh really nice! I am preparing to make such an argument with ecologists about their meta-analyses.

Ich hätte jedoch statistischen Kartoffelsalat vorgezogen

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 6d

It's a shame an international audience isn't going to get your "Mülltiverse" pun

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