Ryan Briggs
@ryancbriggs.net
Raising kids & bread & grant money. Cleaning data & diapers & fish. EA (bed nets, not light cone). Social scientist. typos. twitter.com/ryancbriggs
At the Ag Fair & @Uofg has a presence. I was talking to the DNA barcoding people & found out that Steve Newmaster has been effectively banned from teaching & research but still gets his salary. If we can’t fire people for research fraud, what are we doing? www.science.org/content/arti...
This scientist accused the supplement industry of fraud. Now, his own work is under fire
DNA barcoding brought botanist Steven Newmaster scientific fame and entrepreneurial success. Was it all based on lies?
www.science.org
November 8, 2025 at 5:10 PM
At the Ag Fair & @Uofg has a presence. I was talking to the DNA barcoding people & found out that Steve Newmaster has been effectively banned from teaching & research but still gets his salary. If we can’t fire people for research fraud, what are we doing? www.science.org/content/arti...
Help me think of an engaging physical way to demonstrate the problem of selection on statistical significance. My best idea right now is to take a Galton board and drill holes in the bottom so some of the balls with |z| < 2 fall out.
November 3, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Help me think of an engaging physical way to demonstrate the problem of selection on statistical significance. My best idea right now is to take a Galton board and drill holes in the bottom so some of the balls with |z| < 2 fall out.
Like 500 social scientists just got a Nature publication today. This will eventually be a DID for someone.
October 31, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Like 500 social scientists just got a Nature publication today. This will eventually be a DID for someone.
Say I wanted ~9k USD to buy out the teaching time of a prof (a brilliant coauthor of mine) so he can work on creating a validated ground truth dataset for a challenging data extraction and labelling task that current public LLMs (e.g. GPT5) have not yet saturated. Who do I pitch?
October 27, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Say I wanted ~9k USD to buy out the teaching time of a prof (a brilliant coauthor of mine) so he can work on creating a validated ground truth dataset for a challenging data extraction and labelling task that current public LLMs (e.g. GPT5) have not yet saturated. Who do I pitch?
Snacking cakes by Yossy Arefi is the most dangerous cookbook. It’s entirely 1 bowl cakes that you can make in under 1 hour, like this chocolate sesame one. Perfect for when you need to eat cake at 9pm on a Sunday.
October 27, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Snacking cakes by Yossy Arefi is the most dangerous cookbook. It’s entirely 1 bowl cakes that you can make in under 1 hour, like this chocolate sesame one. Perfect for when you need to eat cake at 9pm on a Sunday.
Reposted by Ryan Briggs
Such a happy example of people practicing evidence-backed living: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/w...
Peanut Allergies Have Plummeted in Children, Study Shows
www.nytimes.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Such a happy example of people practicing evidence-backed living: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/w...
Reposted by Ryan Briggs
Quarto friends! I need your help:
We are implementing a new QMD parser in Quarto. It will be super nice. But it's a big change, and we want to minimize the impact.
1. Can you share a link to your Quarto project at github.com/quarto-dev/q...
2. repost this and let your Quarto friends know too?
We are implementing a new QMD parser in Quarto. It will be super nice. But it's a big change, and we want to minimize the impact.
1. Can you share a link to your Quarto project at github.com/quarto-dev/q...
2. repost this and let your Quarto friends know too?
Epic: are we production yet · Issue #63 · quarto-dev/quarto-markdown
We need to check against many large sites to get a good sense for the impact of this new syntax in practice. autogenerated qmd quartodoc-generated sites (tbd meet with @machow) sites quarto.org Shi...
github.com
October 16, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Quarto friends! I need your help:
We are implementing a new QMD parser in Quarto. It will be super nice. But it's a big change, and we want to minimize the impact.
1. Can you share a link to your Quarto project at github.com/quarto-dev/q...
2. repost this and let your Quarto friends know too?
We are implementing a new QMD parser in Quarto. It will be super nice. But it's a big change, and we want to minimize the impact.
1. Can you share a link to your Quarto project at github.com/quarto-dev/q...
2. repost this and let your Quarto friends know too?
I think this is kind of neat and I don't think anyone else has noticed it (I've looked and I can't find anyone who has) osf.io/preprints/so...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
I think this is kind of neat and I don't think anyone else has noticed it (I've looked and I can't find anyone who has) osf.io/preprints/so...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Reposted by Ryan Briggs
Great news on @malengo.org: With a new large investment from The Shapiro Foundation (theshapirofoundation.org), we'll be able to bring several hundred vocational training and university students from Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda to Europe over the coming years!
More here: malengo.org/malengo-secu...
More here: malengo.org/malengo-secu...
October 23, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Great news on @malengo.org: With a new large investment from The Shapiro Foundation (theshapirofoundation.org), we'll be able to bring several hundred vocational training and university students from Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda to Europe over the coming years!
More here: malengo.org/malengo-secu...
More here: malengo.org/malengo-secu...
I'll be in SF (well, Mountain View) February 16ish to 22ish. Who should I meet? What should I be doing? My time is booked Feb 20-22, but I'll have time before. Relatedly, anyone want me to talk on statistical power or using LLMs to code ~all political science articles?
October 22, 2025 at 5:22 PM
I'll be in SF (well, Mountain View) February 16ish to 22ish. Who should I meet? What should I be doing? My time is booked Feb 20-22, but I'll have time before. Relatedly, anyone want me to talk on statistical power or using LLMs to code ~all political science articles?
No Kings
(Canadians that miss Queen Elizabeth)
(Canadians that miss Queen Elizabeth)
October 19, 2025 at 6:56 PM
No Kings
(Canadians that miss Queen Elizabeth)
(Canadians that miss Queen Elizabeth)
A very much non-exhaustive list of talks that I enjoyed at MAER-Net.
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
October 19, 2025 at 1:22 PM
A very much non-exhaustive list of talks that I enjoyed at MAER-Net.
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
I love that Gelman’s lecture is no slides and chalk
October 18, 2025 at 1:53 PM
I love that Gelman’s lecture is no slides and chalk
All the cool kids are saying deconvolution these days
October 17, 2025 at 7:29 PM
All the cool kids are saying deconvolution these days
I thought this was quite a nice (and appropriately pessimistic) discussion of our paper on power in political science. All that I would add is that we found a small minority of research topics with high power! podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i...
October 17, 2025 at 2:29 AM
I thought this was quite a nice (and appropriately pessimistic) discussion of our paper on power in political science. All that I would add is that we found a small minority of research topics with high power! podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i...
I can’t believe I’m now considering having 2 protein shakes some days. wtf
October 14, 2025 at 11:47 AM
I can’t believe I’m now considering having 2 protein shakes some days. wtf
Apparently she said she was thankful for kaya toast but the teachers didn’t know what that was so they just wrote toast. Singapore wins again.
October 10, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Apparently she said she was thankful for kaya toast but the teachers didn’t know what that was so they just wrote toast. Singapore wins again.
I love doing row row row your boat with my toddler but her form is just terrible
October 9, 2025 at 10:33 PM
I love doing row row row your boat with my toddler but her form is just terrible
Not surprising! Camel, eye of a needle, etc
Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer. In his first teaching document Thursday, Leo confirms that he is in perfect lockstep with Pope Francis on matters of social injustice.
Pope Leo blasts economy that marginalizes poor while wealthy live in bubble of luxury
Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer.
bit.ly
October 9, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Not surprising! Camel, eye of a needle, etc
Canadian students are so polite they say thank you when they turn in their tests.
October 9, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Canadian students are so polite they say thank you when they turn in their tests.
Love this place
Yiorgos The Cobbler has been making & repairing footwear on Dorval Road for 29 years. Old customers are now friends, & a wave of younger ones are finding him now too.
Find it exclusively in the pages of the latest WEP
www.westendphoenix.com/subscription...
✍️: Katherine Singh
📷: Duane Cole
Find it exclusively in the pages of the latest WEP
www.westendphoenix.com/subscription...
✍️: Katherine Singh
📷: Duane Cole
October 9, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Love this place
I'm giving a midterm exam right now and while this mode of assessment is LLM-resistant, it's really not great. I feel bad that this cohort of students is going to face a lot a more stressful tests.
October 9, 2025 at 1:08 PM
I'm giving a midterm exam right now and while this mode of assessment is LLM-resistant, it's really not great. I feel bad that this cohort of students is going to face a lot a more stressful tests.
Toronto people: don't forget to get your mooncakes streetsoftoronto.com/food/celebra...
Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with these must-try mooncakes in Toronto
If you're planning to celebrate, here are five spots across the city serving up some of the most delicious mooncakes.
streetsoftoronto.com
October 6, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Toronto people: don't forget to get your mooncakes streetsoftoronto.com/food/celebra...
If anyone has advice on submitting to APSR via the Registered Report track, I'd appreciate a DM. docs.google.com/document/u/0...
Registered Reports at the APSR
docs.google.com
October 6, 2025 at 6:48 PM
If anyone has advice on submitting to APSR via the Registered Report track, I'd appreciate a DM. docs.google.com/document/u/0...