Sean Rafferty
@skeptanth.bsky.social
Anthropologist and Skeptic. Author of https://www.routledge.com/Misanthropology-Science-Pseudoscience-and-the-Study-of-Humanity/Rafferty/p/book/9781032231778
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
A very good Watson obit here, written, though obviously not published, years before he died.
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:52 PM
A very good Watson obit here, written, though obviously not published, years before he died.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Love this quote 💯
“Uncritical adoption of AI, will inevitably create people without critical thinking, and this may be a feature - not a bug, as it represents an attack on human agency itself.”
collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...
collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...
The infrastructure of meaninglessness
Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete.
Let me try to break down this theory, which...
collectivefutures.blog
October 11, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Love this quote 💯
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Ways to resist fascism
October 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Ways to resist fascism
Nothing’s stopping me besides me.
October 6, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Nothing’s stopping me besides me.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
‘There will never be enough computing power to create AGI using machine learning that can do the same [as human cognition], because we’d run out of natural resources long before we'd even get close,’
— @olivia.science
www.ru.nl/en/research/...
— @olivia.science
www.ru.nl/en/research/...
Don’t believe the hype: AGI is far from inevitable | Radboud University
Will AI soon surpass the human brain? If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable. However, researchers at Radboud University and other institutes ...
www.ru.nl
December 6, 2024 at 9:19 PM
‘There will never be enough computing power to create AGI using machine learning that can do the same [as human cognition], because we’d run out of natural resources long before we'd even get close,’
— @olivia.science
www.ru.nl/en/research/...
— @olivia.science
www.ru.nl/en/research/...
Got x2 vaxed yesterday (flu and covid), woke up at 7 am with a sore arm and did laundry. Trust the science. Vaccines cause clean clothes.
October 5, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Got x2 vaxed yesterday (flu and covid), woke up at 7 am with a sore arm and did laundry. Trust the science. Vaccines cause clean clothes.
The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans
Diverse forms of Homo coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene. Whether these fossil humans represent different species or clades is debated. The ~1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 fossil from China is impo...
www.science.org
October 4, 2025 at 5:52 PM
The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
These fools are going to kill a lot of people.
August 31, 2025 at 5:43 PM
These fools are going to kill a lot of people.
This will likely be the pattern, vaccines available in blue states only. Some dems will likely be smug about that, but I suggest they consider sick and dead kids in red states first.
Serious question- can we just drive across the border to NM and get our shots in another state?
September 1, 2025 at 12:54 PM
This will likely be the pattern, vaccines available in blue states only. Some dems will likely be smug about that, but I suggest they consider sick and dead kids in red states first.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Anything except gun control.
Fox News Guest Sparks Outrage With Dystopian Solution For Preventing Mass Shootings
www.comicsands.com
September 1, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Anything except gun control.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
The chaos at the CDC in the wake of last week’s firing of its Director and the resignations of four senior officials is fallout from the latest skirmish in RFK Jr.’s war against vaccines. Make no mistake, RFK Jr. is working hard to take away your vaccines, if he can. Here’s a progress report.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines
The chaos at the CDC in the wake of last week's firing of its Director and the resignations of four senior officials is fallout from the latest skirmish in RFK Jr.'s war against vaccines. Make no mist
sciencebasedmedicine.org
September 1, 2025 at 12:34 PM
The chaos at the CDC in the wake of last week’s firing of its Director and the resignations of four senior officials is fallout from the latest skirmish in RFK Jr.’s war against vaccines. Make no mistake, RFK Jr. is working hard to take away your vaccines, if he can. Here’s a progress report.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
“Wellness has come to represent a wonderland free from constraints of scientific scrutiny. The industry flows with pseudoscience & to say it’s lucrative would be an understatement…The term has morphed into dollar signs, drawing us into a never-ending cycle of treating problems we didn’t know we had”
The wellness industry has long been known to have a not-so-secret love affair with the anti-vaccine movement.
thewalrus.ca/wellness-ind...
thewalrus.ca/wellness-ind...
August 30, 2025 at 5:48 PM
“Wellness has come to represent a wonderland free from constraints of scientific scrutiny. The industry flows with pseudoscience & to say it’s lucrative would be an understatement…The term has morphed into dollar signs, drawing us into a never-ending cycle of treating problems we didn’t know we had”
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Also, right-wing domestic terrorism far outnumbers left-wing. Don't let the right-wingers control the message.
nij.ojp.gov/topics/artic...
nij.ojp.gov/topics/artic...
August 31, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Also, right-wing domestic terrorism far outnumbers left-wing. Don't let the right-wingers control the message.
nij.ojp.gov/topics/artic...
nij.ojp.gov/topics/artic...
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
someone should put together a "kennedy death count" for everyone who dies of a preventable disease and just plaster it everywhere www.statnews.com/2025/08/28/c...
Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world, experts say
"I’ve never heard as many colleagues saying things like 'CDC is dead’ as I have today," an agency employee told STAT.
www.statnews.com
August 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
someone should put together a "kennedy death count" for everyone who dies of a preventable disease and just plaster it everywhere www.statnews.com/2025/08/28/c...
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Some scientists haven't yet internalized the "why" behind science writing for the public - not just as a service, but for themselves. (I didn't always get it). In this piece for @natrevneuro.nature.com, I draw on the neuroscience of curiosity & decision making to unpack its value.
rdcu.be/eCGr7
rdcu.be/eCGr7
The unexpected value of communicating science to the public
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - As a group, our scientific community has a responsibility to unpack the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind our work for the public, not least because much...
rdcu.be
August 28, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
Good for her, and for Boston.
Last week, Boston received a letter from AG Bondi threatening to prosecute officials and withhold funds unless we cooperate with carrying out mass deportations.
The US Attorney General asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.
The US Attorney General asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.
August 19, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Good for her, and for Boston.
I’ve read his Book of Five Rings. Some of these are useful.
August 20, 2025 at 1:48 PM
I’ve read his Book of Five Rings. Some of these are useful.
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter: body horror and vampires in the wild west drewrowsome.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-... #horror #literature #indigenous #vampire #StephenGrahamJones @sgj.bsky.social
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter: body horror and vampires in the wild west
Drew Rowsome is a writer, editor, musician and pop culture enthusiast
drewrowsome.blogspot.com
August 17, 2025 at 11:20 AM
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter: body horror and vampires in the wild west drewrowsome.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-... #horror #literature #indigenous #vampire #StephenGrahamJones @sgj.bsky.social
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
This is what playing offense looks like: With ZERO fucks to give, Gavin Newsom is not taking any of the pedophile president's fascistic authoritarian bullshit. 🙌💪👏👊👇
August 16, 2025 at 3:08 AM
This is what playing offense looks like: With ZERO fucks to give, Gavin Newsom is not taking any of the pedophile president's fascistic authoritarian bullshit. 🙌💪👏👊👇
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
'TikTok, Viking Archaeology, and the Far-Right': a blog-post contextualising my recent talk to A.R.F.A. howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2025/08/16/t...
Follow them on BlueSky, check out their other videos and follow their page on WordPress @a-rfa.bsky.social archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com
Follow them on BlueSky, check out their other videos and follow their page on WordPress @a-rfa.bsky.social archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com
TikTok, Viking Archaeology, and the Far-Right
What are the key critical uses of the Vikings and the Viking Age in tody’s culture wars ‘debates’ and extremist political discourses? Some are predictable – such as fantasis…
howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com
August 16, 2025 at 8:15 AM
'TikTok, Viking Archaeology, and the Far-Right': a blog-post contextualising my recent talk to A.R.F.A. howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2025/08/16/t...
Follow them on BlueSky, check out their other videos and follow their page on WordPress @a-rfa.bsky.social archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com
Follow them on BlueSky, check out their other videos and follow their page on WordPress @a-rfa.bsky.social archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com
Reposted by Sean Rafferty
@garymarcus.bsky.social called it, way back before the hype cycle:
“Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neural scientist and longtime critic of OpenAI, said what many have been coming to suspect: despite years of development at a staggering cost, AI doesn't seem to be getting much better.”
“Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neural scientist and longtime critic of OpenAI, said what many have been coming to suspect: despite years of development at a staggering cost, AI doesn't seem to be getting much better.”
August 14, 2025 at 3:25 AM
@garymarcus.bsky.social called it, way back before the hype cycle:
“Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neural scientist and longtime critic of OpenAI, said what many have been coming to suspect: despite years of development at a staggering cost, AI doesn't seem to be getting much better.”
“Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neural scientist and longtime critic of OpenAI, said what many have been coming to suspect: despite years of development at a staggering cost, AI doesn't seem to be getting much better.”