Steve Wang
@stevewang251.bsky.social
Professor of Statistics at Swarthmore College. I use statistics to study paleontology, evolution, and extinction. I also compose percussion music for fun.
Pinned
Steve Wang
@stevewang251.bsky.social
· Sep 16
Now that videos work on Bluesky, here's a snippet of my Sextet for Percussion, performed at @swarthmorecollege.bsky.social in 2016. Scored for marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, and two pianos.
#percussion #minimalism
#percussion #minimalism
Five classes I took in college:
Astronomy, taught by Carl Sagan
Gamelan performance
Principles of Design, in the Textiles and Apparel dept.
Nature Drawing, in the Horticulture dept.
Semiotics, in the French Literature dept.
Astronomy, taught by Carl Sagan
Gamelan performance
Principles of Design, in the Textiles and Apparel dept.
Nature Drawing, in the Horticulture dept.
Semiotics, in the French Literature dept.
Tell me five classes you took in college:
Medieval drama
Nuclear Ethics
Michelangelo
Coalescence
Phylogenetic Methods
Medieval drama
Nuclear Ethics
Michelangelo
Coalescence
Phylogenetic Methods
Tell me five classes you took in college:
History of Jazz
Macroeconomics
Plant Physiology
African American History
Environmental Philosophy
History of Jazz
Macroeconomics
Plant Physiology
African American History
Environmental Philosophy
January 31, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Five classes I took in college:
Astronomy, taught by Carl Sagan
Gamelan performance
Principles of Design, in the Textiles and Apparel dept.
Nature Drawing, in the Horticulture dept.
Semiotics, in the French Literature dept.
Astronomy, taught by Carl Sagan
Gamelan performance
Principles of Design, in the Textiles and Apparel dept.
Nature Drawing, in the Horticulture dept.
Semiotics, in the French Literature dept.
Reposted by Steve Wang
MLK in color. We usually see photos of him in black and white, as if he lived ages ago. But the Civil Rights era is recent history, less than a human lifetime ago. More images here:
www.boredpanda.com/colorized-ci...
The colorization job by @jordanacosta.co really brings these images to life.
www.boredpanda.com/colorized-ci...
The colorization job by @jordanacosta.co really brings these images to life.
January 15, 2024 at 2:39 PM
MLK in color. We usually see photos of him in black and white, as if he lived ages ago. But the Civil Rights era is recent history, less than a human lifetime ago. More images here:
www.boredpanda.com/colorized-ci...
The colorization job by @jordanacosta.co really brings these images to life.
www.boredpanda.com/colorized-ci...
The colorization job by @jordanacosta.co really brings these images to life.
Swarthmore College is hiring a 3-year Visiting Assistant Professor in Mathematics. We're a Math+Stat dept. with ~23 faculty. Friendly colleagues, excellent students, beautiful campus, convenient location (Philly suburbs). Happy to answer any questions.
www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27...
#AcademicSky 🧪
www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27...
#AcademicSky 🧪
January 15, 2026 at 12:22 PM
Swarthmore College is hiring a 3-year Visiting Assistant Professor in Mathematics. We're a Math+Stat dept. with ~23 faculty. Friendly colleagues, excellent students, beautiful campus, convenient location (Philly suburbs). Happy to answer any questions.
www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27...
#AcademicSky 🧪
www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27...
#AcademicSky 🧪
One of my all-time favorite movies: Home of the Brave, Laurie Anderson's concert film. Had a big influence on me at a formative age.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt49...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt49...
January 7, 2026 at 1:08 PM
One of my all-time favorite movies: Home of the Brave, Laurie Anderson's concert film. Had a big influence on me at a formative age.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt49...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt49...
Reposted by Steve Wang
Happy new year! My all sky camera imaged the sky every 15 seconds and this picture shows what happened in the sky in 2025. It shows the length of the night and day with the hourglass shape, the monthly lunar cycle with the diagonal bands, the elevation of the Sun at local noon, and lots of clouds.
January 1, 2026 at 8:54 PM
Happy new year! My all sky camera imaged the sky every 15 seconds and this picture shows what happened in the sky in 2025. It shows the length of the night and day with the hourglass shape, the monthly lunar cycle with the diagonal bands, the elevation of the Sun at local noon, and lots of clouds.
Reposted by Steve Wang
ACTUAL GOOD NEWS EVERYONE: The Paleontological Research Institution and the Museum of the Earth have made it through the crisis!
Thanks to everyone who shared or donated-every donation mattered! Please share the good news just as widely!⚒️🧪🦑 Together we did #savePRI
www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...
Thanks to everyone who shared or donated-every donation mattered! Please share the good news just as widely!⚒️🧪🦑 Together we did #savePRI
www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...
‘Every Single Dollar Mattered’: Donations Save Museum of the Earth From Foreclosure
Just days before a year-end foreclosure deadline, the Museum of the Earth has paid off its mortgage following a wide fundraising campaign that rescued the Ithaca area landmark.
www.ithaca.com
January 2, 2026 at 1:29 AM
ACTUAL GOOD NEWS EVERYONE: The Paleontological Research Institution and the Museum of the Earth have made it through the crisis!
Thanks to everyone who shared or donated-every donation mattered! Please share the good news just as widely!⚒️🧪🦑 Together we did #savePRI
www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...
Thanks to everyone who shared or donated-every donation mattered! Please share the good news just as widely!⚒️🧪🦑 Together we did #savePRI
www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...
I've never been a big fan of Broadway musicals, but I've been listening to Chess, Wicked, and Fun Home lately, and they are awesome. "Defying Gravity" has some of the best arranging I have ever heard for rock band with orchestra.
youtu.be/CDiT_SsL2wY...
youtu.be/CDiT_SsL2wY...
Wicked The Soundtrack Sing-Along: Defying Gravity
YouTube video by Republic Records
youtu.be
December 15, 2025 at 10:41 AM
I've never been a big fan of Broadway musicals, but I've been listening to Chess, Wicked, and Fun Home lately, and they are awesome. "Defying Gravity" has some of the best arranging I have ever heard for rock band with orchestra.
youtu.be/CDiT_SsL2wY...
youtu.be/CDiT_SsL2wY...
I found a new example for my collection of False Sepkoski Curves: the S&P 500 over the last 35 years. This one is the best yet. You can see the Cambrian explosion, the Ordovician diversification, the Paleozoic plateau, the Devonian, Permian, and Cretaceous mass extinctions, and Cenozoic radiation.
December 10, 2025 at 12:31 PM
I found a new example for my collection of False Sepkoski Curves: the S&P 500 over the last 35 years. This one is the best yet. You can see the Cambrian explosion, the Ordovician diversification, the Paleozoic plateau, the Devonian, Permian, and Cretaceous mass extinctions, and Cenozoic radiation.
Reposted by Steve Wang
This is what I get for not taking @stevewang251.bsky.social ‘s class.
December 8, 2025 at 11:59 PM
This is what I get for not taking @stevewang251.bsky.social ‘s class.
Reposted by Steve Wang
I learned about these because Swarthmore prof Steve Wang used these for baseball stats. www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/s...
Professor Puts a Face on the Performance of Baseball Managers (Published 2008)
www.nytimes.com
December 8, 2025 at 11:53 PM
I learned about these because Swarthmore prof Steve Wang used these for baseball stats. www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/s...
Read the Bill James Baseball Abstract when I was 11 & decided I wanted to be a baseball statistician, long before that was an actual career. In college I discovered academic stats wasn't like baseball "stats", but I liked it & kept doing it. Got into statistical paleontology just by serendipity.
November 23, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Read the Bill James Baseball Abstract when I was 11 & decided I wanted to be a baseball statistician, long before that was an actual career. In college I discovered academic stats wasn't like baseball "stats", but I liked it & kept doing it. Got into statistical paleontology just by serendipity.
Reposted by Steve Wang
Happy Ctenophore Day!
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore
October 4, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Happy Ctenophore Day!
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore
Reposted by Steve Wang
Happy Ctenophore Day!
🐙🦑🧪
🐙🦑🧪
October 4, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Happy Ctenophore Day!
🐙🦑🧪
🐙🦑🧪
Reposted by Steve Wang
Opinion: ‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time
Understanding the role of humans as ‘ecosystem engineers’ requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. Howev…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 23, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Opinion: ‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Steve Wang
When does biology become geology? This is a fun paper for us (although I, myself, was just one more member of Band-Aid for this particular paper), and hopefully it helps clarify a lot of things that we sort of already knew but never really formally addressed.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time
Understanding the role of humans as ‘ecosystem engineers’ requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. Howev…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
When does biology become geology? This is a fun paper for us (although I, myself, was just one more member of Band-Aid for this particular paper), and hopefully it helps clarify a lot of things that we sort of already knew but never really formally addressed.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The new Martin Hall at @swarthmorecollege.bsky.social is spectacular
August 28, 2025 at 12:37 PM
The new Martin Hall at @swarthmorecollege.bsky.social is spectacular
@kentremendous.bsky.social @joeposnanski.com
I'm a longtime Poscast listener (since 1957) and statistics professor. Re: solitaire win%: at 350 games, the SD is 2%. Meaning 68% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±2%, and 95% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±4%.
I'm a longtime Poscast listener (since 1957) and statistics professor. Re: solitaire win%: at 350 games, the SD is 2%. Meaning 68% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±2%, and 95% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±4%.
August 20, 2025 at 7:27 AM
@kentremendous.bsky.social @joeposnanski.com
I'm a longtime Poscast listener (since 1957) and statistics professor. Re: solitaire win%: at 350 games, the SD is 2%. Meaning 68% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±2%, and 95% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±4%.
I'm a longtime Poscast listener (since 1957) and statistics professor. Re: solitaire win%: at 350 games, the SD is 2%. Meaning 68% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±2%, and 95% of the time, your win% will be accurate to within ±4%.
Reposted by Steve Wang
I think we also get distracted because we tend to anthropomorphize the larval stage as the child and the adult stage as the real animal. In some cases (not necessarily holothurians, but perhaps e.g. butterflies), it would be more appropriate to think of them as the eating stage and the mating stage.
August 18, 2025 at 10:18 PM
I think we also get distracted because we tend to anthropomorphize the larval stage as the child and the adult stage as the real animal. In some cases (not necessarily holothurians, but perhaps e.g. butterflies), it would be more appropriate to think of them as the eating stage and the mating stage.
Reposted by Steve Wang
📢 deeptime: an R package that facilitates highly customizable and reproducible visualizations of data over geological time intervals
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2096...
Fully #openaccess in @bigearthdata1.bsky.social with insight about deeptime📦 development and code examples!
#rstats #geology #paleontology
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2096...
Fully #openaccess in @bigearthdata1.bsky.social with insight about deeptime📦 development and code examples!
#rstats #geology #paleontology
August 6, 2025 at 1:06 PM
📢 deeptime: an R package that facilitates highly customizable and reproducible visualizations of data over geological time intervals
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2096...
Fully #openaccess in @bigearthdata1.bsky.social with insight about deeptime📦 development and code examples!
#rstats #geology #paleontology
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2096...
Fully #openaccess in @bigearthdata1.bsky.social with insight about deeptime📦 development and code examples!
#rstats #geology #paleontology
Reposted by Steve Wang
This was my favorite King of the Hill joke with Chuck Mangione. RIP, king.
July 24, 2025 at 9:13 PM
This was my favorite King of the Hill joke with Chuck Mangione. RIP, king.
Chuck Mangione was a musical hero to me. He was from my hometown, where he was a legend. My mom took me to see him in concert when I was 13, and it was a life-changing moment — he made me love music.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/a...
Chuck Mangione, a ‘Smooth Jazz’ Hitmaker With a Fluegelhorn, Dies at 84
www.nytimes.com
July 25, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Chuck Mangione was a musical hero to me. He was from my hometown, where he was a legend. My mom took me to see him in concert when I was 13, and it was a life-changing moment — he made me love music.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/a...
So surreal being here when the stadium is empty
July 11, 2025 at 4:54 PM
So surreal being here when the stadium is empty
Home plate at the old Yankee Stadium, now a public park. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle stood here.
July 11, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Home plate at the old Yankee Stadium, now a public park. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle stood here.
Back in the office today
July 11, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Back in the office today