Don Ross
don-rosseconomist.bsky.social
Don Ross
@don-rosseconomist.bsky.social
Experimental economist, economic methodologist
... we need much more attention to the problem of how to control the increased capacity that malicious or ethically oblivious human interests will have to manipulate and deceive members of other species.
November 2, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Share This Article insideclimatenews.org/news/2910202...

Yes, establishment of inter-species bandwidth should galvanise efforts to broaden legal protections. However, ... [see next post]
AI Is Decoding Whales’ Communications. Could That Be a Turning Point in the Push for Their Rights? - Inside Climate News
The Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) is using artificial intelligence to help understand sperm whale communications. Lawyers think the discoveries could galvanize the world to recognize whales’ ...
insideclimatenews.org
November 2, 2025 at 1:54 PM
I strongly recommend the book below. Inspired writing about a vision for practical ecology, with lots of good science woven in.

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rob-d...
The Call of the Honeyguide
How rethinking our relationships with other species can help us reimagine the future of humankind    In the woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa, sometime deep ...
www.hachettebookgroup.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Calling on South Africans to speak up to stop something very bad from happening: www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2...
DON ROSS AND ROSS HARVEY: An atrocity is planned in Madikwe
The overpopulation myth seems to be a useful pretext on which to justify the hunting and culling tender
www.businesslive.co.za
September 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
As always, the biggest threat isn’t artificial superintelligence, it’s natural human stupidity/greed/laziness.
This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?
May 20, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Here's a new paper that applies Walter Veit's framework for studying non-human animal (or for that matter, human) consciousness to a case study. The case study is of course (given that it's me) elephants.
doi.org/10.1177/1059...
Pathological complexity and African elephant consciousness - Don Ross, 2025
Veit (2023) provides a framework for modelling and empirically investigating varieties of consciousness as a Darwinian phenomenon, based on abduction from life ...
doi.org
May 11, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
This is really bizarre
April 26, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Reposted by Don Ross
Harvard has a backbone after all!! Alan Garber sent a letter to the Harvard community about their resistance to Trump. It comes a few weeks after a (cowardly) one about working with the federal govt to "fight anti-semitism on campus". New plan is to protect academic freedom
April 14, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
Carney: The system of global trade anchored on the United States.. is over. Our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over. The 80 year period when the United States embraced the mantle of economic leadership… is over.
April 3, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Here are three links to a 30-minute Pagecast interview on themes from The Gambling Animal:
Spotify – open.spotify.com/show/1MKyRj7...
Apple Podcast – podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/p...
YouTube - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-xB...
PAGECAST
Podcast · PAGECAST · Join Pagecast, South Africa's premier literary podcast, every Monday morning for insider interviews with recently published authors and their latest books. Explore the creative pr...
open.spotify.com
April 4, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Reposted by Don Ross
This piece from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social starts with a bang and just gets better and better. Gift link.
Opinion | The Tech Fantasy That Powers A.I. Is Running on Fumes (Gift Article)
A.I. is just what we need in the post-fact era: less research and more predicting what we want to hear.
www.nytimes.com
March 29, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
NIH has rescinded its scientific integrity policy. Hard to see this as anything other than clearing the way for shoddy research on things like vaccines. Regardless of the rationale, it's bad news for public health.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
NOT-OD-25-080: Rescission of the Final Scientific Integrity Policy of the National Institutes of Health
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Rescission of the Final Scientific Integrity Policy of the National Institutes of Health NOT-OD-25-080. OD
grants.nih.gov
March 29, 2025 at 8:04 PM
I missed the news, 2 weeks ago, that Ed Leamer died. Eish. Now my favourite living economist is evidently ... somebody else.

newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/in-m...
In memoriam: Edward Leamer, 80, professor and director of UCLA Anderson Forecast
Leamer’s contributions to economic research spanned more than five decades and multiple areas. “It is impossible to overstate his impact,” UCLA Anderson Dean Antonio Bernardo said.
newsroom.ucla.edu
March 13, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
The US government has been turned over to a group of extraordinarily ignorant people, and they are working to destroy science in this country. Cutting over half the NSF budget would save < 0.1% of the federal budget, but do incalculable harm. Simply heartbreaking.

arstechnica.com/science/2025...
White House budget proposal could shatter the National Science Foundation
“This kind of cut would kill American science and boost China.”…
arstechnica.com
February 7, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
Sad to hear that that the University of New South Wales has decided not to renew the honorary, unpaid associate professor position of Michael Mathews, who has been producing the HPS&ST Newsletter for many years. Here's the latest installment of this great resource:
www.hpsst.com/uploads/6/2/...
www.hpsst.com
February 7, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
Check out this fascinating @newscientist.com review for economists Glen Harrison and @don-rosseconomist.bsky.social's revolutionary insight into behavioural and evolutionary science, #TheGamblingAnimal.
How humans evolved to think about risk may cost Earth dearly
A provocative new book delves into the way humans – and elephants – evolved to manage risk. We might do better to think more like elephants
www.newscientist.com
February 3, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic.
open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Of course it’s a coup
Miss the obvious, lose your republic
open.substack.com
February 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
WASHINGTON—Putting the nation on alert against what it has described as a “highly credible terrorist threat,” the FBI announced today that it has uncovered a plot by members of al-Qaeda to sit back an...
theonion.com
February 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
Btw: if you’re interested in quality journalism from (South) Africa, @thecontinent.org and @dailymaverick.co.za are both on Bluesky! Go follow them and read their content - both are excellent!
February 3, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Don Ross
I don't get the sense that U.S. journalists have a good sense of who to talk to when basic government functions are being ripped out. Gutting the administrative state is not a standard beat. A short thread with some starter suggestions for who to read/talk to. Please - people add more in replies!
February 1, 2025 at 12:25 AM
A paper by Glenn W. Harrison, Don Ross, & J. Todd Swarthout, entitled "Gender, Confidence, and the Mismeasure of
Intelligence, Competitiveness and Literacy" has been accepted by the Journal of Political Economy. The Working Paper version is here: cear.gsu.edu/wp-2021-01-g...
WP 2021-01 Gender, Confidence, and the Mismeasure of Intelligence, Competitiveness and Literacy - CEAR
Download Paper Forthcoming, Journal of Political Economy AUTHORS: Glenn W. Harrison, Don Ross and J. Todd Swarthout ABSTRACT: The measurement of intelligence should identify and measure an individual’...
cear.gsu.edu
January 29, 2025 at 1:09 PM