Dorothy Bishop
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deevybee.bsky.social
Dorothy Bishop
@deevybee.bsky.social

Retired professor of psychology at University of Oxford. Interests in developmental neuropsychology and improving science. Blogs at deevybee.blogspot.com

Dorothy Vera Margaret Bishop is a British psychologist specialising in developmental disorders specifically, developmental language impairments. She is Emeritus Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford, where she worked from 1998 until her retirement in 2022. She is an honorary fellow of St John's College, Oxford. .. more

Psychology 50%
Neuroscience 35%

wow!
Significantly more devastating when I ask it. Ouch.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop

Significantly more devastating when I ask it. Ouch.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop

Voters in the last election #politics
Works the other way around too.

“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop

There is an old, and fairly accurate, line in politics that you should never pass laws and policies which you would not want a future government to be able to use against you. Could someone remind Labour of it please?
It is far harder to roll back a removal of rights than implement it.

#r4today
Kelly: He runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos.. That’s not the message that should be coming from the Secretary of Defense… He runs around on a stage like he’s a 12 year old playing army. It’s embarrassing.

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Reminds me of a Bernardism from Yes, Minister.

James Hacker:
...but I have never leaked.

Bernard Woolley:
Oh, that's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he's been charged under Section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.
An addendum to today's post paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-pro-...

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but also conceptual confusion

v. interesting for the authors of this:
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
Has this been posted yet
I think every doctoral student in America shd just write up a dissertation citing beliefs of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as every source, for every quote, and as proof of all quantitative or qualitative analyses.

Then sue universities that refusal to confer upon them a PhD.

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Ludwig Minelli, 92, died yesterday, before his 93rd birthday

“I am persuaded that we have to struggle in order to implement the last human right in our societies. The last human right is the right to make a decision on one's own end, & the possibility to have this end without risk & without pain."

Great talk - so interesting to hear that condensed matter physics has similar issues to other sciences, with people selectively presenting data and failing to share raw data. #Reproducibility
A talk I gave a couple of weeks ago during Politecnico Milano Datathon. I discuss the Majorana controversy, how data sharing can mediate a lot of the ambiguities. And I begin discussing the controversial 2025 APS Buckley prize, which I will do more in months ahead...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3t0...
Sergey Frolov: Open science and the reproducibility crisis in quantum computing
YouTube video by Sergey Frolov
www.youtube.com

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
Since AI slop is again all over Scientific Reports, a thread on the economics of grey-zone publishing.

Why does slop keep getting published? What does it mean for science? How can we stop this?

Background readings:
Understand the strain: tinyurl.com/2b6wxx5r
Stop the drain: tinyurl.com/3jfscscy

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“A petition demanding a full inquiry into Russian influence in UK politics has surged past 100,000 signatures after being shared at remarkable speed across social media.”
Russian influence petition surges past 100,000 signatures
A petition demanding a full inquiry into Russian influence in UK politics has passed 100,000 signatures
eastangliabylines.co.uk

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Stagecoach are introducing extra buses and extending services from today to take advantage of Oxford's temporary congestion charge. They claim faster journey times on routes from Barton, Blackbird Leys, and Kidlington, and are extending two routes to the Park & Ride at Oxford Parkway.

I’m late to this, but spent most of a wet Saturday reading Doctored by Charles Piller
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Doctor...
It’s like one of those movies where you just settle down after one disaster (cassava) and a new one appears (Lesné), over and over (Masliah and more)
Doctored
An Economist Best Book of 2025 So Far For readers of Empire of Pain and Dopesick, a “gripping story of medical groupthink and warped incentives” (T...
www.simonandschuster.com
How it started / How it’s going

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Several newspapers are mourning the death of "Shakespeare in Love screenwriter Tom Stoppard" which, while technically true, is very much on the level of "Thomas The Tank Engine narrator Ringo Starr".

thanks. confirms what I suspected about how the gobbledegook sandwich is made - take some weak piece of work such as student essay and insert complicated AI stuff with lots of formulae in the middle to make it look sciency so @springernature.com will publish it.

noooooo!

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I kinda love how deranged this feels — “your shoes are uncomfortable? Just apply a local anesthetic!”

www.glamour.com/story/lidoca...
I Used Lidocaine Spray on My Feet for Pain-Free High Heels
The topical anesthetic is a longtime Hollywood styling secret—but does it actually work?
www.glamour.com

well, I think they’ve just jumped the shark - it is now so very easy to find nonsensical stuff just by scanning contents list.
not easy to see how their reputation can recover

woof woof !

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One thing that really bugs me about the junk published in Scientific Reports is that Springer Nature have been giving libraries the hard sell about how much more investment they put into articles compared with born OA commercial publishers, which supposedly justifies the higher price.