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Ehud

@duhe.bsky.social

4.3K followers 770 following 5K posts

Do you really don’t know? (I’m a philosopher and historian of biology, interested in all things evolutionary, #genetic, or #cognitive. I find most things ridiculous.) http://www.ehudlamm.com

www.ehudlamm.com

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · May 29

New paper alert:
Finkel & Lamm, Cultural evolution beyond the individual: what human collective knowledge adds to high fidelity copying.

This is the third in the Distributed Adaptation series.

Many thanks to the diligent reviewers! #philbio #cultevo

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Our analysis points to several conclusions. First, the phenomena highlighted by the notion of DA are contexts of selection, and may favor traits beyond high-fidelity copying. Second, high-fidelity copying is neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining these cultural phenomena. Studying these DA phenomena draws attention to the likely importance of cognitive abilities beyond copying (i.e.– imitation or emulation), that support knowledge aggregation processes. They also highlight the importance of population structure, distribution of a population in the environment, and population density, that are also emphasized by other proposals discussed above.

Third, because DAs rely on a variety of population level processes there does not seem to be a general mechanism ensuring a ratchet effect on DAs, unlike the role attributed to high fidelity copying in CCE. Fourth, some games through which children acquire skills are contexts of information acquisition or learning that occurs not only through imitation.

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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 53m

Really interesting work by Bakhurin and colleagues challenging the reward prediction error hypothesis of dopamine:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I love this figure which both echoes and undermines the famous figure from Schultz et al. (1997).

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☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 1h

Okay I’ve asked this a while ago but can anyone recommend any books on labor sabotage in nazi germany

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James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · 4h

It was cool to see that Mokyr got the Nobel in economics. @antonhowes.bsky.social has a nice write up here: www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-inv...

Age of Invention: Joel Mokyr's Nobel

A triumph for history and the importance of ideas

www.ageofinvention.xyz

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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 2h

Good bit of history. Shows yet again that it’s not written in the sky what scientific measurement means. Axiomatic basis evolves even if it isn’t infinitely flexible #philsci

Alex Holcombe @alexh.bsky.social · 4h

"In the 1930s, the British Association for the Advancement of Science established the Ferguson Committee to investigate the possibility of psychological attributes being measured scientifically. In its Final Report (Ferguson, et al., 1940), Campbell and the Committee concluded

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 2h

A YouTube competitor, but one *that allows creators to be remunerated*, is sorely needed.

Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 2h

YouTube auto-dubbing should be considered a crime against humanity. I mean that literally.

Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 2h

YouTube auto-dubbing should be considered a crime against humanity. I mean that literally.

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Yogi Jaeger @yoginho.spore.social.ap.brid.gy · 2h

William Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated. I'll be posting more quotes as I'm going through the book for my ch13 of #beyondtheageofmachines, and a paper that I'm writing.

Today's quote is kind of obvious. But most philosophers still ignore it […]

Original post on spore.social

spore.social

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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 2h

Agreed! It was one of my 5 recommended books on cultural evolution here:
shepherd.com/best-books/c...

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 2h

So what’s the best short resource suitable for laypeople about the heritability of intelligence or IQ?

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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · Jan 28

Write the book you would like to see someone pull from a higgledy piggledy pile in a secondhand shop 63 years after your death and say, "This looks fucking weird. I think I will buy it for Joan."

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Mark Fabian @markfabian.bsky.social · 3h

OMG so good

Maureen Thorson @maureenthorson.bsky.social · 10h

“Life, friends, is boring.” Oh hey, it’s your old terrible book boyfriend John Berryman with “Dream Song 14,” perhaps the modern poetic apotheosis of ‘I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.” And yet.

14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 3h

Sometimes social media is like chatting in a coffee shop. It’s not the end of the world that someone made a mostly inane comment. People replied. We can let it slide and carry on.
No, I’m not quote tweeting it.

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Marghost 👻 @mitildide.bsky.social · 4h

I think reading and engaging with books can actively make people more stupid in many cases

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 23h

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 4h

Now do Atlas Shrugged

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 10h

Dune is a badly written novel but it’s very exciting if you read it at the right age for the ideas to captivate you enough that your brain can compensate for the prose.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 23h

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 9h

You're living through one of the biggest technological transformations in world history and it has nothing to do with AI

Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 1d

Grid scale batteries are changing our electricity system. Excellent new visual story on batteries in FT today shows just how far this technology has evolved.

Fasten your seatbelts, this is just the beginning.

ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

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JazzReads📚 @jazzreads.bsky.social · 15d

So exhausting..

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 4h

It’s actually worse than not being a coherent system of beliefs. bsky.app/profile/duhe...

Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · Jun 28

The most fundamental misconception about politics is that people have views, beliefs, and interests, external and prior to politics.

Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · Jun 27

We were lucky enough to have our YouGov/The Economist poll in field when the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. You can see the partisan realignment in real time

Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 4h

I think Bourdieu’s essay ’public opinion doesn’t exist’ is well worth reading in general and pertinent to the current discussion. books.google.com/books/about/...

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Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 13h

Many people lack a coherent system of political beliefs (Converse, 1964). Yet, studies in social and political psychology often measure political ideology using a single-item "liberal-conservative" or "left-right" scale that assumes a coherent ideology.

doi.org/10.1007/s112...

Previous research has shown that a large part of the population lacks a coherent system of political beliefs (Converse, 1964). Yet, studies in social and political psychology often examine the relationship between ideology and political attitudes/behavior on the basis of a one-dimensional self-placement liberal-conservative or left-right ideology scale that assumes that all of the participants have a coherent ideology. In the current paper we suggest a simple method by which ‘non-ideologists’ could be identified in studies that are based on a one-dimensional ideology scales, and demonstrate that excluding them from the analysis. improves the validity of our conclusions regarding the role of ideology in political psychology. We conclude with a discussion of the pros and the cons of such exclusion.

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Wendel van der Sluis @wendelvandersluis.bsky.social · 1d

📣 Honouring Frans de Waal’s spirit of curiosity & empathy 🧠🐒
The Frans de Waal PhD Dissertation Prize 2026 is now open for submissions. Celebrating #Primatology, #Ethology & the evolution of social behaviour.
🏆 Announced at #CBEN2026 (Leiden, Apr 14)
⏰ Apply by Jan 15, 2026!
@ehbea2026.bsky.social

Call for Submissions for the Frans de Waal PhD Dissertation prize 2026

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Cameron Buckner @cameronbuckner.bsky.social · 15h

theconversation.com/far-fewer-am...

Far fewer Americans support political violence than recent polls suggest

Well-known flaws in conventional polling methods may be creating the incorrect perception that many Americans think political violence is justified.

theconversation.com

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Nick Brown @steamtraen.eu · 15h

Next time an institution tells you how seriously it takes research misconduct, ask them if it's *this* seriously. www.bmj.com/content/297/...

In 1916 the BMJ published an article about the work done by James Shearer, an American physician working in the British Army as a sergeant (because he had no British qualification). He had described a
"delineator" which was better than x rays for portraying gunshot wounds. This caused a sensation and a lot of interest — but on investigation the work was found to have been invented. The BMJ published a retraction, but Shearer was tried by court martial and sentenced to death by firing squad.

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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 16h

On AI & water usage, it looks like all US data center usage (not just AI) ranges from 628M gallons a day (counting evaporation from dam reservoirs used for hydro-power) to 200-275M with power but not dam evaporation, to 50M for cooling alone.

So not nothing, but also a lot less than golf courses.

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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 16h

Ok then.

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Center for PhilSci @center4philsci.bsky.social · 16h

Don’t miss our Lunch Time Talk with Oron Shagrir!

📅 Tomorrow, October 14th
⏰ 12pm EDT
📍 CL-1117

Title: "The mathematical objection to artificial (machine) intelligence"

Can't make the talk? Join on Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97226295421

See you there!

#LTT #CenterPhilSci

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