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Simon J. Greenhill

@simongreenhill.bsky.social

1.7K followers 890 following 520 posts

I study how languages and cultures evolve. Primarily with phylogenies and other assorted computational methods. Based at @Biology_UoA. Never met a language phylogeny or a cultural phylogeny I didn't like. #phylolinguistics .. more

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Simon James Greenhill is a New Zealand scientist who works on the application of quantitative methods to the study of cultural evolution and human prehistory. He is well known for creating and building various linguistics databases, including the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, TransNewGuinea.org, Pulotu, and many others. In addition to Austronesian, he has contributed to the study of the phylogeny of many language families, including Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan. .. more

Computer science 19%

Communication & Media Studies 19%

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Kostas Kampourakis, Rebecca Sear , and 2 more Simon J. Greenhill, Kostas Kampourakis, Rebecca Sear, Awais Aftab, Will M. Gervais

Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 21h

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are

Seven years ago, I took a bet with Charles Murray about whether we’d basically understand the genetics of intelligence by now.

www.theatlantic.com

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 3d

a great paper

Reposted by Martín Haspelmath, Simon J. Greenhill

Kilu von Prince @kilinguistics.bsky.social · 3d

Because I think better in pictures, here is a visualisation of languages according to documentation and endangerment status (I'm calling it glottocloud).

glottolog.org/langdoc/status

Graphic distribution of languages represented as dots in a two-dimensional space.
X: AES (endangerment level, ranging from "extinct" to "not endangered"
Y: MED (documentation level, ranging from "wordlist or less" to "long grammar"

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Chris Buckley @chrisbuckley.bsky.social · 3d

Guillaume Jacques and I have collaborated to survey spindle whorls and the origins of weaving in East Asia ... lots of new stuff in this preprint ... a novel method for processing spindle whorl archaeological data, comparison with farming, and new linguistic information ... osf.io/preprints/so...

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 4d

man, they'll be burying me with my unread books, setting them alight like a viking funeral

Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 4d

One day I'll have time to read them all!

Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 4d

Great article on why we should be careful using AI Participants in research by @cathleenogrady.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds

Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

www.science.org

Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 4d

Oh god yes, I have so many books ready for "when-I-start-that" or "when-I-write-that".

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 4d

Oh, what a great idea!

Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 5d

Hey, has anyone compared performance on the Stroop task cross-linguistically?

Reposted by Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio, James Q. Wilson , and 38 more Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio, James Q. Wilson, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Dorothy Bishop, Anna Nagurney, Brigitte Nerlich, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Gavin A. Schmidt, Jesse H. Kroll, Julie L. Lockwood, Patrick A. Jansen, Joshua S. Weitz, Nicole Dubilier, Jason Stajich, Simon J. Greenhill, Michael A. Clemens, Hugo Mercier, Megan L. Ranney, Rosemary A. Joyce, Philip N. Cohen, Michael J. Allen, Andrew Curry, Jacob Montgomery, Juan Cole, Kris Inwood, Smith, Robert C. Richards, Rebecca Tushnet, Alan Richardson, Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Victor Galaz, Scott A. Imberman, Sebastian Karcher, Brian Keegan, Ann Bartow, Jack Stilgoe, Ted Temzelides, Christina Pagel, Annalee Newitz, David Darmofal

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 5d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Juan Cole

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 6d

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no one has died” as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts. In Myanmar, the grieving father of a 2-year-old boy who died after their food rations were cut calls such claims a lie.

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

bit.ly

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability @te-ara-paerangi.community · 7d

14 years ago Paul Callaghan gave this talk. It leaned in to the idea of making Aotearoa New Zealand a place where talented people wanted to live. Our government is hell bent on doing the opposite.
@nzscientists.bsky.social
#NZPOL

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 8d

Wow, a junk spam email written in Comic Sans from a .biz email address. It's like the 90s again!

two men are sitting on a couch playing guitars and dancing in a living room .

ALT: two men are sitting on a couch playing guitars and dancing in a living room .

media.tenor.com

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Dan Diffendale @diffendale.bsky.social · 8d

If you remember last autumn when I was live-skeeting excavations at Rossano di Vaglio, the first report of that work has just been published (in Italian). Happy for it to see the light of day, and also very pleased to present five new Oscan inscriptions to the world...
🏺
#ArchaeologyBluesky

Rossano di Vaglio, santuario italico: cronaca e nuovi dati dalla campagna di scavo del 2024 | Quaderni di ACMA

acma-digitale.it

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 11d

“war on science” = Universities are slowly dying world-wide but I’m angry because a one time a woman told me to shut up

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 14d

However bad you thought the whingefest “War on Science” book was going to be, it’s worse. The contributors are somehow the most ridiculous and among the most high profile scientists out there. If “cancel culture” were actually real, the former would preclude the latter, but nope 🤷‍♀️

shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 20d

video www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyU5...

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · 12d

Jane Goodall, the trailblazing naturalist whose intimate observations of chimpanzees in the African wild produced powerful insights that transformed basic conceptions of humankind, has died. She was 91.

Read more about her legacy www.latimes.com/obituaries/s...

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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Peter Thorne, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 30 more Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Peter Thorne, Gavin A. Schmidt, Joshua S. Weitz, Steve Peers, Steven French, Simon J. Greenhill, Elizabeth Stokoe, Martin Paul Eve, Gurpreet Rana, Melissa R. Michelson, Gernot Wagner, Alan Richardson, David R. Miller, Benjamin G. Wright, Christine Kooi, Alessandro Nai, Evgeny Kuzmin, Aija Leiponen, Woodrow Hartzog, Raúl Pacheco-Vega, Hisham Zerriffi, Klaus Oschema, Alan McNally, Nicole Guenther Discenza, Aviel Roshwald, Finis Dunaway, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Bernice M. Murphy, Morwenna Ludlow, Southern Africa, David Lay Williams, Peter Jacobs

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 12d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 14d

shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 20d

video www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyU5...

The War on Science

YouTube video by Shaun

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Julia Lynch, Jason Williams

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 14d

We've got hundreds of signatures in five hours... but if we can cross 1000 by morning when I send this to NSF that'd be great. The stories from past, current, and future applicants in the comments section are hearbreaking. Keep up the pressure, and please please sign!!!

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 14d

NSF unexpectedly changed (at the last minute) who is eligible to apply for the Grad Research Fellowship, dropping 2nd year students. We started a petition to reverse this unfair change, Sign here:
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
and please spread the word!!!!

Petition to NSF to Restore Eligibility for the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program Competition

laurenkuehne.github.io

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

John Mansfield @johnbasil.bsky.social · 15d

Social functions of language may drive faster change and faster diversification in some features.
Thanks to growing diversity in variationst sociolinguistics, I gathered studies of 63 languages from 28 families. Here I sketch some potential patterns
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Linguistic Diversification and Rates of Change: Insights From a Diverse Sample of Sociolinguistic Studies

Language diversification and change can be studied using phylogenetic modelling of families over thousands of years, or by close observation of changes unfolding over a few decades at the community l....

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 15d

Richard got my vote very quickly.

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 15d

Yes -- and this particular journal has all articles on jstor back to its inception. I can download the original version of the reprinted article right now.

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 15d

90s?

Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 15d

is it strange for a journal to republish old articles from their archives?

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 16d

Paywall: www.afr.com/policy/healt...

Reddit version:
www.reddit.com/r/Anu/commen...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #UKHE

Opaque, conflicted, overpaid: The shabby state of uni governance

A major senate report into the quality of governance at Australian universities has delivered a blistering attack on how they are run and overseen.

www.afr.com

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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 16d

Report on Australian Higher Education finds:

🔹️ Council members have no lived experience of universities

🔹️ Council members have COIs with consultancy firms

🔹️ Council meetings are closed affairs that lack transparency

🔹️ Leaders' exorbitant salaries could not be justified

One submission said leaders’ salaries could not be “justified by the quality of executive decision-making, nor by the scope of executive duties. The core business of a university – teaching and research – is co-ordinated virtually entirely by ordinary non-executive staff”.

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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 16d

IF SIGN STILL HERE, STORM IS NOT TOO BAD 👍

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

Pitt Rivers Museum @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social · 17d

Maori scholar, Makereti Papakura writing at her desk c.1910. The room is decorated with a mix of Maori & European mementoes whilst the rafters are painted with traditional kowhaiwhai patterns. Makereti will be awarded a posthumous degree in Oxford tomorrow, almost a century after she died in 1930.

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Reposted by Brian A. Nosek, Simon J. Greenhill, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette , and 2 more Brian A. Nosek, Simon J. Greenhill, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Paul Nightingale, Jürgen Janger

Matt Clancy @mattsclancy.bsky.social · 18d

New research by Pierre Azoulay, Danielle Li, Bhaven Sampat and me.

Earlier this year, the President’s budget proposed a 40% cut to the budget of the NIH. This motivated us to ask: what if the NIH had been 40% smaller?

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