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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

William Lawrence @wewill2026.bsky.social · 3d

Rep Tom Barrett would rather take food from the hungry than give care to the sick. If he won't lift a finger to help his constituents, I will. I'm holding vigil for 30 hours leading up to the SNAP cutoff deadline, and collecting donations for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. bit.ly/cd7food

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · 4d

Remembering the time in grad school when a Black PhD student at the next desk over was doing computer vision research. He was testing out a facial recognition tool using his own face as a reference, but it wasn't working. So he asked a (white) colleague to try it, and of course it worked for her.

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 4d

New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie G. Thompson said in a statement “Mobile Fortify is a dangerous tool in the hands of ICE, and it puts American citizens at risk of detention and even deportation.” He also said “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien. ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Python Software Foundation @python.org · 6d

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵

The official home of the Python Programming Language

www.python.org

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · 7d

Oh, okay, I take it back! I didn't even realize there was a preprint. That seems legitimately useful.

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · 7d

I think the issue isn't with contributions being weighted unequally (of course different people contribute different amounts to different papers), but instead with attempting a one size fits all ranking. If the tool looked at author contributions and weighted based on that instead, I'd be open to it

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · 7d

Data like these are exactly why I think @wewill2026.bsky.social is an excellent candidate to be the next MI-07 representative!

Some people say Elissa Slotkin won our district because she's moderate. I think that's wrong. I think she won because she stood for something. Will does too.

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 7d

This piece by @adambonica.bsky.social is a crucial read. The @nytimes.com editorial board leans into their priors in their own recent editorial on the need for moderation to win. As @adambonica.bsky.social suggests the story is more complicated. 1/ data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-new-yo...

The New York Times Argues “Moving to the Center Is the Way to Win.” But the Data Shows the Strategy Is Tapped Out.

Democrats already run moderates in nearly every swing district. It's not enough. A data-driven response to the case for centrism as a core electoral strategy.

data4democracy.substack.com

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · 10d

Weird, I'm in the US and I don't think I've ever heard someone say "fennel." I'm a biologist not a chemist, though.

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Boo-lie Lynch @jlynch13.bsky.social · 14d

RFK is undoing human subjects protections so he can conduct placebo trials of vaccines. That means infecting people knowingly. I wonder who will “volunteer” for these trials? If history is any guide, a lot of incarcerated and other powerless people.

Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 14d

Dismantling the Institutional Review Board (IRB), that oversees all human subjects research, is bad. Really bad.

Melody Schreiber @melodyschreiber.com · 19d

The entire HR department at the CDC is gone. Everyone at the IRB, which makes sure studies are conducted ethically and rigorously, and the ethics office, which oversee conflicts of interest for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 14d

tl;dr

1. Studies of genAI in the classroom show that it harms learning

2. The quality of AI-generated text is irrelevant to its most negative effects on teaching

3. The way AI has entered the classroom is as a money-making project extracting new labour, not a “tool” serving teachers’ actual needs

Why I am not using AI in the classroom

Last week I spoke with some of my colleagues about the “challenges” posed by generative AI to our teaching. As anyone who follows me on Bluesky — or followed me on Twitter, prior …

memoriousblog.com

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 20d

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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George Musser @georgemusser.com · 23d

Swipe up to try a new variant on Conway's Game of Life. And another. And another. This is how artificial-life researchers spread the joy after the #ALIFE2025 conference! They say it's like TikTok, but I wouldn't know.... ⚙️🧫 rulehunt.org?rulesetHex=7... #cellularautomata #gameoflife

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Elias Najarro @najarro.science · 24d

The SONI session turned out a great—shout out to the speakers & the panelists @emilydolson.bsky.social, @risi.bsky.social, @blaiseaguera.bsky.social & Sidney Pontes-Filho for great talks & discussion on how we can rethink intelligence under the complexity lens.

#ALife2025 @alife2025.bsky.social

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Lee Spector @leespector.bsky.social · 25d

New, brief overview of lexicase selection: lexicase.ai

It considers individual training cases in different random orders, and therefore with different priorities, for each selection event.

#AI #MachineLearning #ALife

lexicase.ai

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 25d

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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Carrie Brown @brizzyc.bsky.social · 28d

"This compact is a “reward” in exactly the same sense that it is “rewarding” to purchase protection from the Mafia. The compact is an open, explicit threat." This is very good.

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 29d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · Sep 22

I guess the relevant follow-up question in what proportion of AI bubble money is going into building data centers/power plants (potentially long term useful, although I worry about the environmental costs) vs. developing software that's not actually going to be long-term useful.

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Lana Sinapayen @sinalana.bsky.social · Sep 22

Screenshot saying that OpenAI's chatbot produces incorrect output from 16 to 48% of the time

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · Aug 27

I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.

I Am An AI Hater

I am an AI hater. This is considered rude, but I do not care, because I am a hater.

anthonymoser.github.io

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Alison Feder @alisonfeder.bsky.social · Sep 10

Yingnan Gao has a major overhaul on his paper investigating how to detect selection in lineage tracing data using tree balance statistics! #evoSky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Elias Najarro @najarro.science · Sep 10

We're excited to announce final program of the @alife2025.bsky.social SONI session
which will host a panel discussion with @blaiseaguera.bsky.social, @risi.bsky.social, @emilydolson.bsky.social & Sidney Pontes-Filho

Check out the full program: sites.google.com/view/soni-al...

See you in Kyoto ⛩️

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · Sep 4

I love a good creative action! I just sent my rep a duck - send yours one too!

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Aug 21

🦆DAY 21 of #31DaysOfAction
Help us send a clear message that they must impeach & remove RFK “The Quack.”

$3 donation = someone dressed in a duck costume will deliver a rubber duck stamped with IMPEACH THE QUACK to your Rep’s office.

Help us flock the halls of Congress - Link: tinyurl.com/sufsci

Send a Quack-O Gram, day 21 stand up for science 31 days of action. standupforscience.net/31-days-of-action

a bunch of rubber duckies behind the capitol: "Impeach and remove the quack"

a bunch of rubber duckies behind the capitol: "Did someone order several thousand rubber ducks?" in a chat bubble, "OH! IT WAS YOUR CONSTITUENTS"

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Reposted by Dr. Emily Dolson

Imy Khan @imytk.bsky.social · Sep 3

#Workshop Call!
Does ALIFE have a "marketing problem" ?
We think so - and we're trying to do something about it!
Come help us, at the Societal Outreach Initiatives for Artificial Life Workshop #ALIFE2025.

More details: imytk.github.io/blog/2025/al...

@alife2025.bsky.social

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · Jul 22

I love math and voting theory as much as the next complex systems scientist, but I think it's important to remember that there's a huge social science component here. I'm not aware of good data on this, but I strongly suspect that a major benefit of IRV is that it will reduce polarization.

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · Jul 17

Or, put another way, if I was filling out a ranked choice ballot for voting systems, it would look like this:

1. Approval voting
2. Ranked choice voting
3 (or maybe unranked). First past the post (i.e. what we have now)

So nice how ranked choice lets the perfect not be the enemy of the good!

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Dr. Emily Dolson @emilydolson.bsky.social · Jul 17

Like most people I know who have spent too much time thinking about this stuff, I'd actually prefer approval voting to ranked choice. But we have the option right now to replace first past the post with ranked choice, and in my mind that's still a solid improvement, so I'm all for it!

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