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Ian Timaeus

@iantimaeus.bsky.social

540 followers 370 following 76 posts

Confused squirrel; some-time professor of demography; LSHTM; methods, fertility, Africa; likes being outdoors, the Isle of Purbeck, sailing, family history, cricket, birds. 🇪🇺 🌹🍉

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Dec 5

I feel a new handle coming on!

Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · Dec 2

"Cohen writes like he’s trying to explain complex theories to a confused squirrel: clear, engaging, with unexpected moments of levity. His posts are a delightful mix of academic rigor and casual wit." blueskyroast.com/roast/philip... Here is the actual confused squirrel:

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 2h

Chapeau, sir.

Reposted by Ian M. Timæus

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6h

kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

The Naming of Stats
June 19, 2023 • Obiter Dicta • R
The Naming of Stats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all are the names where usage is informal, Such as Median, Estimate, Average, or Range, Such as Variance, Quartile, or else Standard Normal All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names that may be better-tasting, Some for the frequentists, some for the Bayes:
Such as Skew, or Kurtosis, Metropolis-Hastings-But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a stat needs a name that's obscurer, A name that's misleading, and hard to construe,
Else how can it keep on confusing the reader, Or frustrate professors, or pass peer review?
Of names of this kind, there are many examples, Like Hierarchical, Robust, or Omega-hat,
Such as Marginal, Confidence, or just Weighted Sample, Names that always belong to more than one stat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess;
The thing that no human research can discover-
But THE STAT MIGHT JUST KNOW, and be made to confess.
When you notice a stat getting quite widely cited, The reason, you see, is whatever its flaws, Its user's engaged, or enraged, or excited
At the prospect of pinning the root of all laws:
That inviolable, friable
Unidentifiable
Deep and inscrutable singular Cause.

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Reposted by Clark Gray

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 4d

Demography may be unique in needing the insights of both those who think involution is about the history of rice cultivation in Java and those who think it's f(f(x))=x.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 4d

Ironically, you couldn't be more wrong! A number of East Europeans who trained as rocket scientists before the collapse of the rocket-science job market instead became first-rate demographers. I would mention, in particular, Vladimir Shkolnikov, who was educated at the Moscow Aerospace Institute.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · 15d

There's lots for all demographers (OK, a few of you probably know it all already) to ponder on in this paper. #demography

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 15d

Looks like my favorite paper on the age trajectory of happiness is finally out!!! So happy for the authors. Go check it out, it’s great.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Ian M. Timæus

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 15d

Looks like my favorite paper on the age trajectory of happiness is finally out!!! So happy for the authors. Go check it out, it’s great.

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Sep 11

What is Michaelangelo's David good for? Sierra llama is a beautiful equation. Sure, it has applications, but the world needs more beauty. And the generalization to variable growth rates - it sends shivers down the spine. A profound account of population dynamics encapsulated in a single equation.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Aug 21

My apologies. It was after midnight when I posted (obviously) and I was evidently too tired to be doing so. I just want to reassure you that it's not at all the case that anyone in Europe has somehow developed the crazy notion that nobody American bothers to read our offerings anyway.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Aug 20

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is a llama (4 for me).

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Aug 20

Also in the Emergency Room I discovered on Sunday night, though it might rather spoil things if you yourself happened to be the emergency.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Jul 17

Got it in 3 - I knew that bioanth minor would come in useful one day.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Jun 5

📌

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · May 16

Doesn't help. The Noisy People's needs trump that.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · May 16

Best to quickly shuffle out of your crease, plant your front foot, and drive that issue past mid-off for six. Or is that a particularly English academic thing?

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · May 7

It is a lovely piece, but a cricket ball is hard and heavy and can come flying at the batsman at over 90mph in the first-class game. You have to grasp what it takes to face that to appreciate the drama of the duels fought on that large green lawn.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · May 3

I only got ten but it's not about being one of the cool kids at school is it, so that's fine, really it is, just fine.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Apr 28

My parents fled the eastern hemisphere when I was six but we lived in the borderlands to the south of London and there were even a few "Ossis" at my secondary school, though we mostly treated them the same as normal children.

Reposted by Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Ian M. Timæus, Akiko Suwa‐Eisenmann , and 1 more Bernardo Lanza Queiroz, Ian M. Timæus, Akiko Suwa‐Eisenmann, Dietmar Fehr

IPUMS @ipums.bsky.social · Apr 18

Users of the Demographic and Health Surveys, please take the United Nations Statistics Division DHS impact survey (form.jotform.com/250913880478...) regarding recent cuts. Replies inform future planning and advocacy. All responses are confidential and presented only in aggregate.

Questionnaire on the use of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data

Please click the link to complete this form.

form.jotform.com

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Mar 26

That's tealighting. I may have to rink you.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Mar 26

OK, but it's scenarios that need an ISO standard. Somebody really ought to do something about scenarios.

Reposted by Ian M. Timæus

Population Studies Group, LSHTM @psglshtm.bsky.social · Mar 6

📢 Funding opportunity 📢

We’re accepting applications for the Basia Zaba Scholarship for the MSc in Demography & Health @lshtm.bsky.social 🎓

The scholarship covers full tuition fees for a UK home student
for the 2025-26 academic year. Deadline 26 March.

For more information 👉 tinyurl.com/3j7esk22

Basia Zaba Memorial Scholarship | LSHTM

This scholarship is for the MSc Demography & Health. Professor Basia Zaba (1949-2018) Basia started her long association with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in 1975 when she

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Ian M. Timæus

Bruno Masquelier @brunomasquelier.bsky.social · Mar 4

Our study estimates excess deaths in children and parental loss due to the war in Gaza in 2023. From Oct 8 to Dec 31, 2023, 8120 children <18 were killed due to the conflict, 15127 children lost a father, and 9886 children lost a mother -in 3 months
pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

A demographic assessment of the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip on the mortality of children and their parents in 2023 - Population Health Metrics

Background Following Hamas’s 7 October attack, Israel launched extensive aerial bombardments in the Gaza Strip, followed by a large-scale ground invasion. During the first 3 months of the conflict, up...

pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Feb 12

The Population Studies Group at LSHTM now has a Bluesky account! Feel free to follow us at Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/psgl...

#demography #population #populationstudies #lshtm

bsky.app

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Feb 7

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Feb 3

Perhaps he might lose interest in Greenland if they were to try wearing sombreros whenever the foreign TV crews show up.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Feb 3

I thought it might be that.

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Feb 3

I'm just an ignorant limey, so why is it he doesn't envisage Mexico becoming the 52nd State?

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Jan 16

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Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Jan 11

After years of low-level hostilities and border incidents, war has broken out inside my phone as to whether Adobe or Microsoft get to display pdfs. My efforts at peace-keeping have been about as much use as those of the UN Security Council. Is this somehow to do with Trump?

Ian Timaeus @iantimaeus.bsky.social · Jan 10

Convention requires that we review a literature that anyone who does more than look at the abstract and figures has already read, list results that the reader can see for themselves, and then discuss how we've shown that the guy who will be Reviewer 2 is wrong. Most papers could be research notes.

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