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Ingo Rohlfing

@ingorohlfing.bsky.social

4.4K followers 1.3K following 1.1K posts

I am here for all interesting and funny posts on the social sciences, broadly understood and including open science and meta science, academia, teaching and research. https://linktr.ee/ingorohlfing

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Political science 30%

Sociology 17%

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 11h

The bixplot: A variation on the boxplot suited for bimodal and multimodal data
arxiv.org/abs/2510.09276 #dataviz It is a multiboxplot or multiviolinplot, depending on the data. Clustering is used distinguish groups of cases from each other that are plotted separately, but in one chart.

Figure 2 from referenced paper displaying generated unimodal, bimodal, and multimodal variables by violin plots (left) and bixplots (right)

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Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Altmetric @altmetric.com · 11h

PODCASTS

Altmetric now tracks podcasts mentioning research

In 2018 there were roughly 500,000 podcasts in existence. Just 3 years later that number was 2 million. Today it's around 4 million.

Amid all the Squarespace ads there's citations to research.

Let's go
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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 1d

One should enjoy the publication of the book quietly and let it speak for itself.

Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Raul Pacheco-Vega @raulpachecovega.bsky.social · 1d

When I was younger I thought this was a great idea. But why give assholes ANY space in anything I succeed at doing??

Gailey 🍉 @sarahgailey.bsky.social · 1d

books should have an anti-acknowledgements section where the author talks shit about all the people who fucked them over while they were trying to write the thing. not bc I personally want to write one but bc I love gossip

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

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

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 1d

It'd be nice if it worked with data worth curating (there maybe a reason why few data are shared), but I doubt it does. Besides, if most of the generated data were shared likes this or in another way, who is supposed to use it to "deliver breakthroughs"? I fear the answer would be again "AI".

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Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing, Raúl Pacheco-Vega

Gailey 🍉 @sarahgailey.bsky.social · 1d

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

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

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Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Kamran Abbasi , and 9 more Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Kamran Abbasi, Lesley A. Hall, Ingo Rohlfing, Ian Hussey, Douglas Guilfoyle, Andreas De Block, Jan Marcus, Paul Nightingale, Marcus Credé, Patrick Stokes

Nick Brown @steamtraen.eu · 2d

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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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 2d

I am not sure about how can show that observational regression is often not causal (except that it seems plausible once knows more about causal modeling). Given that, the causal quartet may help:
doi.org/10.1080/2693...
Or simply the www.tylervigen.com charts?

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Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 2d

"Tasks that once took months of manual work — from curating datasets and checking compliance to creating metadata and publishable outputs — are now completed in minutes by the AI Data Steward"

Another case of commercial publishers looking to replace library labour with their junk AI.

90% of Science Is Lost: Frontiers’ revolutionary AI-powered service transforms data sharing to deliver breakthroughs faster

Frontiers, the open-science publisher, is tackling this problem with the launch of Frontiers FAIR² Data Management, the world’s first all-in-one, AI-powered ser

www.frontiersin.org

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Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing, David Darmofal

Alexander Wuttke @kunkakom.bsky.social · 2d

Colleagues: What’s your favorite, accessible resource (reading, video, slide deck) to convince students that regression on observational data—even with many controls—is not often causal. (Quasi-)experimental designs are preferred for causal inference.

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 2d

I am not sure, but probably not. Not any social media paper will negatively or positively influence Meta's fortune. On average, however, I guess a funding paper has much less impact than a social media paper, so COI is larger in the social media case

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 2d

I am with Sebastian here. For A and B, I would share funding information before reviewing a paper. C is a gray area. I see the COI, but if this was one, a researcher who reviews a paper on public third-party funding would also need to disclose funding by NIH, ERC etc.?

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 2d

More than 30% of this century’s science Nobel prizewinners immigrated
www.nature.com/articles/d41... Largest beneficiary is, so far, USA. Absolute numbers a bit misleading because US higher ed & research is larger than any other. Everything else equal, which it isn't, abs numbers should be higher

Some 63 people have been awarded a Nobel prize in medicine, physics or chemistry
since 2000 while living in a country other than the one in which they were born. The
diagram shows Nobel prizewinners' birth country and country of residence when they
became laureates. Prizewinners who received the award while living in the country of
their birth are not represented.

Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Christopher R. Matthews @drcrmatthews.bsky.social · 2d

Most methodology sections of social scientific papers would be better if people stopped referencing others and focused on explain their work in clear and practical terms. More here - journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

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Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 2d

Does a new generation of social scientists have to publish more to achieve less? (from 2019)
blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... Intuition says "yes", and so says data for sociology.

Figure from blog post: Shows how much 342 new assistant professors had published at the time they began their first jobs. For Assistant Professors and newly promoted Associate Professors, there is an upward trend from early 1990s to late 2010s. The trend is stronger for Associate Professors.

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 4d

Who submits papers ahead of deadlines?
I am clearly the person on the right side.
errantscience.com/blog/2025/10...

Cartoon with two people. Person on the left has finished a scientific paper one week ahead of a deadline. The person on the right does not understand it because no one finishes papers early.

Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde , and 51 more Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell, Jan W. Mueller, Guntram B. Wolff, Christian Odendahl, Richard S.J. Tol, Colin F. Camerer, Robbert Sanderman, David Brady, Gabriel Felbermayr, Steven Van de Walle, Tomasz Mickiewicz, Alistair Munro, Michael A. Clemens, Cyrus Samii, Lucas Leemann, Francesco Saraceno, Laia Balcells, Andrew Curry, Paul Lehmann, Guy Grossman, John Mullahy, Joshua Goodman, David Dorn, Ingo Rohlfing, Daniel W. Drezner, Iikka Korhonen, Robert C. Richards, Aaron Sojourner, Daniel Huppmann, Julia Lynch, Rita Hamad, Stephen D. Murphy, Nazita Lajevardi, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Miguel Á. Malo, Henry Farrell, Dean Eckles, Maria Abreu, Dana R. Fisher, Jason Lyall, Brian Weatherson, Brooke Harrington, Bård Harstad, Christina Pagel, Jürgen Janger, Nicolai von Ondarza, Karsten Mäuse, Dietmar Fehr, Bartosz Bartkowski, Adam Tooze, Anita Gohdes

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 5d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 5d

I would always prefer a rigorous study over a sloppy one, but I agree (I guess we do) that the marginal added value of rigor is marginal when theory is weak. It also depends on why it is weak. Methodological rigor makes a bigger difference when theory is strong

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 5d

Die DFG-Programmpauschale ist das Deutschlandticket der Drittmittelfinanzierung
www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/10... @jmwiarda.bsky.social Mir war nicht bewusst, dass Programmpauschale regelmäßig neuverhandelt wird. Es wäre m.E. besser, einen Schlüssel zu vereinbaren, der Verhandlungen erübrigt.

Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Jan-Martin Wiarda @jmwiarda.bsky.social · 5d

Sie ist unscheinbar, aber zentral für die Forschungsfinanzierung: die DFG-Programmpauschale. Ende 2025 läuft sie aus – ohne neue Bund-Länder-Vereinbarung wäre sie weg. Jetzt gibt es Bewegung, doch die versprochene 30%-Erhöhung bleibt wohl Wunsch.

Im Wiarda-Blog:
👉 www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/10...

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 6d

in substantive courses are seen from a quantitative perspective because students can only address research questions that can be answered quantitatively. This would not be different in a quant department that offers substantive courses first. In that case, I see more value in the opposite order 2/

Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 6d

An Undergraduate Degree in ‘Data for Political Research’: High in Demand and Student Value but Low in Supply #polisci
www.cambridge.org/core/journal... I can see the value of frontloading research design and quant methods undergraduate classes. It most likely implies that the topics in 1/

Reposted by Alexander Wuttke, Ingo Rohlfing

Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 7d

Twitter revolutionised my career.

I learnt a huge amount about causal inference through #EpiTwitter.

And I met many amazing people who I've since had the joy of working with (Eg @epiellie.bsky.social, @epidbydesign.bsky.social, @robertwplatt.bsky.social, @jlrohmann.bsky.social, etc etc)

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 7d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Reposted by Alexander-Kenneth Nagel, Ingo Rohlfing

Jan-Martin Wiarda @jmwiarda.bsky.social · 7d

Die Exzellenz ist müde
Die Exzellenzstrategie war ein Versprechen auf Wettbewerb und Aufbruch. Heute ist ihr Ende wissenschaftspolitisch absehbar. Doch was könnte, was sollte danach kommen?
Im Wiarda-Blog: www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/10...

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Reposted by Cas Mudde, Will Jennings, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 3 more Cas Mudde, Will Jennings, Rosemary A. Joyce, Ingo Rohlfing, Alan Richardson, Stuart Shapiro

Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 8d

Two things of note in today's announcement of the 2025 Nobel physics prize (besides the work being honored).

1: The US institutional dominance of the prize continues.
2: 2 of the three laureates are immigrants, drawn here decades ago by the then-unmatched opportunities for science here...

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Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded for Work in Quantum Mechanics

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing

Klaus Pforr @klauspforr.bsky.social · 8d

"emerging literature" == i presented once at a conference
"recent research" == two papers and one blog post
"research tradition" == everything in my zotero folder
At least, that's what I was told

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Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 8d

In Germany, probably Austria too, there are so many Associate Professorships (W1, sometimes even W2) without tenure track that it is worth mentioning if you are on a tenure-track position.

Ingo Rohlfing @ingorohlfing.bsky.social · 8d

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention
arxiv.org/abs/2509.13397 #MetaScience A specification curve analysis of LLM settings produces very different results. Maybe not surprising, but definitely worth studying and pointing out

Reposted by Ingo Rohlfing, Seán Hanley

Cas Ⓜ️udde @casmudde.bsky.social · 8d

My main problem with this is not so much the dominance of quantitative methods in “top-20” journals but rather the dominance of the exclusive use of quantitative methods — in many cases causality could and should have been established by a (nested) qualitative study. *

Alexia Katsanidou @alexiakatsanidou.bsky.social · 8d

Great paper on the state of political science osf.io/preprints/os... by @guygrossman.bsky.social et. al. We have become more diverse, more quantitative, and more collaborative.

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