Brigitte Nerlich

@bnerlich.bsky.social

2.3K followers 490 following 7.9K posts

Metaphor hunter, linguist, social scientist, blogger

blog: https://makingsciencepublic.com/
also sorted into categories at https://wakelet.com/@bnerlich
ORCID: 0000-0001-6617-7827

Videos

Psychology 23%

Communication & Media Studies 23%

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Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · Nov 17

So, I have created a starter pack for people interested in #metaphor. I bet I left a lot of people out. Please let me know if you want to be added. go.bsky.app/DvxejFX

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 51m

I am so glad you enjoy it. (I enjoy writing it, but one never knows....)

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1h

Oh man that's tense

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 2h

love that metaphor: "humanity feels like a Promethean collective in which some will play with fire in the hope of coming out of the inferno unfried"

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 2h

If you could put these into the comments I would be honoured. Or if that's too difficult, I could do that for you.

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 2h

me too

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 3h

Good point!!

Reposted by Garry Peterson, Massimiliano Simons

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 3h

This is my last post in the 'metaphors for AI' trilogy. I never thought there was so much to say about it all. But this is it for now! Comments welcome. #AI #metaphor makingsciencepublic.com/2025/11/28/o...

Observing shifts in metaphors for AI: What changed and why it matters

In my previous two posts I have made the case for an AI metaphor observatory and surveyed the recent academic landscape of studies dealing with metaphors for AI in the sense of GenAI and LLMs. In t…

makingsciencepublic.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich

Jack Ryan 🙏🧪 @jacksonwryan.com · 5h

On the Factor Fexcectorn and autism bicycle AI slop study: I got an answer from Springer Nature this morning that this scientific paper will be retracted! 🧪

Full story: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...

Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town

Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?

nobreakthroughs.substack.com

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich, Carl T. Bergstrom, Mark J. Brandt , and 11 more Brigitte Nerlich, Carl T. Bergstrom, Mark J. Brandt, Maarten van Smeden, Philip N. Cohen, Pierre Bataille, Benjamin Braun, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Sebastian Karcher, Zen Faulkes, Sofia Stathi, Patrick Präg, Jack Stilgoe, Florian Keusch

SocArXiv @socarxiv.bsky.social · 19h

In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
/1

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 20h

I was sitting in a car with an elderly person (not using social media) and we happened to catch a bit of the Media Show and I said 'Do you want me to tell you the line?' and the other person said 'No need, I know it'....

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 22h

From contamination to collapse: On the trail of a new AI metaphor – Making Science Public share.google/l3UvVo0ExR5Z...

From contamination to collapse: On the trail of a new AI metaphor

I wrote my first ever post about AI and ChatGPT on 6 January 2023. Amongst other things, I talked about the danger of ‘knowledge pollution’. I wanted to highlight the dangers of a gradual corruptio…

share.google

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

In the olden days you needed an education to acquire knowledge, now you need an education to recognise knowledge....

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

What about metaphors that map meanings between cognitive domains, for example, your example of "Meg breezed through security before arriving at her gate…" (in this case a rather stable and conventional mapping between a breeze and ease, so to speak)

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

I can't find anything, but this was quite interesting lexiconia.art?page_id=362

AI Slop – LEXICONIA

lexiconia.art

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

Ah in German it is, I think, "KI-Müll", "KI-Mist", or "KI-Schrott" (junk, scrap...) - this loses the sloppiness a bit but still

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

So cool!

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Kim L. Scheppele, Lisa W. Fazio , and 25 more Cas Mudde, Kim L. Scheppele, Lisa W. Fazio, David Lazer, Brigitte Nerlich, Michael Nelson, Jacob Montgomery, Ingo Rohlfing, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Aaron Sojourner, Michael Zimmer, Nazita Lajevardi, Margot C. Finn, Sara Wallace Goodman, Steven Schmidt, Samantha Brennan, Juan Rocha, Brian Keegan, William Myers, Zen Faulkes, Matthew Lebo, Catherine J. Frieman, Georg Weizsäcker, Brooke Harrington, Stephen A. Meserve, Dan Hicks, Clark Gray, David Darmofal

Kristina Killgrove @killgrove.bsky.social · 1d

NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research.

Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪

Today's biggest science news: Doomed comet explodes | Comet 3I/ATLAS course alteration | Dark matter detected?

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines.

www.livescience.com

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich , and 9 more Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich, Richard McElreath, Martin Tomko, Peter Campbell, Stephen D. Murphy, Andrew Livingstone, Olivier Morin, Zen Faulkes, John R. Kerr, David Spurrett

Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex @smutclyde.bsky.social · 1d

Rate your score on Factor Fexcectorn.

Well done, Scientific Reports. pubpeer.com/publications...

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflati... - when they first talked about it under Biden I was VERY confused

Inflation Reduction Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote this about 'red and blue AI' in 2023.... the questions I ask are still worth asking now and with more urgency makingsciencepublic.com/2023/08/25/r...

Red and blue AI?

This is another post about artificial intelligence or AI, but it’s what one may call a bit ‘experimental’. I happened to think about an analogy and ran with it, but it might be a completely inappro…

makingsciencepublic.com

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich, Dean Eckles, Richard Pettigrew

Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 1d

Imagine you lived in the 18th century.

Smallpox kills 1 in 3 cases. Yet you can’t culture pathogens, don’t know germ theory, and have no idea what a virus is. How would you invent a vaccine?

In a new episode of HARD DRUGS, we trace the history of vaccines!

The history of vaccines

open.spotify.com

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 2d

Ah, my first student research assistant job was working through file-cards for Peter Wunderli who was working on Saussure and that was one reason why I became interested in the history of linguistics

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich, Jonathan Wolff

Prof Sheena Cruickshank @sheencr.bsky.social · 2d

RFKJr has cut ALL mRNA vax research in the USA where all the work discussed in this thread was developed. Other countries can step in. But the rhetoric about mRNA vax from the likes of him are HUGELY harming the trust in mRNA vaccine technology. We address common questions n myths here

independentsage.org

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich

Paul Knoepfler @stemcells.bsky.social · 2d

Nucleus Genomics faces criticism as it and other firms promise embryo optimization despite unresolved scientific, ethical questions ipscell.com/2025/11/nucl... elective IVF #stemcells

Nucleus Genomics faces criticism as it and other firms promise embryo optimization despite unresolved scientific, ethical questions - The Niche

Stem cell biologist discusses how elective IVF firm Nucleus Genomics faces serious accusations including of plagiarism.

ipscell.com

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 2d

I really enjoyed that and learned a lot!

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich

✨ A Goddess has NO KING ✨ @the-goddess-speaks.bsky.social · 2d

Historian Rutger Bregman is a well-respected proponent of a universal basic income. The Guardian has called him “the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas.”

The BBC invited Bregman to give this year’s Reith Lecture series.

Before airing, the BBC removed one sentence from his lecture, “A Time of Monsters.”

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 3d

Not too bad. Still have my part-time cat Cleo that comes to visit which is nice 🐈

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich

Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 3d

Some of the most important words ever written: 'Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.' – Charles Darwin, 'On the Origin of Species'. It was published #OnThisDay 1859.

‘Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.’

Charles Darwin
Naturalist and humanist

Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · 4d

Sean Trott, over at The Counterfactual, explores the metaphor 'ChatGPT is grown not made' - great post, also quotes a nice metaphor "attention heads are a “matchmaking service for words”);" #AI #metaphors
seantrott.substack.com/p/is-chatgpt...