Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
@rmcelreath.bsky.social
Anthropologist - Bayesian modeling - science reform - cat and cooking content too - Director @ MPI for evolutionary anthropology https://www.eva.mpg.de/ecology/staff/richard-mcelreath/
Pinned
If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
they warned us
November 17, 2025 at 12:37 PM
they warned us
Contemplating format for my Statistical Rethinking course in January. In recent years, felt too many students can't keep up, fall behind in 2nd half. Maybe I should offer two sections: beginner, advanced. Beginner is first half of content, at half speed. Advanced is 2nd half, also half speed. ?
November 17, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Contemplating format for my Statistical Rethinking course in January. In recent years, felt too many students can't keep up, fall behind in 2nd half. Maybe I should offer two sections: beginner, advanced. Beginner is first half of content, at half speed. Advanced is 2nd half, also half speed. ?
Reposted by Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
“Do you know how to read?”
“No. It is one of the black arts.”
He nodded. “But a useful one,” he said.
“No. It is one of the black arts.”
He nodded. “But a useful one,” he said.
November 15, 2025 at 12:20 PM
“Do you know how to read?”
“No. It is one of the black arts.”
He nodded. “But a useful one,” he said.
“No. It is one of the black arts.”
He nodded. “But a useful one,” he said.
Saag happening. Onions chili ginger garlic tomato-paste curry powder spinach salt and more salt and a little lemon juice for acidity
November 13, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Saag happening. Onions chili ginger garlic tomato-paste curry powder spinach salt and more salt and a little lemon juice for acidity
Someone has put my local nutrias on a diet
November 12, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Someone has put my local nutrias on a diet
Behavioral data can be very detailed but are usually aggregated and normalized in ways that smother the dynamics. Ben wrote a continuous-time Markov model to improve on this, and also wrote simulations for exploring and validating pipelines. All the code is here: github.com/BenKawam/ASN...
New paper!
We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 12, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Behavioral data can be very detailed but are usually aggregated and normalized in ways that smother the dynamics. Ben wrote a continuous-time Markov model to improve on this, and also wrote simulations for exploring and validating pipelines. All the code is here: github.com/BenKawam/ASN...
yes please and thank you
Opinion: Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing.
Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards (@theblochian.bsky.social).
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards (@theblochian.bsky.social).
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing - Research Professional News
Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:40 AM
yes please and thank you
Reposted by Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
RDM Weekly Issue 21 is out! 📬
- Project Structure slides @djnavarro.net
- AI TutoR @emilynordmann.bsky.social
- Data Documentation and Validation @lmu-osc.bsky.social
- Request for Reading Data @jessicatoste.bsky.social @emilyafarris.bsky.social
and more!
rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...
- Project Structure slides @djnavarro.net
- AI TutoR @emilynordmann.bsky.social
- Data Documentation and Validation @lmu-osc.bsky.social
- Request for Reading Data @jessicatoste.bsky.social @emilyafarris.bsky.social
and more!
rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...
RDM Weekly - Issue 021
A weekly roundup of Research Data Management resources.
rdmweekly.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
RDM Weekly Issue 21 is out! 📬
- Project Structure slides @djnavarro.net
- AI TutoR @emilynordmann.bsky.social
- Data Documentation and Validation @lmu-osc.bsky.social
- Request for Reading Data @jessicatoste.bsky.social @emilyafarris.bsky.social
and more!
rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...
- Project Structure slides @djnavarro.net
- AI TutoR @emilynordmann.bsky.social
- Data Documentation and Validation @lmu-osc.bsky.social
- Request for Reading Data @jessicatoste.bsky.social @emilyafarris.bsky.social
and more!
rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...
My department is holding its annual xmas movie night and there is only one valid choice, the most xmas movie ever made
November 11, 2025 at 9:16 AM
My department is holding its annual xmas movie night and there is only one valid choice, the most xmas movie ever made
Teaching some actual anthropology this week and next
November 11, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Teaching some actual anthropology this week and next
False. There is no such thing as an introductory statistics textbook
November 11, 2025 at 7:57 AM
False. There is no such thing as an introductory statistics textbook
So many nonsense ad hoc pipelines could be prevented by requiring that they work on synthetic data.
I tend to think of experiments as special cases of inference, since most of the problems I work on cannot be studied in experiments. But I get that many researchers see experiments as base analogy.
I tend to think of experiments as special cases of inference, since most of the problems I work on cannot be studied in experiments. But I get that many researchers see experiments as base analogy.
"Validate With Simulated Truth: A first habit is to test whether an analytical pipeline can recover known conditions."
Very good advice below. So much COVID nonsense (e.g. 'immunological dark matter') basically came down to a non-identifiable model that hadn't been properly tested.
Very good advice below. So much COVID nonsense (e.g. 'immunological dark matter') basically came down to a non-identifiable model that hadn't been properly tested.
Modelling Like an Experimentalist
Dahlin et al. (2024) apply experimental thinking to a model of mosquito-borne disease transmissions.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 10, 2025 at 12:41 PM
So many nonsense ad hoc pipelines could be prevented by requiring that they work on synthetic data.
I tend to think of experiments as special cases of inference, since most of the problems I work on cannot be studied in experiments. But I get that many researchers see experiments as base analogy.
I tend to think of experiments as special cases of inference, since most of the problems I work on cannot be studied in experiments. But I get that many researchers see experiments as base analogy.
Reposted by Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
November 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
I'm participating in an "Open Science Exploratory Roundtable" in the Max Planck Society later this week, so bumping my grumpy thoughts about open science again. I'm as curious as everyone else to see what a club of competitive narcissists who succeeded under the status quo (the MPG) can manage!
How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...
Which Kind of Science Reform
What hope is there for science reform, if we can't agree on what to reform? Right now, principles are more important than practices.
elevanth.org
November 10, 2025 at 8:38 AM
I'm participating in an "Open Science Exploratory Roundtable" in the Max Planck Society later this week, so bumping my grumpy thoughts about open science again. I'm as curious as everyone else to see what a club of competitive narcissists who succeeded under the status quo (the MPG) can manage!
I try to practice forgiveness, so I will meditate on that. But as a general meta-science note, in one case the evidence against Pruitt was that he left in a spreadsheet a formula that copied data from one treatment and added a constant to it in another treatment. It's like:
November 7, 2025 at 11:36 AM
I try to practice forgiveness, so I will meditate on that. But as a general meta-science note, in one case the evidence against Pruitt was that he left in a spreadsheet a formula that copied data from one treatment and added a constant to it in another treatment. It's like:
This is great. I am not a fan of the oscillator example - makes it seem like a physics niche thing. But so useful for us population-thinkers. I might write up a post using a population dynamics differential equation example. If I can finish cloning myself. Yeah. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE-h...
Why Laplace transforms are so useful
YouTube video by 3Blue1Brown
www.youtube.com
November 6, 2025 at 6:15 PM
This is great. I am not a fan of the oscillator example - makes it seem like a physics niche thing. But so useful for us population-thinkers. I might write up a post using a population dynamics differential equation example. If I can finish cloning myself. Yeah. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE-h...
I am slow to react to this recent Stockholm Declaration on scientific publishing. A lot of it sounds good, but I don't see how we get from here to there. I worry nothing substantial will happen until the cost disease kills the host.
![3. Incentive systems to merit quality, not quantity
Reward scientific achievement based primarily on quality—not quantity measures of today’s ‘reputation economy’ metric system [8].
Discourage ‘salami-slicing’ of results to obtain ‘least publishable units’; reduce the abundance of review articles (meta-analyses) and commentaries that over-burden reviewers and can too easily be generated using AI.
Rankings of academic achievement with metrics such as citation counts, ‘journal impact factor’ (JIF) and ‘publication number’ must be used responsibly because they often do not correlate with research quality [9] (see also CoARA—Reforming Research Assessment). 7](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ta2whs6wjtpljvpqgs5leu36/bafkreieiasfhsrhanmpgthgdkcub5gsezdu5yy6ekaiv633gvvzygdwmxe@jpeg)
November 6, 2025 at 9:33 AM
I am slow to react to this recent Stockholm Declaration on scientific publishing. A lot of it sounds good, but I don't see how we get from here to there. I worry nothing substantial will happen until the cost disease kills the host.
To update my list of Celtic words used in English, I am being told that "iron" is an early Celtic borrowing into early Germanic, as Germanic ppl (South Scandinavians at the time) moved into central Europe. So like 1000-500 BCE.
Another borrowing from same time is rich/Reich!
Another borrowing from same time is rich/Reich!
November 6, 2025 at 8:22 AM
To update my list of Celtic words used in English, I am being told that "iron" is an early Celtic borrowing into early Germanic, as Germanic ppl (South Scandinavians at the time) moved into central Europe. So like 1000-500 BCE.
Another borrowing from same time is rich/Reich!
Another borrowing from same time is rich/Reich!
The concept of "fitness" is central to evolutionary biology but it's not entirely worked out. There are multiple definitions, doubts about predictive power, problems with internal consistency. Here's a paper from last year attempting to solve some of these problems. doi.org/10.1093/evol...
November 5, 2025 at 2:27 PM
The concept of "fitness" is central to evolutionary biology but it's not entirely worked out. There are multiple definitions, doubts about predictive power, problems with internal consistency. Here's a paper from last year attempting to solve some of these problems. doi.org/10.1093/evol...
So a recent Veritasium video on natural selection explains kin selection and does the unavoidable thing of saying that a parent shares "half of its genes with the child". This is wrong, because for any 2 humans, we share almost all of our genes. We share more than 95% with chimpanzees ffs. >>
November 4, 2025 at 3:44 PM
So a recent Veritasium video on natural selection explains kin selection and does the unavoidable thing of saying that a parent shares "half of its genes with the child". This is wrong, because for any 2 humans, we share almost all of our genes. We share more than 95% with chimpanzees ffs. >>
So last night I was strumming "Zombie" by The Cranberries and my son heard and came running in, "Is that Zombie by The Cranberries?" He knew what the song is about! Then I taught him the chords. Small parenting victories. Can learn the song watching O'Riordan in this www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Av...
Zombie (Acoustic Version) - The Cranberries
YouTube video by Nomen Nominandum
www.youtube.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:03 AM
So last night I was strumming "Zombie" by The Cranberries and my son heard and came running in, "Is that Zombie by The Cranberries?" He knew what the song is about! Then I taught him the chords. Small parenting victories. Can learn the song watching O'Riordan in this www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Av...
Reposted by Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.
November 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.
This post looks great for someone with solid Bayes skills who wants to work for public good. Requires Dutch language proficiency, but if you speak German and English in my experience you can already understand like 30% of spoken Dutch so could learn it pretty fast!
The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Authority at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Authority is looking for an applied statistician with expertise in Bayesian statistics or causal inference
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/11/03/t...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/11/03/t...
The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Authority at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Authority is looking for an applied statistician with expertise in Bayesian statistics or causal infer...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
November 4, 2025 at 7:21 AM
This post looks great for someone with solid Bayes skills who wants to work for public good. Requires Dutch language proficiency, but if you speak German and English in my experience you can already understand like 30% of spoken Dutch so could learn it pretty fast!
Reposted by Richard McElreath 🐈⬛
Now I'm also looking for a research software engineer to implement a pile of research results to R packages loo, posterior, bayesplot, projpred, priorsense, brms or/and Python packages ArviZ, Bambi and Kulprit. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact info at users.aalto.fi/~ave/)
I'm now also looking for a postdoc with strong Bayesian background and interest in developing Bayesian cross-validation theory, methods and software. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact information at users.aalto.fi/~ave/).
Others, please share
Others, please share
I'm looking for a doctoral student with Bayesian background to work on Bayesian workflow and cross-validation (see my publication list users.aalto.fi/~ave/publica... for my recent work) at Aalto University.
Apply through the ELLIS PhD program (dl October 31) ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
Apply through the ELLIS PhD program (dl October 31) ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
November 3, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Now I'm also looking for a research software engineer to implement a pile of research results to R packages loo, posterior, bayesplot, projpred, priorsense, brms or/and Python packages ArviZ, Bambi and Kulprit. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact info at users.aalto.fi/~ave/)