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Simon J. Greenhill

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Simon James Greenhill is a New Zealand scientist who works on the application of quantitative methods to the study of… more

H-index: 42
Computer science 19%
Communication & Media Studies 19%
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

acapomorphic.bsky.social
Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Kostas Kampourakis, Rebecca Sear , and 2 more

ent3c.bsky.social
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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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
a great paper
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Martín Haspelmath

kilinguistics.bsky.social
Because I think better in pictures, here is a visualisation of languages according to documentation and endangerment status (I'm calling it glottocloud).

glottolog.org/langdoc/status
Graphic distribution of languages represented as dots in a two-dimensional space. X: AES (endangerment level, ranging from "extinct" to "not endangered" Y: MED (documentation level, ranging from "wordlist or less" to "long grammar"
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

chrisbuckley.bsky.social
Guillaume Jacques and I have collaborated to survey spindle whorls and the origins of weaving in East Asia ... lots of new stuff in this preprint ... a novel method for processing spindle whorl archaeological data, comparison with farming, and new linguistic information ... osf.io/preprints/so...
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
man, they'll be burying me with my unread books, setting them alight like a viking funeral
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
One day I'll have time to read them all!
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Great article on why we should be careful using AI Participants in research by @cathleenogrady.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...
AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds
Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings
www.science.org
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Oh god yes, I have so many books ready for "when-I-start-that" or "when-I-write-that".
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Oh, what a great idea!
1

by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Hey, has anyone compared performance on the Stroop task cross-linguistically?
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio , and 38 more

carlzimmer.com
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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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Juan Cole

apnews.com
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no one has died” as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts. In Myanmar, the grieving father of a 2-year-old boy who died after their food rations were cut calls such claims a lie.
Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.
bit.ly
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

te-ara-paerangi.community
14 years ago Paul Callaghan gave this talk. It leaned in to the idea of making Aotearoa New Zealand a place where talented people wanted to live. Our government is hell bent on doing the opposite.
@nzscientists.bsky.social
#NZPOL
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Wow, a junk spam email written in Comic Sans from a .biz email address. It's like the 90s again!
two men are sitting on a couch playing guitars and dancing in a living room .
ALT: two men are sitting on a couch playing guitars and dancing in a living room .
media.tenor.com
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

diffendale.bsky.social
If you remember last autumn when I was live-skeeting excavations at Rossano di Vaglio, the first report of that work has just been published (in Italian). Happy for it to see the light of day, and also very pleased to present five new Oscan inscriptions to the world...
🏺
#ArchaeologyBluesky
Rossano di Vaglio, santuario italico: cronaca e nuovi dati dalla campagna di scavo del 2024 | Quaderni di ACMA
acma-digitale.it
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
“war on science” = Universities are slowly dying world-wide but I’m angry because a one time a woman told me to shut up
rebeccasear.bsky.social
Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 15d
However bad you thought the whingefest “War on Science” book was going to be, it’s worse. The contributors are somehow the most ridiculous and among the most high profile scientists out there. If “cancel culture” were actually real, the former would preclude the latter, but nope 🤷‍♀️
shaunvids.bsky.social
shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 22d
video www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyU5...
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

latimes.com
Jane Goodall, the trailblazing naturalist whose intimate observations of chimpanzees in the African wild produced powerful insights that transformed basic conceptions of humankind, has died. She was 91.

Read more about her legacy www.latimes.com/obituaries/s...
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Peter Thorne , and 30 more

merriam-webster.com
We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.
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by Rebecca Sear — Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

rebeccasear.bsky.social
However bad you thought the whingefest “War on Science” book was going to be, it’s worse. The contributors are somehow the most ridiculous and among the most high profile scientists out there. If “cancel culture” were actually real, the former would preclude the latter, but nope 🤷‍♀️
shaunvids.bsky.social
shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 22d
video www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyU5...
The War on Science
YouTube video by Shaun
www.youtube.com
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Julia Lynch, Jason Williams

danielbolnick.bsky.social
We've got hundreds of signatures in five hours... but if we can cross 1000 by morning when I send this to NSF that'd be great. The stories from past, current, and future applicants in the comments section are hearbreaking. Keep up the pressure, and please please sign!!!
danielbolnick.bsky.social
Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 15d
NSF unexpectedly changed (at the last minute) who is eligible to apply for the Grad Research Fellowship, dropping 2nd year students. We started a petition to reverse this unfair change, Sign here:
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
and please spread the word!!!!
Petition to NSF to Restore Eligibility for the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program Competition
laurenkuehne.github.io
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

johnbasil.bsky.social
Social functions of language may drive faster change and faster diversification in some features.
Thanks to growing diversity in variationst sociolinguistics, I gathered studies of 63 languages from 28 families. Here I sketch some potential patterns
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Linguistic Diversification and Rates of Change: Insights From a Diverse Sample of Sociolinguistic Studies
Language diversification and change can be studied using phylogenetic modelling of families over thousands of years, or by close observation of changes unfolding over a few decades at the community l....
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Richard got my vote very quickly.
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
Yes -- and this particular journal has all articles on jstor back to its inception. I can download the original version of the reprinted article right now.
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
90s?
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
is it strange for a journal to republish old articles from their archives?
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by Mark Rubin — Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

markrubin.bsky.social
Paywall: www.afr.com/policy/healt...

Reddit version:
www.reddit.com/r/Anu/commen...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #UKHE
Opaque, conflicted, overpaid: The shabby state of uni governance
A major senate report into the quality of governance at Australian universities has delivered a blistering attack on how they are run and overseen.
www.afr.com
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by Mark Rubin — Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Mark Rubin

markrubin.bsky.social
Report on Australian Higher Education finds:

🔹️ Council members have no lived experience of universities

🔹️ Council members have COIs with consultancy firms

🔹️ Council meetings are closed affairs that lack transparency

🔹️ Leaders' exorbitant salaries could not be justified
One submission said leaders’ salaries could not be “justified by the quality of executive decision-making, nor by the scope of executive duties. The core business of a university – teaching and research – is co-ordinated virtually entirely by ordinary non-executive staff”.
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by Simon J. Greenhill

simongreenhill.bsky.social
IF SIGN STILL HERE, STORM IS NOT TOO BAD 👍
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Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill

pittriversmuseum.bsky.social
Maori scholar, Makereti Papakura writing at her desk c.1910. The room is decorated with a mix of Maori & European mementoes whilst the rafters are painted with traditional kowhaiwhai patterns. Makereti will be awarded a posthumous degree in Oxford tomorrow, almost a century after she died in 1930.
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