Level up @zotero with these 2 plugins: - @scite: gives you 3 new cols: Mentioning, Supporting, Disputing (https://github.com/scitedotai/scite-zotero-plugin/releases…) - @PubPeer: Gives you a col with # of Pubpeer comments (https://github.com/PubPeerFoundation/pubpeer_zotero_plugin/releases…) HT @adam42smith

NYU too I believe. What is happening in Canada and Australia, especially regarding international students.

alongside dubious relationships with parties that in other contexts would require declarations of interest or that have independent hallmarks of being bad faith actors

Replying to @SciBehgood question, though I think anyone who genuinely believes they are acting for the greater good should welcome a public inquiry to make their case.

indeed! I suspect also, though, that for the most egregious cases of harm caused such an inquiry will be able to identify what are clear failings by *scientific standards* - such as cherry-picked data, selective reporting, unwillingness to admit error etc...

New book "Urban Informatics", #OpenAccess https://lnkd.in/gXUQecE Edited by @jmichaelbatty @CUHKofficial Michael Goodchild, Wenzhong Shi and Anshu Zhang Chap. in Urban Mobility Patterns: A Case Study of @MexicoCity with @FahadAlhasoun @ @jlmateos et. al

Boris's world beating for you.

@newscientistHmm this is strange, what could be the cause?

@newscientistWell, he's been aspiring to emulate a wartime prime minister. Looks like he's getting there.

@newscientistArticle seems lightweight on the stats. Where are the graphs with 5 year average. Deaths broken out by cause of death, age etc.

The UK has recorded the largest increase in excess deaths in the country since 1940 during the second world war https://bit.ly/3i4Y6vE

But isn’t it right that if you use age-standardised mortality which takes into account population growth and age the death rate is no higher than experienced in the 2000s?

@newscientistYes but Dave from Dorking says its a hoax

I think (hope) there might be a bit more possible, though: tools and standards to help us move *toward* greater objectivity - there's a continuum there

So true - so much so that there's a whole discipline devoted to the study of it, the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. Watching it all play out on Twitter during Covid has been like watching SSK on speed. (Kudos to the social scis who address this as standard: "positionality")

The COVID Corps YouTube channel is live! Here's who we are and what we're about. New videos every Wednesday.

Apparently that's not the least of it. Now they've screwed up the correction as well. If 0.02% are diagnosed with COVID, that means 99.98%, not 92% like they claim, are COVID-free. The correction, shown below, is wrong in the story as well as in their mea culpa tweet.

Two days ago, Bloomberg @business @bopinion ran a story that overstated the risk of COVID to vaccinated people by something like 400-fold. Today they're tweeting this precise piece of misinformation. Vaccine skeptics are delighted. How can a reputable news agency be so sloppy?

Third time is the charm. Thank you Bloomberg @business @bopinion.

And unsurprisingly, the disinformers have also been busy. But don't worry our myth-busting page is calling out the bad stuff: https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/misinfo_myths… 6/n

The fraught politics of COVID-19 and vaccinations. More details on our page: https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/misinfo_politics… 4/n

The cultural sensitivities surrounding vaccinations have been explored further--with an additional section on the role of religion. Good news: all major faiths support vax https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/vaxculture… 3/n

COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Handbook https://sks.to/c19vax : Multiple new updates to underlying wiki pages 1/n

Updates to public opinion about COVID-19 vaccinations: Good news, Europe has generally become more vax-positive https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/publicattitudes… 2/n

And of course more and more facts roll in about the COVID-19 vaccines, for example real-life effectiveness (good news: it's very high!) https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/c19vaxfacts… 5/n

In addition to successfully reducing shares by 24%, our intervention also reduced likes by 7%, and views by 5%. 6/7

We put a short prompt on videos that reminded people to think about the accuracy of the content they were watching. And then - when people went to share the video - we reminded them again that the video was flagged & asked them if they were sure they wanted to share. 3/7

Replying to @IrrationalLabsCool! Just out of curiosity, is the accuracy content what decreases sharing or is it the fact that you have increased the difficulty to share?

ooh this is actually really cool! Now when do we get to downgrade fake psychology facts

We designed an intervention that reduced shares of flagged content on TikTok by 24% via a large scale RCT, thread 1/7

Also, we may have succeeded in slowing people down and moving them from a 'hot' to 'cold' state. The extra question may have gotten people to pause for just long enough to reconsider their actions. 5/7

Congrats to the TikTok team for running an experiment and publishing the results publicly. The whole field benefits when we share learnings. 7/7

Replying to @IrrationalLabs@steverathje2 there’s hope

This intervention was inspired by previous research from @DG_Rand & @GordPennycook. People do value truth. An accuracy prompt has been shown to work because it reminds people about their own personal values of truth - at the critical point they are about to share something. 4/7

See article: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/tiktok-to-flag-and-downrank-unsubstantiated-claims-fact-checkers-cant-verify/… 2/7

Dank der tollen Unterstützung von @TheRealTweetmo, Thomas Traill & Ulrike Hahn gibt es jetzt die deutsche Übersetzung des Anfang Januar erschienenen "COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook" als "Kommunikationshandbuch zum COVID-19-Impfstoff" - https://sks.to/c19vax-de #COVID-19

Un petit livret sur les vaccins, très bien écrit par l'équipe @SciBeh, est téléchargeable ici : https://c19vax.scibeh.org/fr

experience feelings of vulnerability 3) Supervisory teams + institutional research culture is very influential. Recommendations include 1) Proper training, education +resources for ECRs on how to do OS is needed, 2) PIs, supervisors need to take holistic approach to ECR training

Replying to @ElaineToomey1 @johncoxnuig and 9 othersMight help. I am conducting an evaluation of the use of such a CV among researchers, panel reviewers and peer reviewers.

3) Institutions, funders, PIs need to review hiring/promotion/progression criteria, move away from impact factor/no. of pubs to more holistic criteria 4) Institutions, funders, PIs need to address culture of transparency across entire research cycle, not just data sharing.

Thanks to @jrpolanin and @ArdenClose for excellent #OpenPeerReview who made our paper so much stronger, to all participants and co-authors Ksenija Zecevic @houghtoncath @Chris_Noone_ @hopinlee @KarenMSikar

ECRs can 1) Get active - join/establish grassroots initiatives eg @ReproducibiliT @OpenSciUtrecht 2) Get vocal - use those platforms to engage w/ institutional management/ethics committees etc and 3) Get inquisitive - do research on research to find evidence-based solutions

Really thrilled our #mixedmethods study on factors influencing #openscience behaviours in early career researchers #ECRS has passed peer review! We found 1) ECRs Value OS but feel they are not fully supported to practice it 2) ECRs fear visibility of potential errors and

at the same time, I can see "average values" (say, estimated from a population) being used to make population level allocation decisions. BUT I cannot see how this could be used to *tell another individual* how much their life was worth. =>

Replying to @SciBeh and @STWorgand, I maintain that under, say, Art.1 of the German constitution it would be illegal to do so

Replying to @STWorgso one immediate response to that is that in expected utility theory, the standard normative framework for decision-making, utility is a *subjective quantity*, so it would ultimately be up to individuals to determine QALY values for themselves. =>

A while back I queried the wisdom of reputable academics publishing on the Toby Young created website http://lockdownsceptics.org. This tweet this morning by its creator, I feel, sheds further light on that issue

Replying to @SciBehThere is nothing wrong with making an error. But if your beliefs are based on a tenfold underestimation of risk they should change when that underestimation is corrected.

the rubric was developed in a hackathon from SciBeh's November 2020 conference (which you can revisit in videos and summaries here: https://scibeh.org/events/workshop2020/…) 2/3

new post on Scibeh's meta-science reddit describing the new rubric for peer review of preprints aimed at broadening the pool of potential 'reviewers' so that students could provide evaluations as well! https://reddit.com/r/BehSciMeta/comments/l64y1l/reviewing_peer_review_does_the_process_need_to/… please take a look and provide feedback! 1/3

Interested in the latest approaches to modelling the pandemic? Want to see what digital traces tell us about the public's response? Join us Tues, 16 Feb (5pm GMT) to hear Nicola Perra (@net_science) at the Tech + Democracy Seminar Series. Register here: https://cccmseminars.com/attend

interesting idea, but I think not applicable to what was described: certain types of posts are "being demoted" not blocked... - users still have the 'freedom' to seek out that content. They are just not being preferentially *served* that content.

Some might argue the moral dilemma is between choosing what is seen as good for society (limiting spread of disinformation that harms people) and allowing people freedom of choice to say and see what they want. I'm on the side of making good for society decisions.

"Well it's not a *moral* dilemma!" cry the academics as the leopard eats their faces

Replying to @Quayle @STWorg and 5 othersquite possibly! ;-) ...but they are invested in the idea that correct diagnosis raises the chance of successful intervention..... and, while the leopard might win on this occasion, on average that premise (which seems to me what science is all about) is likely true

This week’s video is a little bit behind schedule, but we’re excited about it. Sneak peek:

Replying to @SciBeh @jayvanbavel and 5 othersindeed, that is the definition I am familiar with. Tobacco/Facebook may face a choice between profits vs. lives/democracy, but that is not a moral dilemma. The reason this is important is because good-faith actors can face agonizing moral dilemmas, but here we have something else

By definition "A moral dilemma is a situation in which a person is torn between right and wrong." In some cases, it can include competing moral virtues (e.g., deontology vs. utilitarianism). But that needn't be the case.

because we're all scientists, and precision matters: "Moral dilemmas, at the very least, involve conflicts between moral requirements. Consider the cases given below." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-dilemmas/… => definition of moral dilemma is a conflict between two moral imperatives

Extraordinary data from Scotland on excess deaths by cause and location in 2020 https://nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-data-week-53.xlsx… 6,686 deaths involving COVID-19 closely match 6,704 excess over 5-year average. But 570 *fewer* deaths than normal in hospitals, even with over 3,000 Covid deaths! ?????

so sorry about the typo Koudenburg, Koudenburg, Koudenburg!!!!!

Now speaking #scibeh2020: N. Koudenberg from Univ. of Groningen on her recent work with C. Roos and T. Postmes on comparing the navigation of disagreements in text-based online and face-to-face discussions

Translations are beginning to roll in. We have the French translation of the policy summary live here: https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/lang-fr… @SciBeh @mariejuanchich List of forthcoming languages here: https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/lang

this is utterly bizarre : how would one conceptually even begin to determine a number by which the model *overestimated unmitigated deaths*. What is the comparison unmitigated "prediction" to what actually happened supposed to mean?

"Unmitigated" appears to mean "if the government didn't do anything", compared to lockdowns.

so, given that no one can know the "unmitigated number" what they seem to be calculating is in difference deaths given lockdown and model prediction without lockdown and calling that the "overestimate" - which seems truly bizarre

@SciBeh and @STWorgat the same time, I can see "average values" (say, estimated from a population) being used to make population level allocation decisions. BUT I cannot see how this could be used to *tell another individual* how much their life was worth. =>

Very good question. I think that economists may have something to say about that (or to answer for?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year… QALYs are a quantitative manifestation of this AFAICT. Eugenics dressed up as cost benefit analysis? Concerning but not entirely clear.Quote Tweet

so one immediate response to that is that in expected utility theory, the standard normative framework for decision-making, utility is a *subjective quantity*, so it would ultimately be up to individuals to determine QALY values for themselves. =>

Third presentation in our "Open Science and Crisis Knowledge Management" panel - Iratxe Puebla from ASAPbio about preprints during the pandemic #scibeh2020

Our first panel session #scibeh2020 of Day 2 will focus on the challenges of building sustainable, transparent, and constructive online discourse among researchers as well as between researchers and the wider public.

A nice insight piece from @RTI_Intl about lessons learnt estimating Rt for #covid19. https://rti.org/insights/pandemic-metrics-estimating-rt… Helpful to read with my scientist hat on in order to understand the problems with current tools.

Summary of severity estimates for B.1.1.7 Important to distinguish whether we're talking about risk of death/ICU/hospitalisation following a positive test (which is estimated to be higher in many studies), or risk of death/ICU following hospitalisation (which is not).

Vacancy for a behavioural scientist in our team at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission https://recruitment.jrc.ec.europa.eu/?site=BRU&type=AX… #behaviouralscience #behaviouralinsights

great presentation by Michele Starnini just now which proposes a radical overhaul for publishing and reviewing focussing on creating new incentive structure- thanks Michele!

I wrote about the outdoor mask mandates. https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/are-outdoor-mask-mandates-still-necessary/618626/… Masks are good; and inside, among non-vaccinated ppl, they're great. But governments need to give Americans an off-ramp to the post-pandemic world. Ending outdoor mask mandates would be a good place to start.

Are you still hesitant about AstraZeneca vaccine? Check the below video! #publichealth #vaccine #sciencework

it could be meaningful only vis a vis certain qualitative constraints: e.g., "look, model predicts fewer deaths for unmitigated than observed even *with* lockdown" => model underpredicts.... but that's very much not the scenario here

.@noUpside: U.S. disinformation researchers have focused on the election and COVID-19 vaccines because of the potential for significant public harm in these areas.

#COVID19: Known Unknowns (Facing up to scientific uncertainty during a pandemic) Join a webinar hosted by @fgodlee & @mendel_random with @mrc_ieu Find out more and register here: http://ow.ly/RDRi50CdSON

Important comment by @_nickdavies here: new studies are compatible with B.1.1.7 having higher severity because new studies only consider in-hospital severity. If variant has higher hospitalisation rate, but same outcome within hospital, variant is more severe overall

*far lower than expectations that’s < 1 in 10k, which is way better than 95%

"Given you acknowledged...in March 2020 that Asian countries were masking up at the time, saying we shouldn't mask up as well was a mistake, wasn't it... at the time, not just in hindsight?" My question to Dr Fauci. Listen to his very passionate response:

Thank you. Very helpful. Retweeting this which lines up with your UK data.

We will be stuck in an endless cycle of lockdown/release for next 18 months, if we do not start mass testing, tracing, & isolating those who are carriers of the virus while pursuing rapid research for antiviral treatment or vaccine. This is the message the public needs to hear.