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Colin Davis Profile picture
Colin Davis
@ProfColinDavis
Professor of cognitive psychology researching social change, behaviour change & people's response to climate change. Recovering chess player.
Aug 1, 2023 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
New opinion poll!

This poll is one part of a larger research project that @berglund_oscar, @SamuelFinnerty and I are working on about the impact of disruptive protest on public attitudes and policy. bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/july… The project involves polling, interviews, focus groups & experimental surveys. We’ll have more to report later in the year, but one aspect of the results of the poll that's particularly noteworthy concerns people’s opinion about the punishment of nonviolent disruptive protesters.
May 8, 2023 • 62 tweets • 17 min read
The arrest of charity volunteers raises serious questions about the role (& perhaps collusion) of rightwing media, police & politicians in the demonisation of protesters. This thread will report my attempts to piece together what happened & what it means. dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/ar… The story starts with the Mail on Sunday, which ran a front page story on 23 April warning its readers about a a "vile plot" by "extremists" to use rape alarms to scare horses on Coronation Day. "Senior security sources" worried it could cause "serious injuries or even deaths". Image
Apr 23, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
🧵Tens of thousands of people have been out on the streets of London since Friday, calling for #ClimateAction.

@morss_alex has been monitoring media coverage.

If you get your news from TV, broadsheets or tabloids, chances are you won't have heard anything about #TheBigOne. But although you didn't hear about the tens of thousands of people protesting in London, chances are that you did hear about that one guy who jumped on a #snooker table in Sheffield.

None of this remotely surprising. It's yet another example of the #ActivistsDilemma in action. Image
Nov 14, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I don't want to write a long thread on this, but I do feel compelled to point out a pretty fundamental problem with this survey. Michael Mann is a great climate scientist, but psychology is clearly not his field of expertise. In this survey he asked participants whether disruptive actions decrease or increase their support for efforts to address climate change (or have no effect). Image
Nov 12, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Here's an interview I just did with Ben Kentish on LBC about the impact of #JustStopOil protests.

The full interview was about 7 minutes; this is part 1 (1/5) here's part 2 of my interview with Ben Kentish on LBC about the impact of #JustStopOil protests. (2/5)
Apr 14, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
I was one of the XR scientists arrested yesterday. I'll say more about that in due course but more urgently, one of us - Emma, who was on the front page of the @Guardian today - has not been released. The UK govt is making scientists into political prisoners. @damiengayle I'm told that Emma is now protesting her continued imprisonment by refusing to eat or drink.

By way of context, IPCC scientists say "it's now or never" to turn the emissions curve downward. When will this government start taking climate science seriously?
Mar 22, 2022 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
Seeing as lots of UCU members are on strike again this week, and those of us in @BristolUCU will be out next week, here's a 🧵of VCs bemoaning how powerless they are to influence the committee on which they sit.

They really would like to help staff, but their hands are tied ... To start with, here's Leeds' VC ("not much that little old me can do all by myself") ...
Mar 6, 2022 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
I know some people are worried about a Net Zero campaign, and a lot of people just want Farage to go away, which is perfectly understandable. But I'm actually quite excited about this referendum idea. It could be the best thing to happen to the UK climate movement. Here's why. 🧵 Remember how we had years of political debate dominated by Brexit, when it was hard to talk about anything else? Now imagine a protracted period in which debate is dominated by how we respond to climate change. That’s exactly what we need, provided it's framed appropriately.
Jan 22, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
The Covid rate for 5-9 year olds has gone over 2000 per 100K. (The actual rate of infection is several times higher, based on the ONS survey). The growth in cases shows no sign of slowing (currently doubling every 8 days), having accelerated soon after schools went back in Jan. One places where rates are v high in children at the moment is Cambridge. These two plots show:
a) how the case rate for 5-9 year olds has increased, &
b) the % increase in different age groups over the last week. Note that there is one adult age group that's returned to growth..
Jan 14, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
About a year ago Bristol began its first Citizens' Assembly, held over four weekends.

They came up with 17 (near unanimous) recommendations on how to create a better future for all in Bristol.

democracy.bristol.gov.uk/documents/s615…

Have any of these recommendations been implemented yet? @PaulaBORourke @CllrAsherCraig @MarvinJRees @carla_denyer @RobBryher @makawi5 @GuyPoultney @TristanCorkPost @TheBristolCable @XRBristol @BristolActivist
Jan 8, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
This YouGov poll on the #Colston4 trial verdict illustrates both the virtues of #deliberative processes like juries and also one of their big problems. 🧵

If you take a random (and presumably representative) sample of the population and ... ... give them the evidence, and the time to debate, deliberate and consider that evidence, you’ll (in general) get a much better informed, higher quality decision than the kneejerk (and media-driven) reactions that you get from polls like this one by YouGov. And ...
Dec 29, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
England Covid case data are grouped into about twenty 5-year age bands. For anyone who’s been paying attention it’ll come as no surprise that the first age group to have recorded more than 1 million cases (on Xmas Eve) is 10-14 year olds. Merry Christmas, kids. 🧵 The red line on the graph shows how you’d expect the (roughly) 10 million cases so far in England to be distributed based on population statistics (the size of each age group). As you can see, some groups are over-represented in the cases and others are under-represented.
Dec 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
If we look at the age breakdown we see a similar pattern to other places -- the big increase over the last week (red line vs. blue line) has been among young(ish) adults. I think this is largely due to greater socialising in these age groups. Here, for example, is the plot for 25-29 year olds since October. The rate has approximately doubled in the last three days.
Dec 21, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I think the "Tory ministers vs scientists" framing is a distraction from the real clash, which isn't about science. More generally, people's beliefs about Covid are not just about evidence -- they also reflect people's motivations.

Here's my take 🧵 Only a tiny minority would (if they’re honest) claim that omicron poses no threat. The majority see that it poses a serious threat, though just how big a threat remains to be established. My focus here is on those who say, "Yes, it's cause for concern, but it'll probably be OK".
Dec 13, 2021 • 43 tweets • 10 min read
I'm continuing to see people talking about the rate at which sequenced Omicron cases are doubling as if it's a matter of interpretation, or something that different people could reasonably disagree on. It isn’t. It’s like 2+2. Perhaps it would be useful for me to give a short tutorial on how to calculate doubling rates? It's actually very easy, when you know how. Is anyone interested in that?
Dec 11, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I shouldn't take it personally, but I am starting to feel rather gaslit by people (including experts) talking about omicron cases doubling every 3 days (or 2.5 days). I've plotted the data against different doubling rates below -- how fast do *you* think cases are doubling? Image The graph above said "log scale" (I forgot to change the label), but it is obviously a linear scale (thanks @UncleJo46902375 ). Here's the correctly labelled version. Image
Dec 6, 2021 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
Having another go at plotting UK omicron cases (previous attempt plotted total over time, which I decided wasn't very useful). Numbers are still sufficiently small to mean that noise in the data makes a big difference. But based on data so far, current doubling rate is 1-2 days. Image This estimate could be too fast, if we've got better at detecting omicron over the last few days. Or it could be too conservative if it's getting harder for us to track omicron caes as numbers increase. Mix of imported and home-grown cases also unclear. So some caution required.
Nov 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I feel a sense of deja vu, looking at Charnwood once again. It's interesting because it's one of those places where schools go back earlier than other parts of England, so it's a kind of canary in the Covid mine. Rates have grown steeply there in the last week in 5-14 year olds. Image Although school age children have by far the highest rates in Charnwood, there is one adult age group that is catching up: 40-44 year olds. This is a familiar pattern. Image
Nov 12, 2021 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
Inspired by this thread, I thought I'd take a look back at some early (read: premature) assessments of the Covid situation among children following the return to school (in September and November). 🧵 I don't particularly mean to pick on @apsmunro (sorry if it seems like that). He's hardly the only optimist here -- this example is simply representative of a certain part of Covid Twitter in the first couple of weeks after schools went back in September.
Nov 6, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Covid rates are down, so are we out of the woods? I'm afraid I'm pessimistic. Here's a thread 🧵on what's happened with rates lately and where things might be going (and another plea for additional measures beyond vaccines). Rates among 10-14 year olds in England have see-sawed over the last month and a half. Not that they've ever got *low*, but the decline since half-term means that the latest rates are more or less equal to the rates on 19th September. (Note that the decline is flattening now).
Oct 30, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
It's been a long wait (it always is with JCVI) but we can finally read the JCVI minutes.

So let's take a look at their arguments against vaccination. 🧵 I'll focus on minutes from Thurs 13 May 2021, which sets out the arguments against vaccination. This has been attracting some attention, understandably, as it confirms the panel's interest in #HerdImmunityViaInfection

For a more comprehensive thread: