A key Mu3k theory made it into the @nytimes opinion pages this week. Touted and burnished by a professor at a top university WITHOUT transparency that Musk funded him for $10 Million for the research. How? 🧵 Humanity is collapsing from population decline. Sound familiar? It's the pet theory of ultra-rich Western white guys like Musk. He funded the center run by the author of this @nytimes op-ed with a $10 million grant. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

.@trishgreenhalgh hate to break the news, but you still can't get tested in the UK if you are asymptomatic and have a close contact that is positive.

NHS messaging on this front is still "don't waste tests"

How is this responsible public health?

1/3

https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1309854483522957312

"If you do not have symptoms, you must not seek a test, as the scientific evidence shows that the test may not be able to detect whether you have the virus."

2/3
gov.uk/guidance/nhs-t…

How in hell are we going into a second wave with this as the NHS messaging? I say this having returned from a US state (KY) with free, rapid, on demand testing. Waste a test? Nobody wants to do nasal swab tests for fun. I flew back to the UK knowing I wasn't putting my family at risk (neg.)

A case study: Ethics alone are not enough to ensure fairness in algorithmic systems.

@_KarenHao on the UK's A-level mess with quotes from me, @FryRsquared and @techchildrights
technologyreview.com/2020/08/20/100…

The best minds in AI ethics are not even one step removed from this mess. The goals here were clear: preserve standardisation in unprecedented times. But public trust? Fairness? Equity? People in charge ranked those goals lower than that of standardising marks across schools. But absence of 'ground truth' here -- 2020 individual exam results --> FAIL.

Covid is now the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer.

In only six months since the first reported cases. 1. Heart Disease 647,457
2. Cancer 599,108
<Insert Covid here: 171,833>
3. Accidents 169,936

So is today a good day to talk about the gap between how AI & algorithmic systems work and how people SAY they work?

A thread about our new report 1/12 Last week we launched AI@Work, a report on the past year in the structual challenges of AI implementation. oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/ai-work-o… 2/12

This study found that for each year of a funders' research grant cycle, academics collectively spent the equivalent of 550 years preparing them.

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e0… They calculated the cost for academics' time preparing grants for this one cycle at AU$66 million, or 14% of the total of the grant money distributed.

We're going to read @tressiemcphd's Thick in my White Ladies' Anti-Racism Book Club and I couldn't be more excited! I might have had something to do with this choice.

History is the best troll.

This is Confederate General John Hunt Morgan. In July 2018, the Lexington (KY) city council quietly moved this statue from Main Street in front of the courthouse to here:

Facing the 929 dead US Army soldiers buried in the Lexington Cemetery.
1/23 I like to think there's some fitting historical context here. Let me explain. 2/23

What will #realcollege look like in the fall?

The institutions like the ones in this NYT article represent only about 1/2 of US higher ed -- private & public 4 year not-for-profits.

What happens for the other half: 2 year & for-profit institutions?

nytimes.com/2020/06/03/mag… "Ohio State is a large community of 100,000 people."

So quaint.

@CUNY has 257,000 students. Was there a reason that the NYT snubbed the largest higher ed institution in its city?

I'm a parent. Here's what I need to know from the UK Government before I can decide if it is safe to send my kids back to school. 1/ Many scientific advisors including @JeremyFarrar say it is too early to reopen. Can the government assure parents that they have met their own benchmarks for safely reopening? 2/

To fight this pandemic we must use stories.

Here's a story: So-called superspreader "events" for coronavirus in the US are among the poor, working class and marginalized. And they are at their work.

To get ahead and stop this virus we must tell the right stories. (thread) There is so, so much wrong with the Q*uilet** story that inspired this rant that I won’t link to it. But @trishgreenhalgh analysis is spot on: Let's just make sure we tell the RIGHT stories.

OK UK artists: our kids are home from school indefinitely. Can we make a list of readings, YouTube videos, activities from writers and illustrators? I’ll start. 1/many (hopefully) Humza Arshad @HumzaProduction reads from Little Bad Man, @Karyn_Parsons talks about How High the Moon, and @chrisriddell50 does a sketchalong in this 30 minute episode from the great Puffin Story Makers series
2/20

Research from Oxford maps US demographics onto Italian fatality rates to estimate impact of covid-19.

https://twitter.com/melindacmills/status/1239158442901884929

Same research is showing some of the difference in fatalities is attributable to demographic differences.

flight attendant: is there a doctor on board?
mom: *nudge* could’ve been you
a sociologist: *sigh*
flight attendant: we desperately need social insights during a public health crisis
mom: what
a sociologist: IT’S HAPPENING OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HAPPENING h/t @annaeveryday

The backgrounds of people in "Internet Services" look more like cultural leaders than business leaders. That's a sidebar fining from this cool new paper on the Ivy League educations of the US cultural elite by @BrintSteven @KomeeGee Kayleigh Anderson-Natale, @zfshuker & Suki Wang @BrintSteven @KomeeGee @zfshuker tl;dr: US Cultural elites, compared to business elites or popular artists, are more likely to have graduated from elite undergraduate colleges.
Full paper is here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

So excited for this @datasociety Feminist Data Manifest-NO!: a way of reclaiming society and refusing data discipline, a feminist data ethics. By @wrongrrl @thebigfiveone @marika_louise and others Data as an interpretation and as in need of interpretation.

Debt of average student loan borrower in the US: $28,650
Debt of average student loan borrower in England: £50,000 ft.com/content/b18998…

Our paper Messy Talk and Clean Technology is now available open access. Let me tell you about it. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… One of the big challenges of using tech to get people to collaborate is that these tools are often too efficient.

Lessons for academics from @Jason's "How to Say "No": Five Templates to Turn Down Opportunities Gracefully" bit.ly/2o1KU31
1. THANK people for their interest/ideas/connection
2. Know what YOUR OPPORTUNITIES look like
3. Know your "DON'T DOs"
4. Be on DEADLINE
1/10 1. Thank people for reaching out: A great way to acknowledge someone has an idea/opportunity for you. E.g., "Thank you for thinking of me for the editoral board of your <predatory> journal, but I must decline." Bonus points for early replies. 2/10

Finally: Research shows student evaluations of teaching are deeply problematic. Scholarly associations are encouraing schools to reconsider the practice.

https://twitter.com/ASAnews/status/1171086839085748226

Why? Because students systematically underrate women and people of color and overrate men and whites. Student evaluations of teaching are poorly designed measurements; ie they are wrong.