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Bret Beheim

@babeheim.bsky.social
3K followers 2.5K following 293 posts

cultural evolution, behavioral ecology, math models, data provenance, MOSAIC group leader @ Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology + faculty at the Leipzig School of Human Origins babeheim.com

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Reposted by Bret Beheim
Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
New tutorial preprint about simulation-based inference! Shows how to fit a cultural evo model to baby name data using approx Bayesian computation, random forests, and deep learning. Wrote for @eslr.bsky.social but wanted to share with others in @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social! :) osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io
OSF
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A destitute and rusted USS Abraham Lincoln docked at a port in eastern Thailand today, marking its first full stop since deployment nearly 300 days ago. The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran. Families of servicemembers voiced concerns over the mental health of their loved ones.
aol.com
Images show rust-covered USS Abraham Lincoln pulling into Thailand's notorious 'Sin City' - AOL
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for nearly 10 months to support the U.S. war against Iran
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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
NA->0 conversion for missing data strikes again! (Interesting that Nature made us retract our paper for similar issues [ www.nature.com/articles/s41... ], but not this one… 🤔)
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vincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵
The average CD_5 index per year for Web of Science. The original Park et al. decline (top curve) becomes essentially flat (bottom curve) when removing papers with CD_5=1. Those papers largely correspond to dataset artefacts.
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
eclipse pasta strainer
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Excellent. The firebenders will be vulnerable
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
a few shots of the #DH2026 venue - what a great conference, congrats to the local organizers
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
@peetertinits.bsky.social crushed it today with the Price-equation based decomposition plots of linguistic change in early modern Europe. #dh2026
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Artjoms Šeļa @artjomshl.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
@peetertinits.bsky.social at the last session of #DH2026 talking about using huge harmonized bibliographic datasets to study the diffusion of information and patterns of language adoption across Early Modern -> Modern Europe. V. cool!
Peteee Tinits at DH2026 showing slides
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Antonina Martynenko @tonyamart.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
@babeheim.bsky.social showing how Go opening strategies changed over time and what happened after AI joined the game @ #DH2026
Bret Beheim presenting; the slide shows Go opening moves visualized as phylogenetic trees
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
@artjomshl.bsky.social and @tonyamart.bsky.social compare the evolutionary dynamics of poetry and lyrics over the last few centuries #dh2026
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Jon Adcock @jonadcock.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
#booksky
Books are amazing because a stranger from 200 years ago can still ruin your afternoon emotionally
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
hahahahaha
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Andy Churnwell @churnwell.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Just sent my ex-wife the feature length film of The Odyssey I made using Grok. It stars me defeating a series of monsters including her current lover, her divorce lawyer, and Jeremy Corbyn.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 14/07/2026
This morning in Biddeford, Maine, a 26-year-old man said goodbye to his wife and daughter and left for work. Moments later he was dead, shot in the head by ICE agents, the second man ICE has killed in six days. ICE is killing our neighbors. ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
reading @apvelilla.bsky.social @psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social paper and realizing this is the kind of thing I say to my kids when they hurt each other. maybe i need new word choices. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
"We are in the fafocene now, good and proper" 😐
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ΜΑΝΟΣ ΤΡΑΧΙΑΣ™ @trahias.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Yoshida Hiroshi (Japanese, 1867–1950) "Sailing Boats in the Morning, Inland Sea", 1926. Woodblock, 40 × 55 cm. Private Collection. #art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
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Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
📣 I'm hiring! Two positions (PhD student & Postdoc) in my ERC project Macroevolution of European Literature. Let's study the cultural evolution of literature using massive data 📚📈 📍Frankfurt | Apply by August 15 Details: www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo... Please repost to help spread the word!
Job announcement of two positions at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt: postdoc (Macroevolution of European Literature) and PhD student (Computational Literary Studies). Successful candidates will be affiliated with the research group Cultural Evolution of the Arts.
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Enrico R. Crema @ercrema.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
A 5-year PDRA position in "Statistical Modelling in Archaeology" is available @cam-archaeology.bsky.social as part of the FORAGER project. Deadline: 21/8/2026 tinyurl.com/muhcjkfy www.forager-erc.eu
tinyurl.com
Research Assistant/Research Associate in Statistical Modelling in Archaeology (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge
Research Assistant/Research Associate in Statistical Modelling in Archaeology (Fixed Term) in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.
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Michael "Shapes Dude" Betancourt @betanalpha.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Remember xkcd 1132, xkcd.com/1132/? Prompted by some recent discussion over at www.patreon.com/betanalpha/p..., I ended up implementing frequentist and Bayesian analysis of the setup and writing up the subtle issue what I think the example really illustrates, www.patreon.com/betanalpha/p....
patreon.com
Explaining The Joke Ruins The Joke | Michael Betancourt
In discussion about my recent Bayesian analysis of a xkcd comic over on the Discord server (open to all!), someone asked if I've never analy
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Ben McEntee @benmce.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Somewhere in the Marshes
Illustration of a Rough-skinned Newt drifting in an orange pond. There are rocks and an old dagger at the bottom of the pool
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Cool new paper by @kenjiitao.bsky.social on universal patterns in the demographic transition www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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Ted Pavlic (he/him/his) @tedpavlic.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
To help a student understand how to handle right-censored data, I built this survival (and recurrent-event) analysis explorer that demonstrates the approach and provides some basic derivations. Applications to compartmental models from epidemiology too. tpavlic.github.io/topic_visual...
tpavlic.github.io
Survival & Recurrent-Event Analysis Visualizer
Interactive visualizer for survival analysis, recurrent-event survival analysis, exponential transition rates, censoring, and state-transition models.
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Watch out, he's got a PhD! Congrats man!
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Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
This came across my IG feed and it's too good to not share here
A pie chart labeled "benefits of staying in academia after PhD" where the categories are salary, wellness, stable mental health, and confidence for your future. They are each associated with a different color. The pie chart has four pieces of different sizes and colors. But the colors in the pie chart do not match the colors Associated with the four items supposedly being visualized here.
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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Nature Efforts. A classic. Featuring “Epic Fail of 2010”
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Kenji Itao @kenjiitao.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
🚨 ACE Seminar We’re excited to host Dr. Patrick Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social in our upcoming ACE Seminar! 🗓 Tuesday, Jun 16, 2026 🕖 2:00 PM JST (UTC+9) 💻 Online via Zoom 🔗 To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com
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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 11/05/2026
More @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social conference talks! @babeheim.bsky.social on norm psychology, and in particular escalator standing norms in Japan
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Codetaur @vibe-coded.com · 07/05/2026
it's crazy that I now have a real life mana bar and it's the codex weekly usage meter.
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Michael Wara @michaelwara.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Cherry trees in Kyoto. Not a subtle signal.
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
I recently learned about the Great Giana Sisters, the German video game answer to the Super Mario Brothers. Absolutely epic box art
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Alex Sanchez-Amaro @alex-primate.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Not a secret anymore! I am extremely proud and happy to present you the EVApeCognition Dataset, out now in Scientific Data. Over the last 5 years we have assembled and standardized data from 150 studies on great ape cognition from the WKPRC in the Leipzig Zoo! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
EVApeCognition: An 18-Year Dataset of Great Ape Cognition - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - EVApeCognition: An 18-Year Dataset of Great Ape Cognition
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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Absolutely incredible. NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone. Watch with sound on.
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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 17/04/2026
New preprint with Rafael Leite, Sandro Reia and Paulo Campos Cumulative Cultural Evolution in Structured Populations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... In which we take an old model of cumulative cultural evolution of mine and see what happens if you add social networks
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Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
@babeheim.bsky.social, Waterhouse and I describe how widespread vocal mimicry is in corvids and what might drive its evolution. Evidence is presented in 39 corvid species (30%). Using modelling approaches, we show that mimicry is likely underestimated (9/15) link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Vocal mimicry in Corvids - Animal Cognition
Vocal mimicry, the copying of sounds produced by another species or the environment, is commonly described in vocal learners, such as songbirds. Understanding the functions of vocal mimicry can help t...
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Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
🧵 Very proud our special collection on vocal communication in corvids in Animal Cognition (@springernature.com) is now fully published! 🐦 Huge thanks to all collaborators and contributors who made this possible! (1/15) link.springer.com/collections/...
link.springer.com
Vocal communication in corvids
In the field of vocal communication, research has mostly focussed on birds because of their vocal learning capacity and non-human primates due to their ...
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Prof. Gillian Brown @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Excellent talk on machine-human interactions, cooperation and learning by @iyadrahwan.bsky.social, presented at @ehbea2026.bsky.social. #ehbea2026 #culturalevolution
Speaker in front of PowerPoint slide.
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Fantastic example of intellectual humility from @drsarahmyers at #ehbea2026, re-evaluating a previously published paper of her own using more robust methods. Advice to the audience: “be more reflective”
Opening slide 

Progressing the causal revolution: a case study in causal re-evaluation of applied evolutionary anthropology
Sarah Myers (BirthRites MPI-EVA)
Sarah Johns (University of Kent)Closing slide

Conclusions
• Do a DAG
* Be transparent about your assumptions
• Don't report odds ratios
* Pay attention to measurement error
* Be more self-reflecting
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Prof. Gillian Brown @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Great talk by @babeheim.bsky.social at @ehbea2026.bsky.social on the cultural evolution of strategies in the game Go, including the convergence of AI on established strategies. #ehbea2026
Speaker standing in front of a screen with PowerPoint slide.
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Tuna @antea04.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I'm a data scientist @ourworldindata.org and I need help from a botanist or someone local to Kyoto, Japan! 🌸 We present one of the world’s longest climate records: 1,200 years of peak cherry blossom dates in Kyoto. The researcher who maintained it, Prof. Yasuyuki Aono, sadly passed away last year.
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Limor Raviv 🐘🤗🦒🍄🦄 @limorraviv.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I'm hiring! 📢 Fully funded 4-year PhD position in Language Evolution using Communication Games at @mpi-nl.bsky.social. Come work with me on how different social pressures shape the evolution of new communication systems in the lab! Deadline for application is May 18th! share.google/fGTKbFS4v4Gb...
share.google
Fully funded 4-year PhD position in Language Evolution using Communication Games | Max Planck Institute
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
In a sane world, he'd be removed from office for this
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RM @dorsalstream.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake

By A Horse

Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food.

I am thinking I would like to try cake.

Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape.

Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy.

Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much.

I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You  know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on."

Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …
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Bret Beheim @babeheim.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Easy for Batman to say, he's a billionaire
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The Cognitations podcast @cognitations.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Easter EP As AI agents get smarter, are we entering a golden age of hypercreativity? Or are we entering an age of homogenised culture where we all just recycle the same AI-generated ideas? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social & Jay explore this and much more with @babeheim.bsky.social youtu.be/coQnyaEw50s
youtu.be
Human Innovation in the AI Age | Bret Beheim
YouTube video by The Cognitations Podcast
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 02/04/2026
If I were on a mission whose computer system required me to deal with Microsoft Outlook in space, I’d give up and go back to the slide rule
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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Commentaries on SCORE papers from @asanchez-tojar.bsky.social, Jelte Wicherts, and @robbwiller.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Huge meta-research project puts claims in social-science papers to the test
Three experts discuss lessons learnt from a large-scale dissection of the reproducibility, analytical robustness and replicability of published results.
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Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🔥🔥🔥
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Birthright Con
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