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Beckett Sterner

@beckettws.bsky.social
373 followers 424 following 70 posts

Biodiversity data, models, governance, and philosophy | Associate Prof at Arizona State | all views my own

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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 18h
"Here, we develop mathematical models linking anisogamy to secondary sex-role evolution, showing that anisogamy drives sex-role divergence along contrasting evolutionary trajectories depending on ecological context." #philbio
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Ecological Forecasting Initiative @ecoforecast.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sending out another plug for the Call for Volunteers: EFI Communications Committee Do you enjoy social media and creating content? EFI is looking for help to expand its reach, strengthen its online presence, and connect with a broader audience. See details here: ecoforecast.org/efi-communic...
ecoforecast.org
EFI Communications Committee – Call for Volunteers | Ecological Forecasting Initiative
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GBIF @gbif.org · 30/09/2026
🎊 Congratulations to the four winners of the 2026 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge! 🏆 BioRisk AI (Argentina) 🏆 OBIS Species Distribution Models (SDMs) (Belgium) OBIS 🏆bioReportR (Canada) 🏆georeference.it (Portugal) Read about the ENC winning projects: 🔗gbif.link/ENC-2026-w...
A collage of the four ENC winning teams
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Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"Archaeologists discovered 3,400yr-old fragment of world's oldest known peace treaty...signed c.1269 BCE by Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II & Hittite king Hattusili III...the fragment contains text...related to treatment of refugees...It reminds us of our responsibility to protect human life & dignity"
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Saúl Pérez-González @saulpg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
📣CFP Topical Collection: New Directions for Evidential Pluralism Journal: European Journal for Philosophy of Science Submission deadline: 30 June 2027 More info: link.springer.com/collections/... @epsaphilsci.bsky.social @jonwilliamson.uk #philsci
link.springer.com
New Directions for Evidential Pluralism
Papers on the scope of Evidential Pluralism in science and practice. Across disciplines—from the biomedical and social sciences to economics and ...
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This makes me wonder how many human organs are also composed of parallel cell lineages during development. Is it so unusual that one anatomical part comes from two distinct lineages? #philbio #philsci news.stanford.edu/stories/2026...
news.stanford.edu
Human brain is two separate organs, study finds
Scientists have viewed the brain as one organ for centuries. A Stanford Medicine-led discovery challenging that view could advance research into ALS, spinal muscular atrophy, and other neurological di...
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Public access to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is being shut down after this Sunday (unless stopped). Yet, 1) Their website has zero indication of this anywhere 2) Promises a botany exhibit through Feb 14, 2027 3) Allows people to join as members for "an entire year" of access
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404 Media @404media.co · 14/09/2026
And by the way, from our scoop, we also discovered that Anthropic is also using human reviewers to read conversations.
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
#philsci
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Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 09/09/2026
Wrote up my thoughts on the whole OpenAI Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem story, and how it highlights the still confusing question of what using my data "to improve model performance" actually means simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/8/o...
This also highlights one of my ongoing frustrations about how all of this works. When an AI lab says that my data is "used to improve model performance", what does that actually mean?

My two favourite hypothetical questions regarding this used to be:

    If I'm running Codex and one of my API keys accidentally gets consumed in the context, what are the chances that someone else might ask for an API key in the future and get mine back? (I asked someone at OpenAI once and they called this the "regurgitation" problem and assured me that they take great pains to prevent that... but wouldn't describe how.)
    If I brainstorm with ChatGPT about potential new directions for my company, what's the chance that information might be exposed to a competitor in six months' time who asks "what might company X plan to do next"?

My new preferred hypothetical for this is:

    If I use ChatGPT to help me partially solve a Millennium Prize problem, what are the chances that my work will influence training such that a later model helps someone else solve it first?
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Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
"This study examined the determinants of public trust in scientific findings and found that the communication of OS [open science] practices in layperson texts plays no substantial role in shaping trust." Open Access: doi.org/10.1177/1075...
Abstract
Public trust in science may depend not only on the quality of the research but also on laypersons’ attitudes toward the underlying topic. Although Open Science practices are meant to signal credibility, their influence on laypersons remains unclear, especially for scientifically controversial topics. In this preregistered Austrian study (N = 1,083), general trust in science and myside bias strongly predicted trust in certain popular-scientific summaries, while explicit Open Science cues did not show an effect. Exploratory analyses showed that participants’ optimistic conceptions of science were also linked to higher trust. Overall, biased beliefs appear more influential than transparency-related cues for trust in science.
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Animal History Group @animalhistories.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
CALL FOR PAPERS The Animal History Group will be holding an online, international conference on the 11th December. Would you like to give a paper? 📗 #envhist #animalhistory Wide scope for places, animals, centuries, disciplines! Grad students welcome. 💚 animalhistorygroup.org/events/summe...
animalhistorygroup.org
10 Year Conference 2026
CALL FOR PAPERS Animal Histories: A Decade with Animals Animal History Group International Conference Online, Friday 11th December 2026 AHG26 The Animal History Group is an international network fo…
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In the 1930s, a group of European philosophers fled fascism and reshaped American philosophy. Why did logical positivism have such an impact on US thought? And why did it play a central role in the culture wars of the 1950s and 1960s? Released today! Logical Positivism: An American History (1/3)
Cover of Logical Positivism: An American History
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The book will be launched with an online symposium featuring comments by Richard Creath, Christian Damböck, @profess.bsky.social, and @bweatherson.bsky.social, hosted by @flpadovani.bsky.social *Online Book launch* Wed. Sep. 9, 17.00-18.30 CEST (UTC+2) Registration: tiny.cc/haa9101 (2/3)
tiny.cc
Registration book launch Logical Positivism
Book launch: Logical Positivism: An American History Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2026 Time: 17.00-18.30 CEST (UTC+2) Location: Online
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The Onion @theonion.com · 30/08/2026
Report: More Americans Abandoning Lengthy Conversations In Favor Of One Really Big Word
theonion.com
Report: More Americans Abandoning Lengthy Conversations In Favor Of One Really Big Word
PHILADELPHIA—Suggesting that the nation was increasingly prioritizing speed and efficiency in speaking, a report released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that more Ameri...
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Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Final Call: PSA Outreach & Engagement Prize Nominations recognizing outstanding work of a scholar or team to engage members of general public about philosophy of science. Recipient will receive a $500 cash prize & recognition at #PSA26 Deadline: September 1, 2026 11:59 pm (anywhere) #philsci
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Anna Allen @akallen10.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New NSF BIO solicitation is live.... this replaces the previous IOS, MCB, DEB solicitation www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
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Get To Know Nature @gettoknownature.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Sending this to the #SciArt feed!
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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Two junior research fellowships @kingscollege.bsky.social opening soon due on Oct 1st. The theme is REPLICATION conceived broadly to encompass different research projects in humanities and social sciences. As a philosopher of science I am esp hoping for applications in #philsci #metascience #hps
kings.cam.ac.uk
Current research opportunities
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Laura Ansley @lmansley.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
#histmed folks, assemble! NLM is looking for public comment on their grants.
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
#histsci @alisabokulich.bsky.social
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Dr. Jessica M. DeWitt @jessicamdewitt.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I am co-editing a @nichecanada.bsky.social series on Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration, if anyone wants to write on this topic! niche-canada.org/2025/04/11/c...
niche-canada.org
Call for Submissions - Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration
NiCHE is soliciting submissions of blog posts that help document the effects of the current United States federal administration on the discipline of environmental history and the practices of environ...
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David Colaço @davidcolaco.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The syllabus for my course Philosophy of Scientific Communication is now available here. Please share to anyone who might be interested in teaching a course like this (and kindly give me an acknowledgment if you use it): drive.google.com/file/d/1LDKY...
drive.google.com
Colaco Philosophy of Scientific Communication Syllabus.pdf
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Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
journals.plos.org
Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species
Adaptive potential determines how populations respond to environmental change. This study compiles evolvability estimates from over 170 multicellular species, revealing substantial variation across th...
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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation iucn.org/news/202607/...
iucn.org
From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums
The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation: a formal acknowledgement that natural history museums,...
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Lisa Bortolotti @lisabortolotti.com · 28/07/2026
A few days left for our call for papers on Philosophy through Art, Games and Fiction, dedicated to Helen De Cruz think.taylorandfranc... I am convinced that being playful and creative makes us better philosophers. Prove me right! #philsky #philosophy
think.taylorandfrancis.com
Philosophy through Art, Games, and Fiction
Can we do philosophy by writing fiction, drawing, designing a game, or telling a story? Submit work to this special issue honouring the legacy of Helen De Cruz.
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Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 03/05/2026
Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations doi.org/10.59350/5zt... 🧪
doi.org
Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations
Phylopic, NIH Bioart, Bioicons, Scidraw, Open Science Art, Health Icons, Servier Medical Art, Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Noun Project, Segment Anything, Excalidraw, draw.io, Biographics
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Max Stammnitz @maxstammnitz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Wow! A fourth class of transmissible cancers. CONTAGIOUS FISH MELANOMA, discovered in Lake Memphremagog (Vermont / Quebec) 🎣 🧬 😷 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @uvmvermont.bsky.social
nature.com
Brown bullhead catfish melanoma represents a novel transmissible cancer - Nature
Whole-genome sequencing analysis of tumour and matched non-tumour host tissues of the brown bullhead catfish reveals a type of naturally occurring transmissible cancer.
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
#philsci
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/07/2026
1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.
arxiv.org
The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science
As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...
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naturepoker @binomicalabs.org · 02/07/2026
Fun review on viral taxonomy: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... 🧫🦠
microbiologyresearch.org
Virus taxonomy and the ICTV – 21 FAQs for the perplexed virologist
Just over 125 years has passed since the ‘filterable’ agents of tobacco mosaic disease and foot-and-mouth disease were first described as infectious, replicating entities smaller than bacteria. Today,...
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Derek D. Turner @wiserthanddt.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Summer reading recommendation! This new book by Elana Shever is fantastic. It's an ethnography of dinosaur science in the spirit of Latour and Woolgar's Laboratory Life. Historians and philosophers of paleo, this is a must read. #Philpaleo #philsci www.ucpress.edu/books/making...
ucpress.edu
Making Our Beasts by Elana Shever - Hardcover
Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.
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Michael Sieber @michaelsieber.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Have ideas for your own, independent research program in Theoretical Biology? Then come and join us as a Group Leader at the @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social in Plön, Germany!
mpg.de
Group Leader in Theoretical Biology (m/f/d)
Experience in Theoretical Biology, Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Physics
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
this is amazing, will be using this to teach about social construction of colors in my philosophy class #philsci moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...
moultano.wordpress.com
Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You
An atlas of the vibrance of the real world
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Steph N. Seifert, PhD @stephseifertphd.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
🚨 Ever wonder why some viral reassortants establish and spread while others disappear? Us too! Led by @ricardoriveroh.bsky.social, we studied drivers of viral reassortment across hantaviruses and found that it varies dramatically among lineages (1/3) Preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
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Bex is WEAK on crime @bextraordinary.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
THIS: "“LLMs export their trust to external content moderation strategies that exist on sites like Wikipedia or Reddit or Quora or StackExchange."" Yes, and those content moderators are often unpaid volunteers. LLM AI companies benefit from the free labor pf people just trying to be in community.
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Vera Straetmanns @yavannakemi.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
My paper on Agnes Arber and her understanding of teleology is now part of the topical collection "Histories, Cultures, and Practices of the Botanical Sciences": link.springer.com/collections/... The collection is still open for submissions, so #plant people: hand in your manuscripts! #HPBio #HistSci
link.springer.com
Histories, Cultures, and Practices of the Botanical Sciences
The history of the botanical sciences was once considered a marginal area drawing the attention of only a handful of scholars often with antiquarian interests ...
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Elle Larsson @ellelarsson.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
🎉Exciting news! My new article, 'The ‘fancy of the private collector’: Walter Rothschild’s global animal procurement network and collaboration in the animal trade' has been published in BJHS Themes as FirstView and is available OA: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #naturalhistory #animaltrade
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
#philsky
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AAUP @aaup.org · 08/06/2026
Today, the AAUP released the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2025–26. It is sobering. Full-time faculty salaries are down about 0.4% in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Average full-time faculty salaries remain 9.5% below fall 2019 & about 5.8% below fall 2008. 1/
aaup.org
Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession Now Available
This year's Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession finds that faculty salaries are still losing ground to inflation and expands data collection on part-time faculty pay.
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RUB History & Philosophy of Science @roto-rub.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Next week, we welcome Samantha Muka ‬(Stevens Institute of Technology) in our lecture series. Samantha will speak about coral reefs and how they are defined in modern conservation biology. 🪸 Just register here to participate 👉 rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... #HPBio #PhilSci
Poster for the talk by Samantha Muka, entitled "Ecosystem or Organism: Defining Coral Reefs in Modern Conservation Biology". It will take place on Monday, 15 June 2026 at 4 pm (CET) via Zoom.
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Luis Lopez @lglopez.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
📢 Call for Abstracts -> PhilML'26! (please share) 4th Philosophy of Machine Learning Conference October 7-9, 2026 at LMU Munich. Extended abstracts (up to 1,000 words) due July 1. No participation fee! @lmu.de @lmu-mcmp.bsky.social @munichcenterml.bsky.social sites.google.com/view/philmlc...
sites.google.com
PhilML Conference - CfA Conference
Conference for Philosophy of Machine Learning
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
This is absolutely nuts: hackers are hijacking high-profile Instagram accounts by simply asking Meta's AI chatbot to change the email on the account. Meta's AI does it, hacker gets password reset code, they're in. A staggering security issue www.404media.co/hackers-simp...
404media.co
Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked
The exploit shows the extreme risk of offloading technical support to AI.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Several people have asked for possible content and structure for comments regarding the proposed OMB regulations. With some suggestions from others, I have posted on example (as a Word document) for downloading). jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g... I hope this is helpful.
jeremymberg.github.io
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Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Interesting new tool to extract phylogenies from images (Tremble). It is crazy that this is still something we have to do. doi.org/10.1093/bioi...
doi.org
Treemble: a graphical tool to generate Newick strings from phylogenetic tree images
AbstractSummary. Phylogenetic trees are ubiquitous and central to biology, but most published trees are available only as visual diagrams and not in the ma
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
My colleague @stephseifertphd.bsky.social just published new groundbreaking work on hantaviruses in the United States as part of our shut down @viralemergence.org project. Want to prevent hantavirus outbreaks here? Fund her work. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/...
Title page of Genomic Analysis of Sin Nombre Virus Sequences, Northwestern United States, 2023Figure 3. Evolutionary
dynamics of Sin Nombre virus
sequences, Washington, USA,
2023. A) Phylogeographic
reconstruction of movements
between discrete states using
Markov jumps. Curve weight
reflects Bayes factor support. B)
Tanglegram showing topologic
changes across segment
trees. Connecting lines link
variants. Major shifts indicate
reassortment. Posterior node
support shown at each node. L,
large; M, medium; S, small.
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Erle Ellis @erleellis.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Beyond hero and villain narratives in ecology and conservation science 🌎 @aibsbiology.bsky.social academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
academic.oup.com
Beyond hero and villain narratives in ecology and conservation science
Abstract. Storytelling is an essential part of science writing. To craft compelling stories, scientists are taught to think of their variables as character
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
#philbio
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Janet Hill @saskajanet.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Day 5 of my #Coverbirds Birdathon for @birdscanada.bsky.social Today’s coverbirds are… not easily identified. I have the good fortune to live in a very ducky place, but honestly most of the time they are just so far away 😂. I would love to have some help with ID so I imagined a guide (1/7) #birds
Cover of a book called “National Aubudon Society Field Guide to Far Away Ducks, Western Region, Saskatchewan”. The cover features three photos of far away ducks that cannot be readily identified.
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Beckett Sterner @beckettws.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
So is there any positive evidence for the value of AI in actual learning? I see the case for helping already-trained professionals work faster, but not for new students of a topic. www.404media.co/nature-retra...
404media.co
'Nature' Retracts Paper on the Benefits of ChatGPT in Education
“What educators, parents and policy officials really needed was high quality data and evidence to help guide them. What they have had to deal with instead is some substandard research.”
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