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Dan Sperber

@dansperber.bsky.social
2K followers 333 following 102 posts
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"OURS": In a chat about LLMs, ChatGPT just wrote: "Their learning history, architecture, sensory experience, embodiment, memory systems differ radically from ours." When I pointed out the oddity of this "ours", it explained it as an "automatic perspective alignment with the interlocutor". Ok, ok
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
www.lastright.eu/fr/
lastright.eu
My Last Right — L'aide à mourir volontaire comme droit humain fondamental en Europe
Une pétition européenne. Une coalition de 22 organisations dans 16 pays demande que l'aide à mourir volontaire soit reconnue comme un droit humain fondamental en Europe.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Insighful and quite challenging! From Lionel Page's Substack www.optimallyirrational.com : How AI will revolutionise peer-reviewed research open.substack.com/pub/lionelpa...
open.substack.com
How AI is going to revolutionise peer-reviewed research
Frontier models will change the way scientific papers are checked, selected and written
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
More evidence of basic ostension (Sperber & Wilson, Psych. Review 2025) among nonhuman apes www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
cell.com
Chimpanzees follow human pointing when attention is engaged
Behavioral neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
"The central problem is endogenous validation: the same operations that make texts scoreable also delimit the evidence by which success is assessed." Discusses methods in textual analysis, but the problem Jennifer Devereaux identifies is much more general. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Success Without Measure: Historical Authority and Epistemic Overreach | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core
Success Without Measure: Historical Authority and Epistemic Overreach
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Rob Sica @robsica.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
✨"Social epistemology needs a theory of reasoning that would explain the type of social interactions it describes as the root of scientific knowledge production. And here is the good news: the argumentative theory of reasoning is a rather good candidate for that purpose." philpapers.org/rec/HEITUE
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Julien Lie-Panis @jliep.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵
Screenshot of article title page, "Why human societies adopt rigid moral rules"
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Florence Dellerie @florencedellerie.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Multiplier par 15 les frais d’inscription universitaires des étudiant·es étrangèr·es non européen·nes. Piétiner l'égal accès aux services publics. Appeler le programme "Bienvenue en France" 🇫🇷🥖 🔴 Signez et faites signer la pétition, ça prend 2 min : petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr/initiatives/...
petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr
Pour la suppression du programme Bienvenue en France mettant en place des frais différenciés pour les étudiant·es extra-européen·nes - Pour la suppression du programme Bienvenue en France mettant en p...
La stratégie Bienvenue en France prétend renforcer l'attractivité internationale de la France en multipliant par 15 les frais d’inscription à l’université des étudiant·es non européen·nes. Si les exon...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Nothing undermine the never-ending fight against antisemitism in a worse way than the repression of pro-Palestinian activism as inherently antisemitic, which has become routine in many European countries and in the US
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
No, not a nightmare, this is all too real www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
theguardian.com
Israeli nationalists chant ‘death to Arabs’ in violent Jerusalem Day march
Far-right Jewish marchers call for Palestinian villages to ‘burn’ as they storm through Muslim quarter of Old City
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
newleftreview.org/issues/ii158...
newleftreview.org
Nathan Sperber, Beyond Neoliberalism?, NLR 158, March–April 2026
Investigating the persistence—or retreat—of capital’s great prog­rammatic offensive, along its many fronts: ideological struggle, policy prescription, macro-regulation of economic life, class directio...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Kate Scott: "...offers a cognitive underpinning to existing understandings of the various hearer roles that individuals might play in a discourse, ... a key expansion of the scope of relevance theory via application to multiparty communicative interactions." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
A relevance-based framework for hearer roles in multiparty interactions
This paper proposes a cognitive pragmatic, relevance-theoretic framework for understanding and analysing hearer participant roles in discourse. Releva…
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David Pietraszewski @dpietra.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Why is domain-generality so intuitive? This paper makes a case for why we need an evolutionary psychology of psychology, and what it has to say about the study of intelligence, consciousness, domain-generality, and the theory crisis. @pdurkee.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
What a difference a mind makes: How evolved difference detecting mechanisms harm psychological science, and how an evolutionary psychology of psychology can help
From an adaptationist perspective, most of psychology's concepts that form the basis of empirical inquiry, such as memory, attention, consciousness, i…
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
www.lemonde.fr/m-le-mag/art...
lemonde.fr
La mémoire enfouie des camps de regroupement de la guerre d’Algérie
Entre 1954 et 1962, l’armée française a déplacé et parqué dans des camps plus de 2 millions de paysans algériens. Plus de 200 000 d’entre eux, dont deux tiers d’enfants, y seraient morts de froid et d...
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Tim Crane @timcrane.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
An absolutely devastating account of part of what is going on in Sudan. The RSF apparently funded by the UAE, where people go for sunny holidays ... (until recently anyway) www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
Heroism, horror and the ‘pits of hell’: inside the last days of El Fasher
Over two days in October 2025, up to 10,000 people are believed to have been massacred; a further 40,000 civillians from the Sudanese city are still unaccounted for. This is the story of what happened
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
State-supported pogroms in Palestinian villages www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
theguardian.com
No Israel prosecutions for killing Palestinian civilians in occupied West Bank since start of decade
Dozens of former Israeli military, police and spy chiefs describe situation as ‘organised Jewish terrorism’
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
DEMOCRACY REPORT 2026: Unraveling The Democratic Era? www.v-dem.net/documents/75...
v-dem.net
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Christophe Heintz @heintz-c.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Here is a PhD fellowship in one of the best places in the world to study cognition and culture. 1. Cultural phenomenon: writing 2. Cognitive capacity: to detect what is unpredictable 3. Mission: Show how (2) drives the evolution of (1) 😲 4. Methods: you’ll eventually master some powerful ones
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
"Social sadism"? Great quote (from Merton, R. K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge. American journal of sociology, 78(1)), serious issue.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Wow! More effectively Orwellian than 1984 www.whitehouse.gov/j6/
whitehouse.gov
January 6: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
Discover the real January 6 story: peaceful protest turned tragedy, Deep State entrapment, media deception, and President Trump's triumphant pardons restoring justice to patriotic Americans.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Daniel Nettle: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NPu...
youtube.com
Evolutionary Social Sciences with Dan Nettle
YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
The cold-blooded, brutal grab of Palestinian land in the West Bank goes on in the shadow of the ongoing anihilation of Gaza. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Land Grab: Inside Israel’s Escalating Campaign for Control of the West Bank
Israeli seizure of Palestinian lands in the West Bank, often brutally, has accelerated, raising doubts about the prospects of a peaceful solution to the conflict.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Thom Scott-Phillips presents a novel analysis of people's spontaneous intuitions about sentence acceptability "grounded in theoretical and empirical knowledge from cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology and evolutionary approaches to the mind." cadernos.abralin.org/index.php/ca...
cadernos.abralin.org
Why Do Humans Have Linguistic Intuition? | Cadernos de Linguística
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
25 year ago, Monsanto (acquired by Bayer in 2018) acting against public health and honest science www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’
Paper published in 2000 found glyphosate was not harmful, while internal emails later revealed company’s influence
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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
I agree: there’s a public health imperative to quickly expand the adoption of autonomous vehicles, which will save many lives. More than 39,000 Americans died in motor vehicle crashes yearly. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Not a topic on which I would normally post, but given that road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29 years (www.who.int/news-room/fa...), this is hugely relevant. Don’t Fear Self-Driving Cars. They Save Lives. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Don’t Fear Self-Driving Cars. They Save Lives.
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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Thank you Ben Rhodes for this important column: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/o... Some exerpts: "If you believe a Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child, it is no longer possible to support this Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes about peace. ...
nytimes.com
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
At last, the final publication in 'Cognitive Technologies and their Histories': the editorial introduction to the issue in TopiCS, by myself and @helenamiton.bsky.social. 4.5 years since our initial @cogscisociety.bsky.social panel. Free access! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Cognitive Technologies and Their Histories
Cognitive technologies are socially acquired and culturally evolved systems whose primary function is cognitive. There is a tremendous untapped opportunity for a broad range of disciplines across the...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Yuli Novak (executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem): "Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Israel needs to face accountability for our genocide. And so does the US | Yuli Novak
The international community allowed all of this to happen. We must not look away or move on
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Excellent: Modernity In Rhythm open.substack.com/pub/thomscot...
open.substack.com
Modernity In Rhythm
How migration and technology enabled a special form of togetherness: A multimedia origins story for the lindy hop.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Join me in signing the #JewsDemandAction petition calling on governments around the world to impose meaningful consequences on the Israeli government, including appropriate sanctions, enforcement of ICJ and ICC rulings and warrants, and withholding of arms. jewsdemandaction.org jewsdemandaction.org
jewsdemandaction.org
Jews Demand Action
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Cheyenne Dosso, Tiffany Morisseau, Christophe Heintz, Jean-Sébastien Vayre, A cognitive resource-rational account of epistemic injustice, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2025;, pqaf088, doi.org/10.1093/pq/p... Preprint in FREE ACCESS at philpapers.org/archive/DOSA...
doi.org
A cognitive resource-rational account of epistemic injustice
Abstract. We advance a novel account of the cognitive foundations of epistemic injustice. We argue that such injustice arises from the efficient allocation
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
osf.io/preprints/ps... Preprint: Jan Pfänder and Hugo Mercier "The rational impression account of trust in science"
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Trends in Cognitive Sciences @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Online Now: Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition
dlvr.it
Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition
Over the last decade, new research has shown how human collectives can develop technologies that no single individual could discover on their own. However, this research often overlooks how technology can become so complex that individuals cannot operate it on their own. At this level of technological complexity, distributing cognition is a necessary process for reducing cognitive load on individuals. Yet distributing cognition also imposes coordination costs as technological systems become larger and the individuals in these systems become more specialized. We describe a sprawling set of cultural innovations that facilitate cognitive distribution by reducing cognitive load, reducing coordination costs, or doing both. Preliminary evidence suggests that these cultural innovations co-evolve with technological complexity.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Where There’s No Debate About Genocide — and No Response Either
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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
An excellent but devastating piece on the Israeli assassination of the brave and beloved Gazan journalist Anas Al-Sharif: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o... This is on us in the US: our government could stop this with a single phone call. Call your reps to demand an end to US military support of Israel
nytimes.com
Opinion | He Was the Face and Voice of Gaza. Israel Assassinated Him.
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
“What name do we give to a policy environment that suppresses the arrival of new life?” www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
thelancet.com
Is Gaza still a place for newborn life?
10 months after a warning that Gaza's maternal and neonatal health sector was sliding from crisis towards collapse,1 fresh field reports reveal an even starker picture. In the first 6 months of 2025, ...
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Amnesty International @amnesty.org · 18/08/2025
Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life. Read more:
amn.st
Israel/OPT: New testimonies provide compelling evidence that Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza is a deliberate policy
Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life, Amnesty International said today.
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James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
🚨🚨 New preprint 📜 with Mathieu Charbonneau (@matcharbonneau.bsky.social‬): Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution (arxiv.org/abs/2508.04828). Feedback welcomed! #Evolution #Technology #Culture #OpenEnded #TechnologicalEvolution #CulturalEvolution 🧵: 1/29
arxiv.org
Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution
Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually exp...
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Hugo Mercier @hugoreasoning.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
From ancient Greece to the Arabic golden age, scholars have been driven by their curiosity to investigate astronomy, history, philosophy, and sundry other disciplines. Is there a structure to that curiosity? Are astronomers as likely to also be historians or to also be philosophers?
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
My father, Manès Sperber, told me a story that terribly resonnates today: In 1420, at a time of persecution known as the "Vienna Gesera", Jews were banned from the city. Many were killed. Others were placed on rudderless boats on the Danube River and left starving.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 06/08/2025
Earlier this year, I made two trips to Sudan, where a terrible civil war has displaced 14 million people. The state is absent, international institutions are weak.Outside powers, motivated by greed and nihilism, have stepped into the vacuum www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
theatlantic.com
This Is What the End of the Liberal World Order Looks Like
In a post-American world, greed and nihilism are destroying Sudan.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
‘They slaughtered us like animals’: the inside story of how one of the biggest atrocities of the Sudan war unfolded in Zamzam
As the UK prepared to host a global summit on bringing peace to Sudan, the RSF paramilitary began a ‘genocidal’ massacre in Zamzam refugee camp. But when reports emerged of the killings, London held i...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Dans Marc Bloch, "L'Etrange Défaite" (Ecrit en 1940): "Je n’ai pas, je crois, l’âme inaccessible à la pitié. Peut-être les spectacles que deux guerres successives m’ont imposés l’ont-ils quelque peu endurcie.
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Is mind-reading involved in ownership judgments? By @rekablazsek.bsky.social & @heintz-c.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Rashid Khalidi withdraws course on Middle East history, saying it's 'impossible to teach' given adoption of IHRA. 'Columbia's capitulation..is being done to cover up...the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia's leadership is now fully complicit' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi
The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
And in the meantime, in the West Bank, Israeli settlers proceed with their own genocidal goals: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
theguardian.com
Palestinian who helped make Oscar-winning No Other Land killed in West Bank
Israeli settler Yinon Levi, whom Trump removed from US sanctions list, arrested after death of Awdah Hathaleen
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
ABOUT SCALARS: Ira Noveck and I published in 2007 "The why and the how of experimental pragmatics: The case of scalar inferences" in _Advances in Pragmatics_ (N Burton-Roberts ed.), republished in D. Wilson & D. Sperber _Meaning and Relevance_ 2012, as ch 14.
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Excellent article: "Tracking minds in communication" by Paula Rubio-Fernandez, Marlene D.Berke, and Julian Jara-Ettinger Open access at pure.mpg.de/rest/items/i...
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Dan Sperber @dansperber.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
i.guim.co.uk/img/media/48...
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