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J. Brendan Ritchie

@jbrendanritchie.bsky.social
665 followers 709 following 207 posts

Cognitive neuroscientist studying vision and cognition. Recovering philosopher. Former NIH postdoc. Asst Prof in Neuro at U Lethbridge/Iniskim 🇨🇦. Views are my own. He/him

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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Confusing...or best? 😌
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
This is a disaster. The ethics committee in Denmark that approved the Guinea-Bissau study which will withhold the birth dose of HepB vaccine “had never considered medical studies before but it changed the rules in order to vote on this one”. Four members of the committee have resigned in protest.
theguardian.com
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
"Every day I was crying, saying, my life is too short to live like this. "
psychologicalscience.org
NIH Employees Lived in a Culture of Fear, So They Started Keeping Receipts
Sylvia Chou, former NIH program director, says “nobody’s OK” after massive disruptions to funding policies and infrastructure.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This, but for the Phaistos Disc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaisto...
en.wikipedia.org
Phaistos Disc - Wikipedia
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Evan Westra @evanwestra.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Super psyched about this paper, which @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social and I have been working on for two years now. If you're into folk psychology, conceptual development, cognitive ontology, the Big Five, and being hangry, this one's for you.
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Chloé de Canson @chloedecanson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Why do people with ME claim to know more about the medical aspects of their disease than their doctors? Because the mechanisms that usually ensure doctors' knowledge fail in the case of ME, and sick people have created mechanisms of knowledge production and dissemination to pick up the slack.
Screenshot of the header of a published paper: 

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

Patient's knowledge, doctor's ignorance: The production of knowledge about myalgic encephalomyelitis

Chloé de Canson

Department of of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 52, Groningen, 9712 GL, the Netherlands
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Tijl Grootswagers @tgro.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
🧠 Fully funded PhD Opportunity: how the brain recognises & remembers during active visual exploration. @marcsinstitute.bsky.social, Australian domestic applicants only. Closes 31 Oct 2026. Details & apply: tijl.github.io/phdscholarsh...
tijl.github.io
PhD Scholarship: How the Brain Recognises and Remembers During Active Visual Exploration
Fully funded PhD scholarship at the MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, investigating active visual exploration, object recognition and memory encoding using EEG and computational modelling.
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Tom Kindlon @tomkindlon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I was one of a number of patient scientists and advocates who was interviewed for this sympathetic, open access paper "Patient's knowledge, doctor's ignorance: The production of knowledge about myalgic encephalomyelitis" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #MEcfs #PwME #epatient #epatients #CFS
Abstract
It is usually assumed that patient and doctor know strictly different things: the patient knows the phenomenological aspects of their illness, and the doctor knows its medical aspects. I present a case study, that of myalgic encephalomyelitis, wherein, due to severely dysfunctional institutional knowledge production and transmission mechanisms, the medical aspects of the illness are on the whole better understood by sick people than by their doctors. Indeed, lay scientists within the patient community disseminate and produce science on their disease, ensuring that patients as a whole have reliable knowledge about their disease. By contrast, systemically produced and systemically maintained ignorance on the part of medical professionals is the norm, and may be beyond the specific case study I present.
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The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 05/10/2026
Trump admin demands Canada not meddle in midterms so they can meddle in separatist referendums
thebeaverton.com
Trump admin demands Canada not meddle in midterms so they can meddle in separatist referendums
WASHINGTON D.C. - Trump Administration trade advisor Peter Navarro is accusing Canada of interfering in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, unfairly distracting from American efforts to interfere in ...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
If the lessons Democrats (& democrats) draw from DOGE is “right idea, wrong implementation,” we are doomed. Everyone involved in the unprecedented crime that was DOGE needs to go to jail forever, & Democrats need to rebuild all of the programs & agencies first, not do digital management consulting 🤦‍♂️
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Yeah that's true in some respects, but I would say in others it's more of a puzzle. Image labeling was the beginning, not the end. I'm thinking of my friends who do deep learning models of visual phenomena and it sure seems there's a lot that's still puzzling.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I think this is a good thread, in part because I don't agree with pretty much any of it. Folks I know who really care about understanding vision or language are incorporating AI in new and interesting ways and they are not depressed.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
News to me that "visual invariants" is solved. No one I know in systems neuroscience studying human vision is depressed.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Earlier this week, I agreed to interviews with two USA Today journalists. They wrote fantastic articles about the Cornell case that I'm proud to have been a part of. What I did not know is that their employer considers interviews to proprietary and opens up recordings to be used by any journalist.
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Apurva Ratan Murty @apurvaratan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Excited to first share @alishdipani.bsky.social 's study. Alish asked a (deceptively) simple Q: Are category-selective units in ANNs actually like category-selective regions in the brain? (why is this imp? read until the end). #neuroskyence #neuroscience #brain #neuroai
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Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The bullying and harassment that this will enable is the point. This administration wants to make life unbearable for “undesirable” populations. It’s fascist scapegoating 101. thehill.com/homenews/edu...
thehill.com
Education Department formally rescinds Title IX protections for LGBTQ students
The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientati…
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hellabores92.bsky.social @hellabores92.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Courage is Contagious. Excellent article by Sylvia Chou. It takes a lot to stand up for the truth when there is a culture of fear but what we lose is so much more if we do not. www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
NIH Employees Lived in A Culture of Fear, So They Started Keeping Receipts
Sylvia Chou, former NIH program director, says “nobody’s OK” after massive disruptions to funding policies and infrastructure.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
And in the case of the US, it'll also take substantial reform of its political institutions, and the media, during that time.
Black and white image of American writer Gore Vidal as a young man. Intensely gazing at the camera, wearing a sweater vest. Accompanying is the quote: once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to get the truth  back.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Michelle Greene @mgreenephd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🚨New paper alert! 🚨 The visual system tunes itself to the statistics of its input. How do individual experiences differently tune vision? In this work, @bjbalas.bsky.social and I examined how one individual difference—height—changes the visual diet and how this affects perception. 1/
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Here's today's column on the astonishing, ongoing mistreatment of people with #ME/CFS. Please spread it far and wide: the only thing which can break the media's wall of indifference is seeing an article about the issue go viral. Thank you. 1/2 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed | George Monbiot
Changes in guidance and science seem to have little impact on millions of devastated lives. It’s a social crisis playing out behind closed doors, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
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Zhiqing Deng @zhiqingdeng.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
🧠Excited to share that our paper has been accepted at PNAS! We found hierarchical plasticity in people born without hands. ❤️Thanks to @striemamit.bsky.social @yuqiliu1179.bsky.social @Florencia Martinez-Addiego www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Experience-driven plasticity in the secondary somatosensory cortex in people born without hands | PNAS
In congenital handlessness, where individuals rely on their feet for compensatory manual functions, reorganization in the primary somatosensory cor...
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Alright, let’s all get on the same page about Vought/NIH/Trump. THEY👏WILL👏STOP👏AT👏NOTHING👏 The goal is to destroy the STEM ecosystem, universities, and democracy as we have known it. PERIOD. The only way to win is to impeach them all…which means we need Congress. HERE’S HOW WE WIN 🧵
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Conor Browne @brownecfm.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Articles like these are emblematic of the institutional amnesia surrounding Covid-19. A pathogen that emerged less than seven years ago, which can cause fatigue during the acute infection and as a common long-term effect, not even mentioned. Conspicuously absent. www.nbcnews.com/health/menta...
nbcnews.com
Why are Americans so tired? CDC report highlights who’s feeling it most
Fatigue is one of the most common concerns reported in primary care visits, yet not much attention is given to how often adults in the U.S. are coping with it.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 20/09/2026
“The arrangement would give Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a direct role in determining how NIH distributes its $48 billion in congressionally-appropriated money.” Bypassing the many checks and balances at NIH on grant funding decisions.
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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
CTV news coverage of the errors in health policy and guidance that leave the public unprotected from aerosol disease transmission and long COVID (with @drdavidkeegan.bsky.social and Kerri Bowser) is up. Great to see so much interest! Below is the UK inquiry cited: #medsky #scisky #cdnpoli #polisky
youtu.be
COVID health policy still outdated: researchers
YouTube video by CTV News
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Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 18/09/2026
The Military’s Bogus AI ‘Almost Started a War’ With China Troops were about to board a Chinese ship before the Pentagon realized they had false intel, according to CNN. Read: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Yep. 10+ years ago I would argue this with phil classmates into EA. Some very into longtermism. Just no conception of probabilities or value assignment that makes what they want to talk about coherent. But folks are still making careers outta it!
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 17/09/2026
“From a human standpoint, it’s tragic. From a constitutional perspective, it’s absurd: The people elect their representatives to enact legislation, and five unelected judges veto that legislation. Is this really the democratic system our founders envisioned?”
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🇨🇦Joe Vipond🇨🇦 @jvipondmd.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"We had concerns whether the process was being completed in a fair, equitable and consistent manner with the many daily, and sometimes hourly, changes to the processes,” former Elections Alberta staff (resigned in protest)
calgaryherald.com
Corb Lund requests moratorium on coal, former Elections Alberta staff speak out
Corb Lund is seeking a moratorium on coal development until a judicial review of how his group's petition was handled has been completed.
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The cuts in staff across federal health agencies are staggering. Great analysis from @ourpublicservice.bsky.social. 1 in 5 people gone from NIH. More than 1 in 4 gone from CDC. Nearly 7 in 10 gone from AHRQ. ourpublicservice.org/resource/the...
ourpublicservice.org
The Cost of Cutting American Science: How Federal Cuts Diminish Public Health Capacity
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Jody Culham's Lab @culhamari-lab.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Our Annual Review of Vision Science paper on "Bringing Vision Science Closer to the Real World" with @evadeligiannis.bsky.social is officially out and available through open access. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
annualreviews.org
Bringing Vision Science Closer to the Real World
Vision science has demonstrated considerable success in characterizing early- and mid-level visual processes through reductionism and tightly controlled experiments. However, an understanding of high-...
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
300 early-career neuroscientists commented on the future of the field in a new survey led by @neuromatch.bsky.social and @thetransmitter.bsky.social. #neuroskyence By Paige Miranda www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...
thetransmitter.org
‘High risk, high reward’: How early-career neuroscientists view their future
The Transmitter and Neuromatch surveyed more than 300 early-career neuroscientists to better understand their unique challenges, career aspirations and support needs.
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Elliot Murphy @elliot-murphy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
New work out today! The result of a 15 year project to offer genuine linking hypotheses between linguistics and neuroscience: a revised research program, and its first result - a novel neural binding operation ('Meld') capturing core properties of natural language syntax 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2609.14384
arxiv.org
Formal Properties of Language as Constraints on Neural Dynamics
What must a neural system be capable of to implement language? Current research annotates stimuli with linguistic variables and tests which electrodes, voxels, or language-model layers predict neural ...
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
If only there was a thing govs could do to make companies align with human values. Some kind of system of legally binding constraints for certain industries. Shame nothing like that has ever existed ever.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Same, despite doing phil of comp and using some NNs in my sci research. I don't want to engage with a tech that's being used to destroy the things I care about.
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Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This thread is good to read. In my experience, what @michaelhendricks.bsky.social is describing here is not the situation faced by all labs in Canada, but it does describe the situation faced by far too many. And, it's all down to one simple thing: the feds don't find the tri-councils enough!
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Yeeep and instead we got IMPACT+. FWIW I talked to someone from the NRC last year and I think some folks have argued the same thing on the inside.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 14/09/2026
Cis people do not understand how much trans people's rights have regressed in just 5 years. 5 years ago, there were none of these restrictions. 19 states banned legal recognition 21 states have bathroom bans 8 states ban gender marker changes on DLs 25 ban gender affirming care for trans youth
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/09/2026
A trans man in the UK has been banned in the workplace restrooms after he was forced to use the women's restrooms to comply with the new EHRC guidance. The women complained because he is visibly male and so they told him he can't use any bathroom.
A screenshot of a Reddit post from the r/LegalAdviceUK subreddit by user Dijstraanon, titled "FtM transgender facing two different issues at work? England."
The post text reads:
"Brother in law is trans FtM and presents fully as a man. He's now facing an impossible situation at work with his employer telling him that due to recent legislation he must use the toilet of his birth gender. BUT several female colleagues have raised a grievance about him using their gendered toilet.
His employer has told him that he cannot use the toilet while he is at work until they sort it out and cannot give him a timeframe to do so. They do [cut off] have disabled separate toilets.
In the mean time one of his female colleagues has accused him of sexual harassment because he was used their gendered toilet. His menstrual cycle meant he needed to use the toilet.
He's been with the employer for just over 5 years but only in this location for 18 months. The location is mainly male with just a handful of females, and his workshop only has male toilets.
I do not know how to support him and as he's not in a union there is no one to turn too right now."
The post has an orange "Comments Moderated" tag, 169 upvotes, and 134 comments.
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
An excellent piece from a group including fellow Bethesda Declaration signers. Appreciate the call for an increasingly democratic model of shared governance in public research funding. As well as the call for scientists to engage. www.aaup.org/toward-recon...
aaup.org
Toward the Reconstruction of US Research Infrastructure
Academia must organize now to secure the future of the US academic research enterprise.
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J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
As a Villa fan I'm in denial about my loss of privilege.
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What, an Anthropic researcher states (without evidence) that there is a 10% chance that AI will cause human extinction? Incredible, we have never before heard such a claim!
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
No one. No one. No one can ever say to me again that Jay Bhattacharya was a reasonable pick for NIH Director. He was and is an ideological zealot. This is his doing. Shame on him. Shame on Matthew Memoli, Jon Lorsch, John Powers and the rest of them at NIH.
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Canada's National Observer @nationalobserver.com · 04/09/2026
INVESTIGATION: Canada’s National Observer has discovered a network of deceptive, AI-generated websites promoting Albertan separatism. The websites, rather than targeting human readers, are targeting chatbots — trying to influence the answers they provide.
nationalobserver.com
A US-linked network of fake websites is promoting Alberta separatism to AI chatbots
The websites present crude, AI-generated slop disguised as the voice of real Albertans. But they're made in Florida — and they're not even targeting Albertans directly.
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J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
🧵My family stopped through NYC (less than 3 miles from ground zero) 2 months after 9/11, & we wore N95s. Strangers were derisive, but it really seemed like common sense. Come to find out: Rep. Jerrold Nadler said he tried to convince Giuliani & Bloomberg "to release www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/n...
nytimes.com
After 9/11, Documents Suggest New Yorkers Were Misled About Air Quality (Gift Article)
New York City officials are making public more than 170,000 pages of documents related to the air quality around the World Trade Center site in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Amanda Hu @amandalhu.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Parents of girls over 12 all over Alberta are now receiving “permission forms” requiring their birth sex as female in order to participate in sports as a result of the Government of Alberta’s “Fairness and Safety in Sport Act”. The more parents who file a challenge in response, the better.
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The Breakdown AB @thebreakdownab.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
From a confirmed source within the Calgary Board of Education... Over 1000 kids across Calgary are being denied an education. Because of UCP changes to the Education Act, over 1000 kids are being denied an education because of delays in immigration processing. Over 1000.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 04/09/2026
Right. Vought and Bhattacharya tried to gut NIH in 2025 via stopping spending (Fed Reg bans) and rescission. That failed. Now in 2026, they’re still using bureaucracy inside the agency to try to slow spending. But they need a new way to get the leftover money (meant for science!) out of NIH. 1/
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Unlawfully stealing from our future health to fund a war that never should have happened. democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-r...
democrats-appropriations.house.gov
Defense Officials Attempt to Raid NIH Funds to Cover Department of Defense Activities
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) has learned that officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are working to divert billions of dollars from the National Institute...
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