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Thomas Franssen

@thomasfranssen.bsky.social
203 followers 198 following 99 posts

Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University

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Reposted by Thomas Franssen
Béatrice Cointe @beatricecointe.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
But on the other hand, why would Saudi Arabia's defending its interests through the means of scientific diplomacy be any less legitimate than when the US or EU do the same?
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Jose A. Cañada @joseacanada.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Happy to announce a 3-year #postdoc opening in our research group on Aquatic #STS at the University of @oulu.fi Position is linked to the amazing SAFIRE interdisciplinary research programme. Get in touch if you have any question! Deadline 30.09.26. oulunyliopisto.varbi.com/what:job/job...
oulunyliopisto.varbi.com
Postdoctoral Researcher, Science and Technology Studies (STS) and aquatic restoration in the Nordic and Arctic regions
We are looking to hire highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join the Department of Anthropology, in the History, Culture and Communications Unit at the Faculty of Humanities, the University of
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Mattering Press @matteringpress.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
We're at @easst.bsky.social 2026! Meet us & our books at our stall in the main library!📚
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Martin Woestenburg @martinwoest.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Jan-Willem Erisman: "Gaan we dat geld vooral gebruiken om de huidige landbouw stap voor stap door steeds nieuwe milieuregels heen te loodsen, of om daadwerkelijk te investeren in een landbouw die over twintig of dertig jaar nog steeds toekomst heeft?" www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opin...
volkskrant.nl
Opinie: Is stikstof werkelijk het grootste probleem van de Nederlandse landbouw?
Boeren protesteren opnieuw en de discussie verhardt over de aanpak van de stikstofcrisis. Maar stikstof is niet hét probleem. Om uit de loopgraven te komen zou het goed zijn naar de toekomst te kijken...
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Wim Carton @wimcarton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In a nutshell, the implications of formally entering 1.5C overshoot are straightforward. The absolute first and most important thing you need to do, are immediate and rapid emission reductions! Without it, adaptation becomes difficult, potentially impossible; carbon removal futile and infeasible.
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Glen Peters @glenpeters.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
UNEP has written a nice report on overshoot, though, perhaps 10 years too late. But I am somewhat surprised there is so little focus on the requirement of short-term action. Overshoot and non-overshoot both require deep & immediate reductions in emissions... www.unep.org/resources/li... 6/6
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Wim Carton @wimcarton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"UNEP’s Limiting Overshoot Spotlight Report examines the implications of entering an era of 1.5°C overshoot and the choices that remain available." As we argue in The Long Heat, all choices available lead us back to mitigation. Currently 30% off from Verso! www.versobooks.com/products/331...
unep.org
Limiting Overshoot - Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways towards return
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C remains a cornerstone of the Paris Agreement, yet under current policies and alternative near-term trajectories, exceedance of 1.5°C is now widely assessed as unavoida...
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Thomas Franssen @thomasfranssen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
De coalitie heeft nog geen akkoord bereikt met... zichzelf?!. nos.nl/artikel/2629...
nos.nl
Coalitie heeft nog geen begrotingsakkoord, onderhandelingen vanochtend verder
De onderhandelaars van D66, VDD en CDA praten deze ochtend om 09.00 uur verder.
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Of course the personal tragedy is foremost, but I sincerely hope that in time the discipline of sociology, its leading figures, its membership orgs, has the capacity for a serious, collective response to what a vicious alliance of racists and transphobes has done to one of its members.
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softlabhennef @newsforfuture.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Das ist Torfmoor, was da brennt, kein dichter durchgängiger Wald. Sehr schön in den Aufnahmen zu sehen. Und das wird die Feuerwehren noch Wochen beschäftigen..
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James Kneale @jameskneale.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I am furious at the way CGES staff have been treated, and at reports that current Geography students might have to take their remaining years of study at the campus in Exeter, nearly 100 miles away. And what timing - scrapping a Geography programme during the fifth heatwave of 2026! 7/9
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Thomas Franssen @thomasfranssen.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
New paper with Mandy de Wilde! 'A good drainage economy: the elemental politics of Dutch carbon farming' in @jcultecon.bsky.social tracing how scientists calculated CO2 emissions and how environmental NGOs acted on them. #Valuationstudies #politicalecology #STS www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
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Myrthe Hilkens @myrthehilkens.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
🫪 En lees de laatste alinea ook even. Sinds de overname in 2007 heeft het Indiase moederbedrijf niet in Tata Steel geïnvesteerd. Er ging vanuit hier wel 1 miljard dividend naar India. Hahahaha. www.ewmagazine.nl/economie/ach...
ewmagazine.nl
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James Dyke @jamesgdyke.info · 29/06/2026
What are our universities for? This needs to be answered given the risks we all face in this more turbulent & dangerous world. It is a real disappointment that university managers behave as if the answer can only be found in a spreadsheet. www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-...
technosphere.earth
The bonfire of the humanities
150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences
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Chappell Ellison @chappelltracker.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
screaming www.tumblr.com/reggiemess/8...
A screenshot of a tumblr post by user “reggiemess” featuring a classical-style painting of a woman reclining and reading a small red book. The woman is shown in profile, with dark hair and pale clothing, against a muted brown background.

Overlaid white text on the image reads:

“Before, writers didn't use AI, they stole their wife's work and claimed it was theirs.”
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
<quiet voice> staying with the slop
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Thomas Franssen @thomasfranssen.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Always nice to see colleagues put in effort to start something new. I do however wonder whether 'big tent'-journals are future-proof. I think we will move towards journals/outlets connected to smaller communities rather than journals trying to bring 'everyone' together.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 30/05/2026
This is so on point. The worst chapter in every such book. (I've had several authors tell me that publishers basically force them to write this chapter.)
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христиан 🍉 @zegmaarcj.eurosky.social · 26/05/2026
we moeten terug
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Robert Rosendal @robertrosendal.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Zie je wel: de klimaatwetenschap zat ernaast met haar alarmisme. Dat claimen opgewekte sceptici, onder wie Trump, nu het ergste horrorscenario de prullenbak in gaat. Aan het hoofd van die bijstelling stond Detlef van Vuuren. ‘Volkomen onzin’, zegt hij over de euforie. www.trouw.nl/duurzaamheid...
trouw.nl
Door deze hoogleraar ging het ergste klimaatscenario de prullenbak in – en Trump ging ermee aan de haal. ‘Dit had ik nog nooit meegemaakt’
Zie je wel: de klimaatwetenschap zat ernaast met haar alarmisme. Dat claimen opgewekte sceptici, onder wie Trump, nu het ergste horrorscenario de prullenbak in gaat. Aan het hoofd van die bijstelling ...
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Will Beaman @greenbackbetter.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
LLMs intensify a tension in the present political economy of authorship. On the one hand, cultural production is obviously collective, citational, iterative, and infrastructural. On the other hand, the only durable mechanisms many artists have for surviving are individualizing property forms.
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tante @tante.cc · 16/05/2026
Okay but look, what about the fact that "AI" objectively _is_ bad (As in produces a lot less socially beneficial value than the cost it creates). ("Useless" is a straw man).
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Maarten Breedveld @mjbreedveld.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Waarschijnlijk trilveenveenmos op een natuurontwikkelingsproject (Omhoog met het Veen!) In de Krimpenerwaard, op deze plek kwelt waarschijnlijk wat grondwater op. We zijn deze soort nog nooit tegengekomen in de Krimpenerwaard. Wat zou nodig zijn om definitief uitsluitsel te hebben?
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Roger Peet @toosphexy.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Data Centers are Disasters - new graphic on the Justseeds downloads page : justseeds.org/graphic/data...
Data centers are disasters graphic
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Jérôme Denis @jrmdns.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Une thèse en STS au Centre de sociologie de l'innovation (Mines Paris PSL), ça vous tente ? Nous démarrons une nouvelle campagne de recrutement pour la rentrée 2026-2027. Date limite pour le dépôt des candidatures : vendredi 29 mai. Tout est expliqué ici : www.csi.minesparis.psl.eu/articles-ved...
csi.minesparis.psl.eu
Appel à candidatures 2026 : recherche doctorale, contrat doctoral
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Laura Bromet @laurabromet.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
‘Maar het bedrijfsleven’
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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
leftist publishers when you ask them about open access
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Ambrose @ambrosia-engine.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Also, thank god for some of the sane comments from the peer-reviewers (from this Nature paper).
To begin with, the title is unreasonably overselling the paper. It reads more like clickbait than like the title of a scientific paper. The second sentence of the abstract echoes this, by claiming AI can automate the whole scientific process. The idea that these systems could "radically accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, ushering forward an era that could the see solution to many of society's greatest challenges" also seems premature at the very least. It a very long way from producing a convincing simulacrum of a scientific paper to actually accelerating the pace of scientific discovery; in fact, one might argue that the generation of even more mediocre papers could science down, rather than the opposite. Saying that the system described in the paper represents "full end-to-end automation of art. (For the avoidance of any doubt, this means: not very accurate at all, in fact entirely inaccurate.)

What the paper actually shows is that there exists a system which can produce a mediocre workshop paper with limited human intervention (human screening of generated ideas). This is very impressing in itself and this impressive result deserves to be discussed on it's own merits. The fact that an LLM based agentic system can produce a basic scientific paper, for better or worse, is important to highlight and should spark a necessary discussion about the scientific ecosystem and the nature of science. In this context, the current bombastic language rather serves to detract from the actual contribution. I think Nature should eventually publish this paper but only after these claims have been toned down considerable.This brings me to my final point. Are we ready to unleash AI scientists into the world? The authors are well aware of the dangers of flooding the internet with bad science and they do reflect on it. However, the availability of these tools will undoubtedly have the effect that many young researchers whose careers depend on papers in top tier conferences will give this a spin. In that sense the paper does us a service to let us know where we stand and what to expect.
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Thomas Franssen @thomasfranssen.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
I increasingly think the last journal article I will ever write is not so far in the future. Good opportunity to slow down our writing in the critical social sciences and rediscover all the ways of writing that is not the journal article.
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Rogier van Reekum @rvanreekum.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Check this out! There's a book launch of my essay "The Netherlands is a bad idea" in Moezeum (010), April 23. With responses from: Zakia Essanhaji ❤️, @quinsyg.bsky.social ❤️, and Nawal Mustafa ❤️. The book was made in collaboration with Multi Tool Press ❤️ and will be available in limited supply.
A book launch of The Netherlands is a bad idea, an essay by Rogier van Reekum, at Moezeum on April 23. Free entrance. Doors open 19.00. Hosted by Zouhair Hammana. With responses by Zakia Essanhaji, Quinsy Gario and Nawal Mustafa.
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Maarten Breedveld @mjbreedveld.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Graslandperceel in de veenweiden van de Krimpenerwaard. In de noordrand direct naast natuurgebied. Verkocht aan de hoogste bieder (125k voor een ruime hectare), gras bespoten, mest erin en grasland scheuren. Wordt dit de toekomst voor de veenweiden met grondprijzen die door het dak gaan?
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Peatscapes @peatscapes.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Very happy to see our latest Peatscapes article out in Environment and Planning E, led by Nye Merrill-Glover! Do give it a read if you're interested in peatland governance, carbon credit markets, or both! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... Thanks as ever to @leverhulme.ac.uk! 🙏
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Jeroen van Eck @jvaneck.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Ik kan niet meer. Dit is zo schrijnend. Zo onmenselijk. Eigenlijk wil je het niet lezen. Maar het kan hier wel (cadeaulink). www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...
nrc.nl
Palestijnse kinderen gemarteld in de Israëlische cel: rapport Save the Children wijst op onhoudbare situatie
Kindermishandeling: Zo’n 350 Palestijnse kinderen in Israëlische gevangenissen worden gemarteld, seksueel misbruikt en uitgehongerd. Sinds 7 oktober 2023 is hun situatie enorm verslechterd. Een explosief rapport hierover van Save the Children, aanvankelijk onder Israëlische druk niet gepubliceerd, komt nu alsnog naar buiten.
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petra @kutheks.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
WIE DE FUCK IS ER HIER NOU DE CULTUUR VAN DE DOOD?
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Cameron Blevins @cblevins.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
This is so, so well-articulated.
People call this friction "grunt work." Schwartz uses exactly that phrase, and he's right that LLMs can remove it. What he doesn't say, because he already has decades of hard-won intuition and doesn't need the grunt work anymore, is that for someone who doesn't yet have that intuition, the grunt work is the work. The boring parts and the important parts are tangled together in a way that you can't separate in advance. You don't know which afternoon of debugging was the one that taught you something fundamental about your data until three years later, when you're working on a completely different problem and the insight surfaces. Serendipity doesn't come from efficiency. It comes from spending time in the space where the problem lives, getting your hands dirty, making mistakes that nobody asked you to make and learning things nobody assigned you to learn.
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Laura Keating @lorekeating.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
I keep seeing "all authors use AI, the real issue is they're being forced to be sneaky about it" headlines. Full stop No. This is a lie peddled for normalization. It's schoolyard-level pressure tactics "C'mon, all the cool kids are already doing it. We won't tell. It's fine. We're on your side."
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Brad Bolman @brad.bolman.com · 28/03/2026
In the early 1990s, Bruno Latour was not hired at the Institute for Advanced Study. I wrote an article about that decision and what it reveals about the science wars and the history of science studies, now live @histsocialscience.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/article/985884
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Peatscapes @peatscapes.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Next week the Peatscapes Team will join up with social scientists from 10 European countries for the two-day interdisciplinary 'Mapping Peatscapes' workshop at @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social, co-organised by @kargkama.bsky.social & @thomasfranssen.bsky.social! Agenda: peatscapes.com/mappingpeats...
A flyer for the 'Mapping Peatscapes' workshop, taking place at the Lapworth Museum of Geology, University of Birmingham, March 30–31st 2026.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 17/03/2026
Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.
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Suhrkamp Verlag @suhrkamp.de · 14/03/2026
Jürgen Habermas ist heute im Alter von 96 Jahren in Starnberg verstorben.
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Chris Julien @chrisjulien.eurosky.social · 21/02/2026
Voor in de categorie everybody wins (behalve een paar multimiljonairs):
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Rogier van Reekum @rvanreekum.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
It kinda comes down to this: I am only ever going to "trust ai" if it learns how to die.
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Listo Entertainment @listo.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
me and the girls finding out that everything is political
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Thomas Franssen @thomasfranssen.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
For a politics of science lecture I am looking for a good example of an actual relativist understanding of science (science=text) (from the 1970s or early 1980s i guess?). @toteraltermann.bsky.social as the most prominent STS historian on my timeline, do you have a good suggestion?
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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
on my way to a meetup i initiated in a bout of extraversion
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Merijn Oudenampsen @merijnoudenampsen.org · 09/01/2026
Blij met dit mooie in memoriam voor mijn recent overleden studievriend Paul Mepschen. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...
nrc.nl
Ook als mensen hem verbijsterden wilde Paul Mepschen (1976-2025) begrijpen wat hen bewoog
De laatste bladzijde: Voor de bevlogen antropoloog en socioloog Paul Mepschen, overtuigd marxist, waren politiek, werk en leven niet van elkaar te scheiden. „We zagen onszelf als revolutionaire activi...
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 03/01/2026
The US unilaterally and illegally using state violence in South America to achieve the goals of capital is a long-standing tradition
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💢Marx Was Right.🕊 @paulwalker44.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
“Capitalism tends to destroy its two sources of wealth: nature and human beings.” - Karl Marx
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