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richardshaw.bsky.social
Researcher @ University of Glasgow, UK. Epidemiologist interested in mental-health and wellbeing, health inequalities, administrative data, education. Trying to learn Italian and Spanish.
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I suggest that people stop reading anything by Matt Goodwin and read Harry Frankfurt's on Bullshit instead. vultureofcritique.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

submitted 6 hours ago • 0 comments

Today’s #ResearchTip is if you’re using an acronym to describe your study ensure it is clear, respectful, and does not imply cures or other promises your work cannot deliver. I’ve seen trials and other studies using acronyms like “hope” “calm” or “care” when they won't offer ANY of these things.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Interested in learning more about clinical trials? With input from experts in biostatistics and health economics, and sessions on design, analysis and reporting, the Clinical Trials Training for Investigators course is taking place at the University of Liverpool in September – tinyurl.com/4utspbvc

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

It seems to me that powerful organisations & people can communicate progressive-sounding messages (e.g. about collaboration, equity, community, shifting power), but simultaneously operate in ways that uphold the status quo. So you get a message about sharing, but a reality that's retention of power.

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt argued that bullshit was "a greater enemy of the truth than lies are". But is generative AI-generated botshit even worse than human-generated bullshit? (Yes) My latest @financialtimes.com here: on.ft.com/3SikRPK

submitted 16 days ago • 3 comments

I don't think I can take social media anymore. There are so many occasions when it would be easy to take a nuanced position with which most can agree. Yet people default to taking simplistic reductionist to get the engagement that comes with polarisation.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

“We need to create real pathways to permanence, recognising mid-career scientists not as anomalies or exceptions, but as essential”. Having left academia mid-career to move into the private sector, I have strong feels about this article… #AcademicSky www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/im-tir...

submitted 17 days ago • 10 comments

Another q for the stats people! People worry about collinearity (cf blog post below). Consider a scenario in which the collinear predictors are just controls to account for confounding. Including both of them doesn't impair the precision with which the effect of interest is estimated, does it?

submitted 40 days ago • 14 comments

PI: "this draft is so great, why didn't we write it this way in the first place??" PhD student: "I did, and then you told me to change it"

submitted 23 days ago • 4 comments

"Empowering people to spot manipulation—irrespective of the issue—is the opposite of censorship. It’s not about taking stuff down or reducing visibility. Prebunking, debunking, and fact-checking are examples of “counter-speech.” They allow more speech to happen" time.com/7282640/how-...

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

Since 2022, my colleagues and I have been targeted by political attacks. Early on, we worried that political actors would specifically target our projects & universities for defunding. But in the end, they came after everyone. The strategy of keeping heads down was never the right one.

submitted 25 days ago • 19 comments

‘April showers’ were few and far between in 2025.

submitted 26 days ago • 3 comments

I am very comfortable with saying "No" to journals who are trying to normalise 10 days as the turnaround time for reviews.

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

I have controversial views of this initiative: Our #1 priority in the EU should be to fund the WHO & the programs that were brutally cancelled due to USAID closure which have directly caused terrible harms & death among the world's poorest people, subject to this elected US administration

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

On Bullshit is probably one of the most important works of the current Era. Although at 67 pages it still manages to be a bit too long. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Invitation to review from a journal came at 23:46 on a Friday evening, the reminder at 07:05 on Morning. The people who do this either directly or designing automated systems are not using their brains.

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

📣Calling our mid-career researchers: Our MCR sub-committee is hosting a webinar on practical tips for aspiring Principal Investigators!📣 In this 2hour workshop, Profs Simon Capewell & Ruth Dundas will share insights on planning + managing projects to improve your capability as a PI bit.ly/44lfh6u

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

📣 UK LLC are hiring📣 We are hiring a Research Manager, responsible for understanding, curating and providing technical advice for data analyses of a suit of novel and exciting NHS mental health data and surveys and administrative data from DWP and HMRC. lnkd.in/g7V-PCEj) #hiring #JobAdvert

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

I just completed a survey on public engagement for researchers. My main thoughts while completing were that we need to get the science right before communicating it. My main thought afterwards is that the survey is a convenience sample with poorly worded questions.

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

I am seeing a lot more discussions about whether people should travel to the USA due to Trump, than whether or not they should take long haul flights due to climate change. The politics which enables the "elite" to fly while telling the masses to make sacrifices is one force driving populism.

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Happy Earth Day!! 🌎 🌱 Here are some of my very favorite photos my fiancé and I took while exploring together in these last 365 days around the sun.

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Race is a social construct. But what does that mean, and why do we say this? An explainer, in the wake of Trump being racist and wrong (pt 675) www.bbc.com/future/artic...

submitted 47 days ago • 1 comment

The days of Google Docs are ending; we enter the age of Docs, made by France's Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs and Germany's Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration. We need more governments to collaborate on public software projects to achieve digital sovereignty.

submitted 48 days ago • 53 comments