To be clear, in my first skeet I should have said: people who think they've nailed the concept of evidence but have actually adopted a crude rule of thumb.
Obviously there are many people with a more nuanced view just like there are many more with little understanding at all of evidence.
...its own merits. If it has been rigorously conducted, and a large effect size is discovered - albeit on a small sample - it can be treated as anything from highly intriguing to policy altering if the consequences of not doing so may be terrible if the current course is continued.
/rant
... and multiple such studies statistically analysed together to get an even clearer idea.
But that doesn't mean that smaller, less ideal studies (done well!) can simply be dismissed as irrelevant to the question at hand. That's just foolish.
A good (but not ideal) study must be evaluated on...
...effect sizes are particularly large and there's little suspicion of a poorly designed study, mistaken statistics, or scientific fraud, you can develop a pretty strong cause-effect hypothesis even with a pretty small sample.
It's great to have blind, controlled, large-scale evidence...
...huge red flags leading to the discovery of HIV.
Research isn't all wait-and-see until the meta-analysis is done. They're even quite a recent form of research. When the cause and effects are much more strongly linked, that kind of analysis wasn't needed to observe a likely cause-effect.
Where...
...despite "only" being a case-control study of a very unusual population.
Or a case series of an incredibly rare form of pneumonia occurring in a handful of gay men in the same city in close succession when it had been very seldom observed before.
While that didn't give causation, it raised...
And beyond that, many steps on the way to that gold standard can indicate a pretty good sense of causation (which is often not completely provable even on a good day with the best evidence) at an early stage.
Such as the Doll, Bradford Hill Drs. Smoking Study that already gave us a good sense...
It frustrates me when people think they've nailed the concept of scientific evidence. They've learned what gold-standard evidence is, and tell people confidently that anything less has told us *nothing whatsoever*.
Some fields can never actually do a meta-analysis of blinded, controlled experiments
THREAD 🧵
An Al Jazeera investigation of satellite imagery from Planet Labs and Sentinel Hub reveals that Israel is expanding military sites across Gaza, including the construction of what appear to be more permanent bases.
🔗: aje.news/rhu622 | #Infograph
Hungary will rejoin the ICC and enforce its arrest warrants, including against Benjamin Netanyahu, if he enters Hungary, says President-elect Peter Magyar.
part of the problem with the two-state delusion is that the 1967 borders would leave roughly the same number of Israeli settlers living unwillingly under Palestinian rule as were expelled from Israel in the original Nakba (800,000)
This is great tech. I can tell you as a person who fenced for many years that I can’t follow fencing on tv.
My favourite! End of an era. Quite the run. They covered a lot of cool stuff over the years.
"The AI bubble is about to burst because the hyperscalers as they are called have used up all their own cash and are now borrowing money. They are effectively net-debtors at a time when they are spending huge volumes of money on data centres without having the guarantee that they are going to make profits. And it is that worry that actually there isn't money to be made in the business which is gradually dawning on investors, which is going to be why they are going to pull away. Infact there are already signs of people withdrawing from the AI sector because they fear that this is indeed a bubble. It seems to me utterly inevitable, the only question is only when." - Ann Pettifor
A warning from the economist, Ann Pettifor.
I genuinely think it’s because it makes them feel smart, like they “programmed an AI” or whatever. It’s loathsome!
bsky.app/profile/groc...
Every time I read a piece about somebody with an “ai-assisted editing process” I feel like I’m watching someone trying to intellectualize a deliberate choice not to think or concentrate
UN experts call for immediate suspension of trade agreement with Israel.
A ‘minimum requirement’ under intl. law. “The EU can’t claim to uphold human rights while sustaining preferential trade with State whose conduct amounts to genocide”
It will be rejected. Unless we move Israel inside Russia.
How many fucking “godfathers of AI” are there, and why do none of them talk about the actual realities of LLMs? Grifters galore
Got exactly one citation and ignored by several major pubs covering the official Microsoft post here, looking forward to Thursday when they get to do it again when token-based billing is announced ❤️
Republicans know they are about to lose the House and are trying to give Big Oil its holy grail: legal immunity from any futures actions that would hold the industry responsible for the climate crisis it knowingly caused and is making worse every day.
climateintegrity.org/news/view/br...
5 mins later I'm up here ( previous photo taken on the beach in the background).
Tim Cook donated $1M to Trump’s inauguration.
He fawned over Trump and gifted him a 24-karat gold plaque (as Apple lobbied for tariff exemptions).
Apple donated to Trump’s White House ballroom.
And it removed ICE tracking apps from its stores following a demand from the DOJ.
Remember this.
🤭ANC on the hunt for talented city mayors — inside and outside the party www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...
One day, I'm gonna fall in with the "right crowd". And, gawd, I'm gonna be cross.
Suspended City of Tshwane CFO was ‘just huffing and puffing and playing along’, inquiry hears www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...
“What side you standing on?”
Not a good sign when Germany is once again involved in genocide.
The most moral army…. Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
This week in Palestine:
- Israel continued its genocide in Gaza
- Israeli settlers raided a village in the West Bank
- Israel is allowing soldiers suspected of rape back on duty
🔗 Zeteo’s weekly roundup as Israel enforces violent crackdowns & apartheid across Palestine — zeteo.com/p/this-week-...