The Shadow Minister for Education is completely fucking mad. Somebody get the man a tinfoil hat.

Spending a short time studying in Europe is brainwashing?! These people are not well. If you‘re frightened that a few weeks in Europe will result in brainwashing or mind control, then you shouldn‘t be in parliament, you should be in therapy or an asylum.

We need more viewpoint diversity among journal referees who read my papers.

More “accept” and “R&R” viewpoints. Fewer “reject” and “this is the worst paper I’ve ever read” viewpoints.

Brilliant, thank you.

The three stages of life:

1. Too young
2. Too busy
3. Too old

I haven’t, but it looks super interesting, thanks.

I have 17 bags of Tilda rice that are now on sale as I don't think I need them anymore

Peak retired academic moment.
1. One of those emails: Are you the R Watt who wrote xxxxxx?
2. Nope, but it sounds vaguely interesting. Wonder what they found.
3. Google - read it and discover that I did write it.

Song overlapping and matching during low‐arousal singing and their relation to visual ornaments, parental care and breeding success in the great tit (Parus major) Neighbouring great tits vocally interacting across territorial boundaries do not reveal fiteness relevant differences in their interactive singing. Eavesdroppers will need to integrate information fr...

No problem: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The bare minimum ought to have been to communicate whether he passed or failed. That could be done without revealing any detail about why.

I cannot quite get over Robbins thinking what he was doing was right, or thinking it unfair to sack him afterwards.

I'm trying to imagine a similar case in a normal workplace. Imagine an interview panel recommend appointing someone. HR runs DBS check on the candidate, they fail, & the HR director then says they can be appointed without mentioning they'd failed the check. Of course the HR director would be sacked.

So, the vetting process did not report its findings (not even pass/fail) to the person for whom it was carried out?! That's absurd.

I'm not sure how the bit about people teaching folksongs to bullfinches can be correctly dated to 1768 and von Pernau (argh, I mistyped his name earlier too) though, because he died in 1731. Citation practices in earlier times were bad, glad LLMs weren't around back then!

Occasionally I post about political philosophy, my actual job!

Der Gimpel / dessen Gesang wegen der Unannehmlichkeit fast kein Gesang kan genennet werden / doch treibt er solches sein naturliches Gesang / oder was er gelernet/ es sevengleich Lieder oder andere Vogelgesånger / eben in der Zeit und Art/ wie die Canarien Vogel.

Here, in the 1720 text, while slandering Bullfinches, von Parnau describes them learning songs.

He has an even longer titled 1702 work: 'Unterricht was mit dem lieblichen Geschöpff, denen Vögeln, auch ausser dem Fang Nur durch die Ergründung Deren Eigenschafften und Zahmmachung oder ander Abrichtung Man sich vo Lust und Zeitvertreib machen könne: gestellt Durch den Hoch' Man needed an editor.

The text this claim appeared in is von Parnau's snappily titled: 'Angenehme Land-Lust Deren man in Städten und auf dem Lande, ohne, sonderbare Kosten, unschuldig geniessen kan, oder von Unterschied Fang Einstellung und Abrichtung der Vögel'. He didn't do concise.

The source of the Bullfinch claim is the Austrian ornithologist, von Parnau, considered the founder of scientific ornithology. Von Parnau actually claims, supposedly for the first time, that birdsong is learned rather than instinctive in 1720.

One the one hand, they could spend £500m on making our lives better, but on the other they could give it to some billionaires who hate our way of life and mean us harm. It's a tricky one, I know, but somehow they always pick the billionaires.

“We have to seize this to make it work, for Britain," is the same empty slogan & wishful thinking that we got with: 'We have to make Brexit work for Britain". It doesn't, it won't, this government is a collection of AI fools, dupes, & stooges & I'm very tired of it all.

Indeed, and I think we refer to that kind of behaviour as flocking (or herding)!

Update: I've just discovered (again from a paper that doesn't cite its sources) that Germans were training Bullfinches to sing folk songs (they'd match the notes, tempo, etc.) from 1768 to the 1980s (when wildlife laws stopped it). The songs would be taught by finches to their kids. Amazing.

Sorry, wanted to finish reading it first!

Song overlapping and matching during low‐arousal singing and their relation to visual ornaments, parental care and breeding success in the great tit (Parus major) Neighbouring great tits vocally interacting across territorial boundaries do not reveal fiteness relevant differences in their interactive singing. Eavesdroppers will need to integrate information fr...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is a very refreshing paper. Such a nice change to read bird research in an ethology/behavioural science journal that talks about intentionality, decision-making, motivation, and meaning. It's wild to me that this would frowned upon by many researchers.

I've just opened a paper about birds that begins with the claim that 'Wild animals routinely make decisions that are influenced by social information'. I've read so many behaviourist papers that refused to mention, never mind attribute, decision-making powers to birds that this was a shock.

If someone told me "I've written a document which demonstrates that appointing Peter Mandelson isn't a risk" I would demand to see it just out of curiosity about how the hell they managed to do that.

Sebastian Payne here, blaming women for being angry that men are acting like shits towards them. Right-wing men (like Sebastian) respond to misogyny this way & are surprised that women end-up moving leftward. All that money on private education, & paid to have opinions, yet still an idiot.

Siri, what's the Matthew Effect?