"'If you can increase the diversity of the scientific workforce, there’s some evidence that you can increase the trust in scientists,' Druckman explained... [diversity] encompassing not just race and gender but also rurality, religiosity, and class background."
cps.isr.umich.edu/news-events/...
Posts by Raihan Alam
🚨New Working Paper!🚨
How do Americans mentally map political coalitions?
We often talk as if U.S. politics is just two sorted camps. But when people think about which groups go with which, the picture is more complicated.
🧵👇
Mike Nellis @MikeNellis "I'M NO LONGER CATHOLIC!" Hannity ABANDONS HIS FAITH for Trump NELLIS X.com • +*+
Amazing that in the national divorce the libs are getting the NFL, butter and cooking oil, being attracted to adult women, standup comedy, Bud Light, and now also Catholicism
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Just War Doctrine All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed." (CCC, no. no.2308) The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: 1 The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; 3 There must be serious prospects of success; 2 All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; 4 The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the weighs very heavily in evaluating "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of this condition. these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. (CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, NO. 2309) The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties." (CCC, no. 2312) PRAY FOR PEACE.
Bishops doubling down
From me and @adambonica.bsky.social on Golden
www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...
Do protests change elections?
Prior research: "yes, and dramatically so."
But is that always true? What about protests in the last few years?
Our latest working paper challenges prevailing logic.
Our finding: most recent protests have failed to do anything to influence elections.
BREAKING: The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine just issued a formal statement defending Pope Leo XIV's teaching authority on just war doctrine — less than twelve hours after JD Vance told a Turning Point USA crowd the pope should “be careful” talking theology.
This is a serious escalation.
"There is no justification for a regressive system in which the super-rich contribute less than the rest of us," write @josephestiglitz.bsky.social, @gabrielzucman.bsky.social, and @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social.
A lot of Orbán's American fans are saying that this election proved he was never an authoritarian in the first place.
This is completely wrong — and, in fact, betrays a complete misunderstanding of both Hungarian politics and modern authoritarianism.
Here's why.
Southern California folks! Artemis II will splash down off the coast of San Diego a little after 5pm PT tonight. There may be a sonic boom as the spacecraft enters Earth’s atmosphere.
If you experience shaking, rattling windows, etc. you can report it here:
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
New paper: we propose a theory to help explain variation in democratic backsliding. We look at the case of Russia, Israel, & the US. We posit that collective memories about democracy influence models of collective action.
advances.in/psychology/1...
Led by the brill Neil Lavie-Driver @advances.in
Each year, people speak 338 less words per day (on average). These effects accumulate. In 2019, people were speaking 28% less words each day than in 2005 (!).
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
The President is threatening genocide and possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran.
It’s clear the President has continued to decline and is not fit to lead. The members of his Cabinet must invoke the 25th Amendment immediately.
you have to get him out of office and you have to do it today
even if it gets blocked you force an impeachment vote right now
how else can you live with yourself if he follows through with this and you didn’t do everything you could to stop it
American and Israeli missiles hit Sharif University in Tehran tonight. Often called #Iran’s MIT, the institution has been home to some of the country’s best and brightest minds in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics since 1966. 1/2
Saving SBE starts before the bill is written.
SBE needs a distinct FY27 appropriation. If your sch. is on the list, get a group of colleagues to meet w your House/Sen. offices. Esp. for Republican seats, direct constituent comms matter. Timeline/templates/updates:
www.paigeamormino.com/pages/9337
I am shocked to see this language from the NSF.
“The U.S. National Science Foundation's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request reflects a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment while eliminating woke and weaponized grant programs that previously funded radical DEI projects.”
The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...
A new era of American military might cloaked in religious righteousness is presenting Pope Leo with a challenge: How to confront a vision of God being articulated by the Trump administration that sounds radically different than the view of the Vatican. https://wapo.st/4dXPTIz
Veiled Power: How Rosenwald Teachers Quietly Shaped the Civil Rights Movement Omar Wasow∗ Jacob M. Grumbach∗ April 1, 2026 Abstract What precipitates the collapse of seemingly durable social orders like Jim Crow? During the 1920s, approximately 5,000 “Rosenwald Schools” were built across the rural South through a partnership between philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and Black communities who raised matching funds, donated land, and petitioned local governments. Local elites saw vocational training that would preserve the racial order. We argue Black educators used this accommodationist cover to build veiled capacity: organizational infrastructure for collective action behind a veil of compliance. Counties with more Rosenwald Schools show greater civil rights protest in the 1960s. Mediation analysis reveals that pre-existing social capital predicted protest through Rosenwald teacher placements, not enrollment. Instrumental variable models suggest the effect is not driven by community selection. Moving from no Rosenwald teachers to the 75th percentile predicts 45% more protest. The political effects of education may depend less on what elites intend than on what educators build where elites cannot see.
Excited to share new paper w/ @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social: "Veiled Power: How Rosenwald Teachers Quietly Shaped the Civil Rights Movement"
The puzzle: did ~5,000 segregated schools built in rural South emphasizing “manual labor” strengthen or weaken Jim Crow? 🧵 omarwasow.com/wasow_grumba...
The death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Blind Rohingya refugee who was left on the freezing streets of Buffalo by Border Patrol officers, was ruled a homicide. New from me at @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
IMPACT OF PARENTHOOD ON UNIVERSITY EMPLOYMENT. Line graph shows how the probability of holding a research position changes from four years before to seven years after having children.
Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women’s academic careers than it is to men’s
Read the full story: go.nature.com/4v4rxmQ
Thrilled to share that our new paper is now out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social: "Who knows what? Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information Search," with @oliviermorin.bsky.social , @hugoreasoning.bsky.social & @tadegquillien.bsky.social!
Link: tinyurl.com/ykyhxcc6
“The fact that organized protest can break the spiral of silence, and correct our impressions of what other Americans think, is one of the most immediate and important values of protesting in the first place. Scientists have [shown] protests update our impressions of what other citizens believe.”
No Kings San Diego!
OK, I'm obsessed with this study in @science.org
It took Reddit "Am I The Asshole" posts & asked LLMs if the poster was the asshole. Aaand (surprise) AI was more likely to tell people they were NOT the asshole ... even when humans said yeah YTA 🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Here you go
Question for the Bsky hive mind: what’s the most batshit pop Evolutionary Psychology study you’ve ever come across? Particularly interested in examples in the area of female parental investment, but I’ll take others too …
I would like some of the folks who signed the Harper’s letter or spent years yammering about the threat to free speech posed by Oberlin undergrads protesting eugenicists to bring an ounce of that energy to the state censoring entire disciplines.