leftist publishers when you ask them about open access

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.

Also, thank god for some of the sane comments from the peer-reviewers (from this Nature paper).

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.

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.

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.

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?

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! 🙏

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/...

WIE DE FUCK IS ER HIER NOU DE CULTUUR VAN DE DOOD?

This is so, so well-articulated.

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."

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

A flyer for the 'Mapping Peatscapes' workshop, taking place at the Lapworth Museum of Geology, University of Birmingham, March 30–31st 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...

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

Jürgen Habermas ist heute im Alter von 96 Jahren in Starnberg verstorben.

Think it’s time for billionaires to learn that their wealth being taxed is in fact the most moderate solution to society’s billionaire problem.

Voor in de categorie everybody wins (behalve een paar multimiljonairs):

It kinda comes down to this:

I am only ever going to "trust ai" if it learns how to die.

German sociologists of science (glaser/laudel) also integrate ANT into their sociology much easier than the haraway/mol stuff as it is much more similar to empiricist qual sociology

it really decimated european sociology of science

me and the girls finding out that everything is political

'we worden niet; we woorden.' Nice

Ha i was thinking of matter 'out there' but yes also the matter of scientific practice!

I'm finally starting to understand that when you say that science is political, the Q how matter figures in the doing or science becomes super important. Because without matter you evidently end with unproductive relativism

True!

Thanks! I found Bob Young's 1977 'Science is Social Relations' in Radical Science Journal as a really good example of quite extreme relativism in the sense of 'all science=ideology'. Turns out there are quite a few different 'relativisms' in the 1970s. Compared to those ANT is really modest.

helder dank!

waarom is het in friesland zoveel goedkoper? Is dat een vertekening door de data?

I will let you know where this lecture takes me! (probably to spending days and days on stuff I don't get paid for :))

that is quite hardcore cultural relativism indeed! It's a weird kind of sociological relativism. I suspect that there are a few relativisms in that I would probably have to tease out. Thanks, very informative!