Bishopblog catalogue (updated 12 Mar 2026)

Source: http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2008/11/23/ideas/

Those of you who follow this blog may have noticed a lack of thematic coherence. I write about whatever is exercising my mind at the time, which can range from technical aspects of statistics to the design of bathroom taps. I decided it might be helpful to introduce a bit of order into this chaotic melange, so here is a catalogue of posts by topic.

Language impairment, dyslexia and related disorders

The common childhood disorders that have been left out in the cold (1 Dec 2010) What's in a name? (18 Dec 2010) Neuroprognosis in dyslexia (22 Dec 2010) Where commercial and clinical interests collide: Auditory processing disorder (6 Mar 2011) Auditory processing disorder (30 Mar 2011) Special educational needs: will they be met by the Green paper proposals? (9 Apr 2011) Is poor parenting really to blame for children's school problems? (3 Jun 2011) Early intervention: what's not to like? (1 Sep 2011) Lies, damned lies and spin (15 Oct 2011) A message to the world (31 Oct 2011) Vitamins, genes and language (13 Nov 2011) Neuroscientific interventions for dyslexia: red flags (24 Feb 2012) Phonics screening: sense and sensibility (3 Apr 2012) What Chomsky doesn't get about child language (3 Sept 2012) Data from the phonics screen (1 Oct 2012) Auditory processing disorder: schisms and skirmishes (27 Oct 2012) High-impact journals (Action video games and dyslexia: critique) (10 Mar 2013) Overhyped genetic findings: the case of dyslexia (16 Jun 2013) The arcuate fasciculus and word learning (11 Aug 2013) Changing children's brains (17 Aug 2013) Raising awareness of language learning impairments (26 Sep 2013) Good and bad news on the phonics screen (5 Oct 2013) What is educational neuroscience? (25 Jan 2014) Parent talk and child language (17 Feb 2014) My thoughts on the dyslexia debate (20 Mar 2014) Labels for unexplained language difficulties in children (23 Aug 2014) International reading comparisons: Is England really do so poorly? (14 Sep 2014) Our early assessments of schoolchildren are misleading and damaging (4 May 2015) Opportunity cost: a new red flag for evaluating interventions (30 Aug 2015) The STEP Physical Literacy programme: have we been here before? (2 Jul 2017) Prisons, developmental language disorder, and base rates (3 Nov 2017) Reproducibility and phonics: necessary but not sufficient (27 Nov 2017) Developmental language disorder: the need for a clinically relevant definition (9 Jun 2018) Changing terminology for children's language disorders (23 Feb 2020) Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in relaton to DSM5 (29 Feb 2020) Why I am not engaging with the Reading Wars (30 Jan 2022)

Autism

Autism diagnosis in cultural context (16 May 2011) Are our ‘gold standard’ autism diagnostic instruments fit for purpose? (30 May 2011) How common is autism? (7 Jun 2011) Autism and hypersystematising parents (21 Jun 2011) An open letter to Baroness Susan Greenfield (4 Aug 2011) Susan Greenfield and autistic spectrum disorder: was she misrepresented? (12 Aug 2011) Psychoanalytic treatment for autism: Interviews with French analysts (23 Jan 2012) The ‘autism epidemic’ and diagnostic substitution (4 Jun 2012) How wishful thinking is damaging Peta's cause (9 June 2014) NeuroPointDX's blood test for Autism Spectrum Disorder ( 12 Jan 2019) Biomarkers to screen for autism (again) (6 Dec 2022)

Developmental disorders/paediatrics

The hidden cost of neglected tropical diseases (25 Nov 2010) The National Children's Study: a view from across the pond (25 Jun 2011) The kids are all right in daycare (14 Sep 2011) Moderate drinking in pregnancy: toxic or benign? (21 Nov 2012) Changing the landscape of psychiatric research (11 May 2014) The sinister side of French psychoanalysis revealed (15 Oct 2019) A desire for clickbait can hinder an academic journal's reputation (4 Oct 2022) Polyunsaturated fatty acids and children's cognition: p-hacking and the canonisation of false facts (4 Sep 2023)

Genetics

Where does the myth of a gene for things like intelligence come from? (9 Sep 2010) Genes for optimism, dyslexia and obesity and other mythical beasts (10 Sep 2010) The X and Y of sex differences (11 May 2011) Review of How Genes Influence Behaviour (5 Jun 2011) Getting genetic effect sizes in perspective (20 Apr 2012) Moderate drinking in pregnancy: toxic or benign? (21 Nov 2012) Genes, brains and lateralisation (22 Dec 2012) Genetic variation and neuroimaging (11 Jan 2013) Have we become slower and dumber? (15 May 2013) Overhyped genetic findings: the case of dyslexia (16 Jun 2013) Incomprehensibility of much neurogenetics research ( 1 Oct 2016) A common misunderstanding of natural selection (8 Jan 2017) Sample selection in genetic studies: impact of restricted range (23 Apr 2017) Pre-registration or replication: the need for new standards in neurogenetic studies (1 Oct 2017) Review of 'Innate' by Kevin Mitchell ( 15 Apr 2019) Why eugenics is wrong (18 Feb 2020)

Neuroscience

Neuroprognosis in dyslexia (22 Dec 2010) Brain scans show that… (11 Jun 2011)  Time for neuroimaging (and PNAS) to clean up its act (5 Mar 2012) Neuronal migration in language learning impairments (2 May 2012) Sharing of MRI datasets (6 May 2012) Genetic variation and neuroimaging (1 Jan 2013) The arcuate fasciculus and word learning (11 Aug 2013) Changing children's brains (17 Aug 2013) What is educational neuroscience? ( 25 Jan 2014) Changing the landscape of psychiatric research (11 May 2014) Incomprehensibility of much neurogenetics research ( 1 Oct 2016)

Reproducibility
Accentuate the negative (26 Oct 2011) Novelty, interest and replicability (19 Jan 2012) High-impact journals: where newsworthiness trumps methodology (10 Mar 2013) Who's afraid of open data? (15 Nov 2015) Blogging as post-publication peer review (21 Mar 2013) Research fraud: More scrutiny by administrators is not the answer (17 Jun 2013) Pressures against cumulative research (9 Jan 2014) Why does so much research go unpublished? (12 Jan 2014) Replication and reputation: Whose career matters? (29 Aug 2014) Open code: note just data and publications (6 Dec 2015) Why researchers need to understand poker ( 26 Jan 2016) Reproducibility crisis in psychology ( 5 Mar 2016) Further benefit of registered reports ( 22 Mar 2016) Would paying by results improve reproducibility? ( 7 May 2016) Serendipitous findings in psychology ( 29 May 2016) Thoughts on the Statcheck project ( 3 Sep 2016) When is a replication not a replication? (16 Dec 2016) Reproducible practices are the future for early career researchers (1 May 2017) Which neuroimaging measures are useful for individual differences research? (28 May 2017) Prospecting for kryptonite: the value of null results (17 Jun 2017) Pre-registration or replication: the need for new standards in neurogenetic studies (1 Oct 2017) Citing the research literature: the distorting lens of memory (17 Oct 2017) Reproducibility and phonics: necessary but not sufficient (27 Nov 2017) Improving reproducibility: the future is with the young (9 Feb 2018) Sowing seeds of doubt: how Gilbert et al's critique of the reproducibility project has played out (27 May 2018) Preprint publication as karaoke ( 26 Jun 2018) Standing on the shoulders of giants, or slithering around on jellyfish: Why reviews need to be systematic ( 20 Jul 2018) Matlab vs open source: costs and benefits to scientists and society ( 20 Aug 2018) Responding to the replication crisis: reflections on Metascience 2019 (15 Sep 2019) Manipulated images: hiding in plain sight (13 May 2020) Frogs or termites: gunshot or cumulative science? ( 6 Jun 2020) Open data: We know what's needed - now let's make it happen (27 Mar 2021) A proposal for data-sharing the discourages p-hacking (29 Jun 2022) Can systematic reviews help clean up science (9 Aug 2022)Polyunsaturated fatty acids and children's cognition: p-hacking and the canonisation of false facts (4 Sep 2023) Book Review: Unreliable (Csaba Szabo) (Mar 16, 2025) Gold standard science isn't gold standard if it's applied selectively - firearms (Aug 26, 2025) Gold standard science isn't gold standard if it's applied selectively - autism (Aug 27, 2025) Wellcome LEAP's new $50M program (Oct 20, 2025) The dangers of using bibliometrics with polluted data (Nov 21, 2025)  

Statistics

Book review: biography of Richard Doll (5 Jun 2010) Book review: the Invisible Gorilla (30 Jun 2010) The difference between p < .05 and a screening test (23 Jul 2010) Three ways to improve cognitive test scores without intervention (14 Aug 2010) A short nerdy post about the use of percentiles (13 Apr 2011) The joys of inventing data (5 Oct 2011) Getting genetic effect sizes in perspective (20 Apr 2012) Causal models of developmental disorders: the perils of correlational data (24 Jun 2012) Data from the phonics screen (1 Oct 2012)Moderate drinking in pregnancy: toxic or benign? (1 Nov 2012) Flaky chocolate and the New England Journal of Medicine (13 Nov 2012) Interpreting unexpected significant results (7 June 2013) Data analysis: Ten tips I wish I'd known earlier (18 Apr 2014) Data sharing: exciting but scary (26 May 2014) Percentages, quasi-statistics and bad arguments (21 July 2014) Why I still use Excel ( 1 Sep 2016) Sample selection in genetic studies: impact of restricted range (23 Apr 2017) Prospecting for kryptonite: the value of null results (17 Jun 2017) Prisons, developmental language disorder, and base rates (3 Nov 2017) How Analysis of Variance Works (20 Nov 2017) ANOVA, t-tests and regression: different ways of showing the same thing (24 Nov 2017) Using simulations to understand the importance of sample size (21 Dec 2017) Using simulations to understand p-values (26 Dec 2017) One big study or two small studies? ( 12 Jul 2018) Time to ditch relative risk in media reports (23 Jan 2020)

Journalism/science communication

Orwellian prize for scientific misrepresentation (1 Jun 2010) Journalists and the 'scientific breakthrough' (13 Jun 2010) Orwellian prize for journalistic misrepresentation: an update (29 Jan 2011) Academic publishing: why isn't psychology like physics? (26 Feb 2011) Scientific communication: the Comment option (25 May 2011)  Publishers, psychological tests and greed (30 Dec 2011) Time for academics to withdraw free labour (7 Jan 2012) 2011 Orwellian Prize for Journalistic Misrepresentation (29 Jan 2012) Communicating science in the age of the internet (13 Jul 2012) How to bury your academic writing (26 Aug 2012) Schizophrenia and child abuse in the media (26 May 2013) Why we need pre-registration (6 Jul 2013) On the need for responsible reporting of research (10 Oct 2013) Psychology research: hopeless case or pioneering field? (28 Aug 2015) When scientific communication is a one-way street (13 Dec 2016) Time to ditch relative risk in media reports (23 Jan 2020) Book Review. Fiona Fox: Beyond the Hype (12 Apr 2022)

Academic Publishing

Science journal editors: a taxonomy (28 Sep 2010) Time for neuroimaging (and PNAS) to clean up its act (5 Mar 2012) High-impact journals: where newsworthiness trumps methodology (10 Mar 2013)  A short rant about numbered journal references (5 Apr 2013) Desperate marketing from J. Neuroscience ( 18 Feb 2016) Editorial integrity: publishers on the front line ( 11 Jun 2016) A New Year's letter to academic publishers (4 Jan 2014) Journals without editors: What is going on? (1 Feb 2015) Editors behaving badly? (24 Feb 2015) Will Elsevier say sorry? (21 Mar 2015) How long does a scientific paper need to be? (20 Apr 2015) Will traditional science journals disappear? (17 May 2015) My collapse of confidence in Frontiers journals (7 Jun 2015) Publishing replication failures (11 Jul 2015) Breaking the ice with buxom grapefruits: Pratiques de publication and predatory publishing (25 Jul 2017) Should editors edit reviewers? ( 26 Aug 2018) Corrigendum: a word you may hope never to encounter (3 Aug 2019) Percent by most prolific author score and editorial bias (12 Jul 2020) PEPIOPs – prolific editors who publish in their own publications (16 Aug 2020) Faux peer-reviewed journals: a threat to research integrity (6 Dec 2020) Time for publishers to consider the rights of readers as well as authors (13 Mar 2021) Universities vs Elsevier: who has the upper hand? (14 Nov 2021) We need to talk about editors (6 Sep 2022) So do we need editors? (11 Sep 2022) Reviewer-finding algorithms: the dangers for peer review (30 Sep 2022) A desire for clickbait can hinder an academic journal's reputation (4 Oct 2022) What is going on in Hindawi special issues? (12 Oct 2022) New Year's Eve Quiz: Dodgy journals special (31 Dec 2022) A suggestion for e-Life (20 Mar 2023) Papers affected by misconduct: Erratum, correction or retraction? (11 Apr 2023) Is Hindawi “well-positioned for revitalization?” (23 Jul 2023) The discussion section: Kill it or reform it? (14 Aug 2023) Spitting out the AI Gobbledegook sandwich: a suggestion for publishers (2 Oct 2023) The world of Poor Things at MDPI journals (Feb 9 2024) Some thoughts on eLife's New Model: One year on (Mar 27 2024) Does Elsevier's negligence pose a risk to public health? (Jun 20 2024) Collapse of scientific standards at MDPI journals: a case study (Jul 23 2024) My experience as a reviewer for MDPI (Aug 8 2024) Optimizing research integrity investigations: the need for evidence (Aug 22 2024) Now you see it, now you don't: the strange world of disappearing Special Issues at MDPI (Sep 4 2024) Prodding the behemoth with a stick (Sep 14 2024) Using PubPeer to screen editors (Sep 24 2024) An open letter regarding Scientific Reports (Oct 16 2024) What's going on at the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research? (Oct 21, 2024) Finland vs Germany: the case of MDPI (Dec 23, 2024) Tomatoes roaming the fields: another embarrassing paper for MDPI (Jan 18, 2025) IEEE has a pseudoscience problem (Feb 22, 2025) Trouble at t'(review) mill: How MDPI lets down authors (July 21 ,2025) New publishing models will only work if authors embrace them (July 31, 2025) Problems with eLife's new article type: Replication studies (Oct 27, 2025) The inner workings of a paper mill (Nov 8, 2025) An open letter to the BMJ editorial board (Jan 5, 2026) An analysis of PubPeer comments on highly-cited retracted articles (Feb 2, 2026) Stealth corrections are still a threat to academic integrity (Feb 20, 2026) 

Social Media

A gentle introduction to Twitter for the apprehensive academic (14 Jun 2011) Your Twitter Profile: The Importance of Not Being Earnest (19 Nov 2011) Will I still be tweeting in 2013? (2 Jan 2012) Blogging in the service of science (10 Mar 2012) Blogging as post-publication peer review (21 Mar 2013) The impact of blogging on reputation ( 27 Dec 2013) WeSpeechies: A meeting point on Twitter (12 Apr 2014) Email overload ( 12 Apr 2016) How to survive on Twitter - a simple rule to reduce stress (13 May 2018)

Academic life

An exciting day in the life of a scientist (24 Jun 2010) How our current reward structures have distorted and damaged science (6 Aug 2010) The challenge for science: speech by Colin Blakemore (14 Oct 2010) When ethics regulations have unethical consequences (14 Dec 2010) A day working from home (23 Dec 2010) Should we ration research grant applications? (8 Jan 2011) The one hour lecture (11 Mar 2011) The expansion of research regulators (20 Mar 2011) Should we ever fight lies with lies? (19 Jun 2011) How to survive in psychological research (13 Jul 2011) So you want to be a research assistant? (25 Aug 2011) NHS research ethics procedures: a modern-day Circumlocution Office (18 Dec 2011) The REF: a monster that sucks time and money from academic institutions (20 Mar 2012) The ultimate email auto-response (12 Apr 2012) Well, this should be easy…. (21 May 2012) Journal impact factors and REF2014 (19 Jan 2013)  An alternative to REF2014 (26 Jan 2013) Postgraduate education: time for a rethink (9 Feb 2013)  Ten things that can sink a grant proposal (19 Mar 2013)Blogging as post-publication peer review (21 Mar 2013) The academic backlog (9 May 2013)  Discussion meeting vs conference: in praise of slower science (21 Jun 2013) Why we need pre-registration (6 Jul 2013) Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate (12 Sep 2013) High time to revise the PhD thesis format (9 Oct 2013) The Matthew effect and REF2014 (15 Oct 2013) The University as big business: the case of King's College London (18 June 2014) Should vice-chancellors earn more than the prime minister? (12 July 2014)  Some thoughts on use of metrics in university research assessment (12 Oct 2014) Tuition fees must be high on the agenda before the next election (22 Oct 2014) Blaming universities for our nation's woes (24 Oct 2014) Staff satisfaction is as important as student satisfaction (13 Nov 2014) Metricophobia among academics (28 Nov 2014) Why evaluating scientists by grant income is stupid (8 Dec 2014) Dividing up the pie in relation to REF2014 (18 Dec 2014)  Shaky foundations of the TEF (7 Dec 2015) A lamentable performance by Jo Johnson (12 Dec 2015) More misrepresentation in the Green Paper (17 Dec 2015) The Green Paper’s level playing field risks becoming a morass (24 Dec 2015) NSS and teaching excellence: wrong measure, wrongly analysed (4 Jan 2016) Lack of clarity of purpose in REF and TEF ( 2 Mar 2016) Who wants the TEF? ( 24 May 2016) Cost benefit analysis of the TEF ( 17 Jul 2016)  Alternative providers and alternative medicine ( 6 Aug 2016) We know what's best for you: politicians vs. experts (17 Feb 2017) Advice for early career researchers re job applications: Work 'in preparation' (5 Mar 2017) Should research funding be allocated at random? (7 Apr 2018) Power, responsibility and role models in academia (3 May 2018) My response to the EPA's 'Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science' (9 May 2018) More haste less speed in calls for grant proposals ( 11 Aug 2018) Has the Society for Neuroscience lost its way? ( 24 Oct 2018) The Paper-in-a-Day Approach ( 9 Feb 2019) Benchmarking in the TEF: Something doesn't add up ( 3 Mar 2019) The Do It Yourself conference ( 26 May 2019) A call for funders to ban institutions that use grant capture targets (20 Jul 2019) Research funders need to embrace slow science (1 Jan 2020) Should I stay or should I go: When debate with opponents should be avoided (12 Jan 2020) Stemming the flood of illegal external examiners (9 Feb 2020) What can scientists do in an emergency shutdown? (11 Mar 2020) Stepping back a level: Stress management for academics in the pandemic (2 May 2020)
TEF in the time of pandemic (27 Jul 2020) University staff cuts under the cover of a pandemic: the cases of Liverpool and Leicester (3 Mar 2021) Some quick thoughts on academic boycotts of Russia (6 Mar 2022) When there are no consequences for misconduct (16 Dec 2022) Open letter to CNRS (30 Mar 2023) When privacy rules protect fraudsters (Oct 12, 2023) Defence against the dark arts: a proposal for a new MSc course (Nov 19, 2023) An (intellectually?) enriching opportunity for affiliation (Feb 2 2024) Just make it stop! When will we say that further research isn't needed? (Mar 24 2024) Are commitments to open data policies worth the paper they are written on? (May 26 2024) Whistleblowing, research misconduct, and mental health (Jul 1 2024) I don't care about journal impact factors but I do care about visibility (Oct 27, 2024) Why I have resigned from the Royal Society (Nov 25, 2024) Seven reasons for keeping Elon Musk as a Fellow of the Royal Society (Feb 12, 2025) The dangers of using bibliometrics with polluted data (Nov 21, 2025)

Celebrity scientists/quackery

Three ways to improve cognitive test scores without intervention (14 Aug 2010) What does it take to become a Fellow of the RSM? (24 Jul 2011) An open letter to Baroness Susan Greenfield (4 Aug 2011) Susan Greenfield and autistic spectrum disorder: was she misrepresented? (12 Aug 2011) How to become a celebrity scientific expert (12 Sep 2011) The kids are all right in daycare (14 Sep 2011)  The weird world of US ethics regulation (25 Nov 2011) Pioneering treatment or quackery? How to decide (4 Dec 2011) Psychoanalytic treatment for autism: Interviews with French analysts (23 Jan 2012) Neuroscientific interventions for dyslexia: red flags (24 Feb 2012) Why most scientists don't take Susan Greenfield seriously (26 Sept 2014) NeuroPointDX's blood test for Autism Spectrum Disorder ( 12 Jan 2019) Low-level lasers. Part 1. Shining a light on an unconventional treatment for autism (Nov 25, 2023) Low-level lasers. Part 2. Erchonia and the universal panacea (Dec 5, 2023)

Women

Academic mobbing in cyberspace (30 May 2010) What works for women: some useful links (12 Jan 2011) The burqua ban: what's a liberal response (21 Apr 2011) C'mon sisters! Speak out! (28 Mar 2012) Psychology: where are all the men? (5 Nov 2012) Should Rennard be reinstated? (1 June 2014) How the media spun the Tim Hunt story (24 Jun 2015)

Politics and Religion

Lies, damned lies and spin (15 Oct 2011) A letter to Nick Clegg from an ex liberal democrat (11 Mar 2012) BBC's 'extensive coverage' of the NHS bill (9 Apr 2012) Schoolgirls' health put at risk by Catholic view on vaccination (30 Jun 2012) A letter to Boris Johnson (30 Nov 2013) How the government spins a crisis (floods) (1 Jan 2014) The alt-right guide to fielding conference questions (18 Feb 2017) We know what's best for you: politicians vs. experts (17 Feb 2017) Barely a good word for Donald Trump in Houses of Parliament (23 Feb 2017) Do you really want another referendum? Be careful what you wish for (12 Jan 2018) My response to the EPA's 'Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science' (9 May 2018) What is driving Theresa May? ( 27 Mar 2019) A day out at 10 Downing St (10 Aug 2019) Voting in the EU referendum: Ignorance, deceit and folly ( 8 Sep 2019) Harry Potter and the Beast of Brexit (20 Oct 2019) Attempting to communicate with the BBC (8 May 2020) Boris bingo: strategies for (not) answering questions (29 May 2020) Linking responsibility for climate refugees to emissions (23 Nov 2021) Response to Philip Ball's critique of scientific advisors (16 Jan 2022) Boris Johnson leads the world ....in the number of false facts he can squeeze into a session of PMQs (20 Jan 2022) Some quick thoughts on academic boycotts of Russia (6 Mar 2022) Contagion of the political system (3 Apr 2022)When there are no consequences for misconduct (16 Dec 2022)

Humour and miscellaneous Orwellian prize for scientific misrepresentation (1 Jun 2010) An exciting day in the life of a scientist (24 Jun 2010) Science journal editors: a taxonomy (28 Sep 2010) Parasites, pangolins and peer review (26 Nov 2010) A day working from home (23 Dec 2010) The one hour lecture (11 Mar 2011) The expansion of research regulators (20 Mar 2011) Scientific communication: the Comment option (25 May 2011) How to survive in psychological research (13 Jul 2011) Your Twitter Profile: The Importance of Not Being Earnest (19 Nov 2011) 2011 Orwellian Prize for Journalistic Misrepresentation (29 Jan 2012) The ultimate email auto-response (12 Apr 2012) Well, this should be easy…. (21 May 2012) The bewildering bathroom challenge (19 Jul 2012) Are Starbucks hiding their profits on the planet Vulcan? (15 Nov 2012) Forget the Tower of Hanoi (11 Apr 2013) How do you communicate with a communications company? ( 30 Mar 2014) Noah: A film review from 32,000 ft (28 July 2014) The rationalist spa (11 Sep 2015) Talking about tax: weasel words ( 19 Apr 2016) Controversial statues: remove or revise? (22 Dec 2016) The alt-right guide to fielding conference questions (18 Feb 2017) My most popular posts of 2016 (2 Jan 2017) An index of neighbourhood advantage from English postcode data ( 15 Sep 2018) Working memories: A brief review of Alan Baddeley's memoir ( 13 Oct 2018) New Year's Eve Quiz: Dodgy journals special (31 Dec 2022) Retrospective look at blog highlights of 2024 (Jan 1, 2025)

Gold standard science isn't gold standard if it's applied selectively. Part 1: Firearms injuries

In May, the White House produced a report called "Restoring Gold Standard Science", which was followed by an NIH plan to implement this policy. The initial report pointed to the well-attested problems with reproducibility in science, and to high-profile cases of research fraud, and recommended nine requirements for Gold Standard science. It must be: 

(i) reproducible;

(ii) transparent; 
(iii) communicative of error and uncertainty; 
(iv) collaborative and interdisciplinary; 
(v) skeptical of its findings and assumptions; 
(vi) structured for falsifiability of hypotheses; 
(vii) subject to unbiased peer review; 
(viii) accepting of negative results as positive outcomes; and 
(ix) without conflicts of interest. 

This is a clever move by the Trump administration because it's hard to make a coherent case against such a policy without appearing to question whether science should be done to high standards. Nevertheless, many scientists are concerned. The main issue is the mismatch between what the government is doing, in terms of defunding science, stopping grants, firing competent people and appointing incompetent cronies in their place, and the lofty ambitions stated in the plan (see, e.g., this blogpost). This leads to suspicion of the motives of those behind Gold Standard Science, which is seen as attempt to weaponise science policy in order to attack science that it doesn't like. 

This is credible given recent history. Take the requirement for transparency. Back in 2016, Stephan Lewandowsky and I wrote an opinion piece for Nature entitled Don't Let Transparency Damage Science, noting that politicians who didn't like climate science or tobacco research were tying researchers up in red tape with spurious demands for data. In 2018, I blogged about a proposal for Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that stated that policy should only be based on research that has openly available public data. This would allow government to dismiss regulations concerning substances such as asbestos or pesticides, where data was gathered long before open data was a thing. Similarly, if we were to argue that a result must be shown to be reproducible before it can influence policy, then politicians can justify ignoring inconvenient findings from studies that are not easy to reproduce, such as those involving long time-scales or complex methods. 

Doing science well is much harder than doing it badly; it takes time and expertise to pre-register a study, to work out the best protocol, to design an analysis to reduce bias, and to make data and scripts open and useable. I'm strongly in favour of all of those things, but, like many others, I am suspicious that demands for adherence to the highest standards may be used selectively to impede or even terminate research that the administration doesn't like. 

I was accordingly interested to see how Gold Standard Science was referenced in plans for government-funded research in this mammoth report from the US Senate Committee on Appropriations, which was posted on July 31st 2025, a couple of months after the Gold Standard Science document was written. Pages 105-172 cover the National Institutes for Health, and discuss funding for numerous health conditions. I could find just one paragraph where the importance of open data or pre-registration was mentioned, and it was this one: 

Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention.—The Committee provides $12,500,000 to conduct research on firearm injury and mortality prevention. Given violence and suicide have a number of causes, the Committee recommends NIH take a comprehensive approach to studying these underlying causes and evidence-based methods of prevention of injury, including crime prevention. All grantees under this section will be required to fulfill requirements around open data, open code, pre-registration of research projects, and open access to research articles consistent with the National Science Foundation’s open science principles. The Director is to report to the Committees within 30 days of enactment of this act on implementation schedules and procedures for grant awards, which strive to ensure that such awards support ideologically and politically unbiased research projects. 

I found this odd. Surely, if the Bhattacharya plan is to be believed, the statements about compliance with open science principles should apply to all the research done by NIH? Yet a search of the document finds that only this paragraph (repeated in two sections) makes any mention of such practice, and this happens to concern a topic, firearms injuries, that is a contentious political issue. 

So I'm all in favour of Gold Standard Science as described in the Bhattacharya plan, but let's see these principles be applied even-handedly and not just to research that might give uncomfortable results.

Seven reasons for keeping Elon Musk as a Fellow of the Royal Society

 

Last November, I wrote a blogpost explaining why I had resigned as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In brief, over the summer a group of 74 FRSs asked the RS Council to consider revoking Musk's FRS on the grounds that he had attempted to interfere with British politics by spreading disinformation with the aim of stirring up unrest. The Council took advice, considered carefully and concluded that nothing should be done. I discussed this decision with senior figures in the RS and presented them with additional evidence of Musk's unsuitability for the honour of FRS. I was told that they could take another look, but they had to abide by the procedures laid out in the Statutes, and this could take some time. Last week I heard that the Council had met again to discuss this issue and come to the same conclusion: nothing should be done.  

It's hard to evaluate their reasoning, as no details have been given. Colleagues of mine who remain as FRSs occasionally report snippets of information they have heard from members of Council, but these have been inconsistent and unreliable. But meanwhile, I've had many members of the public contact me about this issue. The majority are strongly supportive of my position; even those who were on the fence leapt off it after the infamous "Roman" salute. Musk's involvement in the dissolution of US academic institutions, achieved by suppressing some of their activities and starving them of funds, has further solidified opinion against him. But few FRSs have spoken out. Such information that I've gleaned has come from informal contacts, where I've heard seven different arguments against the expulsion of Elon Musk.  Given that I've previously laid out a set of reasons in favour of Musk's expulsion,  in the interests of balance,  I present here the counter arguments.  

1. Musk should not have his FRS withdrawn because he does important and innovative scientific research, and is a role model for scientists worldwide. 

In fact, I include this one for completeness, but I've not encountered a single person who has made this case.  It seems generally accepted that he is the antithesis of the scholarly ideal set out by Jacob Bronowski (2008: Science and Human Values) - if you turn all the negative statements to positives, and positives to negatives, this is a fair description of Musk: 

... they do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are particularly the virtues of science.  

Instead, I've seen a weary procession of arguments that all begin with someone saying "Of course, Musk is terrible but we shouldn't expel him because...."  

2. The Royal Society can't be political.  

This argument has some merit. On the one hand, the Royal Society is a registered charity, and on the other hand it offers science policy advice to government. As this blogpost from the Charity Commission makes clear: 

 Charities are required to be independent and cannot have political purposes, and this is important for public trust in charities. As such, charities must never stray into party politics – they must never promote, or be seen to promote, a political party or candidate. As trustees and charity leaders you must protect your charity’s reputation and not allow your organisation to be used as a vehicle for the expression of the party-political views of any individual trustee, employee, political party, or candidate.

There are two reasons why I think the expulsion of Musk is entirely compatible with the Charity Commission rules.  

First, there are plenty of reasons to object to Musk's FRS that have nothing to do with politics. He has repeatedly used his social media platform to attack Anthony Fauci, a respected scientist and Foreign Member of the Royal Society. This is not usual academic discourse: it is calling for Fauci to be prosecuted, and blaming him for medical crimes. Fauci needs personal security protection because there is credible threat to his life, stirred up by various factions who disapproved of his role in the Covid-19 pandemic - including Musk, who loathed having restrictions on movement imposed and is now arguing that Fauci's research somehow caused the pandemic. It is easy to find examples of Musk's attacks on Fauci by Googling for "Musk Fauci" - e.g. this piece in the New York Post. 

Other reasons are provided in my blogpost: lack of appropriate regulatory approval for Neuralink, and spreading of disinformation about climate science and vaccinations. 

Second, the fact that Musk also does overtly political things shouldn't make people timid about disapproving of his other actions. And most of Musk's political activities are part and parcel of his disinformation campaigns, and can be objected to on the grounds that they are dishonest. 

In sum, if the Royal Society were to campaign against the Reform Party, that would be improper. But to dissociate themselves from the spreading of disinformation seems to me to be a valid and desirable activity, compatible with their charitable status, and their stated aims: 

The Society ... is a registered charity, undertaking a range of activities that provide public benefit either directly or indirectly. As a national academy, it represents the UK and collaborates with international partners to advocate for science and its benefits.  

3. The Royal Society has other odious people as Fellows. 

I was amused to see this argument trotted out in a couple of pieces in the media - first in the Spectator by Toby Young (someone whose own ennoblement has raised eyebrows), and then by Jawad Iqbal in the Times. Both pieces noted that James Watson remained an FRS despite his abhorrent views on eugenics. Iqbal also noted that Prince Andrew had been made a Royal Fellow in 2013. This was perhaps an unwise example to use, given that Prince Andrew's name quietly disappeared from the list of Fellows in 2022, after he was encouraged to resign from a number of honours.

I haven't heard this case made by many FRSs, and maybe that's because they can see what a grubby argument it is. But there is more appetite for a related point:  

4. Expelling Musk could set a dangerous precedent.

As it happens, some people who contacted me after my resignation have taken the opportunity to tell me about other dodgy FRSs - not because they adopt argument 3, but on the contrary, because they think that if the Royal Society were to start taking its Code of Conduct seriously, there are others who should also be looked at. One can see that this line of argument might generate a degree of nervousness among Council members.  

5. Musk's supporters might say bad things about the Royal Society if he were expelled.  

There's three versions of this: (a) they'd say the RS was political (see point 2); (b) they'd say the RS was 'woke', and (c) they'd say RS was 'elitist'.  

These arguments remind me all too sadly of the decline in the state of debate in British politics. It seems to be accepted as a defensible line of argument these days to warn against doing something that you know to be right because someone else might, either mischievously or sincerely, misattribute your motives for doing so. The solution is to state clearly what your reasons are, and not get derailed by name-calling. If the Royal Society is really worried about reputational damage, then they should realise that being designated as 'woke' or 'elitist' by your opponents is far less of an insult than being described as cowardly by your friends.  

6. There could be bad consequences for science and scientists if Musk were expelled. 

This argument sounds suspiciously like a case for appeasement of a bully. History has taught us that appeasement does not end well. Indeed, even in the past weeks, we've seen various academic organisations and institutions scrabbling to obey directives from the Trump regime to remove all mention of diversity, equality and inclusion from their documents and websites: it has not saved them from the depredations of DOGE. Philip Ball has written in Chemistry World about the tendency for institutions to show "anticipatory obedience" and the importance of resistance.  

A more specific version of this argument maintains that it could make matters worse for Anthony Fauci if the Royal Society were to expel Musk, particularly if his attacks on Fauci were cited as a reason. Sadly enough, it seems to me we have here what scientists call a floor effect - i.e. the situation for Fauci is so bad - with serious threats on his life and his personal security protection now removed - that it's not clear it could get any worse. Showing him some solidarity may not achieve much, but it would confirm that the Royal Society is prepared to stand up to bullies and support those who do deserve the accolade of being honoured.  

7. There could be bad consequences for the Royal Society if Musk were expelled.  

The main bad consequence that goes beyond name-calling (see 5) would be if Musk decided to mount a legal challenge to his expulsion. No doubt the legal counsel that the Royal Society has employed will have judged how likely this is to happen, and how likely it could be successful if it did happen. Nobody wants to get embroiled in legal battles, which can be expensive and arduous. My personal view is that the Royal Society would have a stronger defence against legal action if it polled the whole Fellowship and the result turned out in favour of expelling Musk. I suggested that the Fellowship should be consulted last Summer but was told that was not in line with the Statutes. (I should add that I'm not confident that the Fellowship would vote to expel Musk - many of them seem swayed by arguments 2-6, but with every day that passes, his malign influence on science and society increases, and so I think it's possible he might be voted out).  

Personally, I think the Royal Society should take the risk of a legal challenge. They are a wealthy organisation, and they represent the voice of scientists in the UK. Our fellow scientists in the USA are now under a level of pressure that even the most pessimistic of us had not anticipated. It is hard for individual scientists to resist. But the Royal Society has the clout and the resource to weather the storm. If they would take a stand, this would show solidarity with our friends across the pond, by confirming that the Brits aren't going to honour someone who is playing a major role in dismantling scientific research in the USA.

Should Rennard be reinstated?

©CartoonStock.com

Things could not be much worse for Liberal Democrat party. After catastrophic results at both council and European elections a couple of weeks ago, there have been questions raised about Nick Clegg's leadership, and resignation of senior LibDem Matthew Oakeshott. Now it's being suggested that Chris Rennard, former Chief Executive who was suspended from the party in January after allegations of sexual harassment were made against him, should be reinstated.

A few days ago, Rennard issued an apology to the women who had complained about him, something he'd been asked to do before his suspension. His supporters, who include powerful people such as Alex Carlile and David Steel, argue that the party needs him: he has undoubted skills that have come from experience of managing the party over many years. In particular, Carlile is quoted as saying that Rennard had now done ‘everything asked of him’, and:

Lord Rennard has been harassed by this inquiry for a year and a half nearly…He [Rennard] may have misjudged situations and been less aware of the personal space of his interlocutors and has misjudged the effect of what he perceived as friendliness would have on them. That’s exactly what he apologised for

I was particularly intrigued by comments from Shirley Williams, who said on Radio 4 that the case had been 'blown up'. She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "He was a very decent and loyal member of the party as the chief executive, he did huge amounts for the party," adding: "If I may say so, there are some comparisons which suggest there are real, serious sexual harassments and so forth, and I don't think he's one of the most serious cases."

Meanwhile, Rennard is threatening legal action against the Lib Dems if he is expelled from the party.

So it seems that the case in favour of Rennard's reinstatement is that:

• He is a superb politician of value to his party
• He didn't do anything wrong - or at least not intentionally
• Insofar as other people think he did something wrong, he's said he's sorry that they are upset
• He could cause a lot of trouble for the party if they don't let him back in
• He has suffered enough

I'm amazed that powerful supporters of Rennard seem to think that this makes a credible case for Rennard's reinstatement.

Of course politicians aren't perfect. They are human beings like the rest of us, doing a difficult job. I don't like deceit but I reckon, for instance, that infidelity is so common a human failing that it would be ridiculous to sack a politician over an affair. Furthermore, I don't assume that a man who makes sexual advances to a woman is a sexist beast: if no man ever did that, then the human race would die out. And let's not pretend that such advances are always shunned by women.

But context is everything. Flirting was invented as a means of establishing whether your advances are indeed welcome. If a man isn't receiving clear signals of interest from a woman he should keep well away. To impose yourself on another person who is giving you no encouragement whatsoever is a violation of personal space. It's hard to believe that Rennard can't read the signals - rather, it seems he chose to ignore them.

I disagree with Shirley Williams that this is not serious. I'm sure Shirley will have had her fair share of hands on knees or pats on the bottom over the years, and either ignored them or given a withering put-down. Some of the women who complained about Rennard have been interviewed on TV and, as you would expect for women who have made a mark in politics, they are articulate and gutsy and look well able to stand up for themselves. Nevertheless, it's clear that they were upset and disturbed by Rennard's behaviour - my impression was that it was partly because it was so surprising - a sudden grope out of left field, so to speak, without any warning.

Then there's the question of power. This piece by Polly Toynbee argues it better than I could, emphasising that  more powerful you get, the less likely you are to be challenged in anything you do.  Since complaints about Rennard date back at least to 2007, it's clear that this is a pattern. I find myself wondering whether the incidents that we're aware of are just the tip of the iceberg, and whether other women were also affected but too afraid to speak out.

Perhaps the strongest argument against Rennard, though, is not his wandering hands, but the way he responded as events unfolded. First with denial ("I didn't do anything wrong"), then with threats ("I'll take you to court") and finally with a plea for our sympathy ("the events of the last fourteen months have been a most unhappy experience for him, his family and friends"). The apology was supposed to "draw a line" under this issue, but it does just the opposite. If there's one thing his apology makes clear, it's that he just doesn't get it - and nor, it seems, do his supporters. His words (with my emphasis) speak for themselves:

He does recognise as suggested in the full report, that he may well have encroached upon “personal space”. In relation to this, Alistair Webster suggested in his report that Lord Rennard “may well wish to consider an apology”. He would therefore like to apologise sincerely for any such intrusion and assure them that this would have been inadvertent. He hereby expresses his regret for any harm or embarrassment caused to them or anything which made them feel uncomfortable.

Here's what a proper apology might have looked like:

I accept that I encroached upon personal space of the women, and in so doing caused them harm and embarrassment. I sincerely regret doing so and undertake not to make unwanted physical advances to women in future.

Alas, we're not going to see that, because Rennard doesn't think it's true. And as long as that remains the case, then he, and his supporters, are a massive liability to the party.