Dietram A. Scheufele

“We refer to this tendency to deploy cooperative moral principles in the service of self-interest as strategic morality.” Academia in one sentence. 😉

I hope someone fields @gallup.com's old "the death penalty (or) life imprisonment, with absolutely no possibility of parole" question again before too long. Maybe someone has recently? news.gallup.com/poll/1606/de...

"Like #AI itself, then, the biology that AI will enable offers possible worlds that are both wonderful and terrifying."

I have argued for years that wicked scientific breakthroughs like optogenetics need good-faith public debate and engagement. The usual pushback: given how far we are from applications, this would just stoke public fear. Well, here we are … www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic... #scipol #scicomm #nobel

"[W]e call on the behavioral sciences to pause the use of LLMs as subjects [...] The use of synthetic samples misleads researchers, distorts the published record, and will impede the very science that these studies claim to advance." www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... #AI #socialscience #scicomm

"We contend that current AI tools call for attention to a new form of validity that we term synthetic validity." Good to see some philosophy of science beginning to infiltrate the completely non-self-reflective #AI craze in science ... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🔪"The only people who experienced slight increases in negative emotions when exposed to the words were those who scored high on moral elitism and a need for recognition."

#AI is rapidly transforming how we do science. Interesting new analyses by Mihai Codreanu and colleagues ... ai.google/static/docum... #scicomm #scicomm #highered

“[t]he infrastructure for large-scale scholarly record contamination is already in place. Ghost names additionally [...] are indexed without verification by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar." #ai #scholarship #scipol #scicomm www.404media.co/the-ai-ghost...

Today, almost six in 10 voters in Sachsen-Anhalt supported either the far-right AfD or one of the two successor parties to former East Germany's communist ruling party. www.tagesschau.de/inland/innen... #polarization #polcomm #democracy

"Our goal is to strengthen the link between empirical observation and theoretical explanation before the field loses touch with evolving, industry-controlled technological landscapes." New #openaccess piece led by @freiling.bsky.social ... #ai #algorithm #media academic.oup.com/anncom/advan...

“[LLM] use has increased rapidly and is associated with proposals that are less semantically distinctive from recently funded work. At NIH, such proposals are more likely to be funded and to yield more publications.” #AI #scipol #scicomm #trust www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

What can #scicomm and #civicscience capacity building look like in #AI-enabled and online learning communities? Help us develop evidence-based practice at a university that considers pushing boundaries part of their DNA. It’s a tight timeline with some flexibility. apply.interfolio.com/190729

While academics and policy makers still obsess over gain-of-function work, #AI is dialing things to 15 on a ten-point scale … www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/s...

"Dass unser Austausch mit Wissen in Zukunft primär über #KI ablaufen wird, die von wenigen Firmen mit verschiedenen Biases kontrolliert wird, ist etwas, über das wir nicht genug nachdenken." Thanks to @wisskomm.de's Inga Dreyer for asking difficult and important questions ... #AI #scicomm #scipol

all of this

"AI is an accelerant, not the kindling. The kindling is publish or perish." I always learn something from reading Ivan Oransky's work. Borrowing great metaphors to structure my own thinking is an added bonus.

"What we should be communicating ... is the epistemic integrity of the scientific process itself: not the certainty of any given finding, but the reliability of how findings are produced, tested, and revised." Thanks to Rosa García-Verdugo for a great conversation, parts of which are linked below.

“… associations are generally stronger in editorial review than in peer review.” x.com/scienceadvan...

"... fear of betrayal by the attention economy.” In analog terms, the revolution devours its children. share.google/FhauSZuFPqBu...

"@arxiv.bsky.social will spin out from Cornell University, its home for the past 25 years, to become an independent nonprofit organization." blog.arxiv.org/2026/06/30/a...

My latest co-authored article with @dietram.bsky.social, @farooquema.bsky.social, @almacristalhm.bsky.social + lots of folks I couldn't find on this platform explores how institutions and experts can productively respond to the populist challenge. Now live in @nature.com

SCI Lab investigator Dietram Scheufele (@dietram.bsky.social) joins a group of science communication and policy experts in a new Nature comment (@nature.com). A timely piece in advance of this weekend's celebration of democracy ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI is not your friend @meredithmeredith.bsky.social techcrunch.com/2026/06/20/s...

"Responsiveness or scientific openness to dialogue and conversation is conceptually important but ... [a]ctive listening, public engagement and genuine dialogue appear less often in current science communication practice, especially on social media." When #scicomm doesn't walk its own talk ...

"For now, Trump occupies the White House, where he has built a UFC octagon on the lawn to mark the nation’s 250th birthday, while Biden is speaking at a three-star hotel by the airport in an attempt to salvage his reputation" archive.is/yfH6y#select...

"Every field we have studied shows some signs of the pathologies sketched above: a deterioration in scholarly standards fueled by the substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria." www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/s... #highered #scipol

Optimistic note for the day: Agentic search will seal off filter bubbles and echo chambers to a point where the corrosive effects on deliberative democracy will be difficult to dial back ... www.axios.com/2026/05/19/g... #ai #polarization #democracy #agenticAI

"[T]he Germany that was the root of his greatness (and that of Goethe) is gone; Germany is dead and perhaps Mann himself, with his American passport, is now a ghost." One of the first movies in decades I wouldn't mind seeing in a theater ... www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

Albert Speer, Germania, and Schwerbelastungskörper. I am so glad, America is bringing back “starved neo-Classicism" ...

“Microsoft just open-sourced its very first operating system.” I am old … www.zdnet.com/article/micr...

"Der Traum meiner Generation ist auf eine fast gruselige Weise in Erfüllung gegangen: weniger silbergraue Köpfe, mehr Gegenwart, mehr politisches Engagement, mehr moralische Energie. Nur leider auch: deutlich weniger Kunstverständnis." trigger-warnung.com/holt-die-alt...

Tell me you're working in academia without telling me you're working in academia. 😜 I am also kind of excited that I just learned the term "malicious envy." www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

"High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u... #highered #scipol #scicomm

Good on @unionberlin.bsky.social! I need to get some swag.

Harassing bots with “funny violence.” Confiding about a broken heart. Chatting with a block of cheese. Filling a void of loneliness. Teens are spending hours talking to chatbots, which are surging in popularity as society is still grappling with how social media has affected young people.

"At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request." www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...

Excited to announce a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on science-society divides. We invite abstract submissions by May 15, 2026. Full call is here:  bit.ly/annals_goodf.... #scicomm #scipol

"#AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support ... I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit how tempting this is." www.science.org/content/arti...

The first openings for the fourth cohort of #civicscience fellows just posted ... #scicomm #scipol #engagement

I'll speak on panel "Science Advice and Populism" at #AAASmtg (on @senseaboutsci.bsky.social approach) that follows panel on "path to trust in science" & feel I'm going to sound very repetitive and might have to say a few times "just like @dietram.bsky.social just said in the previous panel..." 😅

"With ... policy reforms and critical academic debates ... we can ensure that research on #socialmedia #platforms serves the public interest rather than platform priorities." @raffaelheiss.bsky.social and @freiling.bsky.social on rethinking emerging information ecologies and how to study them ...

📢 Call for registrations - Science:TBD 📍 Leipzig | 3–4 March 2026 Join us for an inspiring lineup of keynotes: ⭐Sheena F. Bartscherer ⭐Alice Hughes @achughes.bsky.social ⭐Wolfgang Forstmeier ⭐Ulrich Dirnagl ⭐Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social Register now: www.idiv.de/science-tbd

~80% studies about social media have industry COI by author and/or editor — but *only* 20% studies disclose a COI. FYI @thehonestbroker.bsky.social @revkin.bsky.social @jackstilgoe.bsky.social @davidlazer.bsky.social @wihbey.bsky.social

"Undisclosed ties to industry are common ... among authors, ... reviewers and academic editors ... industry ties are associated with a topical focus away from impacts of platform-scale features." @jbakcoleman.bsky.social et al. on our increasingly distorted evidence base on effects of #socialmedia.

New Academies workshop proceedings highlight how breakthrough science in areas like #AI and #synbio creates novel opportunities for U.S. defense and national security. Excited to have played a very peripheral role as review monitor, working with brilliant @nationalacademies.org nasem staff.