Rob de Vries

Rob de Vries

@rob-devries.bsky.social

Quantitative Sociologist at the University of Kent. Author: Critical Statistics - Seeing Beyond the Headlines (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/critical-statistics-9781137609793/)

26 followers17 following57 posts

Rob de Vries reposted

Chris Marcum 📖
@csmarcum.bsky.social

One of the fundamental presumptions that needs to be challenged here is that peer review should be a gatekeeping exercise used to exclude science🧪 from the scholarly record. Dissemination and peer review need to be decoupled. Check out a one new model : publish-review-curate.org

publish-review-curate.orgPublish | Review | CurateThis is a joint initiative of COAR and ASAPbio, with funding from Arcadia as part of the COAR Notify Project
Philip N Cohen@philipncohen.com

LLMs, asked to "peer" review 200 papers published this year in top science and medicine journals, either rejected or recommended major revisions 76% of the time. Telling the LLMs the paper was a revision paper made them much more generous. arxiv.org/abs/2610.31414

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Watching 70up and there is a lot of talk (from the participants) about opportunity but in reality only modest, short-range upward mobility (Nick as a possible exception). And - strikingly - *no meaningful downward mobility from elite backgrounds*.

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

All four of the children from wealthy backgrounds end up in very advanted positions: Andrew (Solicitor) Charles (TV producer and commisioning editor) John (QC - there are also several gratuitous shots of his palatial home and grounds) Suzy (bereavement counsellor, married to a solicitor)

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

@benbgeiger.bsky.social and my report for BSA on attitudes to disabiltiy benefits is out today. Basic message: politicians shouldn't assume that there is a strong public appetite for cuts to disability benefits natcen.ac.uk/publications...

natcen.ac.ukBSA 43 | Attitudes to welfare | National Centre for Social ResearchThis chapter analyses public attitudes towards spending on disability benefits and relevant trends in attitudes to welfare spending more broadly.
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

New paper out in RSSM with Mark Hill and @lauraruis.bsky.social showing how the associations embedded in LLMs can give us clues into the structure of occupational prestige perceptions: authors.elsevier.com/a/1ndzS%7EuW...

authors.elsevier.comPlease wait whilst we redirect youAll content on this site: Copyright © 2026 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

This type of social science - big, simple ideas based on 'a certain amount of evidence', and shorn of negative or complicating evidence - is one of the biggest problems in the field

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Replace 'creative spirit' with something academic and this is what you want academics to be doing. But the incentives aren't there. Why spend your time or full integrity on quality, when prestige and progression depend on you moving onto the next paper or grant?

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

it's a shame David Graeber didn't live to see the rise of AI. It would have really helped him test his Bullshit Jobs theory. Basically on the principle that if an AI can do a task without much supervision, then it probably wasn't a task that needed doing...

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

The basic idea being that AI is a bit like factory automation. We'll still have 'artisinal' human produced work (like we still have handmade shoes), but AI will be producing the 'factory' version. The difference is that people need shoes. People don't need AI generated presentations

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Proposal: all arguments about the validity of traditional economic principles (efficient markets, meritocracy) should start with the fact that history's first trillionaire is a racist fuckwit running 4 unprofitable companies

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Exactly this. Jess Phillips describing her mother as an NHS worker when she was a senior executive. People describing Thatcher's dad as a 'grocer' when he owned two shops and was Mayor of Grantham

Will Jennings📉🗳️@drjennings.bsky.social

This isn't helped by those politicians who tell selective stories about their social background to make themselves seem more working class, or more middle class for the super-posh, than they actually are.

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

My 'selective' social background stories: 1. Raised by a single mum who worked as a school dinner lady, lived in a council house, grandad worked in a factory 2. Grandad was a factory manager, lived in a 4 bed detached house with an acre of land, mum was a council administrator

Rob de Vries reposted

Will Jennings📉🗳️
@drjennings.bsky.social

Replying to @drjennings.bsky.social

This isn't helped by those politicians who tell selective stories about their social background to make themselves seem more working class, or more middle class for the super-posh, than they actually are.

Rob de Vries reposted

Michael Hobbes
@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

There's no "study," this is based on a crank manifesto with only four footnotes written by a bunch of health grifters. Why is the Guardian covering this like it has any academic credibility?

The Guardian@theguardian.com

At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, says study

theguardian.comAt least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, says studyUK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic Individuals bear at least 80% of the responsibility for their ill health in old age, according to a report aimed at challenging the belief that physical decline is either inevitable or primarily the responsibility of the state. The report, launched at the Smart Ageing Summit in Oxford last week, argues that individuals have far greater control over their longevity than is commonly understood. The authors call on the government to take legislative action on alcohol comparable to restrictions on smoking. Continue reading...
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

just been listening to this www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... Other problems with it, but one thing: it assumes that reading things gives a more accurate view than watching video. Given how print media sanewashes (esp.) Trump, arguably people watching video of him actually talk have the clearer view

bbc.co.ukBBC Radio 4 - Radical with Amol Rajan, The Reading Recession: Are We Making Ourselves Less Intelligent? (James Marriott)Tracing the historical relationship between reading, intelligence and democracy.
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

LLMs are the product of tech's (and capitalism more generally) exclusive focus on efficiency. If an idea, or a piece of art can be statistically predicted from existing work, then what's the point of using human labour to create it? /1

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

I understand the appeal of this idea! Extraordinary amounts of labour are devoted to just reinventing or rehashing things that already exist. Fighting this temptation requires remembering that efficiency is not the pre-eminent human value. Probably not even top five. /2

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

/3 There are almost always multiple possible, equally correct interpretations - and choosing between them is just as subjective (and usually ideologically informed) as attempting to determine purpose in context.

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

/1 Interesting because there seem to be two separate phenomena here. He references the 'angry vegans' stereotype, which Benoit Monin at Stanford has shown comes from 'moral status threat' (psychological defense against idea that people are lookind down on you).

Brian Hughes@bmhughes.bsky.social

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

/2 The coffee thing clearly not a moral status threat. Is it still a status threat of a kind (as he suggests - being perceived as 'basic')? Or is there actually no threat here and the status assertion ("I am better than people who drink effete coffees") is coming from elsewhere?

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

The "she does not own a car..." part is so telling. They just can't conceive of a politician who isn't already rich. She's not poor, just not one of the wealthy class of people who are allowed to be 'serious' political candidates.

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

You guys realize that taxing people to pay for services isn't socialism, right? This is just how governments work.

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Are they actually using LLMs here (which doesn't seem necessary), or is this going to be a conventional statistical model that they've branded as "AI"? If it's the latter they have radically missed the public mood on having AI shoved down their throats: www.gov.uk/government/n....

gov.ukEducation Secretary sets roadmap to improve attendance levelsEvery school to be set an individual minimum target to improve attendance and set up every child to achieve and thrive.
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Overheard on the train yesterday: a nice example of small ways in which a privileged background can help in getting 'top jobs'. A father and daughter discussing her career choices. She dismisses Oxbridge because their degrees are all BA and she wants to do a more scientific BSc /1

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

A parent who understood elite education would have been able to tell her that the 'BA' things is meaningless to the content, and of the value of 'hyperelite' educational credentials. Of course you can look that up online, but it's not the same as having it 'internalised' /2

Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Would be interesting to see what this looks like with prestige/social status as a dimension. Lots of 'low PMC' (e.g. journalists, creative professionals) are actually the most prestigious jobs in society - and well within most people's conception of the 'PMC'

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Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Business Secretary Peter Kyle: "Too often people go to university to explore research and knowledge...I want people to go to university to start businesses in our country" Welp, goodbye Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, we had an OK run... www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...

lbc.co.ukBritish students lack ‘drive’ of their American peers, says Business Secretary | LBCThe Business Secretary has defended comments he made at a meeting with investors where he said British students lack the ‘drive’ and ‘vigour’ of their American peers.

Rob de Vries reposted

Michael Hobbes
@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

This also just seems like a statistical fluke? 2025 isn't even over yet. It's weird to publish an article about a "trend" that applies to 6 months out of the last three decades.

Jared Holt@jaredlholt.bsky.social

Quoted here sharing my reservations about a study that says right-wing terror attacks are down — the frameworks of terrorism aren’t well suited to size up the threat of political violence and can give people the wrong impression if they don’t understand how they work www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

nbcnews.comRight-wing terror attacks plunged in 2025, while left-wing attacks ticked up: studyFrom 2011 through 2024, an average of 20 right-wing terror incidents took place each year, compared to an average of nearly three left-wing incidents annually.
Rob de Vries
@rob-devries.bsky.social

Relevant to joining social media, it also contains my version of an old Stewart Lee joke: "The internet is a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home. Social media is like you constructed a sluice to let it in"