Mike Fowler

Welcome new followers (thanks to the ecology starter-pack!). I'll take this opportunity to publicise the Response Diversity Network: we seek to understand why species respond in diverse ways to environmental drivers, & the consequences. Join us! responsediversitynetwork.github.io/RDN-website/

What's striking to me are the rules of engagement and the methodology of action here, which more or less is predicated on burying liberal delusions about "debate" or the "marketplace of ideas". The rules were ultimately very simple: amplify your own message and suppress your opponent's.

Your monthly reminder that if you're using ChatGPT to do your science, you're failing your colleagues, community, and all of us. Here, ChatGPT makes up data and presents it as the real thing — then apologizes when confronted.

Ruin a song by adding “In My Pants” to the title. Antmusic In My Pants Adam and the Ants (Ho vaig sentir en Sants)

I feel seen

A wonderfully clear way to wrap up an excellent thread discussing the analogy between asbestos and genAI. Well worth reading the rest of it.

A thread of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that look like record covers... because that's EXACTLY what the world needs 1. Huey Lewis and the News: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

The Senior Leadership Team are excited to announce a new role, with an associated -(minus) 0.5 FTE, of "Associate Deputy Pro VC of Just Making Things Unmanageably Worse". Please send applications, including 12 page CV (A5 format) and a relevant Track Record statement, by yesterday lunchtime (GMT).

Meanwhile, academics across the world are thinking "This VC/President could have been replaced by a chatbot."

The Data Management Better Science Guide has been updated! 🚨 A big thank you to Natalie Cooper and Robert Barber for editing the guide, and everyone who contributed to the writing! (1/3)

Come and join us (briefly) at Swansea Biosciences! We're an incredibly collegiate department, working hard to provide an excellent student experience. Teaching Fellow in Plant Ecology (fixed term - 11 months) www.swansea.ac.uk/jobs-at-swan...

Didn't bother to read the article, and if it isn't "UKHE Senior Managers're Wankdongles" neither should you.

Whoop! The @responsedivnet.bsky.social is now on Bluesky! Given them a follow to find out about all the cool things going on in the Response Diversity Network! 🧪🌍

Deadline tomorrow! Don't be shy!

1/ People keep saying AI is inevitable. History disagrees. Plenty of technologies were called unstoppable, and societies stopped them or shrank them down to a niche. A thread 🧵

Very excited to announce applications now open for @redileep.bsky.social PhD position with me, Dan Eastwood & Dan Jones. "Response Diversity in the pre- and post-management ecological restoration of co-invading alien plant species in post-industrial landscapes" 🧪🌍 www.swansea.ac.uk/jobs-at-swan...

⚠️Please share!⚠️ We are recruiting participants to complete a written interview for a PhD chapter on linguistic experiences of ecologists from Catalonia. Participants do not need to currently reside in Catalonia and can participate in Catalan, Spanish, and/or English. Thank you! 🪶🕷️🌲🐡🍄 #ecology

this tweet is NINE years old and is still the best trans rights policy advice out there

It's easy to argue that humanity is worse off with the extra garbage (gen)AI is producing.

 There! Fixed it for you, you credulous lickspittles.

Fucking wild that Portsmouth is the UK's largest (militaristic, surface) naval town and they can't support the RNLI. The Royal Navy can't stop the far right attacking the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Just wait until the Royal King finds out about this. He'll piss his bloody royal knickers.

The RNLI has said the abuse of volunteers in Portsmouth has forced it to close the lifeboat station there and stop operating since September 10. Nearby stations have been providing cover to the area instead. One of the UK's largest coastal cities without a lifeboat because of the far-right.

What are your favorite recent examples of randomized control trials done in the environmental policy arena (or adjacent to environmental policy)? Realizing the examples I'm using in my course are all now 7-10 years old, and I bet there's some really cool new examples...

#JoinAUnion

Authors!🚨 While you scramble for scarce $ 🤔 “Springer Nature reports revenue growth of 6.2%..and adjusted operating profit growth of 7.7%. They reported even more stunning submission growth of 30% and published article growth of 13%.” Publishing in society journals helps YOU not them👇🏻. Pass it on.

Good news! The wait is finally over!

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

Regular reminder that HR is there to protect your boss from legal worries. Not you or your colleagues.

“I Don’t Want to Interact With Stochastic Parrots” https://ploum.net/2026-09-09-ai_policy.html > My AI policy is "I don’t want any kind of interaction with that thing." And this should be all you need to know. This.

We're hiring Code Integrity and Accessibility editors at MEE! Ideal for people experienced in testing and validating code, and confidence working with at least one language - open to all career stages. Deadline 25th September ⏰️ Read the role description and apply👇 buff.ly/UaSg5au

It turns out That email you sent me over the summer Was not that important to me After all. #AutoReplyLie

I'm not a gamer, but this is so easy to recognise as classic, S-tier #enshittification ! Time for me to dust of my speccy cassettes and the 7" vinyls I used to listen to while playing them. You'll never get my 7 inches, Microsoft!

"Professional liar who has spent the last 30+ years complaining about the UK and its role in the EU, and now does nothing but complain about the things he's lavishly paid to complain about, once again shows appalling lack of self-awareness."

To avoid overgeneralising, is it the Autobots or Decepticons that seem to struggle more?

I'm sympathetic to this, insofar as authors may cite such papers instead of robust evidence. But... 1. Co-authors/reviewers/editors should push back against such poor scholarship 2. I've seen this argument put forward against theory, simulations, syntheses, meta-analysis... Good science takes time

Let’s try again: I’d like to hear about new research from Scottish historians. Especially ECRs whose work may not get much attention. This is because I have a newspaper column where I publicise new work by Scottish historians! Tell me about your research!

Given up on my last search engine alternative (it was driving me quackers) after moving away from google. Looking at Startpage. Appears to just build on google and strip out all the crap. That already feels a bit questionable. Any thing else I should be aware of? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage

Come and work with us (the Kokkonuts) as a postdoc! Our research within (theory-evo-eco) is broad; let's say it's implicitly defined by the journal club papers we read. Which is why the application process includes a JC-related task, I hope it'll be a fun one for you! www.evoldir.net/brian/evoldi...

A politician who was appointed to their position directly, thanks to nepotism. Those radical rightists sure do love a meritocracy. They've also changed their name/identity TWICE – once for purely personal reasons, the other for political. They also love a big dollop of hypocrisy.

This is one of the big successes of the last few years for me. Working with a wonderful, global group of researchers on a topic that fascinates me! Now's the chance for you (or your students) to get involved. It's MSCA, so there must be mobility. Will be a fantastic opportunity for those who can!

Are you passionate about code integrity and accessibility? Do you have skills in R, Python or Julia? Why not apply to be one of our new Code Integrity and Accessibility AEs? Open to any career stage. Details here: apply.workable.com/britishecolo... (sadly not paid, but comes with nice perks)