David Colquhoun on Bluesky

Biophysicist and statistician. Likes stochastic processes, dislikes pseudo-science.
My toots are searchable

#biophysics #physiology #statistics #pharmacology

Blog: https://www.dcscience.net/
Work blog: http://www.onemol.org.uk/
Biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Colquhoun
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JXQ2kXoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Last Notes

2026-02-13 17:00:59 UTC

I asked Gemini 3 "Draw a diagram showing tiller, rudder post and rudder (based on typical 30 ft sloop)"
It produced this grotesquely bad diagram!!
How can it be so stupid?
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/116/064/389/559/162/222/original/0602efe35b3fa79d.png

2025-09-12 20:22:36 UTC

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Hegseth looks exactly like my image of a typical gauleiter. Smooth and cruel.

2025-09-04 17:15:29 UTC

I see the fascists are going crazy because seven AfD candidates died in run up to local elections in Germany. They are too stupid to notice that eight candidates from other parties also died. AfD candidates were mostly old and male. Nothing to see here.
https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/todesfaelle-kommunalwahl-nrw-100.html

2025-07-31 22:23:20 UTC

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Not so. It's important to try age verification even if it's imperfect. Otherwise you are just favouring pornographers having unlimited access to children.

2025-07-08 20:17:50 UTC

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That surely treats politics as a game of one-upmanship . You could equally describe it as democracy in action, the leader listening to the elected representatives of the people.

2025-07-07 10:33:10 UTC

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I don't think that they've made major missteps. The media insist on describing them that way, so helping Farage. The main lesson is to keep pushing for PR

2025-07-06 16:09:22 UTC

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I think that that's a rather wild exaggeration, and so quite dangerous.

2025-07-03 22:10:59 UTC

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Yet more reason to think that Corbyn doesn't give a damn about the prospect of Farage as PM. The triumph of ideology over sense.

2025-07-01 20:44:16 UTC

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On the contrary, it's the rebels who risk Farage. Corbyn had his chance, but he showed that he was unelectable. Politics is the art of the possible.

2025-07-01 11:50:00 UTC

"Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations" The book," Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced", costs $169.
Yet more reason to be skeptical about #AI salespeople.
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/springer-nature-book-on-machine-learning-is-full-of-made-up-citations/

2025-05-04 12:41:03 UTC

"Sabine Hossenfelder Asks If Science Is Dying. It’s Not."
I too loved many of Hossenfelder's earlier videos. Now she's turned into an anti-science crank. That is very sad.
Nice account of her downfall by @jonathanjarry.bsky.social
Read it at
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-general-science/sabine-hossenfelder-asks-if-science-dying-its-not

2025-02-06 16:17:56 UTC

Excellent editorial in the #BMJ
"We will not retract published articles on request by an author on the basis that they contain so-called banned words"
Trump must never be allowed to censor science.
https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r253

2024-09-30 22:03:16 UTC

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It's astonishing that, in the 21st century, so many American's still believe in god. And the fact that they think Trump is chosen by god is downright terrifying. Half of the country seems to have become insane.

2024-08-25 19:41:23 UTC

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He was visited by snake-oil salesmen, and was stupid enough to believe them.

2024-08-25 10:04:32 UTC

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I presume that, like me, you have USS pension as well as state pension. In which case you don't need any extra money to stay warm.

2024-08-24 14:08:19 UTC

The attempts to expel #ElonMusk from the #RoyalSociety have gone public. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/23/royal-society-facing-calls-to-expel-elon-musk-amid-concerns-about-conduct
Expulsion on grounds of political views is a slippery slope. But I signed the letter -here's why
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/113/017/383/148/729/214/original/1fbf07d494c5a436.jpeg