JasonConnor

Banner picture is my hometown, Barton MD, pop 457, far western Maryland.

@JamesSurowiecki Because if it came from a lab, obviously that lab would know more about it and the whole field wouldn’t be starting from zero.

How would knowing that Covid came from a lab - assuming for the sake of argument that it did, and that we could know that with certainty - have saved lives? What would have been different about our response?

@jewishgengar @matthewherper @Pharmdca I think anyone who knows the process wants a little cross-pollination. Just like I’d rather have FAA people who are pilots or have built planes and maybe seen Boeing from the inside. We too frequently have individuals who’ve never designed or run a trial evaluating trials.

@matthewherper @Pharmdca Exactly my point the FDA should have 0 people with ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Most people agree with this view

Marty Makary was the worst FDA commissioner in 25 years. Full stop. I have covered the FDA for that long, and I don’t say this lightly. He was, largely, an agent of chaos because he didn't understand the agency he was trying to lead. My story explaining is in the next post.

@matthewherper Given DOGE at the beginning of the administration and general dislike of career federal workers of Trump, do you think any other commissioner starting in early 2025 would have had different results?

Makary, who resigned under pressure from the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, brought to the job a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of the role, of the functions of his agency, and of the needs of the employees who worked for him. He allowed too much of the senior leadership of the agency to leave or be removed, weakened its standards, and ignored staffers who understood both the science and the political art of regulation. Toward the end of his tenure, he seemed isolated and obsessed with notching “wins” that often amounted to very little. statnews.com/2026/05/12/mar…

@olumidetheeel @kathrynw5 You might know them, but do you talk to them deeply, do you KNOW them? That’s the issue. I grew up where only teachers had a BS. Now I live where most have a graduate degree. The bubbles are real.

@kathrynw5 I just don't understand how it's possible to live in a city like DC and not know anyone who doesn't have a bachelor's. Even in DC, 40 percent of people have high school or less; it's not rare.

A reminder of the bubble. I can count on one hand the adults in my social circles who don’t have a college degree.

@yudapearl We remember. And we will never forget.

Speaking for Daniel's family, we are grateful for all people and organizations who are keeping his legacy alive - as a role model to those seeking paths to peace, reason, and the love of humanity.

@charlesornstein Didn’t politicians always oppose journalists doing their good work? And didn’t journalists just do it anyway? That’s the idea of a free press.

The world has come a long way since the days of “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” movies that favorably portrayed journalists knocking on doors and trying to reach sources to tell important stories. Now Trump officials vilify such efforts. propublica.org/article/propub…

@kcwrote @benryanwriter That’s rough. At least I never had that. I did have a friend who dated 4 straight Heathers. There was much debate if it was simply due to the ubiquity of Heathers in 1998 or whether he, in fact, had a Heather-fetish.

@benryanwriter @JasonConnorPhD My school had two Jasons who had the same last name.

Guess what caused the spike in Tristans in 1994.

@benryanwriter @EthelMonticue I’m counting on 2026 to be peak Jason-hood.

@EthelMonticue @JasonConnorPhD 1979

@RxRegA @Mallen1811 Huge fan of fly on the wall. Download some of Your faves who are guests.

@Mallen1811 Yes, thanks!

Sooooo I'll be on the road for 4 hours today, and I'm short on podcasts. Please send any recs. Patreon is good too. DMs open. 🙏🏻

@margerymeanwell @benryanwriter When we were looking at baby names I saw a book called “Beyond Jennifer and Jason”.

@benryanwriter @JasonConnorPhD At one point, I had three different couples in my social circle named David and Jennifer. And I didn't even have that big a friend group!

@benryanwriter We always had at least 2 Jeff’s in every class too.

@JasonConnorPhD So many Jasons, I couldn't handle it. David, Chris and Mike.

@benryanwriter And Ethans and Graysons and Hudsons and Owens And when we went to ToysRUs to buy the big letters to spell out our daughter’s name above her crib … they were out of N’s! No kidding.

@benryanwriter I did read about 17 years ago when we were picking baby names that 35% of white boys in the USA were 2 syllables and ended in N. And sure enough when my daughter got to kindergarten her class was full of Logan’s, Carson’s, Jackson’s, and Mason’s So we Jasons were trendsetters.

Where did all those 80s Jasons come from? Did The Waltons cause them or did they cause Jason on The Waltons? And did Friday the 13th quickly kill them off?

@quirkyllama @gcochran99 @cremieuxrecueil But it’s been replicated in numerous studies now. Ruth Itzhaki at Oxford has been adamant about the viral component of Alzheimer’s for years. Now we have evidence.

@gcochran99 @cremieuxrecueil Do we believe this? It's not impossible- the CNS mechanism is plausible, but my general sense is our priors should be against results like this.

Shingrix, the anti-shingles vaccine, appears to have done more good against Alzheimer's disease by _accident_ than all existing Alzheimer's research.

@G29Nathan @AnilMakam Isn’t that an extra 25-40% of time if it’s a 1-hour class? That’s huge.

@AnilMakam I believe it, however, accommodations aren't what people think. Often it's the same exam in a smaller room with maybe 15-20 mins of extra time.

Wtf

@joftius So Stanford, your alma mater, should admit anyone? Just a random draw of qualified and unqualified students?

This is a non-story, a nothingburger UCSD admitted more students who need remedial math classes. Why is that a bad thing? Shouldn't universities help students learn?

@jayvanbavel Will this lead to less innovation & creation. Many of whom stay may not be grinders, they may just be less open to change & less open to risk taking (new / different opportunities), hence less open to innovation. This seems to be a big problem with academia these days.

I was at an academic conference last month and one of my colleagues said something that has really stuck in my mind. She said the many of top people in psychology were simply those who just continued to grind away while other people dropped out of the field. There is a reason this is always true: some faculty go into administration, fail to get tenure, or simply burn out. This has always been the case. But in the past few years there have been several new sources of attrition that have really put this process on steroids. I've noticed an exodus of academics from the field of psychology and I think this is going to have big ripple effects over the next decade. In addition to the normal sources of attrition, there are a number of new factors that feel different from anything I've seen before: -Baby boomer academics are retiring in significant numbers, leading to a wave of turnover and the loss of senior faculty. Many of these folks put off retirement for many years, but now it's happening. -Many faculty are leaving for non-academic jobs. I know people who have taken jobs with Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook over the past few years--including top faculty with tenure. -Similarly, some faculty have found secondary careers as public intellectuals (e.g., running podcasts, writing books, etc) in ways that simply weren't possible 20 years ago. -Other faculty have had their star diminished by the replication crisis and open science norms, from cases of outright fraud to folks who were p-hacking for quite awhile and are no longer able to get away with it. -Similarly, a lot of men have been forced out of the field for things like sexual harassment. I know quite a few "big deal" academics who were fired, retired early, or largely disappeared from the field after their misbehavior was reported. Many of the so-called "stars" are now gone. I think most of these trends are positive and can see them continuing in the future. And it will open jobs for early career scholars. But I don't think there is a real reckoning with how this will shape the field. There simply won't be as many highly engaged senior faculty to steer committees, edit journals, run academic societies, or mentor the next generation. This will create a lot of opportunities for members of this cohort and younger academics. Getting an academic job may be harder than ever, but moving into traditionally "high prestige" roles in a university or the field might end up being much easier due to a lack of competition. This goes back to the opening quote I shared--just doing good work, being a decent person, and sticking around the field seems like a pretty good strategy for success. I bet there will also be increased competition across universities to hire or retain highly engaged mid-career and senior faculty to keep things running smoothly and replace people who left. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed these trends or has any ideas about how this will impact universities and the field.

@matthewherper Current is not good. But in many ways FDA always felt this unpredictable. You’d design a trial with one set of reviewers, get alignment, and 3 years later submit to a totally different set of reviewers who didn’t like what their FDA peers said 3 years ago.

Experts worry FDA’s credibility is being shredded by scandal and ‘soap opera’ In recent months, the agency has been beset by dismissals, policy reversals, and controversies statnews.com/2025/11/04/fda…

@Hippolitesgun @cremieuxrecueil Bob O’Neill, former lead statistician at CDER*, used to say this all the time: that a star sig dose response was evidence of efficacy. (Idk if it’s stat sig here) * I realize this is CBER so not surprised Prasad wants concurrent controls.

@cremieuxrecueil Glad to see you post about this. An additional note here: the low dose arm of the trial showed zero effect, it can effectively serve as a “sham” placebo, internal control. I agree that the external is good enough, but the dose dependence gives even stronger evidence.

This is infuriating. The first treatment for Huntington's is now being delayed because the FDA doesn't like the totally fine trial design that they approved. So it looks like they'll demand a longer trial, meaning more people in the interim dying of Huntington's for NO REASON.