Mark Brewer
Director of Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) www.bioss.ac.uk - but not the Michigan politician...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerA new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerUK government, I beg you: please please ban me from using Teams
- Reposted by Mark Brewer‘Terrible things are happening outside… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return… to find their families gone.’ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerGood decisions need good analysis! BioSS partnered with the Office for Environmental Protection to independently review how environmental trends are assessed. Read more on our website: www.bioss.ac.uk/case-studies... And the report: www.theoep.org.uk/commissioned...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerSEFARI Gateway would like to extend a huge congratulations to our Knowledge Broker for the Environment, Professor Lorna Dawson has been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours List. 🎉 🔗 SEFARI Gateway Blog - tinyurl.com/LornaDawson
- Reposted by Mark BrewerI wrote this brief talk on why “augmenting diversity” with LLMs is empirically unsubstantiable, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful and a nice surprise to see the organisers have made it public synthetic-data-workshop.github.io/papers/13.pdf
- Reposted by Mark BrewerJust overheard my son, on the computer with his mates, using ‘you absolute AI’ as an insult.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerArtificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’ AI research in question as author claims to have written over 100 papers on AI that one expert calls a ‘disaster’ @aishadown.bsky.social for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerEarlier this week, we came together in Edinburgh for our BioSS Rob Kempton Lecture & Annual General Meeting 2025. These two days were an excellent celebration of the diverse, impactful work BioSS continues to deliver for an ever-increasing range of stakeholders. Read more about it on our website:
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOur colleagues Esther Jones and @kateywhyte.bsky.social contributed to delivering a multi-generational workshop, bringing together young people, educators, academics, and industry leaders. 🌍 Read more about the project here: www.bioss.ac.uk/case-studies... Funded by @sefariscot.bsky.social.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerSay what you want, but these companies’ commitment to releasing half baked, insecure, or just plain dangerous products is something to behold.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOur colleagues @spcatterall.bsky.social & Martin Knight attended the ModStatSAP network UK - France Workshop 2025 in Paris last week and presented work on “Modelling disease spread when the populations at risk are poorly mapped” & “Disease risk-based trading in the Scottish cattle trading system”
- Reposted by Mark BrewerThis year’s SEFARI Science for Life Lecture, hosted by @bioss.bsky.social, was delivered by David G. Farquhar FRGS - a talk that championed throwing out the rule book and finding your niche. As he put it, ‘Science is a chance to be daring.’
- Reposted by Mark BrewerWe tried to tell y'all to stop calling everything "AI" many years ago and you just wouldn't listen and now the poor machine learners must also suffer alongside the statisticians 😜
- Reposted by Mark BrewerCheck out this new publication from our Dave Ewing, on tracking the spread of #AvianInfluenza inside a #seabird colony. 📰 Read the summary: www.bioss.ac.uk/case-studies... 📕 Read the full paper: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @daveewing.bsky.social @animalecology.bsky.social
- Reposted by Mark BrewerKind reminder that the registration deadline for the SEFARI Science for Life Lecture 2025 is today! tinyurl.com/mv3smw57 "Giving life to your science so it impacts the transformation of agriculture, environment and society" by David G Farquhar FRGS 🗓️Friday Oct 24th ⏰12:30 - 3:30pm 📍Edinburgh
- Join us at the SEFARI Science for Life Lecture 2025! Giving life to your science so it impacts the transformation of agriculture, environment and society by David G Farquhar FRGS 🗓️Friday Oct 24th ⏰12:30 - 3:30pm 📍Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue Register by 17th Oct: tinyurl.com/mv3smw57
- Reposted by Mark Brewer🎉 A HUGE congratulations to the winners of the ENRA conference poster session 🥇Oana Petre @rowettinstitute.bsky.social 🥈Amanpreet Kaur @hutton.ac.uk 🥉Gillian Mitchell @moredunfoundation.bsky.social The early career researcher prize went to Grant Henderson @bioss.bsky.social
- Reposted by Mark Brewer📢 Last chance for the 2025 SEFARI Science for Life Lecture organised by @bioss.bsky.social! How can we better deploy science to create impact? - David G Farquhar FRGS 🗓️Friday Oct 24th ⌛12:30 - 3:30pm 📍Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue Register by tomorrow! 17th Oct: tinyurl.com/mv3smw57
- Reposted by Mark Brewer🔗 Read the full piece www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerA nice thread highlighting key findings from our new paper estimating parameters of #HPAI in subsequent outbreaks in common terns. We developed a Bayesian inference approach to infer parameters from just carcass counts. #seabirds #statisticalecology #diseaseecology doi.org/10.1111/1365...
- Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerResearch impact? #highered #university
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOne path to a successful career as a columnist is to be repeatedly wrong. Not to have unique takes on matters of opinion, but confident declarations proven wrong by events. If you can condescend to people proven right no matter how often you are wrong, the most prominent media would like to pay you.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerJoin us at the SEFARI Science for Life Lecture 2025! Giving life to your science so it impacts the transformation of agriculture, environment and society by David G Farquhar FRGS 🗓️Friday Oct 24th ⏰12:30 - 3:30pm 📍Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue Register by 17th Oct: tinyurl.com/mv3smw57
- Reposted by Mark Brewer960+ people. 4 days. 1 unforgettable conference. Thanks to everyone who made #RSS2025 such a standout event! Our president John Aston shares some reflections, including a timely reminder that transparency is key to trust in official stats 👉 rss.org.uk/news-publica...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerWe're heading to the @royalstatsoc.bsky.social International Conference this week in Edinburgh! 📊 Our team are contributing to the exciting programme by leading 11 sessions, giving 11 talks, and presenting 2 posters.🎤🗣️ Hopefully see you there! #RSS2025Conf #RSS2025 #Statistics
- Reposted by Mark BrewerBioSS researcher Dr Ana Couto worked with a team of international scientists who tracked over 100 marine species of large vertebrates to identify the most critical locations for conservation in the global ocean. 🌍🌊 Read more here: www.bioss.ac.uk/case-studies... #conservation #marinebiology
- Reposted by Mark BrewerI really dislike how science has started calling almost any fancy computational technique AI. 🧪 The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs. That is *pure fantasy*. Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerRegistration is now open to attend the one-day workshop on “Statistical Challenges in the Agri-Environment Sector” organised jointly by the BIR (British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society) and NABES (UK Network of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statisticians).
- Reposted by Mark BrewerI'm not saying you can't generate a hypothesis from data. I'm just saying that generating a hypothesis from the entirety of human knowledge that preceded your data is a much safer bet.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOur Iain McKendrick is at the Royal Highland Show 2025 to launch a new public information film. It warns about the risks from bringing animal and plant products into Scotland. 🧀🥩✈️ 🎦Watch here: www.epicscotland.org/resources/an... @epicscotland.bsky.social @planthealthscot.bsky.social @hutton.ac.uk
- Reposted by Mark BrewerThe latest Household Costs Indices (HCIs) are out: www.ons.gov.uk/economy/infl... March HCI inflation: 2.6% (same as CPI) But the detail matters: Non-retired: 2.8% Retired: 2.1% Renters: 3.6% Owners: 1.8% 📑Read more in our policy briefing rss.org.uk/RSS/media/Fi...
- Reposted by Mark Brewer
Ecologists’ endless quest for automatic inference statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/05/28/e... - Reposted by Mark BrewerCongratulations to joint @srucnews.bsky.social / @bioss.bsky.social PhD student Claire Stainfield and senior statistician Dr. Thomas Cornulier who both delivered amazing talks at last week's 2025 Pint of Science UK festival in Aberdeen! #pint25 #scicomm #pintofscience #bioss #sruc
- Reposted by Mark BrewerScotland's National LIDAR scan underway! @RESAS funded
- Reposted by Mark Brewer🚨WEBINAR🚨 The #PrePAREDProject will host a webinar on 21st May from 12-12:30pm. This webinar summarises the findings from Report 006: ‘Similarity assessment of offshore wind farms within UK marine habitats’ and will host a live Q&A. Register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/eae7d8...
- Reposted by Mark Brewer
- New @bioss.bsky.social paper! A farm systems-level math model to predict the efficacy & consequences of sustainable worm control in sheep. Thanks to coauthors from @livuni-ives.bsky.social @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social @moredunfoundation.bsky.social @srucnews.bsky.social. shorturl.at/II3zA
- Reposted by Mark BrewerWelcome to BioSS, Grant, we're delighted to see you here too!
- Hello! Great to meet you 👋 I'm new to Bluesky, but very happy to be here 💙 I'm based at @bioss.bsky.social, working as part of the @epicscotland.bsky.social consortium on Bayesian Inference approaches for stochastic epidemic modelling.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerI've never experienced anything like this in my life, where people keep telling me that "we have to use AI or else we'll be left behind" but they don't actually tell me exactly what problem they are hoping to solve with the "AI" or how we would know it was useful. But we must use it! Apparently.
- Finding a problem for your data is just like finding data for your methodology. All parts of the scientific process - problem formulation, data design and collection, analysis and inference, conclusions and dissemination - should be done by a collaborative team, working together from the outset.
- Of course, "data collection" could include making use of existing data sets, so making sure existing data are made freely available, with appropriate publicity, is part of that.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerYet ANOTHER right-wing populist finds themselves on the wrong side of the law. Contrarian grifters: "The global system is conspiring to prevent these people from taking up their rightful place as the leaders of nations. Everyone else: No, far-right populism just tends to attract criminals.
- News of a meeting free for members of the International Biometric Society: Probabilistic risk analysis and Bayesian decision theory, for an overview of the theory of Bayesian risk-based decision theory with application in epidemiology and environmental sciences (e.g. forestry). (1/2)
- To be held in Lübeck, Germany on 24-26/9/2025 (virtual attendance possible). Further details at www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/arbeitsgrupp... (2/2)
- Reposted by Mark BrewerValència International Bayesian Summer School (VIBASS 8) 7-10 July 2025 vabar.es/events/vibas... Includes a basic course on Bayesian learning (12 hours) and the special topic is on Bayesian modelling with brms.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerAs I said -- only a matter of time before news orgs lashed out at Apple's lackluster (and evidently dangerously wrong) AI summaries of their work. This is shambolic and the BBC has every right to be furious about it.
- Reposted by Mark BrewerAnother exciting trip into London today for the International Biometric Society British and Irish Region AGM which will be the start of my two-year term as President!
- Reposted by Mark BrewerFascinating insights from our @kateywhyte.bsky.social & Esther Jones on their SEFARI nnovative Knowledge Exchange funded project “Careers and skills for a future climate”, joint work with @jameshuttoninst.bsky.social @skillsdevscot.bsky.social #ClimateXChange #BerthaPH #CREW_waters #rowett_abdn
- Reposted by Mark BrewerWe're delighted to welcome everyone to our annual meeting in Edinburgh today. Our Helen Kettle introduced us all to a themed session on "Mathematical Modelling".
- Reposted by Mark BrewerVery grateful that our Head of Consultancy Professor Iain McKendrick was given the chance to tell our #BayesCentre partners more about the work of BioSS yesterday as part of ⚡#BayesLightningTalks⚡
- Join us for an afternoon celebrating Statistical Consultancy - after all, statistical methods are meant to be applied! And application is not always easy... This event is also the AGM of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/statistica...
- Reposted by Mark Brewer🚨#PhD opportunity!🚨 We are looking for a PhD student to work on modelling West Nile Virus in the UK, working with our @daveewing.bsky.social, and supervisors at @ukceh.bsky.social & Lancaster Uni. 📆Deadline: 6th January Info: www.bioss.ac.uk/vacancies/hi... To apply: www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOur own @altealorenzo.bsky.social will be talking about the work of the "Celebrating Diversity" RSS group that she chairs as part of the @royalstatsoc.bsky.social #MembersWeek Showcase: Statistics for the Public Good. 📅Tomorrow 15th November 2024 ⏰1.00- 2.30PM Register: ⬇ rss.org.uk/news-publica...
- Reposted by Mark BrewerOur David Ewing and @altealorenzo.bsky.social have been working hard at the ICMS follow-up #RewildingMaths workshop at the London Mathematical Society. Great discussions and paper writing! ✍️
- Reposted by Mark BrewerThat's a lot of logistic regressions.
