Tom ChiversVerified account

@TomChivers

"Far too nice to be a journalist": Terry Pratchett. Science editor, UnHerd. DMs open, email chiversthomas(a)gmail. Latest book, How To Read Numbers, out now

Science writer
hyperurl.co/HowToReadNumbe…
Joined January 2009
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  1. Pinned Tweet
    23 Feb 2021

    "Charming, practical and insightful" – “Reading this book is strongly correlated with not looking stupid" – "Vital, clear, elegant" – "Quite good" – How To Read Numbers, by me & , out March 18!

    16 replies 40 retweets 222 likes
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  2. 4 hours ago

    I retweeted the image of this armour the other day ("wounded?!"), so it only seems fair to share this fascinating and sad account of the real event.

    Thanks to social media this is one of the most famous battlefield relics from Napoleonic era. It captures the moment of a man's death. It is not a joke or a Monty Python sketch about a scratch. It might not seem so funny if we knew more about the man and his death. 1/10
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    1 reply 10 retweets 41 likes
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  3. Retweeted
    5 hours ago

    example of the category "things that horrify statisticians but seem arbitrary to everyone else"

    3 replies 92 retweets 462 likes
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  4. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    Imagine if they had parents evening at uni 😭 Mom: how’s my dear son doing ? Lecturer: I’ve never seen this man in my life

    124 replies 4,795 retweets 57,233 likes
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  5. Retweeted
    5 hours ago

    Very good piece

    Me today, on why some people would rather be dead than wrong
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    2 retweets 4 likes
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  6. 5 hours ago

    extremely unfunny tweet but I do wish Americans would use proper descriptions of famous events rather than just the date, so that we don't have to remember which particular disaster happened when. "That time Jamiroquai invaded Congress" would be fine

    7 replies 1 retweet 38 likes
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  7. 5 hours ago

    no, in fact it's still the 5th so it's not even started yet

    3 replies 12 likes
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  8. 6 hours ago

    In which I make a series of objective, falsifiable predictions for 2022, so that you can all laugh at me in 2023 about how wrong I was. I've included links so you can all have a go as well!

    2 replies 7 retweets 13 likes
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  9. Retweeted
    10 hours ago

    I’ve been thinking a lot about that recent Hari piece on attention and tech. There’s been something bugging me about it that I haven’t been able to put my finger on, but I think I’ve got it now. And to be fair, it’s a problem that I see in most trashy pop psych books as well. /1

    16 replies 119 retweets 303 likes
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  10. Retweeted
    12 hours ago

    I’m trying to be more virtuous, so I made some falsifiable predictions for 2022 and created questions for them all so you could have a go too. Let’s reconvene next January and see how we did!

    7 replies 25 retweets 113 likes
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  11. 12 hours ago

    Meta-prediction: I won’t do very well (confidence 75%) Some of the metaculus links are still broken so I’ll chase them up this morning

    1 reply 7 likes
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  12. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    This cracking role closes tomorrow AM Deputy Editor: oversee the day-to-day publication of fact checks, ensuring deadlines and targets are hit and manage our production pipeline. Up to £45k Remote first with a central London office available

    15 retweets 2 likes
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  13. 12 hours ago

    I’m trying to be more virtuous, so I made some falsifiable predictions for 2022 and created questions for them all so you could have a go too. Let’s reconvene next January and see how we did!

    7 replies 25 retweets 113 likes
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  14. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    Many have heard about the fast decline in extreme poverty in China over the last generation. But there are many other less well-known examples of such progress.

    6 replies 110 retweets 335 likes
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  15. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    "wounded"?????????????

    0:18
    Armor of a soldier wounded by a cannonball at the battle of Waterloo in 1815.
    62 replies 124 retweets 1,489 likes
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  16. Retweeted
    Jan 3

    Interest in what's going on with Covid in South Africa has disappeared, but FYI cases are declining in every single province and hospitalisations are now also declining in seven out of nine.

    10 replies 61 retweets 176 likes
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  17. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    Happy ! A great day to check out 's "Science Fictions" - packed with insight on the statistical tricks (and other sharp practice) that undermine the search for scientific truth.

    2 replies 5 retweets 27 likes
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  18. Jan 3

    I see J*hann H*ri is in the news again, with an extract from his new book. This thread about the last time he had a book out is worth reading; I missed it at the time. FWIW, I think JH should not be treated as a trustworthy source, as I wrote back in 2011

    This has come up a few times lately But it suddenly dawned on me that I'm not employed by the Guardian any more, so can be more honest about how this went down It's a very strong example of how 'the media' can look after 'their own' so vigorously, no matter the consequences /1
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    17 replies 93 retweets 323 likes
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  19. Jan 3

    (my own experience is of people saying "why doesn't the media cover IMPORTANT stories like THE FAMINE IN YEMEN" and foreign reporters grumpily saying "we did bloody cover it and none of you read it, you all read the stuff about culture wars and celebrities")

    2 replies 5 retweets 68 likes
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  20. Jan 3

    I think I agree w/ that the media is bad (negative, sensationalist, trivial, bias-confirming) mainly because audiences are bad & want to read negative, sensationalist, trivial, bias-confirming stuff TL;DR: sorry guys but it's all your fault

    8 replies 13 retweets 108 likes
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