Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof X.com I'm struck by the contrast between the passion for democracy shown by Iranians willing to die for it and the complacency with which many Americans have accepted an authoritarian slide. Americans should cheer for Iran's democrats--and also learn from their determination.

I see this take around from time to time and totally disagree. ICE just murdered a woman standing up to them. No Kings is among the largest protests in history.

The complacency is coming from elites in media, business, universities, and the Democratic leadership

There’s a Silicon Valley billionaire freak out happening about a potential wealth tax ballot initiative in California.

I hope everybody understands—the only way to make billionaires pay a similar *income* tax rate as their secretaries is via taxing unrealized cap gains or wealth

A legend indeed

screenshot of a text box with the header: "SOLUTIONS, DISTILLED: El Salvador's actions show Human Rights law matters" and bullet point below that read " • Pressure governments to sanction or isolate El Salvador, the US, or both • Call for investigations by multilateral human rights bodies, building a body of evidence that might later help move the levers of international justice. • Demand signatories refer El Salvador to the International Criminal Court • American opposition leaders can and should credibly signal that there will be accountability and consequences for the Trump administration's human rights abuses • Democratic presidential contenders should promise to join the ICC it they come to power

moving past this moment in US politics is going to require credible promises to prosecute the authors of all this human disaster. peoples interested in countering US authoritarianism can draw on international tools in this process, including joining the ICC internationalpolicy.org/publications...

I don't care what Bari Weiss was thinking. But as someone who moved from Russia to America for freedom, I didn't have "passing around a pulled 60 Minutes segment like Soviet-era samizdat" in 2025 on my bingo card.

Anyway: watch what our government is doing, and share it widely.

How Did DOGE Disrupt So Much While Saving So Little?

On DOGE’s watch, federal spending did not go down at all. It went up. But is still led to cuts that closed offices, canceled programs and deprived people of food, medicine and other aid.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...

Bad things happen when you hire opinion hacks to run media outlets

Bad things happen when you hire non-academics to run universities

Bad things happen when you hire businessmen to run the government

Etc. Etc.

Experience & expertise matter. And actual relevant expertise.

suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research:

they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.

Not that it will but the willingness of Americans to obey is a very funny contrast with our self-image and should probably prompt some reflection bsky.app/profile/jonf...

No one who has ever witnessed a single faculty meeting could ever again claim that college professors are part of some sort of coordinated conspiracy to accomplish anything, let alone turn the entire US into a Marxist utopia/dystopia with an assist from their great pals in corporate boardrooms.

Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.

"Efficiencies are easy to promise, but difficult to realize in the stubbornly human-centered endeavor of education. And that is because education is, by necessity, inefficient." Preach! www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...

Another way to restart the world’s idea machine is to restore funding and grants to universities, researchers, and artists.

Yup.

I am indebted to colleagues & friends, esp @stephrschwartz.bsky.social, @alichtenheld.bsky.social & the staff @aissr.bsky.social
@uva-fmg.bsky.social

For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year Almost a quarter of a million more children around the world are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024.

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year.

Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

This is always the plan with authoritarians wielding militaristic power. They create their own enemies to justify their power grabs.

Netanyahu loved October 7th for this exact reason. His failures led to it, and instead of being held accountable, he got more power than ever.

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

the research is clear: get yourself exposed to female peers

nber semigated version: www.nber.org/papers/w34269

It was an honor to discuss my book at the @thecrs.bsky.social's annual conference, and I am grateful for "Guilt by Location" receiving this year's CRS book award. If you missed the keynote, don't worry, you can still order the book today!
cup.org/4gOE8Cy
www.amzn.com/1009523473

I would especially recommend the political science article referenced in the piece. Accommodation by mainstream parties of far right immigration policies does not win votes by taking the issue off the table, it loses votes for the mainstream parties
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Can't wait to read!

Civilizing Contention by Rana B. Khoury | Paperback | Cornell University Press In Civilizing Contention, Rana B. Khoury asserts that to understand civilian and refugee activism in war, we must regard the international actors and organizations that enter the scene to help. When.....

The proofs are in. It has a website. It has blurbs from amazing scholars. So I guess my book is real, and @cornellupress.bsky.social must agree!

Civilizing Contention: International Aid in Syria's War is coming out later this year 🤓

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens.

Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important".

Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary.

substack.com/redirect/169...

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts? (Gift Article) The few hundred programs that survived DOGE’s purge reveal the future of foreign aid.

What remains of USAID? Practically nothing ("a shell") and millions will die because of Trump and Musk

Great job everyone