Richard Van Noorden

@richvn.bsky.social

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Features editor, Nature. E: r⟦dot⟧vannoorden⟦at⟧nature⟦dot⟧com or richardvannoorden⟦at⟧protonmail⟦dot⟧com. Signal: richvn.01 .

Chart showing steep rise of cases in DRC Ebola outbreak in 2026, compared to shallower rise of cases in past outbreaks, such as West Africa 2014-16.
Chart showing results of Nature survey. A minority of researchers say they have used generative AI to edit, translate, or write their papers. Edit paper: 18% said 'yes, I've done this without disclosing AI use' 10% said 'yes, I've done this and I disclosed AI use' 43% said: 'no, I've not done this but would be willing to' 29% said 'no, I've not done this and wouldn't consider it'.
Quote from Jonathan Haidt's book, 'The Righteous Mind': "We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board)."
Vertical beeswarm plot showing how slowly physiological indicators of body health return to baseline after birth.
Flow diagram showing how a chemical plant breaks down 'unrecyclable' plastics into useful chemicals, using superheated water.
A graphic comparing dimensions of a silhouetted child, an artist's impression of extinct ground sloths and armadillos (up to 3 metres long and 1 metre high), and the outline of some mysterious caves, found in South America.
Screenshot of disclosure from research paper says: I used GPT-4o for proofreading the manuscript, following the prompts described at https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2168535. Specifically, in writing this manuscript, Gengyan Tang used the ChatGPT-4o on the 10th of October 2024, the 13th of November, and the 23rd of December at 7:32 AM, 11:40 AM, and 2:05 PM UTC-7. The following prompt was used to write the introduction section: “Check the spelling and grammar in this paragraph”.
Quote says: “if a science magazine's purpose is to present good analysis of science, endorsing a candidate who believes in science over a candidate who regularly suppresses, downplays, or lies about scientific research, and actively spreads conspiracy theories, seems like a crucial part of that magazine's mission.”