Edinburgh · MMXXVI

A reader of structure
and a maker of some.

Metascientist at Heriot-Watt and the LSE. Founder of Science of Science. Photographer and pianist. Four practices, one habit of attention.

I Research II Company III Studio IV Dispatches

I  Research

The hardness of the soft sciences.

I am on a mission to quantify what we politely avoid measuring: bias, misconduct, and the uneven epistemic ground between disciplines.

The work has produced some of the largest empirical surveys of questionable research practices, and a series of papers mapping a hierarchy of the sciences along measurable dimensions of the published literature.

More recently I've been developing K-theory — an approach that treats scientific knowledge as a problem in information compression. The first empirical test was published in 2025 and predicted the reproducibility outcomes of the Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative.

Selected publications

  1. RSOS A metric of knowledge as information compression… MMXXV
  2. Science Inside an Academic Scandal — book review MMXXIV
  3. RSOS A theory of "K" and the structure of science MMXIX
  4. PLOS How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? MMIX

II  Company

Instruments for collective intelligence.

If knowledge is what we converge on together, the methods we use to converge are themselves an instrument worth designing.

comCensus is a platform that helps groups of people surface, debate and reach consensus on complex questions. Open questions can be posed to any respondent, and an AI layer helps participants understand each other across language and cultural barriers. Results are at once public and protected: every voice is recorded, but no individual voice is exposed.

comCensus is being deployed within TRUSTparency, a Horizon Europe consortium developing transparency-and-trust interventions for the research ecosystem. It is the flagship product of my company, Science of Science Ltd, which also takes on occasional consultancy and policy work for funders and research organisations.

Partners — TRUSTparency iRISE BEYOND Brazilian Repro. Initiative

III  Studio

A second pair of eyes, a second pair of hands.

When I'm not measuring science I'm looking at light, or sitting at a piano.

§ I  Music

A working pianist.

Music is, for me, the closest cousin of metascience: a notation, a structure, a body of work transmitted through centuries.

I serve on the Council of the Edinburgh Society of Musicians — one of Scotland's oldest musical institutions, founded in 1884. The Society maintains a Georgian concert room in Edinburgh's New Town, runs a regular programme of recitals and chamber music, and keeps a community of professional and amateur musicians in the practice of live performance.

§ II  Photography

Light, looked at carefully.

I photograph and sometimes draw, because the world rewards careful looking. One image — taken inside SLAC during a 2015 photowalk — was among the winners of Stanford's competition that year. Since I have entered no other photography competition before or since, this gives me a 100% career success rate in the medium.

Whilst I think of an IP-preserving solution for my later work, my older pics still lives on Flickr; a few selections sit to the right.

IV  Dispatches

Recent dispatches.

XIV · IV · MMXXVI

comCensus at the LSE Information & Democracy Forum. A great success presenting comCensus at the LSE Information & Democracy initiative: nearly 50 participants contributed almost 200 posts, working out a consensus position on interventions to tackle misinformation. Organiser Jens Madsen will use the comCensus technology to turn the contributions into a published report.

I · VI · MMXXIV

WCRI keynote, then Kenya. Opening session at WCRI presenting the first pre-registered evidence that K-theory predicts irreproducibility on the BRI data, then onward to SIPS. The TEMET lab is officially up at temet.science.

XIX · V · MMXXIII

comCensus featured in Nature.

XV · V · MMXXIII

Heriot-Watt, comCensus, the Brazilian test. Joined Heriot-Watt as Assistant Professor; began testing the evolution of covidConsensus as comCensus.org; pre-registered the first crucial test of K-theory.

The full register →