I have also followed this situation with appalled fascination. As children, we are taught simple commands, “Do not lie.” “Do no steal.” “Do not cheat.” But then we grow up and learn about the real world. And it turns out that in order not to lie, sometimes you have to lie. This essential contradiction is something that has always bothered me, and it’s why I find it so thrilling to read biographies and learn how Lincoln deftly played politics to ultimately achieve goals that an outward absolutist like Sumner never could, how Beethoven shamelessly lied to his publishers about works he had already sold to others to gain the material support he needed to create his immortal art. Achieving Veritas in any realm is so tortuously difficult and must involve many compromises. Yet, it remains the only thing worth fighting for. In this particular situation, it seems obvious to me where things stand. It is not tenable for the leader of an institution whose central mission is to teach young people to seek Veritas, to have committed these acts and not show any contrition, nor for the board to defend and minimize these acts. This is putting politics before Veritas, not in service of it. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

I am beyond excited to share a new paper “Rapid, concerted switching of the neural code in inferotemporal cortex,” led by @Yuelin_Shi and Dasheng Bi. We describe a new form of neural computation in which single neurons rapidly change their tuning to temporally multiplex different functions. In < 20 ms, cells switch from a code optimized for face detection to a code optimized for face discrimination. I think this discovery fundamentally changes our current concept of neural representation. (1/N) biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…