Peer Rejected

rejections > soc.TH > REJ:2026.07.31.0001

REJ:2026.07.31.0001soc.TH (Social Thermodynamics)PRJ-2026-0036Vol. 4, No. 7Status: Rejected

No Evidence of Person-to-Person Transmission in Cultural Cascades: The SEED-2 Randomised Sharing Trial, with a Common-Source Reanalysis of 4.1 Billion Adoption Events (1897–2025)

Fenella Aguirre1, Kwabena Otoo2, Ilkka Väisänen3, S. Marilena Prokopiou4, Hanh T. Duong5, Rufus Ekwueme6, The SEED-2 Investigators7

1. Bureau of Adoption Statistics, Trelleck · 2. Department of Field Epidemiology, Rowanwick University · 3. Norrmalm Institute of Public Health · 4. Department of Field Epidemiology, Rowanwick University · 5. Office for Media Measurement, Statistics Directorate · 6. Bureau of Adoption Statistics, Trelleck · 7. Writing committee listed in Appendix A

Submitted and rejected July 31, 2026 · 7 pages · 3 figures · review duration: 22 minutes

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Abstract

Cultural items are said to spread from person to person. The claim rests on curve-fitting. Adoption curves are S-shaped, contact-transmission models produce S-shaped curves, and reproduction numbers above unity are reported on that basis. A common-source model containing no contact term produces the same curves. We therefore randomised the act of telling someone something. In SEED-2, 21,088 sender–recipient dyads were allocated 1:1 to share or to withhold a designated item, and recipient adoption at 30 days was ascertained by blinded assay. Adoption was 11.4% in the share arm and 11.1% in the withhold arm (risk difference 0.30 percentage points, 95% CI to , ). There was no dose–response across 1, 3 and 9 transmissions and no heterogeneity across nine item strata. The implied reproduction number for person-to-person transmission is (95% upper limit ), against (95% CI –) from conventional observational fitting. In a parallel audit, 71.3% of adopters named a person as their source; 96.1% of those named had no contact capable of transmitting the item, and 62.8% adopted it after the respondent did. Registries should not record a named source as a transmission event.

keywords: diffusion surveillance · common-source exposure · randomised sharing trial · reproduction number · source attribution

Cite this rejection

@article{PRJ20260036,
  title   = {No Evidence of Person-to-Person Transmission in Cultural Cascades: The SEED-2 Randomised Sharing Trial, with a Common-Source Reanalysis of 4.1 Billion Adoption Events (1897–2025)},
  author  = {Fenella Aguirre and Kwabena Otoo and Ilkka Väisänen and S. Marilena Prokopiou and Hanh T. Duong and Rufus Ekwueme and The SEED-2 Investigators},
  journal = {Peer Rejected},
  year    = {2026},
  note    = {Rejected manuscript, PRJ-2026-0036},
  url     = {https://peerrejected.com/papers/no-evidence-of-person-to-person-transmission-in-cultural-cascades}
}

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