The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel – July 30Elizabeth Weiss – July 31Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1Frances Widdowson – August 2Carole Hooven – August 3Janice Fiamengo – August 4Geoff Horsman – August 5Alessandro Strumia – August 6Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7Peter Boghossian – August 8Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11Karleen Gribble – August 12Dorian Abbot – August 13The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel July 29thElizabeth Weiss July 30thSolveig Gold and Joshua Katz July 31stFrances Widdowson August 1stCarole Hooven August 2ndJanice Fiamengo August 3rdGeoff Horsman August 4thAlessandro Strumia August 5thRoger Cohen and Amy Wax August 6thPeter Boghossian August 7thLauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau August 8thAlex Byrne and Moti Gorin August 9thJudith Suissa and Alice Sullivan August 10thKarleen Gribble August 11thDorian Abbot August 12thThe topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel July 29thElizabeth Weiss July 30thSolveig Gold and Joshua Katz July 31stFrances Widdowson August 1stCarole Hooven August 2ndJanice Fiamengo August 3rdGeoff Horsman August 4thAlessandro Strumia August 5thRoger Cohen and Amy Wax August 6thPeter Boghossian August 7thLauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau August 8thAlex Byrne and Moti Gorin August 9thJudith Suissa and Alice Sullivan August 10thKarleen Gribble August 11thDorian Abbot August 12thThe topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel July 29thElizabeth Weiss July 30thSolveig Gold and Joshua Katz July 31stFrances Widdowson August 1stCarole Hooven August 2ndJanice Fiamengo August 3rdGeoff Horsman August 4thAlessandro Strumia August 5thRoger Cohen and Amy Wax August 6thPeter Boghossian August 7thLauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau August 8thAlex Byrne and Moti Gorin August 9thJudith Suissa and Alice Sullivan August 10thKarleen Gribble August 11thDorian Abbot August 12thThe topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Nicholas Christakis, a Yale professor and social scientist, engages in a riveting discussion about the ideological corruption affecting science and academia. He highlights the struggle for academic freedom, especially regarding gender-affirming care, and stresses the importance of preserving independent thought in educational institutions. The conversation dives into the dangers of censorship and the need for transparent practices in universities. Christakis advocates for open dialogue to maintain the integrity of scientific inquiry amidst growing anti-science sentiments.

Niall Ferguson, a renowned historian and author, delves into the ideological corruption plaguing modern academia. He shares insights from his transition from a scientific upbringing to a passion for economic history. Ferguson critiques the impact of cancel culture on academic freedom and discusses troubling parallels between historical German academia and today's universities. He emphasizes the importance of genuine discourse and warns against politicized scholarship, advocating for the preservation of critical thinking in educational institutions.

Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and vocal critic of creationism, discusses the ideological corruption of science. He highlights how prioritizing ideology over empirical evidence can lead to disastrous outcomes, drawing parallels to historical figures like Lysenko. Dawkins emphasizes the need for objective scientific methodologies and critiques the evolving definitions of sex and gender in medicine, questioning the implications for patient care. He calls for rational discourse in academia to uphold the integrity of science amidst contemporary challenges.

I’m excited to announce the fifth episode of our new series, What’s New in Science, co-hosted by Sabine Hossenfelder. Once again, Sabine and I each brought a few recent science stories to the table, and we took turns introducing them before diving into thoughtful discussions. It’s a format that continues to spark engaging exchanges, and based on the feedback we’ve received, it’s resonating well with listeners.In this month’s episode Sabine first explored the possibility that huge terrestrial accessible reservoirs of hydrogen may exist that could provide the basis for a viable hydrogen fuel economy. Then we turned to the results from the wonderful new Vera C. Rubin Telescope in Chile, and what that telescope could do for our evolving picture of the cosmos. After that Sabine introduced a discussion of a scientific paper I wrote with colleagues on implications of mathematical incompleteness theorems for the possible existence of a physical Theory of Everything. Then on to the newly released results from a muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab, which after almost 2 decades of efforts, seems to have demonstrated that predictions from the the Standard Model of Particle Physics, alas, continue to agree with experiments, showing no signs of new physics. After that, we explored a new claim by DeepMind about the abilities of AI systems to design and test new coding algorithms, which might be used to train future systems. Besides the science-fiction sounding nature of this, it could also help reduce the amount of energy needed to build and train LLMs. Finally, returning to my own interest in new results related to the cosmic origin of life, we discussed anew result showing why polycyclic hydrocarbons, which one might expect would be destroyed by radiation in space, seem to survive. This could be important for understanding how organic seeds for life managed to survive long enough to arrive on the early Earth. As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

One of the great pleasures of hosting the Origins Podcast is talking with fascinating thinkers who challenge my perspectives and with whom I can have frank, if provocative, discussions. My recent conversation with Robert George and Cornel West was particularly enjoyable. These two distinguished intellectuals embody the spirit of respectful and meaningful dialogue that the Origins Project Foundation aims to foster. Robert George is a renowned conservative legal scholar and Catholic professor at Princeton University, while Cornel West is a leading progressive philosopher and Protestant scholar at Union Theological Seminary, and an academic celebrity. Together, they've authored a timely new book, Truth Matters, exploring how fruitful dialogue can bridge ideological divides even during polarized times.In our conversation, we tackled subjects including philosophy, theology, politics, and the crucial role respectful disagreement plays in uncovering deeper truths. Joining the discussion as a scientist, atheist, and someone raised in a Jewish tradition, I brought a viewpoint to our exchange that differed from those of both Robert and Cornell, who in spite of their political differences are both Christians, and scholars in the humanities . It was especially rewarding to find common ground with Robert and Cornel despite our differing starting points. All told, I found it one of the most fascinating discussions to date, and the first with more than one person. It worked. :)This kind of rich and thoughtful engagement is precisely what inspired me to start the Origins Podcast. Robert George and Cornel West remind us that disagreements are valuable, as they help us move closer to understanding not only each other, but also ourselves.As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

I’m excited to announce the fourth episode of our new series, What’s New in Science, co-hosted by Sabine Hossenfelder. Once again, Sabine and I each brought a few recent science stories to the table, and we took turns introducing them before diving into thoughtful discussions. It’s a format that continues to spark engaging exchanges, and based on the feedback we’ve received, it’s resonating well with listeners.It was a bit of a slow month for science news, but we did find six stories worth examining, including what sounds like a preposterous claim, turning rain into electricity! It turns out it doesn’t violate any laws of physics, but is not likely to address our energy needs. The Hype of the Month award goes to the claim of biosignatures on planet K2-18, which got worldwide coverage, even though experts were pretty certain it was wrong from the get go, and subsequent analysis finds no such evidence. A claim that gravity is just a computation is examined, and dismissed, while evidence for exotic antimatter nuclei at CERN is sound science, even if it is not earth shattering. It reminds us that exotic physics must be considered in exotic locations like the early big bang, or the cores of neutron stars. Sabine was excited about a new result regarding laser fusion, even if it is more likely to be useful for weapons production than commercial energy production, and this time, I was the one to bring up a new result in Quantum Computing, this time using ‘qu-quints’ to simulate an actual physics system, although a simple one in two dimensions. It was another lively and thoughtful exchange, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe