Is There A WAR On Science? Lawrence Krauss

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In a sweeping conversation sparked by his new book The War on Science, Lawrence Krauss charts how well-intentioned campus DEI bureaucracies, politicized funding mandates, and “language-as-violence” taboos are eroding the core scientific virtues of open inquiry and empirical scepticism, while drawing historical parallels from Lysenkoism to today’s hiring rubrics and challenging listeners to defend freedom of thought with the same passion they reserve for social justice. He then pivots from diagnosis to remedy, outlining a five-point rescue plan—slashing ideological litmus tests, restoring merit-based evaluation, insulating grant agencies from mission creep, teaching students to steel-man opposing views, and benchmarking success against China’s unencumbered research surge—arguing that only by re-centering evidence over ideology can science remain humanity’s most reliable truth-seeking enterprise.

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Key Takeaways:

00:00 Intro

01:04 The most dangerous idea threatening science today

02:35 The role of universities and academic freedom

10:26 Tenure and indirect costs in academia

14:58 Sanctions against free speech

17:39 The problem with tuition

18:42 Decolonializing STEM

23:57 What Trump is doing to address these issues

28:03 Free market education?

36:46 Judging a book by its cover

38:44 The distortion of science during COVID

44:12 Inequality in science

48:43 If Lawrence were president of the US

52:33 Audience questions

55:28 Outro

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Additional resources:

📚 The War On Science by Lawrence Krauss: https://a.co/d/6ntEbll

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