Here’s a 36-minute interview of Lawrence Krauss by journalist and Quillette editor Jonathan Kay, concentrating on Krauss’s new anthology The War on Science, This book has become somewhat controversial for liberals simply because it blames the Left for some ideological erosion of science at a time when, “progressives” argue, everyone should be going after Trump’s damage to science, not the Left’s.
I consider that criticism misguided. No political side should be free from criticism because it’s your side. As Krauss says in the video, the book’s chapters represent people from all sorts of disciplines and from all segments of the political spectrum. Nevertheless, it’s still touted by progressives as a “right-wing attack on science”. (Full disclosure: Luana and I have a reworked version of this paper as one chapter in the anthology.)
Here are the YouTube notes:
Astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss joins Quillette’s Jonathan Kay to discuss his explosive new book, The War on Science, featuring essays from 39 leading scholars—including Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Sally Satel. In this in-depth conversation, Krauss explains how progressive ideology, DEI mandates, and academic cowardice are threatening the foundations of scientific inquiry in universities across the West. He also addresses the political right’s war on vaccine science and funding cuts under the Trump administration.
Topics discussed:
The ideological capture of science (physics, medicine, anthropology)
DEI in academia and its impact on meritocracy
Free speech and academic freedom in STEM fields
The decline of research funding and long-term risks
Why Krauss believes this is a “two-front war” on science
You can see the book’s table of contents here.
Just two comments. First, I think Krauss mentions my own personal holiday, “Coynezaa” (Dec. 25-30), at 4:30. But he may have been trying to say “Kwanzaa”, which is an ethnic holiday.
Kay is a tough interviewer, and asks Lawrence critical questions like “Why is Jordan Peterson in there?”; “Isn’t there still discrimination against ethnicities, so why are you going after DEAI?”; or Aren’t we past peak wokeness anyway?”
In my view, the chapters are of variable quality (see, for example’s Peterson’s contribution, which is dire), but there are enough good chapters—most of them—to make the book a valuable contribution. Richard Dawkins’s chapter, for example, is alone worth the price of the book. It’s a shame that it came out when Trump is blackmailing universities about science, but of course we had no idea that would happen. Still, I didn’t anticipate the “whataboutery” we’d receive from progressives.
Is the book “explosive”?
I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t take the chance. Don’t put it in your checked luggage.
I saw this a few weeks ago as I like both of those guys very much. I think J Kay was almost… hard on Lawrence.
With the larger issue – The Trump horrors on education are episodic and temporary whereas the leftist woke rot is deeply enmeshed in the whole enterprise. And the entire academy is ALREADY aligned against Trump (thankfully). It seems powerless to resist fashionable nonsense.
Both are problems but the leftist bs is coming from inside the house — for decades.
D.A.
NYC
Krauss and several of the other contributors discussed the book on C-SPAN on Saturday night. It seemed to be an event sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. Carole Hooven’s comments were particularly moving. I was glad to see this on TV but, being on C-SPAN, I was probably only one of about 20 who saw it. 🙂
I almost e-mailed you when I came across this, but I didn’t want to disturb your Saturday night.
I think Krauss et al. are correct that science needs to strive to be objective. Creationism and Lysenko-ism are simple examples where politics, religion, and/or ideology can hamper scientific inquiry and progress.
Feynman said you need to take care not to fool yourself — advice that is harder to follow than it looks.
Another (I don’t know who said it) is that whenever you mix politics with science you get politics.
Well Mark, the TWiV boys and girls have beat that drum for a couple of years now, and I think that they then added that when you mix politics and death you get death.
Yes, the collection of some three dozen essays by a collection of thirty-nine scholars is a bit uneven in places but overall, Professor Krauss has brought together an excellent collection of thoughts from a diverse array of subject matter experts. If you get the hardcopy, you will first need to access the list of notes and references, for which a link is given at the end of the book, make a hardcopy to tuck at the back of the book, and keep a software file to access links in those references.
While almost all the essays were interesting and informative to me, I found those on mathematics by Armstrong and by Klainerman to fully dispel the utter bullshit spewed by the schools of education and their educationalists regarding decolonizing mathematics. They prepare you for potential battle with your local school board. I also recommend Maarten Boudry’s essay as looking at the broader issues of mid-20th century attacks on enlightenment thought, including introducing the reader to Frantz Fanon, Said, and Sartre. Mathematician Abigail Thompson, whose beautiful photos we have enjoyed on WEIT and Anna Krylov with Jay Tanzman as well as, of course Jerry and Luana provide excellent reads. I will stop there because they are all worth at least starting and the nice thing about the compendium format is that you can choose among the independent titles and if you are not enjoying what you picked, just move to another. There are plenty of good ones! Each is self-contained and most give a full set of references to primary source material.
The most obvious, direct, and immediate threats to science seem to be coming from the Right, but this is nothing new. There is a reason why the majority of scientists, even in the hard-nosed physical sciences, tend to lean left. The ability to make scientific breakthroughs and conduct the constant testing and questioning inherent in the scientific method does not fit neatly within the grooves of conservatism. This is also why conservatives tend to be more religious or at least sympathetic to religion.
So focusing on the attacks on science from the left addresses the less direct, longer term, but ultimately more existential threat to science. If radical leftists succeed in replacing classical liberalism with wokism, this will destroy science from the inside out. Science will cease to make breakthroughs, universities will increasingly churn out incompetents and miscreants, and the public will stop funding the damn thing. Conservatives will have nothing to rail against.
It is a cancer that will metastasize and destroy the organism.
And why is it that scientists tend to lean left?
They come out of an academic culture, which leans left. There is that.
On the other hand, maybe half were raised in conservative house-holds, and people tend to take on the politics of their parents. And yet science types apparently flip to the left more often than not.
It is a puzzlement.
Or maybe scientists are simply the smartest people around.
Wait, what?? I have read the book, in kindle format, and if Jordan Peterson is in there, I can’t find him, no matter how hard I look. Did they publish a different edition of the book in Europe? Is that the explanation? I figure I am not missing much, but something about the principle bugs me.
I notice this edition states “First published in Great Britain by Forum, an imprint of Swift Press 2025”. They give ISBN: 9781800756182 and eISBN:9781800756199.
Yes. The European edition is abridged, although I don’t know which chapters were cut.
Why do they do this? For Ceiling Cat’s sake, we are separated by a simple six-hour flight (and maybe by a common language as noted by a pundit years ago). I hope that my U.S. copy of Matthew’s book “Crick” has not been edited beyond its title.
Tracy Jordan: Doctor Spaceman, when they check my DNA, will they tell me what diseases I might get, or help me to remember my ATM PIN code?
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Absolutely. Science is whatever we want it to be.
Quotes from TV show, ’30 Rock’