The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Nicholas Christakis | The War on Science Interviews | Day 3

Starting point is 00:00:08 Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. As many of you know, my new book, The War on Science, is appearing July 29th of this year in the United States and Canada. And to celebrate that, we've interviewed many of the authors of the 39 authors who have contributed to this volume, and we have 20 separate podcast interviews

Starting point is 00:00:32 that will be airing over the next 20 days, starting July 22nd, before and after the last. the book first appears with many of the authors in the book on a host of different subjects. The authors we will have interviews with in order of appearance over the next 20 days are Richard Dawkins, Neil Ferguson, Nicholas Christakis, Martin Budry, Abigail Thompson, John Armstrong, Sally Sattel, Solveig Gold, and Joshua Katz, Francis Wooderson, Carol Hoven, Janice Fiamengo, Jeff Horsman, Alessandro Strumia, Roger Cohen and Amy Wax, Peter Bogosian, Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau, Alex

Starting point is 00:01:13 Byrne and Modi Gorin, Judith Sisa, and Alice Sullivan, Carleen Grible, and finally Dorian Abbott. The topics that will be discussed will range over the need for free speech and open inquiry and science and the need to preserve scientific integrity stressed by our first podcast interviewer Richard Dawkins. and will once again go over historical examples of how academia has been hijacked by ideology in the past and the negative consequences that have come from that to issues of how specific disciplines, including mathematics, have been distorted,

Starting point is 00:01:56 and how certain departments at universities now specifically claim that they are social activists and a degree in their field is a degree in either critical social justice or social activism, not a degree in a specific area of scholarship, how ideology is permeated universities. We'll proceed also to discuss issues in medicine. Sally Settel will talk about how social justice has hijacked medicine. And also, when it comes to issues of gender affirming care, we have a variety of authors who are going to speak about the issues there and how too often gender affirming care claims are made.

Starting point is 00:02:34 are not based on empirical evidence. In fact, falsely discuss the literature in ways that are harmful to young people. We will talk to several people who, for one reason, another, have been canceled for saying things. Francis Whittleson at Mount Royal University in Canada, and Carol Hoeven from Harvard, who eventually had to leave Harvard after saying on television that sex is binary in biology will be talking to people who've looking at, at the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion in academia, and how it's restricting free inquiry, and also restricting, in many ways, scientific merit at those universities.

Starting point is 00:03:19 And finally, Dorian Abbott, the last contributor to our series, will be talking about three principles he believes are essential to separate science and politics and keep academia free from ideology and more for open questioning and progress and to make sure that science is based on empirical evidence and where we go where the evidence is, whether it's convenient or not, whether it's politically correct or not, and we're willing to debate all ideas that nothing is sacred, a central feature of what science should be about

Starting point is 00:03:54 and what in some sense this podcast is about. So I hope you really enjoy the next 20 days and we've enjoyed bringing it to you So with no further ado, the War on Science, the interviews. Well, Nicholas Christakis, you're no stranger to the origins podcast, and it's great to have you back. In this case, in the context of the book in which you've, actually you're unique. You are the only person that has two contributions in this book,

Starting point is 00:04:31 and not one, to the book The War on Science, which is written and completed before the Trump election, to discuss different aspects of the concern of academics about what's going on in academic culture. And as we were talking about before this, there's a new war in science going on that I know you and I will want to discuss. But before we get there, and I should say that a number of authors, you and me and others in the book, are concerned about this new war in science, view it as a different kind of war. I view it as a more dangerous war personally. But, um, um, um, um, um, It's an external war.

Starting point is 00:05:13 The war on science we're talking about as an eternal one, now in the culture of academia, and that takes longer to counter. And that's one of the reasons why I thought so important to have this book where people from inside academia, not outside criticisms, but people from inside academia, distinguish people talking about the concerns.

Starting point is 00:05:31 In any case, we'll start with those, and then we'll move to the new war on science. The first of your two pieces involved is basically an excerpt of a conversation. you had a long time ago with Sam Harris. But it nevertheless discusses the issues of free speech and free expression. So I thought I'd go with them. I think it's, if you don't mind, you know, I'll remind you of some of the things you said.

Starting point is 00:05:57 But one of the things that interested me is you begin by saying in some ways I'm a little naive in the sense that I believe in institutions. I'm skeptical of institutions, but I'm worried about institutions, but I believe in them. I've devoted my life to academic institutions and what I take to be the core commitments of modern American universities, which are envy the world over. And you point out the Yale's as Lux and Veritas, their motto, light and truth. And in that context, and you also point out what universities are for very nicely in another quote, which I can't help a reading. it. We're supposed to be the place that preserves Sanskrit, which preserves Shakespeare, which preserves antiquities, which preserves mathematical knowledge and scientific knowledge,

Starting point is 00:06:46 and which produces discoveries. We're supposed to be the place that transmits all this to new cohorts of young people and the public at large. That's the role we're supposed to play. We're supposed to have the deep commitment to life and truth, once again. But at the very beginning, you point out you've been defending free expression, and you wouldn't have had this conversation if you weren't concerned about it. So I want you to elaborate a little bit about that. Well, first of all, I think, you know, we're having this conversation in June of 2025, and it's impossible to have it now without acknowledging that we are, as you said,

Starting point is 00:07:20 fighting a two-front war now. It's unbelievable. We have an internal threat and an external threat. And I think the external threat, the kind of, which is mostly inflected on the right, and the internal threat is mostly inflicted on the left, It's like clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck with you. It's, I can't even believe it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because the impulse to be censorious and to silence rather than rebut your critics knows no political boundaries. People are eager to when they have power to silence others.

Starting point is 00:08:00 And so we are now facing this two front war. I think the threat, the external threat is much more significant, candidly, right now, certainly. And many very worrisome examples of, you know, the Trump administration really threatening academic freedom, free expression, not only in our law firms, but in the military, in, I'm sorry, not only, there are many examples of the Trump administration threatening academic freedom and free expression. not only in our universities, but also in other institutions, in law firms, in the military, and so on. So it's... I agree with you. Actually, you know, let's go back.

Starting point is 00:08:46 No, no, let's start with Trump and then go back to the other thing, because I think it's important. But let me raise this, since you raised at the beginning, and I know it's an issue for me and definitely an issue for you, and I want to talk about it. But I just had a conversation with Neil Ferguson, who more or less said, and I agree with it, that in some sense, but there's no doubt that the current war on science, at least in part, was motivated

Starting point is 00:09:12 because of the excesses of kind of the lack of free expression and open inquiry and literally discrimination going on at universities against merit and against certain individuals and identities. Yeah, I mean, I think we made ourselves into political. actors and so therefore became political targets. Yes. And we are an easy target because we have been hypocritical. We have been self-serving.

Starting point is 00:09:42 We, you know, we're always sort of easy to caricature, you know, academics and sort of a divorce, you know, a divorce from real life, living these like easy lives allegedly. And so, you know, we definitely played a role in this. But I think a political commentator in the United States said that Trump is the wrong answer to the right questions. Yeah. And he meant this with respect to things like, you know, equalizing trading barriers around the world, having Europe pay for more of its own defense, getting universities to, you know, stand on sadder footing and all of these various things that Trump is disingenuously and, in my judgment, hypocritically and extremely attacking. But there's a kernel there, as you and Neil were talking about, where, you know, we did make ourselves into targets. And this is why, in my judgment, many of the authors on the book volume, The War on Science that you edited, have the credibility to push back against the right because they also push back against the left.

Starting point is 00:10:46 You know, I always tell people, if you want to prove to me that you are defending free expression, defend the right of someone you oppose to speak on your campus. Yeah. Identify someone you really revile. And then publicly say, yes, this person can come to speak on your campus. Otherwise, you're just defending your not a principal, but your own team. Yeah. So this is why I think that one of the critiques that's now coming out about our book, The War on Science, is that, you know, the timing is bad and that, you know, the threat,

Starting point is 00:11:18 the external threat is bigger and all of this stuff. But my answer to that would be, no, many of these people are precisely the people who now have the standing to push back against the right-wing attack. So I think, you know, the impetus to be censorious knows no political boundaries. And it is a shame that, you know, we now are facing this two-front, this two-front assault. And I'm very worried about the external assault right now. Let me tell you, let me frame it. And I told you, I just wrote a piece, which.

Starting point is 00:11:55 may or may not see the light of day. And I won't go into details in which in some sense I compare it to what I think what's happening now to unfortunately what I think it's got nothing new with Nazism, but what would happen in Germany in the 1930s and what happened to German universities, which were the envy of the world in the 1930s. But let me, without going into that, let me frame what I see is the most dangerous part of this. So the notion in that in 1930s.

Starting point is 00:12:25 1930s was Jews, okay? And now it's, it's wokes. And Trump and others are at least using as a cover, but view, and as I say rightly, to some extent, a large incursion of ideology into universities that was problematic. But then the leap is then that all faculty are bad and all universities are bad. And therefore, they must be changed and, and, and they must be in, in some cases, destroyed. Yeah, I mean, it's not, they're, they're biomedical engineers at Columbia who lost all their grants. There are engineers and scientists working on meta materials for jet engine, for jet fuselages, new materials that we need for our fighter jets in Cornell, they lost all their funding. They're quantum physicists at Harvard, quantum physicists who've been completely defunded.

Starting point is 00:13:20 What kind of a flop nation are we that decides to defund quantum physics? Well, that's exactly, you know, let me hit. That was, by the way, that really hit me. A colleague, you know, I used to be at Harvard and a colleague of mine who was a colleague once at Yale when we're both there, wrote a tweet that, you know, he's one of the best condensed matter physicists in the world that he's been funded by the National Science Foundation for 30 years and his grants have been out. canceled and it's a sad situation.

Starting point is 00:13:52 And here's the, let me finish what I was going to say because I think the real problem in my mind was that when we talk about the culture war problems at universities and they're severe and I don't want to minimize them. And they haven't gone away either by the way. They haven't gone away either.

Starting point is 00:14:07 And I think they need to still be attacked. The difference was there was the best academics and the best scientists kind of whether they kept their head, you know, maybe did a disservice but not speaking out, but they kept their heads out because they're doing good work. And Harvard may, and no doubt, did discriminate and does discriminate against Asian

Starting point is 00:14:29 white, I mean, Asian males and does have rampant anti-Semitism on campus, but they do exceptional scientific work and many other great work in other areas or a great university. And the difference is that the culture, the culture wars were going on did not disarmes. destroy that fantastic work. It destroyed a lot of other things and hampered a lot of progress and education in Harvard, but it didn't, that work continued. The current war, by basically destroying funding for most major scientific programs and not just at universities, the, you know, LIGO, which won the Nobel Prize, it's going to be blinded. The next space telescope, which is built, may not go up. NASA Goddard, which is the only part of NASA that really does science,

Starting point is 00:15:18 is going to be, you know, ended, closed. And the National Science Foundation, which whose budget was $8.9 billion, is going to be like $3.9 billion. You know, that what we're doing is essentially ensuring with this, not only shoot ourselves in the foot, because most of the American economic status right now is based on that kind of curiosity-driven research to generations, ago or a generation ago. But we're also doing what Germany did. We're basically ensuring that the best scientists in the world are going to move elsewhere and the best science is going to be done elsewhere. And we're seating the future to China or Europe or somewhere else. And I think that's why for me it's more and more damaging because the first hurt universities tremendously and hurt

Starting point is 00:16:08 education tremendously and hurt the next generation, in my opinion tremendously. But this is also hurting the best of what we can do, not just the worst of what we can do. I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, I think the evidence that discovery-based science for the last 200 years, but certainly since the Second World War, has been the ultimate origin of our wealth, our health, and our security. I mean, let's not forget. It was like, you know, we are engineers that invented nuclear weapons even. I'm a scientist doing it, but it's okay. Yeah, exactly. Well, I was trying to protect you. No, no, we take responsibility. It's like a lot of people were involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:51 But, you know, that, you know, and some, by the way, on that point, some people say that, you know, wars are, you know, it is to be greatly admired, the bravery that fighting men and women manifest that the expenditure of blood is like a very precious resource and needs to be respected and husbanded. But that ultimately wars are, are one, not only or even by such bravery and manpower, but rather, by feats of engineering and manufacturing, you know, is our ability to produce jeeps in great numbers during the Second World War that ultimately wore the Nazis down more than our bravery on D-Day. So the idea that we as a nation, as I said earlier, like we becoming a flop nation, that we would, you know, gut discovery-based science in the kind of fashion that we are is astonishing to me. And that that typical person on the street doesn't understand that, you know, the scientists are the ones that are inventing these new cancer treatments that will cure them

Starting point is 00:17:54 and their children of deadly diseases, that are inventing these new materials that will make our jets faster and less apparent on enemy radar that are, you know, inventing the kind of telecommunications technologies. You know, quantum physics research ultimately leads to better cryptography and more secure communications that protects us from the Chinese and so on, that the person on the street doesn't appreciate that. And when they think of academia instead, think about a lot of this woke crap is actually part of our problem too, right, that we have failed to over the last 10 or 20 years to more publicly make the case that what we're really about is the production, preservation, production and dissemination of knowledge. So the man and woman on

Starting point is 00:18:39 the street, don't see that anymore, unfortunately. And now we have this game of catch-up. And unfortunately, our credibility is low at precisely the moment we want to come out and say, and by the way, the COVID pandemic didn't help us. Like, for example, I did not agree with the Great Barrington Declaration. I thought it was wrong-headed. I was given the opportunity to sign it. I didn't sign it. I publicly opposed those plans, and I believe I have been vindicated, and I wrote a whole book about this and so on. But I never, never would have silenced the critics. I never would. I never would would have done that. And I think the effort, both by the social media companies and by the federal government, to go after people who had heterodox views about the pandemic was unscientific,

Starting point is 00:19:23 immoral, and ultimately injurious to the cause of science. So we have a, we're starting, you know, because of the 20-year internal war on science that we've had, now when we're facing this external war, we are starting on our back legs. And we have a lot of work to do political work, winning hearts and minds in order to confront this external threat, this war on science that we're facing. Well, well put, as always, and I can't disagree in any way with that. In fact, unfortunately, Neil Ferguson said, I may have to do volume two. I'm just still recovering from trying to finish up volume one all the last.

Starting point is 00:20:09 little details. So my heart sank when he said that. But we need to speak out. And I think that's important. But as you pointed out, where we need to speak out is affecting things in the ballot box. Ultimately, things beyond universities. We have to convince the public. And ultimately, only if the public is convinced, well, you know, democracies may be nice, but leaders always follow. They don't lead generally. But you point out, and I think, and this is really important. And I think the way Neil, who's more conservative than either you and my put it, is concerned that after Trump's, after this attack on science, after it causes damage

Starting point is 00:20:58 or is stopped one way or another, the very people who, it will further emboldened the very people who have created the culture war in universities. They'll say we were the ones who all along, you know, we're fighting the right with our ideological manifesto. We're going to continue to have jokers left of us, you know, clowns. And the clowns are, they're going to almost feel more emboldened saying, see, we needed to do our DEI stuff. We needed, you know, and so I think we need to expose that fallacy as well.

Starting point is 00:21:35 and that's not going to go away. And I think, you know, there's a, there's a strain of philosophy and of the social study of science and of critical science studies that makes the very aggressive but intellectually interesting claim that there is no objective reality, you know, that will create reality. It's not found. And that this is a result of us having brains that precede the world and that therefore, and I think, that's a deep and interesting idea. I think that's an idea that should be allowed on campuses. I think it's any serious scientists needs to confront the limits of perception, certainly, and also the recognition that there is a subjectivity to their perception of the objective reality. What happens is that this philosophical idea gets carried to the extreme, where now the

Starting point is 00:22:28 existence of an objective reality is completely rejected. And people say, well, there is no objective reality. And I see, I think that's also false. And that's what's dangerous. When that, when that, it's one thing to teach the belief system about the social construction of reality. It's another, it's, it's one thing to, to struggle with it as we should. It's quite another to accept it as an ideological guide to the organization of our universities and the performance of our scientific investigations. And that's where I think we need to hold the line and say, no, I'm terribly sorry. There isn't out there out there. It are limited if our ability. correct, but we are going to do our damn best to see it, this out there and test it.

Starting point is 00:23:09 Because there is, in my judgment, no superior method to grasping the nature of the reality we inhabit than science. And so, you know, that's, it's, it may not be as good as you want, but it's the best damn thing we know. It's the best it is, like some would say about democracy. But, yeah, no, exactly. And in fact, I'm happy to say now we've in some sense returned to a theme that was in you're in the book, which you, one of the things I have here, a note is objective reality.

Starting point is 00:23:37 Because, you know, one can indeed question some aspects, but the postmodern belief that, which unfortunately, where you now teach and where I used to teach was a one of the hotbeds of this through the deconstructionism in the literature department, the idea that there's no objective reality has unfortunately, that postmodernist view, that reality is created by power elites and those power elites are automatic and it's always a matter of power and and victimization have have have become endemic and you know out they've left the English department and and and like a cancer you know permeated the rest of the university and yes I think and I think that's when the public hears that when the public hears that we're silencing heterodox thinkers when the

Starting point is 00:24:29 public hears that large numbers of professors think there's no objective reality when they think that the only reason professors might say anything is because they want to cling to power. You know, those are very toxic, toxic to the scientific enterprise. And in my view, toxic, as we said earlier, to our health, wealth, and security. Because, you know, I don't think you're going to win a war based on fantasy. You know, right now the Iranians probably could use more science, and less ideology. You know, and I think the typical Iranian on the street is realizing the Ayatollahs were just telling us a lot of, you know, windbag stuff. I mean, they knew it already, the people on the street, you know, but, you know, weren't actually, you know, doing anything.

Starting point is 00:25:18 And so, you know, I think, I think we haven't, you know, we, we just to return to the theme, I think, you know, we still have housekeeping to do internally. but once again, the external threat at universities right now. Like, I mean, there's just so many cases that are, you know, the removal of books at the military academies. I mean, absurd. Like taking Maya Angelou's autobiography, I know why the Cageburg sings off the shells or memorializing the Holocaust or half American about African Americans of World War II. You know, these are, you know, you can still have fine, as you should, you can still read Mind Kampf at the military academies. these books are seen as a threat. That's a right-wing attack. Well, that's an, I don't want to just lay, I want to label it that way. It's an attack

Starting point is 00:26:07 on knowledge. It's an attack on scholarship and this track on thinking and it's an attack on, it is an attack on science. So, you know, it may emanate from, from, I think, I think, I don't think of it as so much right-wing because just like at the universities, there were incredibly good people doing good work, independent of the nonsense. I think, I suspect there are many people in the right who are horrified by this. It's more

Starting point is 00:26:35 an anti-knowledge, anti- anti-university. And to some extent, for good reason, it's an authoritarian attack because authoritarian always go after the universities. In every, right

Starting point is 00:26:50 or left wing, there's no distinction. Yeah, I mean, I think all I'm saying is when I said it's a right-wing attack, I meant that right now is coming from the Trumpian Trump administration. I mean, there are plenty of examples of left-wing virus, remove books. In fact, the American Library Association used to keep an ongoing list of prohibited books, and you got the left and the right, I mean, just leave the damn libraries. Hello. Oh, for the wrong. You know, book banning and book burning never ends well, you know.

Starting point is 00:27:22 But, but, you know, we talk a little bit about the Harvard case. We talk about the Columbus, the Columbia case, these are unlawful attacks. There's, there's efforts in Texas where Texas lawmakers try to like, you know, have bills, a so-called slap, slap bills, you know, which are again, illiberal and represent right. And Florida too. Let's make this point. If one is concerned, as you and I are and lots of the others who wrote here, about the, about the, the hijacking of universities by DEI bureaucracies that restrict free speech, due process, open inquiry, that don't allow you to say certain words. Which did.

Starting point is 00:28:02 They did all of those things. Yeah. But you can't solve it by saying, as Florida did, I mean, you can try and solve it saying, well, not only will we not, we'll get rid of these bureaucracies, which is a good thing, but will not even allow you to talk about whether that's a good idea. That's the real problem. because, you know, you can talk about, well, is there, you know, you can ask the question, is there systemic racism here or not?

Starting point is 00:28:26 Or you can ask the question, you know, is merit good? You can ask all these questions. Yeah, Lawrence, it's a sign of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without endorsing it. You unfortunately, this is not. And that's the real problem is legislatures, like you mentioned, in Texas and other places, or federal government, they can say the university is doing illegal things. And I do think Harvard is doing lots of illegal things, including discrimination against, you know, certain groups like Asian males. But, but that's different than saying, well, okay, well, you can't do that anymore. It's illegal.

Starting point is 00:29:01 But we also don't like what you're saying. And we don't like your saying so you can't say it. It's all right to say we don't like you're saying and point it out that there's a need to, you know, to have open debate that universities have been hijacked in certain cases. but government does not have the right. Now, to say that universities can't say certain things, and, you know, there was an interesting, I'll bring this up because I was at a meeting in London, largely what you would call anti-woke meeting, a number of the contributors to our book were there.

Starting point is 00:29:37 And a guy named Chris Ruffel, who you may know, did a lot of work during the time when universities were abusing free speech and at such. And he spoke about, in defense of what Trump is doing, he's been an advisor to, in fact, a strong advisor on all the activities

Starting point is 00:29:57 that the current administration is doing. And he pointed out that public universities, including Jefferson, including the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, were, you know, were created and they are supposed to do, in some sense, what the legislatures want,

Starting point is 00:30:13 do things for the public good and and and and and and create model citizens. But there's a difference here. And I think that needs to be understood. And that is that you, well, actually it's a quote that been begins our book from Larry Summers, who was canceled from Harvard for saying something that may even be correct. No, it was correct. Yeah, it was correct.

Starting point is 00:30:43 It was correct. It was great. what he said was correct. Yeah, exactly. But he says that universities need to abandon the concept that they have a central moral education. And my thought to counter Rufo is that the right is falling into the same trap.

Starting point is 00:31:01 The ideologues on the left who felt like, well, we know what's right. We know what's just and fair and social justice. And we therefore have to ensure that everyone sign the loyalty oaths if they want a job and the students can speak out. But by attacking universities for what they be able on the left, the government is doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:31:26 They're saying, we think universities should have a central moral education by not talking about things for this. And this is a very complicated topic itself. And to what extent does the legislature on behalf of the citizens exercise authority over pedagogy? And I get that. But, you know, one of the important subtleties to this is that we delegate power. You know, we hire librarians, that we allocate tax dollars.

Starting point is 00:31:52 We hire librarians. We tell the librarians, go practice your profession and pick books that meet the needs of your community and have a variety of books and have the books in conversation with each other. And we do the same thing with nurses. We hire public health nurses. And we tell the public health nurses, you have authority as a professional. And with police, right? We do not micromanage the police.

Starting point is 00:32:12 We don't have the legislature. looking over every policeman's action, we set, we specify the training for police, we specify the rules of engagement. After George Floyd, I'm afraid the legislature did. I was looking at everything. But that's my point, though. My point is that, you know, there is a kind of sense in which, on the one hand, it is legitimate for the legislature to express the will of the citizenry.

Starting point is 00:32:35 Yeah, they're paying taxes. But across, yes, but across many domains, we then allocate the resources and provide and then we allow human beings to execute without micromanaging them. So the idea of the legislature would get involved in the selection of books or that the legislature would get involved, you know, in whether nurses can treat HIV patients or, you know, or if needle exchange has been shown to be effective based on scientific studies, that then for political reasons we would prohibit needle exchange,

Starting point is 00:33:08 the ideological reasons. So these are, for me, much, I would reject those claims, but they're also a different question than does the legislature speak on behalf of the citizenry. Yeah, I think, well, I think what my take on this is the leg, and you talked about this even, you talked about tax dollars in your piece. So it's a relevant, but, you know, especially public universities, the people's tax dollars go towards those universities. and the public has a right to know that good education is going on. And I think that's where the legislature... I think here's one thing I just want to say about that is transparency is also absolutely essential and reasonable. So I rejected those...

Starting point is 00:33:50 There were all these... There were legislatures that said, we want the teachers to publish their syllabi. And my answer to that is, damn yes. Like if you're teaching something at a public university, I think in a private university, your syllabi should be public. anyone should be able to read it. And if you're saying, you know, that is intrusive, my answer to that is no.

Starting point is 00:34:09 That is a minimal burden that the citizenry says you have to make your syllabi available for critique. I don't think the legislature should pick the content of your syllabus. Yeah, but they should least know. But it is, I think there's a kind of right to know. And this claim that, you know, give us your citizen tax dollars and then let us do whatever we want and we won't even tell you what we're doing. That's not reasonable in life.

Starting point is 00:34:32 Well, in fact, you know, it drives much of what I know I've done and I believe what you've done. Universities are great knowledge, but they're also for the dissemination of knowledge. And that's, of course, to their students. But I think they have the obligation to go beyond that to the public at large. One of the reasons I've spent a significant part of my career writing about what happens in sciences because I think, you know, the public needs to know for many reasons, because it's fascinating, first of all, but, you know, they're funding it and it gives them a perspective on what, what, what, one. And I think, so I think in a while it's like a dinner table conversation with you and me, like interrupting each other and not stop.

Starting point is 00:35:09 Yeah, I know. It's great. But that's exactly right. Like our duty to disseminating knowledge transcends our students and extends to the public. And in fact, if we'd been doing a better job of that over the last 20 years and paying some attention to our obligation, advancing the public understanding of science, then I think we wouldn't be in quite this pickle as much either. I absolutely agree. And I think when it comes to this idea of moral education or public good, I think when it comes down to ultimately is that universities do the greatest public good by doing the best education they can do because providing knowledge and teaching people how to think and understand evidence and critical analysis ultimately leads to better actions. And your last piece, which is about teaching inclusion in a divided world, is about that too. I think ultimately the best thing we can do,

Starting point is 00:36:04 reminds me of one of the statements from Sally Sattel in our book basically said, the best way to be anti-racist doctors is to be a good doctor. And ultimately, I think, you know, I think the last line of the second of your pieces, I think is important. If we fail to see this, we risk confirming for our students the old joke

Starting point is 00:36:26 that we wouldn't want to join a club that would have us. And I think so. I know your time is limited, and I'm really glad you brought up going beyond what's in the book, and I think it's really important we do that. But ultimately, we have an obligation in universities and governments for the citizens to have the best access to knowledge and for the best people to be able to be free

Starting point is 00:36:51 to enhance the world, the security of the world, but also the joy of living by discovery and creativity. And, you know, you do a great job. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Lawrence, thank you so much for having me again. It's great. Thanks. Hi, it's Lawrence again. As the Origins podcast continues to reach millions of people around the world,

Starting point is 00:37:23 I just wanted to say thank you. It's because of your support, whether you listen or watch, that we're able to help enrich the perspective of listeners by providing access to the people and ideas that are changing our understanding of ourselves and our world and driving the future of our society in the 21st century. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also leave us private feedback on our website if you'd like to see any parts of the podcast improved. Finally, if you'd like to access ad-free and bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Originsproject.org.

Starting point is 00:38:01 This podcast is produced by the Origins Project Foundation as a non-profit effort committed to enhancing public literacy and engagement with the world by connecting science and culture. You can learn more about our events, our travel excursions, and ways to get involved at originsproject.org. Thank you.

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Nicholas Christakis | The War on Science Interviews | Day 3

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