Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to book author and Skeptic editor Michael Shermer about why scientific media, professional organizations, and academic departments are increasingly succumbing to progressive ideological fads. Transcript: Jonathan Kay (JK): Michael welcome to the podcast. You’re a longtime friend of Quillette, and you've
In 2018, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Feng Xiang entitled “AI Will Spell the End of Capitalism.” Professor Feng teaches law at Tsinghua University and is one of China’s most prominent legal scholars. The core of his argument is set forth in the opening paragraphs: If
In The Great Questions of Tomorrow, David Rothkopf, an international policy expert and former editor of Foreign Policy, noted that we are on the cusp of a sweeping revolution—one that will change every facet of our lives. Klaus Schwab, the executive director and founder of the World Economic Forum,
In November 1933, as rector of Freiburg University, Martin Heidegger published a letter urging students to vote “yes” in support of Hitler’s decision to leave the League of Nations. “German men and women!” Heidegger wrote, “The Führer is asking nothing from the people. Rather, he is giving the people
The growing use of armed drones in Ethiopia and other backwater conflicts is linked to the recent war in Afghanistan.
Many people no doubt roll their eyes in scoffing dismissal when they hear the commonly expressed—and almost as commonly crooned—wish for a White Christmas. But there are sound spiritual reasons for longing to see one’s environs blanketed with snow. Silent in its approach and accumulation, snow can
Dear Quilletters, This week, don’t miss Geoffrey Clarfield’s heartfelt eulogy for Richard Leaky, who was to paleoanthropology what E.O. Wilson was to sociobiology. A truly brilliant man with an extraordinary dedication to his craft and research, Leakey’s work has been enormously consequential for our understanding of
According to the mainstream narrative about race, “white supremacy” is an all-controlling social force responsible for bad outcomes such as racial disparities. According to an alternative narrative popular on the far-Right, Jewish influence is a similarly powerful force, which explains outcomes disliked by those on the Right, such as multiculturalism
A review of Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts by Jed Perl. Knopf, 176 pages. (January, 2022) Plug “relevance” into the search field of the website for Artforum, and 16 results pop up from 2021 alone. Relevance is the dominant aesthetic criterion of our time, and lack thereof
Regular readers of Quillette may recall my 2018 article “Why Women Don’t Code,” which led to another describing how I was “Demoted and Placed on Probation.” After a year of probation, I was reappointed for a three-year term, only to entangle myself in a new controversy over indigenous land
My friend Fred (not his real name) is one of the most conscientiously COVID-avoidant people I know. In the pandemic’s early days, he was the guy at my health club who investigated mechanisms we could use to sterilize tennis balls in real time, during play, lest virus particles make
While he may have seemed like something of an (enormously) overachieving dilettante to some, there was in fact a unity to his life and work.
Meeting the people who are making this world a better place through science provides a much needed sense of balance.
Female orgasms themselves could, once again, be roughly divided into being located either deep inside or comparatively on the surface.
AI only knows what is in the data. The unfortunate use of the term “learning” is a simple, but potent, source of confusion and apprehension.