Lawrence Krauss and Alice Sullivan

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Lawrence Krauss and sociologist and author of the Sullivan Review into data on sex and gender Professor Alice Sullivan join a panel of fellow academics to discuss threats to academic freedom and scientific thought from a range of sources, including attacks on merit-based hiring, policing of language, and replacement of scholarship by ideological mantras.

Krauss is editor of a book of essays by well-known scientists on the subject, The War on Science. Contributors include evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, cognitive psychologist and psycholinguist Professor Steven Pinker and historian Professor Sir Niall Ferguson. The contributors have joined together to warn that the future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Some of them have lost positions after speaking out about the threat.

Krauss is chair of the board of the Free Speech Union in Canada and host of The Origins podcast. He is an advocate of science and reason and of the public understanding of science. His books include The Physics of Star Trek, A Universe from Nothing and The Edge of Knowledge.

Sullivan is professor of sociology at University College London and co-editor of Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader. She was commissioned by the UK government to produce an independent review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender. She recommended that data on biological sex and gender identity should be recorded as distinct categories. Sullivan recently threatened the University of Bristol with legal action for failing to protect her free speech after a talk she gave at the university was disrupted by trans rights activists.