Free speech is currently one of the most debated topics in many parts of the world. Should it be allowed to burn the Quran? Can speech be the same as violence? Are hate speech laws effective? Should we censor misinformation on Social Media? The questions are many and free speech expert Jacob Mchangama, the author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, helps us to sort them out.
IntellectInterviews Posts
Sarah Haider went from being a devout Muslim girl in Pakistan to being one of the most well-known atheists in the world, as the co-founder of Ex-Muslims of North America. She has seen with her own eyes how horrible many dissenters and apostates are treated by their religious community and she has devoted her career to make a change. She talks about the reality facing Ex-Muslims, the security threats against her personally, the problem with the word Islamophobia and what she hopes to achieve with her organization.
He is one of Sweden’s strongest voices when it comes to humanism, secularism and rational thinking. Christer Sturmark is the founder of the publishing house Fri Tanke, which operates in the spirit of the Enlightenment. He has for many years debated pseudoscientists and advocates of religious influence in politics. His new book is called To Light the Flame of Reason.
Eörs Szathmáry is an Hungarian theoretical evolutionary biologist who had his breakthrough with the book The Major Transitions of Evolution (1995), which he co-authored with the late John Maynard Smith. Szathmáry shares his thoughts on evolution, the origin of life, how to define life and living systems, the uniqueness of humans and the future of life on Earth and beyond.
After having received death threats for writing a philosophical paper on after-birth abortion, Francesca Minverva started thinking about creating a journal focusing only on controversial papers. Her thoughts have now become reality, since she co-founded the Journal of Controversial Ideas together with Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan. She is fighting for academic freedom and against the cancel culture in today’s society.
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-Ghanaian philosopher who spent many years thinking and writing about identities, such as race, ethnicity, class and gender. These are highly discussed topics in today’s society and Appiah shares his views on how to think about these matters.
Dr. Sara Seager is an astronomer at the MIT and one of the world’s leading experts when it comes to the search of exoplanets and analysis of their atmospheres. In this interview she talks about space, phosphine on Venus, rouge planets, exoplanet research and what would constitute sufficient evidence for extraterrestrial life.
Elisabeth Masur recently celebrated her 93rd birthday. 76 years ago she turned 17 inside the fences of Auschwitz. The horrors that she and the other victims lived through are incomprehensible. In this interview she shares her memories with the hope that nothing similar will ever happen again. Never forget.
The President of the Mars Society and author of The Case for Mars, Robert Zubrin, shares his thoughts on the effects of the space race, the goal of space exploration, NASA, extraterrestrial life, Elon Musk and of course a lot about Mars. He also reviews the movie The Martian (2015).
Postmodernism has become a cornerstone in feminism, critical race theory and queer theory. It is central for social justice warriors and the woke. Social constructivism and Michel Foucault are praised while science and the belief in a non-relative truth are questioned. Helen Pluckrose, co-author of Cynical Theories, guides us through the difficult philosophical concept of Postmodernism.