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.
IntellectInterviews Posts
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.
Arguably the worst crimes against humanity since the Holocaust are currently ongoing in East Turkestan, the Chinese region known as Xinjiang. The Uyghurs are victims of a genocide, ordered by the Chinese regime. Torture, rape and mass sterilization are some of the methods being used. Omer Kanat is the executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and he explains what is happening, why it is happening and how we can stop it.