Science History Podcast

In prior episodes, we examined political interference and bias in science in a few contexts, including episode 3 on the history of U.S. congressional attacks on science, episode 57 on types of bias, episode 65 on ideology and science, and episode 84 on the academy's ideological march to the left and antisemitism on American college campuses. Since those episodes, America went back to the future with the election for the second time of Donald Trump, and the Trump Administration has attacked elite American universities such as Columbia and Harvard with historic intensity. These attacks are motivated by the right's revulsion with the dominance of leftist bias on these universities. We do not know what the outcome of these battles will be. Indeed, as of this recording, Harvard University is challenging the Trump Administration in the American courts, while many other universities are trying to placate the administration or avoid its gaze. However, the fundamental complaint by the right, that elite universities have become bastions of the left and lack diversity of thought, warrants an examination. In today's episode, I explore this topic with my brother Bill. We discuss how political bias distorts the science produced in universities, especially in the social sciences, and we discuss the implications.Bill is the author of over 150 articles in psychology, as well as the booksThe Social Leap, published in 2018, andThe Social Paradox, published in 2025, both by Harper Collins Publishers.

In prior episodes, I have interviewed many people about the history of physics and physics-adjacent topics such as nuclear disarmament. Many of the physicists we have discussed also made forays into biology. Today I explore this transition of physicists working in biology with William Lanouette. Bill is a writer and public policy analyst who has specialized in the history of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

Prior to the rise of Nazism, the University of Göttingen hosted most of the top physicists in the world, either as resident or visiting scientists. With us to discuss the history of physics in Göttingen are Tim Salditt, Kurt Schönhammer, and Sarah Köster. In this conversation over tea at the University of Göttingen, we discuss how Göttingen became a focal point of physics, key moments and people during the decades that Göttingen hosted discovery after discovery, and what happened to the assembly of scholars in Göttingen as Germany descended into the abyss of fascism. Tim Salditt and Sarah Köster are both professors of experimental physics in the Institute for X-Ray Physics, and Kurt Schönhammer is a retired Professor from the Institute for Theoretical Physics.