Sean has had some good ideas over the years, but using Canva was a really good one.

Sean designed some social posts to promote his friend's car boot sale.

They looked good, really, really good.

Next thing he knows, someone came and bought the lot, including the car.

Now Sean doesn't know how he's going to get home.

Thanks, Canva.

Welcome to the Quillette podcast, hosted on alternate weeks by me, Jonathan Kay, and by Iona Italia.

Quillette is where Freethought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for

heterodox ideas and fearless commentary. You are about to hear a free preview of this week's

episode. To hear the full episode, and to get access to all our podcasts and articles,

visit us at quillette.com and click the subscribe button.

And today we're going to be talking about what astrophysicist and science writer Lawrence

Krauss calls The War on Science. That's the title of a new book of essays he's edited, featuring 39

well-known scientists and scholars, many of them regular Quillette contributors, who are all concerned

that progressive ideological actors are compromising the pursuit of scientific truth by placing

constraints on who can become a scientist and what those scientists are allowed to say and study.

Many of these writers describe illiberal and heavy-handed university administrators,

who in some cases have sought to investigate and punish academics at their schools

merely for questioning policies such as affirmative action and anti-racism training.

Authors in the book include Richard Dawkins, whose lengthy essay describes the persistent

campaign to suppress plain truths about the differences between the two human sexes, males and females.

Sally Satell, who writes about the unsettling ways in which

...