Are universities too left wing for their own good? Andreas de Block (KU Leuven), the author of a forthcoming book Is links gewoon slimmer [Is the left just smarter?] thinks so, and he’s worried about the effect it’s having on research. We try to figure out what he means, what worries him and ask some questions about what it means to be left or right wing in today’s political and academic context. These questions include: What are conservative values that are being neglected by too left-wing scientists? Are contemporary right-wing politics inherently anti-science and anti-intellectual? And how do these concerns about ideological bias in the university relate to conflicts between ‘woke’ and anti-’woke’ self-identifying leftists in the academy? 

Trigger warning: this episode includes discussions on perceptions of homosexuality and its relation to previous versions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This episode also contains some mockery of the Republican Party (USA).