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Independent Truths with Dr. Scott Atlas
Independent Institute Podcasts
Dr. Scott Atlas is a world-renowned expert in health care policy, frequent policy advisor to policymakers and government officials, and author of A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America. He investigates the role of government and the private sector in health care quality and access, global trends in health care innovation, and the key economic and civil liberty issues related to health policy. Independent Truths features Dr. Atlas in conversation with high profile, news-making guests around public health policy, science, civil liberties, censorship and free speech, higher education, the media, and more.
February 7, 2024
In this episode Dr. Atlas interviews Dr. Naomi Wolf, bestselling author, columnist, professor, and graduate of Yale University. They have a wide-ranging discussion about the corporate media’s abandonment of journalistic ethics, the public’s loss of faith in the media, the danger of ideological echo chambers, and experiences they’ve had with social media deplatforming.
January 9, 2024
Dr. Atlas interviews Congressman Chip Roy of Texas. Rep. Roy previously served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz and as First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. They discuss the lack of accountability for government malfeasance, censorship, and COVID mismanagement, as well as perspectives on healthcare reform and the proper scope of government and executive authority.
December 18, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Professor Steven Koonin of NYU. Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science in the Department of Energy from 2009 to 2011 and was a professor at Cal Tech for nearly 30 years. They discuss the science on climate change and the general state of science, as climate and energy have become so prominent in the media and public policy debates.
November 14, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Richard Corcoran, President of New College of Florida. They have an important and timely conversation about university education in the United States, including merit, free speech, and today's campus environment to develop the next generation of leaders for our country.
October 30, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Dr. Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. They discuss what's going on in Israel and the rest of the Middle East in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, the importance of the Trump-era Abraham Accords, and what to make of the Biden policies in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
October 12, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Senator Rand Paul on exposing the egregious malfeasance and cover-up by government, public health bureaucrats, and university scientists in the COVID pandemic. They discuss COVID's origins, NIH funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, conflicts-of-interest involving government officials receiving royalties from pharmaceutical companies, and more.
September 18, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and world-renowned historian and scholar of classics and military history. They discuss the phrase “Threat to our Democracy” — who uses it, what it means, and what the real threats to democracy actually are.
September 5, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews John Yoo, the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss the investigations of Presidents Biden and Trump, the appropriateness of criminal trials vs. political processes to adjudicate alleged misconduct by sitting presidents and ex-presidents, as well as broader concepts including separation of powers, and "threats to democracy."
August 17, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the San Francisco Archdiocese. He is outspoken on traditional issues relevant to Catholicism including abortion, the definition of marriage, and religious freedom particularly during the pandemic. They discuss how COVID restrictions and lockdowns impacted the church, the importance to society of religion today, and where we go from here in a time of relative crisis where there has been a loss of anchor in the culture.
July 28, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, one of the leading voices for women’s rights, most notably in preserving women’s sports for biological females. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2022 as one of the most decorated swimmers in history. They discuss the challenges she has faced, pushing back against the singular focus of many in power to push the unlimited rights of trans athletes in women’s sports without regard for the impacts on the rights of women athletes themselves and on the damage to today's hard-earned status of women's competitive sports.
July 17, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Kentucky State University Political Science Professor Wilfred Reilly, a leading voice in challenging popular mainstream narratives with an empirical analysis of the data that exposes the truth about some of America's most controversial topics. They discuss what we're witnessing in the United States including divisive narratives about race in this country that have led to a lack of civility among our fellow Americans, and where we go from here to unify our nation.
June 30, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews George Mason University Professor of Law Todd J. Zywicki. They discuss the philosophical basis for the modern concept of “wokism”, why it's a fundamentally flawed worldview, how it came to infiltrate and harm American culture, and where we can go from here to restore our nation's values.
June 6, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews John Etchemendy, former Provost at Stanford University and the Patrick Suppes Professor at Stanford's School of Humanities & Science and co-director of Stanford’s Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Center. They have an insightful conversation about the environment for the free exchange of ideas and critical thinking in academia today.
May 23, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews Heather Mac Donald, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor at City Journal, and New York Times bestselling author. Her new book When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives argues that lowering standards in an attempt to achieve racially equal outcomes is harmful to society.
May 1, 2023
Dr. Atlas interviews George Mason University Professor of Law Todd J. Zywicki. They discuss how pandemic policies relate to the law and Constitution, how the public health establishment pushed anti-science policies such as denial of natural immunity, and more.




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