Ancient Crimes in Modern Times: The 346th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying
October 7, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readAncient Crimes in Modern Times: The 346th Evolutionary Lens
The Cornell 7 case, as it has been called, is not what it appears to be. Three of the seven men publicly accused of drugging and gang-raping a woman for hours at a Cornell fraternity in October 2024 were never even accused of sexual assault. One of them, Scott Kretschmar, entered a room, asked if everyone was okay, was told yes, and left. Cornell's own disciplinary hearing panel found him not responsible for sexual assault or sexual exploitation. Yet his photo circulated alongside the others as one of seven perpetrators. The gap between what the public was told and what the evidence actually shows is the central problem.
What the Plaintiff's Own Statement Revealed
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:04) **Episode Introduction and Housekeeping** - Bret and Heather open the livestream, note it's the third anniversary of October 7th but say they will not discuss it today, and preview the two main topics: the "Cornell 7" sexual assault case and a plague incident in Russia.
- 2 (11:11) **Sponsor Advertisements** - Three ad reads for Sauna Space, CrowdHealth, and Caraway cookware, with Heather interjecting a brief digression on the need for a "half-exclamation mark" in English.
- 3 (14:05) **Introducing the Cornell 7 Case: A Prejudicial Label** - Bret and Heather begin the substantive discussion, critiquing the "Cornell 7" moniker as prejudicial and noting that the seven men are not equally involved.
- 4 (23:52) **The Civil Suit and the "Strike Price"** - Heather displays the civil lawsuit (filed September 16, 2026) naming Jane Doe as plaintiff against Cornell, the fraternity, the sorority, a bar, and seven named men, while Bret explains the legal strategy of naming deep-pocketed institutions.
- 5 (36:03) **The Plaintiff's Evolving Story: From Consent to Assault** - Heather reads the civil suit's graphic description of the alleged assault (forced oral sex, vaginal intercourse, ketamine pressure), then contrasts it with the plaintiff's original statement to police.
- 6 (55:03) **The District Attorney's Statement and the Original Police Report** - Heather reads the DA's 2024 statement explaining why no criminal charges were filed, based on the plaintiff's own six-page sworn statement describing voluntary drug use and consensual sex.
- 7 (67:20) **The New York Times Account: A Shifting Narrative** - Heather shares a New York Times report showing the plaintiff's understanding of the event shifted over days, from recounting it as a "crazy thing" to concluding she was assaulted after conversations with roommates.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
On this, our 346th Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss the Cornell 7, sex in modern times, and the plague. Civil charges have been brought against seven men and several institutions, including Cornell University, by a woman who claims to have been drugged and gang-raped in a fraternity house on campus in October 2024. We go through legal documents and journalism about what happened and discuss consent, drinking and drugs, the Greek system, and what sex has and has not become. Then: a woman has died of plague in Russia; is a global pandemic coming? We discuss what to look out for.
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Music: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan
This track can be downloaded for free at www.wintergatan.net
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Mentioned in this episode:
Anna Bower at Slip Opinion with Cornell 7 docs (including the DA, the Civil Suit, and Kretzschmar petition): https://annabower.substack.com/p/read-the-cornell-7-documents
NYT on what transpired at Cornell in the Fall of 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/nyregion/cornell-rape-accusation-reporting.html
Cornell has a sex ed problem: https://jaredlederman.substack.com/p/cornell-has-a-sex-education-problem
Jennifer Bilek: https://x.com/bjportraits/status/2107171941014536280?s=20
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