More From Sam: Cambridge, Iran, Fauci, and Institutional Collapse

In this episode of Making Sense, Sam Harris offers a series of sharp, interconnected critiques of institutional failure, elite credulity, and the collapse of basic standards of evidence across academia, foreign policy, and public health. The throughline is the same in each case: institutions that should be bulwarks against nonsense have instead become amplifiers of it, driven by ideological capture, cowardice, or simple incompetence.

The Jason Air Day Affair: A Case Study in Woke Credulity

The episode opens with Harris reflecting on the death of Jason Air Day, a Cambridge professor and rising media star who was found dead at 41 after being exposed as a plagiarist and fabulist. Air Day claimed to have run 600 miles in six days—a feat only elite ultra-runners have accomplished—and to have not spoken a word until age 11 or learned to read until 18. He then got a PhD in what Harris calls "one of these fake woke disciplines," a sociology program focused on racial grievance. Cambridge opened an investigation on August 5th; Air Day resigned the same day. His autobiography, which many believe contained bold falsehoods, was published on August 11th. Days later, he was dead.