ByÂ
The average American was unlikely to see mainstream scientists challenging COVID-19 conventional wisdom outside of Fox News until recent months, when New York Times columnist David Leonhardt started shifting the Overton Window for elite discourse on pandemic policy.
That troubles the three dozen scientists, academics and journalists who gathered in D.C. last week to discuss censorship in science and ways to push back, perhaps through alternative institutions such as the nascent University of Austin.
President Trump’s former COVID advisor Scott Atlas cohosted the “quasi-kickoff” of Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom, which he called a “seed” to be followed by larger meetings and smaller working groups…