One Million Dollars for Telling the Truth. Who Might Win It?

Sabine Hossenfelder

AI-assisted summary of One Million Dollars for Telling the Truth. Who Might Win It? — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2026-10-01

Key ideas

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman and Harvard economist Roland Fryer established the $1 million annual 'Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage' to reward U.S. social scientists who championed controversial, vindicated ideas. (0:00)
Evaluating potential nominees reveals an academic catch-22, as radioactive hypotheses like Lisa Littman's struggle to achieve empirical vindication when mainstream institutions refuse to fund follow-up studies. (1:34)
The data integrity team behind Data Colada faces a glaring conflict of interest for the award, as prize founder Bill Ackman publicly defended and funded the legal defense of Francesca Gino, the researcher they helped expose. (1:34)
While small awards like the UK's $5,000 John Maddox Prize exist, the $1 million purse provides meaningful economic insulation against institutional retribution, highlighting a troubling academic climate where finding the truth requires private financial bounties. (3:25)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube by Sabine Hossenfelder on October 1, 2026, the video discusses a billionaire investor who established a $1 million annual award for scientists who defended unpopular findings that were eventually proven right. According to the description, Hossenfelder evaluates whether the initiative is timely, examines a list of potential contenders, and highlights a bizarre complication surrounding one of the candidates.

## TL;DR Hossenfelder examines the Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage, an annual $1 million award funded by billionaire Bill Ackman and chaired by Roland Fryer to support US social scientists who endured institutional blowback for vindicated, non-conformist research. She assesses plausible contenders—including Hilary Cass, Lisa Littman, the Data Colada integrity team, Nathan Cofnas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Peter Arcidiacono—against the award's strict criteria and inherent epistemic paradoxes. In particular, she points out a glaring conflict of interest in that Ackman personally funded the legal defense of Francesca Gino, the researcher exposed by Data Colada. Ultimately, she reflects on the sobering state of modern academia, where discovering and validating scientific truth no longer carries sufficient incentive without private financial bounties to shield researchers from career ruin.

## Atmosphere & style The presentation is sharp, sardonic, and pragmatic, punctuated by Hossenfelder's signature deadpan humor and dry skepticism toward academic institutions. She approaches the prize with analytical curiosity, unearthing the bizarre ironies and structural Catch-22s that govern modern academic controversy. The narrative carries an underlying sense of weariness, feeling at once intellectually biting and lamenting over the fact that basic scientific truth-seeking requires billionaire-funded hazard pay to survive.

## Bulletin - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) Billionaire investor Bill Ackman and Harvard economist Roland Fryer established the $1 million annual 'Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage' to reward U.S. social scientists who championed controversial, vindicated ideas. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) Evaluating potential nominees reveals an academic catch-22, as radioactive hypotheses like Lisa Littman's struggle to achieve empirical vindication when mainstream institutions refuse to fund follow-up studies. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) The data integrity team behind Data Colada faces a glaring conflict of interest for the award, as prize founder Bill Ackman publicly defended and funded the legal defense of Francesca Gino, the researcher they helped expose. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) While small awards like the UK's $5,000 John Maddox Prize exist, the $1 million purse provides meaningful economic insulation against institutional retribution, highlighting a troubling academic climate where finding the truth requires private financial bounties.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) Bill Ackman has created the $1 million annual 'Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage,' with a committee chaired by Harvard economist Roland Fryer, to reward scientists who stood by unpopular, vindicated findings. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) The inaugural cycle of the prize is strictly limited to living U.S. citizens or permanent residents working within the social sciences. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) The award is explicitly engineered to alter the academic 'career calculus' by providing a financial safety net against tenure revocation, lost funding, and retaliatory lawsuits. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) Prominent international figures like British pediatrician Hilary Cass are ineligible for the award due to non-U.S. citizenship and a primary focus in clinical medicine rather than social science. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) Lisa Littman's research on 'rapid-onset gender dysphoria' highlights the difficulty of achieving formal vindication when research topics are too controversial for mainstream researchers to follow up on. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) The Data Colada team demonstrated academic courage by exposing data anomalies in behavioral science that ultimately led Harvard to dismiss professor Francesca Gino. - [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) A severe irony complicates Data Colada's candidacy because Ackman personally financed Gino's legal defense and continues to maintain her innocence. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) Controversial researcher Nathan Cofnas is likely ineligible as his academic training lies in the philosophy of biology rather than the social sciences. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) Health economist Jay Bhattacharya challenged lockdown policies, but proving definitive empirical vindication is practically impossible without counterfactual parallel universes. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) Economist Peter Arcidiacono closely matches the prize criteria for his statistical models uncovering admissions bias at Harvard, though his impact is primarily focused on U.S. university administration. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) Unlike the modest $5,000 John Maddox Prize, the Carob Trust Prize's $1 million sum provides genuine financial independence to weather professional blacklisting. - [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) The necessity of a million-dollar prize points to a disheartening state of academia, where discovery and vindication are no longer sufficient rewards for pursuing scientific truth.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) The Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage

Billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman has established a $1 million annual award designed to reward scientists who challenge prevailing orthodoxies. Named the "Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage," the selection committee is chaired by Harvard economist Roland Fryer. The initiative is explicitly intended to honor researchers who have demonstrated "Intellectual Independence" and championed "Non-Conformist Ideas" that produced real-world impact and were ultimately "vindicated." At its core, the prize serves as a direct financial and social incentive for scholars to defend uncomfortable truths against institutional pushback.

The prize is slated to be awarded to up to five individuals per year. However, its initial scope comes with notable restrictions: for its inaugural cycle, eligibility is limited strictly to the social sciences, though the organizers state they intend to expand into other fields over time. Furthermore, the official criteria dictate that nominees must be living citizens or permanent residents of the United States. As Sabine quips, any scholar who has recently passed away is out of the running, adding: "please leave a comment, so we can confirm there’s YouTube in afterlife."

Fryer and Ackman intend to reshape what they term the academic "career calculus." In the modern university system, publishing an unpopular or counter-narrative finding frequently carries disastrous professional consequences, including the loss of tenure, institutional funding, professional prestige, and the risk of ruinous retaliatory lawsuits. Providing an independent financial safety net of this magnitude is intended to offset those professional risks.

[01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) Controversial Hypotheses and the Data Colada Irony

Evaluating plausible contenders highlights structural paradoxes inherent in rewarding "vindicated" controversy. British pediatrician Hilary Cass immediately comes to mind for her comprehensive review examining the evidence base for pediatric gender-affirming medical treatments. However, Cass is excluded on technical grounds: she is not an American citizen, and her work falls squarely under clinical medicine rather than social science. Another prominent candidate is physician and researcher Lisa Littman, who coined the term "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" in a 2018 paper exploring potential peer contagion among adolescent peer groups. Yet Littman exposes an inherent catch-22 of the award: verifying whether a researcher has truly been "vindicated" requires extensive follow-up research, but when a topic is intensely radioactive, mainstream researchers refuse to investigate it, leaving the hypothesis unvalidated for decades.

An even sharper paradox emerges with the behavioral scientists behind the data integrity blog *Data Colada* (Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons). The trio gained widespread recognition for meticulously dissecting published social science papers and identifying severe statistical anomalies, culminating in allegations against prominent Harvard Business School behavioral scientist Francesca Gino. Following an internal institutional investigation that corroborated research misconduct, Harvard placed Gino on administrative leave, revoked her tenure, and formally dismissed her.

While the *Data Colada* team exemplifies academic courage in exposing fraud, their candidacy runs into a startling conflict of interest: Ackman, the sole financier of the prize, publicly maintains that Gino is innocent and personally stepped in to finance her legal defense against Harvard and her accusers.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Evaluation of Potential Award Candidates accDescr: Flowchart illustrating potential candidates for the academic courage prize alongside the specific obstacles or complications facing each nomination.

subgraph Nominees["Candidate Evaluations"] HC["Hilary Cass"] LL["Lisa Littman"] DC["Data Colada Team"] NC["Nathan Cofnas"] JB["Jay Bhattacharya"] PA["Peter Arcidiacono"] end

subgraph Hurdles["Complications & Eligibility Barriers"] H1["Non-US citizen; medicine focus"] H2["Unvindicated due to research taboo"] H3["Ackman funded Gino's legal defense"] H4["Field is philosophy of biology"] H5["Vindication requires parallel universes"] H6["Limited scope (US university admissions)"] end

HC --> H1 LL --> H2 DC --> H3 NC --> H4 JB --> H5 PA --> H6 ```

[03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) Evaluating Candidates and the Economics of Scientific Truth

Other frequently discussed candidates similarly face distinct eligibility or epistemic hurdles:

- **Nathan Cofnas:** A researcher who gained public attention after leveling misconduct allegations against Cambridge sociologist Jason Arday, and who writes on race and intelligence differences. While an American citizen, Cofnas is technically a philosopher of biology rather than a social scientist. - **Jay Bhattacharya:** A Stanford health economist who emerged as a prominent, early dissenter against mandatory pandemic lockdowns and broad school closures. While his stance demonstrated immense professional bravery, providing definitive empirical vindication is nearly impossible "without first inventing travel between parallel universes" to run true counterfactual experiments. - **Peter Arcidiacono:** An economist now based at Johns Hopkins University whose statistical modeling exposed discriminatory Asian American admissions penalties in the landmark litigation against Harvard. Arcidiacono represents perhaps the closest match for the prize's formal criteria, although his broader societal impact remains somewhat confined to administrative policy in American higher education.

Efforts to reward embattled researchers are not entirely unprecedented. The United Kingdom’s John Maddox Prize has recognized scientists who stand up for evidence and hostile public debates since 2012, operating across all scientific disciplines globally. However, the Maddox Prize awards a modest sum of approximately $5,000. Sabine contends that the raw financial weight of a $1 million payout fundamentally alters incentives by providing genuine economic independence from institutional retribution. Still, she laments the cultural climate that necessitates such an initiative: it remains deeply discouraging that modern science must rely on private cash bounties to motivate scholars to pursue the truth, begging the question of why discovery and vindication are no longer reward enough.

[05:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=311s) Protecting Personal Data with Incogni

Transitioning from institutional risks to digital vulnerability, Sabine reflects on the ongoing need for personal security and mentions recently having to change her own phone number. Whenever users navigate the web, tracking scripts collect identifiers regarding identity, location, and browsing habits, which are routinely monetized by commercial data brokers. While privacy legislation in many jurisdictions theoretically permits consumers to demand the deletion of their records, manually submitting opt-out notices across hundreds of individual firms is prohibitively tedious.

The segment is sponsored by Incogni, an automated privacy service that handles data erasure requests across a network of more than 420 independent data brokers. Once authorized, the platform repeatedly issues opt-out demands, provides subscribers with recurring monthly risk assessment updates, and includes a custom removal feature allowing users to flag specific offending websites. Viewers are offered a 60% discount on annual subscriptions by utilizing the promotional code `SABINE`.

## Notable quotes > They can't harm you, if they can't find you! — Sabine Hossenfelder

> A billionaire investor has put up a million dollars a year for scientists who stuck with unpopular results and turned out to be right. — Sabine Hossenfelder

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) Intellectual Independence

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) Non-Conformist Ideas

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) please leave a comment, so we can confirm there’s YouTube in afterlife. — Sabine Hossenfelder

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=0s) career calculus

> [01:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=94s) rapid-onset gender dysphoria — Lisa Littman

> [03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4&t=205s) without first inventing travel between parallel universes — Sabine Hossenfelder

## Mentioned Bill Ackman, Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage, Data Colada, Francesca Gino, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Hilary Cass, Incogni, Jason Arday, Jay Bhattacharya, Joe Simmons, John Maddox Prize, Johns Hopkins University, Leif Nelson, Lisa Littman, Nathan Cofnas, Peter Arcidiacono, Roland Fryer, Sabine Hossenfelder, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Uri Simonsohn, YouTube

## Video description They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code SABINE at the link below and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/sabine

A billionaire investor has put up a million dollars a year for scientists who stuck with unpopular results and turned out to be right. I think it's a timely idea and a good one. I also have a list of people who might deserve it, and one name on that list comes with a complication you have to hear to believe. Let's take a look.

#sciencenews #science #academia #socialscience

👕T-shirts, mugs, posters and more: ➜ https://sabines-store.dashery.com/ 💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg 👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ https://www.patreon.com/Sabine 📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/ 📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsletter/ 👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXlKnMPEUMEeKQYmYC 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yNl2E66ZzKApQdRuTQ4tw/join 📚 Buy my book ➜ https://amzn.to/3HSAWJW

[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xPGVMtZK4)

中文简报

百万元奖励讲真话：谁有可能获奖？ Hossenfelder探讨了“角豆信托学术勇气奖”（Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage），这是一项每年100万美元的奖项，由亿万富翁Bill Ackman资助、Roland Fryer担任主席，旨在支持因坚持非主流且已被证实的研究而承受机构打压的美国社会科学家。她对照该奖项的严格标准及其固有的认知悖论，评估了多位潜在候选人——包括Hilary Cass、Lisa Littman、Data Colada学术诚信团队、Nathan Cofnas、Jay Bhattacharya以及Peter Arcidiacono。她特别指出了一项明显的利益冲突：Ackman曾亲自资助Francesca Gino的法律辩护，而Gino正是被Data Colada揭露存在学术不端的研究人员。最终，她反思了现代学术界令人深省的现状，即如果没有私人设立的巨额奖金来保护学者免于职业覆灭，发现和验证科学真理本身已不再具有足够的激励。亿万富翁投资者Bill Ackman与哈佛大学经济学家Roland Fryer设立了每年100万美元的“角豆信托学术勇气奖”，以奖励捍卫了虽具争议但已被证实之观点的美国社会科学家。 (0:00) 对潜在被提名人的评估揭示了一种学术界的“第二十二条军规”式两难困境：当主流机构拒绝为后续研究提供资助时，像Lisa Littman提出这类极具争议的假说就很难在实证上获得证实。 (1:34) Data Colada背后的数据诚信团队若角逐该奖项将面临明显的利益冲突，因为该奖项发起人Bill Ackman曾公开声援并出资协助Francesca Gino进行诉讼辩护，而Gino正是由该团队协助揭露的研究人员。 (1:34) 尽管英国奖金为5,000美元的约翰·马多克斯奖（John Maddox Prize）等小额奖项已然存在，但100万美元的奖金能为抵御机构报复提供实质性的经济隔离屏障，这凸显了当下学术界令人担忧的氛围——探寻真理竟需要私人资金提供悬赏护航。 (3:25)

Reading summary

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman and Harvard economist Roland Fryer established the $1 million Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage to shield non-conformist researchers from institutional retaliation. However, identifying qualifying recipients highlights major structural dilemmas, epistemic hurdles to proving vindication, and direct conflicts of interest. Structure and Incentives of the Carob Prize (0:00) The Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage is an annual award funded by Bill Ackman and chaired by Roland Fryer, designed to grant up to $1 million each to as many as five scholars. Its explicit goal is to alter the academic "career calculus" by providing an independent financial buffer for researchers who face severe institutional blowback—such as loss of tenure, canceled funding, or retaliatory lawsuits—after championing non-conformist findings that are ultimately vindicated. For its inaugural cycle, eligibility is strictly confined to living U.S. citizens or permanent residents working in the social sciences, though organizers plan to expand into other fields eventually. Efforts to support embattled academics are not unprecedented; the UK-based John Maddox Prize has recognized researchers standing up for evidence across global disciplines since 2012. However, the Maddox Prize offers a modest purse of roughly $5,000. Sabine Hossenfelder notes that a $1 million payout fundamentally alters academic incentives by granting recipients genuine economic independence from institutional employers. The Epistemic Catch-22 of Scientific Vindication (1:34) Evaluating potential nominees exposes the difficulty of proving that a controversial finding has been definitively "vindicated." For example, physician Lisa Littman coined the concept of "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" in a 2018 paper exploring adolescent peer dynamics. However, verifying her hypothesis creates a catch-22: rigorous validation requires extensive follow-up research, but the radioactive nature of the debate discourages mainstream institutions from investigating it, leaving the work unverified for decades. Similarly, Stanford health economist Jay Bhattacharya openly dissented against mandatory lockdowns and widespread school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. While his stance demanded professional bravery, establishing definitive empirical vindication remains impossible without counterfactual experiments across parallel universes. Other prominent figures face technical disqualification: British pediatrician Hilary Cass led a high-profile review of pediatric gender-affirming care but is excluded as a non-U.S. citizen working in clinical medicine, while researcher Nathan Cofnas works in the philosophy of biology rather than the social sciences. Sponsor Conflicts and Plausible Contenders (1:34) A pronounced conflict of interest complicates the candidacy of the behavioral scientists behind the data integrity blog Data Colada (Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons). The trio demonstrated notable courage by exposing data anomalies in published research, prompting an institutional investigation at Harvard that resulted in the dismissal of prominent behavioral scientist Francesca Gino. However, Ackman—the prize's sole funder—publicly maintains that Gino is innocent and has personally funded her legal defense against Harvard and her accusers. Among other potential contenders, Johns Hopkins economist Peter Arcidiacono represents one of the closest fits for the award's stated criteria. Arcidiacono's statistical modeling demonstrated discriminatory admissions penalties against Asian American applicants in high-profile litigation against Harvard. Nonetheless, his broader policy impact remains largely confined to administrative practices within American higher education. Hossenfelder finds it discouraging that modern academic culture necessitates private cash bounties to motivate researchers to pursue uncomfortable truths, questioning why the inherent scientific rewards of discovery and validation are no longer sufficient on their own.

Source quotes

Sabine Hossenfelder: They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Sabine Hossenfelder: A billionaire investor has put up a million dollars a year for scientists who stuck with unpopular results and turned out to be right. [0:00] Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage [0:00] Intellectual Independence [0:00] Non-Conformist Ideas [0:00] Sabine Hossenfelder: please leave a comment, so we can confirm there’s YouTube in afterlife. [0:00] career calculus [1:34] Lisa Littman: rapid-onset gender dysphoria [3:25] Sabine Hossenfelder: without first inventing travel between parallel universes

Original transcript

[0:00] A billionaire just launched a $1 million award that will change science, at least I hope so. [0:07] Today I want to tell you what this is all about and who might be candidates [0:11] for the first round of awards. Let’s have a look. [0:15] The money comes from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, and the selection committee [0:20] will be led by Harvard economist Roland Fryer. They called it the “Carob Trust [0:26] Prize for Academic Courage.” It will go to scientists who have persevered with [0:32] “Intellectual Independence,” “Non-Conformist Ideas” that had an impact and were vindicated. [0:38] It’s basically an encouragement for people to stick to the truth even when it’s inconvenient. [0:45] The prize may be awarded to up to 5 people a year, though I am sorry to say that at least next year [0:51] it is only for the social sciences, though they say they hope to extend it to other disciplines [0:57] afterwards. And if you look at the fine print, the candidate must be a citizen or resident of [1:02] the United States. Oh, and they must be alive. So in case you died recently, you wouldn’t qualify, [1:09] but please leave a comment, so we can confirm there’s YouTube in afterlife. [1:13] Fryer and Ackman say they’re hoping to change what they call the “career calculus”. In present-day [1:19] academia it’s sad but true that publishing an unpopular result might cost you your job, [1:24] your reputation, and your funding. Worse, you might get sued and have legal costs. This is why I [1:29] think this award is a timely idea and a good one. So who might win it? [1:34] The first person who came to my mind is Hilary Cass, who investigated the evidence [1:40] for the benefits of medical hormone treatments for transgender children, [1:44] or their absence. But she is not a US citizen and also, it’s probably more medicine than sociology. [1:51] The next obvious candidate might be Lisa Littman. [1:55] In 2018, she published a paper proposing the term “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” [2:01] when parents reported their children suddenly developed the idea they were trans, often in [2:07] groups of friends. Littman suggested that social contagion plays a role. [2:12] The question here is, though, how much evidence there is that Littman has been “vindicated,” [2:18] the problem being that no one really wants to touch the topic. This, [2:22] in my mind, also reveals a problem with the award. If a topic is controversial enough, [2:28] few people will dare to “vindicate” it, potentially for decades. [2:33] The next candidates who came to my mind are the three researchers behind the blog Data [2:39] Colada. They’ve specialized in taking apart published papers in the social [2:44] sciences and have revealed many suspicious statistical irregularities. Most famously, [2:50] they raised concerns about several papers by Francesca Gino from Harvard Business School. [2:56] Harvard investigated and concluded that research misconduct had occurred. Gino was [3:02] put on leave and, in 2025, Harvard revoked her tenure and fired her. [3:07] To me this seems like an excellent case for an academic courage prize. But there’s [3:13] a fantastic complication, which is that Ackman, who is funding this new prize, [3:18] said he believes that Francesca Gino is innocent and has covered her legal expenses. [3:25] A name that I saw mentioned a lot in relation to the new prize is Nathan Cofnas, [3:31] who recently attracted attention for raising allegations about Cambridge professor Jason Arday, [3:37] but who also studies the relation between IQ and race. Cofnas is American, so that part is [3:43] fine. But technically he is a philosopher of biology, which isn’t a social science. [3:48] The next person on my list would be Jay Bhattacharya, [3:51] an economist and health-policy researcher. He publicly opposed Covid lockdowns and [3:57] school closures. Definitely courageous, certainly necessary, but just exactly [4:03] how would you even vindicate this without first inventing travel between parallel universes? [4:09] Then there is Peter Arcidiacono, an economist now at Johns Hopkins. He did statistical work [4:16] on racial preferences in Harvard admissions that became relevant for university reforms. [4:23] I think he probably fits the criteria best, though I would say that the impact has been [4:29] limited exactly because it’s rather narrowly about what’s going on at some American universities. [4:36] A prize with such ambitions isn’t entirely new. The UK has the John Maddox Prize for standing up [4:43] for science, that’s been around since 2012. It is open internationally and covers all fields of [4:48] science. The prize, however, is only $5000 dollars. And I think that in this case the [4:54] money actually matters. This is why I believe the new prize will actually have an impact. [5:00] Though I have to admit it’s kind of depressing that you have to offer [5:04] scientists a prize for sticking with the truth. Isn’t the vindication prize enough? [5:11] Did you know that I recently changed my phone number? No, you didn't because I use Incogni [5:17] to keep my private data off the internet. Each time you open a website, it'll try to collect [5:22] data about who you are and where you are and what other websites you visited. Many firms then make [5:28] money by selling your private information to data brokers. Most countries have laws against that, [5:34] and you can ask for your data to be removed, but doing this takes up a lot of time. Incogni [5:40] automates the process of getting you out of those databases. They now cover more than 420 brokers. [5:47] You sign up and they'll get you out of their databases. They'll keep on doing that and if you [5:53] want, send you a monthly risk assessment report. 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