About the author
Lebanese-Canadian evolutionary behavioural scientist (b. 1964), professor of marketing at Concordia University known for applying evolutionary psychology to consumer behaviour and, increasingly, to politics and culture. A prominent voice in the 'intellectual dark web,' Saad became widely read for his combative defence of free speech and science.
Synopsis
Saad diagnoses a set of 'idea pathogens' — among them postmodernism, radical relativism, and identity-based epistemology — that he argues corrode reason and free inquiry, especially in academia. Mixing memoir, evolutionary psychology, and polemic, he calls for the defence of truth, science, and the freedom to offend.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workSaad argues that some ideas behave like parasites — spreading through institutions and disabling the host's ability to reason — and that defending free, evidence-based inquiry is the antidote.
The 'parasite' metaphor frames certain academic movements as threats to rational thought itself. It is a strong claim that puts free speech and the authority of science at the centre — and one its targets answer by questioning whether 'reason' and 'science' are as neutral as the book assumes.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with thinkers in the traditions Saad attacks — critical theory, postcolonial and feminist thought — and with arguments that 'just follow the evidence' can itself smuggle in unexamined assumptions about whose evidence and which questions.
Reading note
Polemical and personal — read it as advocacy for free inquiry from the heterodox science world, and pair it with the critical-theory texts it opposes to judge the argument rather than take it on trust.
Best paired with
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate; John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.