Joe Rogan is Burning

How the Cancellation Ritual Harms Science

The Unwanted Side Effect of Joe Rogan’s Controversy

This article I wrote was originally published in The Scroll, a publication of the Tablet.

A segment of the public, whipped into a frenzy by baby-boomer musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, demanded that music streaming giant Spotify sacrifice popular podcaster Joe Rogan for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant vaccines. Faced with the crime of giving a platform to guests who question the science—seemingly the best practice for advancing the state of scientific knowledge—Rogan pledged more balance, and Spotify said it would place a mandatory disclaimer before each show. This witch wasn’t so much burnt as singed, and the stock market responded to this irrational act of sacrifice as one might expect in an increasingly irrational age: Spotify’s stock rebounded in the wake of Rogan’s apology.

As we regress to a superstitious, quasi-pagan world of witch burning, civil discourse will be replaced with supe…