Scientists are no longer burnt at the stake. So why did they stop being heretical?
A home for informed speculation in biology — ideas too nascent to be disclosed, too premature to be taken seriously, and too heretical to be considered acceptable.
What we publish
Essays, published under your name or anonymously, that make a claim about biology which is not yet established: an abstraction, a mechanism, or a unifying principle. Something you believe and cannot currently validate. The kind of idea that will be laughed out of the room.
Some of the ideas that inspired this competition are collected here. We welcome thinking that shares their spirit but pushes further.
We have one requirement. Every essay must propose what would settle the scepticism — what would have to be observed for the conjecture to hold, and what would show it to be wrong.
Submissions
The call for essays closes 5 December 2026, 23:59 GMT. Read the terms, then send your essay to submissions@heretics.bio.
Mailing list
We will email you when essays are published and when the results are announced. Nothing else.
Thank you — check your email to confirm.