Another one
The BuzzFeed story is out at last.
Lawrence Krauss is a famous atheist and liberal crusader — and, in certain whisper networks, a well-known problem. With women coming forward alleging sexual harassment, will his “skeptic” fanbase believe the evidence?
Or will it just continue ranting about “SJWs” and “Cultural Marxism” and “witch hunts” and “going too far”?
The authors (Peter Aldhous, Azeen Ghorayshi, and Virginia Hughes) start with Melody Hensley’s story of Krauss’s Harvey Weinstein routine – moving a dinner invitation to his hotel room and then assaulting her.
Krauss told BuzzFeed News that what happened with Hensley in the hotel room was consensual. In that room, “we mutually decided, in a polite discussion in fact, that taking it any further would not be appropriate,” he told BuzzFeed News by email.
But Hensley said that is untrue. “It was definitely predatory,” she said. “I didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t consensual.”
Later that night, Hensley told her boyfriend, now husband, that Krauss had made her feel uncomfortable, her husband confirmed to BuzzFeed News. Years later, she told him — as well as several employees at CFI — the full story.
I heard the story from her too.
BuzzFeed News has learned that the incident with Hensley is one of many wide-ranging allegations of Krauss’s inappropriate behavior over the last decade — including groping women, ogling and making sexist jokes to undergrads, and telling an employee at Arizona State University, where he is a tenured professor, that he was going to buy her birth control so she didn’t inconvenience him with maternity leave. In response to complaints, two institutions — Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario — have quietly restricted him from their campuses. Our reporting is based on official university documents, emails, and interviews with more than 50 people.
It’s like Weinstein – it was secret but many many many people knew about it. It was secret but it wasn’t secret. But even though it wasn’t really secret, Krauss was still invited everywhere. Time’s Up?
Many of his accusers have requested anonymity, fearing professional or legal retaliation from Krauss, or online abuse from men in the movement who have smeared women for speaking out about other skeptics. A few allegations about Krauss made their way onto skeptic blogs, but were quickly taken down in fear of legal action. So for years, these stories have stayed inside whisper networks in skepticism and physics.
And Krauss stayed inside the world of celebrity skeptoatheists, while that world lost woman after woman after woman because No Thank You.
In lengthy emails to BuzzFeed News, Krauss denied all of the accusations against him, calling them “false and misleading defamatory allegations.” When asked why multiple women, over more than a decade, have separately accused him of misconduct, he said the answer was “obvious”: It’s because his provocative ideas have made him famous.
Science!
Krauss offers the scientific method — constantly questioning, testing hypotheses, demanding evidence — as the basis of morality and the answer to societal injustices. Last year, at a Q&A event to promote his latest book, the conversation came around to the dearth of women and minorities in science. “Science itself overcomes misogyny and prejudice and bias,” Krauss said. “It’s built in.”
Pause for incredulous laughter. Take as long as you need.
Online, you can buy “Lawrence Krauss for President” T-shirts and find his quotes turned into inspirational memes. He writes essays for the New Yorker and New York Times, helps decide when to move the hand of the Doomsday Clock, and has almost half a million followers on Twitter. He made a provocative (if criticallypanned) documentary, The Unbelievers, with the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, another celebrated skeptic.
The skeptics draw heavily from traditionally male groups: scientists, philosophers, and libertarians, as well as geeky subcultures like gamers and sci-fi enthusiasts. The movement gained strength in the early 2000s, as the emerging blogosphere allowed like-minded “freethinkers” to connect and opened the community to more women like Hensley. It acquired a sharper political edge in the US culture wars, as skeptics, atheists, and scientists — including Krauss — joined forces to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools.
But today the movement is fracturing, with some of its most prominent members now attacking identity politics and “social justice warriors” in the name of free speech. Famous freethinkers have been criticized for anti-Muslim sentiment, for cheering the alt-right media personality Milo Yiannopoulos, and for lampooning feminism and gender theory. Several women, after sharing personal accounts of misogyny and harassment by men in the skeptic community, have been subjected to Gamergate-style online attacks, including rape and death threats. As a result, some commentators have accused parts of the movement of sliding into the alt-right.
And many of us have largely abandoned the movement as a result.
Nevertheless, Science.
Krauss’s reputation took a hit in April 2011, after he publicly defended Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier who was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl and spent 13 months in a Florida jail.
Epstein was one of the Origins Project’s major donors. But Krauss told the Daily Beast his support of the financier was based purely on the facts: “As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
Uh…what? I missed a step there. Where’s the empirical evidence part? Especially where’s the empirical evidence part that demonstrates Epstein’s non-solicitation of an underage girl? Is it supposed to be the “19” part? Are we supposed to understand that as “Krauss has abundant empirical evidence that Epstein never solicits underage girls, to wit, Krauss has never seen him with women under the age of 19”? That’s the science part? And then what about “as a scientist I always believe him and not anyone else”? I’m not seeing the science part in that claim.
On her Skepchick blog, Watson slammed Krauss for not acknowledging his obvious bias — and thus violating a core value of skepticism. “Krauss’ statement is extremely disturbing and makes scientists look like ignorant, biased fools who will twist data to suit their own needs,” she wrote.
“I remain skeptical, and I support a man whose character I believe I know,” Krauss responded in the post’s comments. “If you want to condemn me for that, so be it.”
The dust-up was part of a broader discussion among feminist skeptics about what they saw as the misogyny of some of the old guard. In June 2011, Watson posted a YouTube videomentioning her experiences with men in the movement.
In the resulting furor, Watson was publicly mocked by Dawkins and received a torrent of online abuse. Over the next couple of years, she posted a sample of the abusive comments she received on her blog.
With these issues dividing skeptics, Hensley, by then executive director of CFI’s Washington DC branch, organized a new conference called “Women in Secularism,” which debuted in May of 2012. It was a space to celebrate the history and accomplishments of secular women, Hensley said, “but also to give a platform so that we could talk about the issues and problems we were facing.” In now-deleted comments on CFI’s blog post announcing the event, some skeptics argued that the movement didn’t have a problem with women, and that the event would amount to “man bashing.”
On one panel, Jen McCreight, then a biology PhD student, spoke out about the whisper network. Before going to her first big atheist meeting, she said, “unsolicited I got many emails from different individuals basically warning me which male speakers not to interact with as a young woman.”
I remember that. I was about six inches away from Jen when she said it.
Some of us asked her to name names later, so I knew Krauss was on the list.
A. was an undergraduate who had first met Krauss in 2008 at the annual American Atheists Convention through her work as a student atheist activist. Three years later, when she and other students walked into the bar at the same meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, A. recalled, Krauss pulled over a chair for her and started running his hand up her leg under the table.
“I kind of shifted away,” A. said. “He put his hand on again. I crossed my legs. He put his hand on again. And eventually I had to like physically turn my entire body.”
A. was shocked, but didn’t want to make a scene, she said. “The last thing I need to do is, you know, yell at Lawrence and then have to deal with any potential fallout.”
Krauss denied A.’s account, and said that it was A. who had come on to him, inviting him to join her in the hotel’s hot tub. Robin Elisabeth Cornwell, a friend of Krauss’s and then executive director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, was also there, and backed his account. A. denied mentioning the hot tub or flirting with Krauss. Benjamin Wurst, one of her student companions, told BuzzFeed News that, as they left the bar, A. told him Krauss had put his hand on her.
Friends stick up for each other, don’t they. Krauss sticks up for Epstein, and Cornwell sticks up for Krauss. Result? Women leave “the movement” in droves and it moves ever more briskly to the right (and the mostly male).
There’s a great deal more, but I need a break.
As a scientist, I do wish people would quit using science as a cover for their obnoxious behavior. Being a scientist should not be worn as a badge of superiority that gives you automatic credibility. Claiming you make all your decisions based on science is a lie; none of us do that, and if we did, we’d make some damn lousy decisions, since emotion really is an important piece of information in many of our daily activities, especially those involving other human beings.
And besides, he’s a physicist. What special sort of insight does that give him into morality? Oh, wait, that’s right. Physics = omniscience. No. I don’t accept that equation. Most physicists I know have much less understanding of other fields than most people who are not physicists do. I know any number of them, and most of them are close to 100% oblivious about how the world works outside their charmed circle.
And every single physicist I know personally is a misogynist. So tell me again how science “overcomes misogyny and prejudice”? I will laugh in your face – or spit.
It’s the silly little lies that trip you up.
Krauss could have — and, if he was as smart and logical and unbiased as he thinks he is — would have just said “yes, I came on to her, and she declined, but there was no forcible anything.” But Krauss’s ego won’t let him admit that he was rejected, so he tries to pass off the fiction that, after inviting Hensley to dinner and then pulling the come-up-to-my-room-first bait-and-switch, they just had a little polite chat in which the subject of sex came up but they both expressed their mutual disinterest.
“I say, Ms. Hensley, should we have sexual intercourse?”
“What a fascinating question, Prof. Krauss! Let’s have a thorough discussion of it!”
“Indeed. Perhaps we can draw up a list of pros and cons….”
(ten minutes later)
“Well, it would seem the ‘cons’ have it. Let’s just shake hands and go down to dinner, shall we?”
And then there’s this exchange from the article:
Which seems more likely:
1. The Perimeter Institute did in fact decide that Krauss is not welcome there. The invitations from colleagues that Krauss references either (a) were made by colleagues unaware of the policy, which never became an issue because Krauss did not accept; or (b) are being made up by Krauss to protect himself.
2. The Perimeter Institute never made such a decision, yet authorized its spokesperson to lie about it on the record for the purpose of defaming Krauss just for shits and giggles. (Oh, ok, DJ Grothe, perhaps it was “for the clicks.”)
And Ron Lindsay does not exactly cover himself in glory. The story quote internal CFI emails showing that, when another CFI exec warned that Krauss should not be invited on a CFI cruise due to past inappropriate behavior, Lindsay’s concern was all about the bottom line: “Is it your position that Krauss will keep us from selling cabins?” And when Lindsay’s further inquiries confirmed that a guest had, indeed, reported such behavior, Lindsay apologized on behalf of CFI — and then proceeded to invite Krauss on the new cruise anyway.
Jesus, forget about the little lies. I just read the part where Krauss even lies about the findings of his own (former) university’s investigation: the school issued an inconclusive finding, but Krauss lied and said that they cleared him and found the allegations fabricated.
Yes. I cringed at that*. Pat Beauchamp on the other hand – props to her. (I like both of them but she definitely had the right of it here.)
*The part about Ron and the cruise.
Well, isn’t that sort of like how James Randi kept inviting Shermer back, even when there had been many allegations, and he apparently found them credible, but didn’t think there was anything serious enough to quit inviting the man back? I don’t remember his exact quote, but I was stupefied by the obliviousness of it all.
Yes, unfortunately, it is.
“As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
Doesn’t he see how stupid this sounds?
“Gee officer, he never killed anyone while he was around me, so he must not have killed anyone when I wasn’t there. So whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
“Well your honour, I never saw him changing the account books while I was here in the office, so I don’t think he did while I was out of the office, either. So whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
He’d be a great witness for Breatharians: “I’ve never seen him eat or drink, so I’m sure he doesn’t do either when I’m not around. So whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
Of course maybe he actually said this in exactly this way so as to not be considered a suspect or accomplice of Epstein. He hopes he can’t be charged for things he didn’t think he saw? But “ages 19 to 23” seems improbably precise without asking for ID. Maybe he thought it sounded slightly less suspect and damning than “in their teens to twenties.”
YNnB – another thing is about the 19-23 age: some young girls look older than they are, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes they just look older. When my younger sister (and my older sister, too) was 14, people guessed she was 40. That wasn’t any attempt on her part to look older, she just had that look. And telling a girl’s age by looking at her is even more difficult when you have a committed reason to believe they are older than they are. And if they ask the girl, well, some girls will tell you they are older, because they don’t want to “sit at the kid’s table”, so to speak. And men like Krauss are probably primed to believe them.
“And telling a girl’s age by looking at her is even more difficult when you have a committed reason to believe they are older than they are. And if they ask the girl, well, some girls will tell you they are older, because they don’t want to “sit at the kid’s table”, so to speak. And men like Krauss are probably primed to believe them.”
Don’t ask, don’t tell?
I’d thought of that very type of motivated reasoning too. Very likely combined with a generous dollop of imagined omni-competance courtesy of Dunning and Kruger.
Tsk tsk… How unskeptical of you to engage with the specifics/substance of what he said and show how the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises. True Skeptics™ don’t do that. Truly rational, science-y types throw the names of logical fallacies at their opponents. No need to show that the alleged fallacy actually applies when you look at the specifics. The name itself is the whole counterargument. Here’s how you do it:
• If your opponents cites external sources of any kind (Unskeptical and irrational people sometimes mistake this for a virtue, or even a necessity in scientific debates), you shout “Appeal to Authority!”*
• If your opponent points out unstated premises or implications of your arguments, or anything else that you didn’t explicitly say** – or did explicitly say, but not in those exact words – you shout “Strawman!”
• If your opponent makes any value judgments at all, you shout “Appeal to emotion!” or “Argument from ideology!”***
• If your opponent criticizes you as a person in any way (even if it’s not implied that the criticism makes your arguments or opinions wrong), you shout “Ad Hominem!” (and remember to claim victory by default since your opponent has clearly “run out of arguments”).
• If your opponent tries the “Avada Kedavra” on you, you shout “Expelliarmus!” (and remember to swish and flick with your magical wand)
Oh, wait, did I get that last one from one of the many virtually identical lists of logical fallacies found on skeptical websites or from Harry Potter? Somehow it doesn’t seem quite as stupid as the others..
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* Never mind that, to an excellent first approximation, all the knowledge of even the smartest, best educated person on the planet is second-hand knowledge. As a member of True Skeptics™ you are automatically qualified to speak as if you had personally derived all of science, mathematics, and logic from first principles without ever taking anything on trust.
** Never mind if said implications followed logically from what you said, or if your argument doesn’t make any shred or sense without said premises.
*** Of course as a member of True Skeptics™ any value judgement you make – such as men’s inalienable right to seek personal gratification at women’s expense – is by default “unpolitical” and “non-ideological” and based on True Reason™
So Epstein ‘always has women ages 19 to 23 around him…’
Ya know? That doesn’t speak well about a man in his 40s, let alone past 60. Just how do these women end up ‘around’ him? Is he passing out candy bars?
Bjarte @11,
Sadly, I came to the conclusion some time ago that a substantial number of people involved in the “skeptic community” really just do it to compile lists of logical fallacies they can yell at anyone who disagrees with them.
Screechy Monkey#13
Yeah,same here. Despite movement skeptics’ pretense to represent Pure Reason™ uncontaminated by values, it seems to me that true critical thinking is as much about attitude as it is about skills. Without the proper self-questioning attitude acquiring the tools of critical thinking only gives you more excuses for rejecting any conclusion you happen to dislike for ideological reasons (or anything you don’t believe in already). I cut all ties to movement skepticism and atheism specifically because of the misogyny issue, but now I don’t even think the movement ever did very well on the science front. For example skeptics tended to let climate change denialists (some of whom were even considered “thought leaders” of the movement) off the hook far too easily, and enter false balance territory whenever the issue came up, while congratulating themselves on how clever they were for not believing in homeopathy or Bigfoot.
Also, it now seems to me that skeptics have developed a few myths on their own. For example skeptics often say things like “Just look at the evidence for yourself”, or “Just follow the facts were they lead”, or “Let the evidence speak for itself”*, which makes it sound like evaluating evidence and “following the facts where they lead” is a straightforward matter rather than something that requires vast amounts of preknowledge and experience in its own right. The evidence never speaks for itself. As I have previously written elsewhere, I could probably provide a decent layperson’s explanation of the evidence for things like evolution or climate change based on books I have read, but I wouldn’t personally be able to extract any useful information about past climates from tree-rings or ice-cores. By saying things like “Just follow the facts were they lead”, movement skeptics make it sound as if their own views were based on a deep familiarity with/understanding of the evidence, when most of the time they’re just parroting back half-digested , half understood, second-hand knowledge from books, blogs, podcasts, youtube etc.
Another commonly heard trope is the idea that freeze peach guarantees that the best supported ideas will rise to the top in the marketplace of ideas. The unstated – sometimes even stated – premise being that those who have science and logic on their side always enjoy a decisive advantage in the battle for public opinion. This never seemed right to me, even in my movement skeptic days. If critical thinking should have taught us anything at all, it’s that the strongest indicators of truth vs. falsehood – objectively speaking – rarely coincide with what seems most subjectively persuasive to laypeople. Playing by the rules of science is nothing if not limiting, while the purveyors of bullshit are free to say whatever will impress people. Without the necessary preknowledge all your average layperson can be expected to get out of the exchange is that one side comes across as far more assertive, aggressive and confident while the other side is forced to use conservative language (“seems to indicate” etc.), acknowledge uncertainty, and introduce caveats, conditions and qualifiers at every turn. No need to specify which side is the scientific one.
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* Let me be the first to plead guilty on this point.