Tix still available
A bit more on the BuzzFeed story (read the whole thing to get the grim details).
In December, after BuzzFeed News contacted him about allegations of sexual harassment, Krauss tweeted a link to an article that argued the #MeToo movement was morphing into a “Warlock Hunt.” A month after that, he tweeted a story about French women denouncing #MeToo, writing, “I find their statement brave and thought-provoking, representing free-thought and skepticism at its best.”
Speaking out against a popular movement can provoke vicious reactions, but I find their statement brave and thought-provoking, representing free-thought and skepticism at its best. Agree with it or not, I am glad they spoke out. https://t.co/t5twA2VIud
— Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) January 10, 2018
Science!
The rise of online movements such as #MeToo has increasingly divided the skeptics into two camps: those who campaign for social justice and those who rail against identity politics.
Not really; it was already divided that way.
Several women — and men — interviewed by BuzzFeed News said they have stopped attending skeptic events because of this hostility.
“I’ve just become so disappointed and disillusioned with a group of people who I thought at one point were exemplars of clear thinking, of openness to new evidence, and maybe most importantly, being curious,” philosopher Phil Torres told BuzzFeed News. “This movement has tragically failed to live up to its own very high moral and epistemic standards.”
What’s particularly infuriating, said Lydia Allan, the former cohost of the Dogma Debate podcast, is when male skeptics ask how they could draw more women into their circles. “I don’t know, maybe not put your hands all over us? That might work,” she said sarcastically. “How about you believe us when we tell you that shit happens to us?”
Or not telling us that atheism and skepticism are more of a guy thing? Or not pitching huge public fits when we object to being told that? Just a thought.
Tomorrow evening Krauss meets up with Mister “Estrogen Vive” for a public event in Phoenix. If only Shermer and Dawkins could join them.
Next event in Phoenix is Dialogue with @SamHarrisOrg is Feb 23rd. Last chance to see us wrestle (verbally) on stage this year. :) Tix still available. https://t.co/0NQKBjsxa9
— Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) February 17, 2018
Editing to add: Sean Carroll is not making excuses for him.
Another famous scientist – Lawrence Krauss- revealed as a sexual harasser. As a field we should be ashamed at the existence of such behavior. https://t.co/DzmebuLDfk
— Sean Carroll (@seanmcarroll) February 22, 2018
I wish more stories could point out that “…those who rail against identity politics” are themselves practicing identity politics; they just figure that their own special interest, their own identity, deserves to be considered the “norm” from which everything else is an aberration or deviation. It’s not like SJWs are addressing things that weren’t already baked into the atheo-skeptic movement; they are simply bringing things out into the open and making them explicit. Just like those who don’t “do politics” or are happy with things just as they are, are still “doing” politics. They’re happy as long as politics gets done to somebody else. Silent inaction and acceptance are just as “political” as loud, angry protest; their practitioners just don’t notice that they’re soaking in it.
#MeToo has clearly made a lot of men uncomfortable. It is definitely hitting nerves. The idea that it goes too far – I have also heard this about Black Lives Matter – because maybe they think black lives don’t matter? No, it’s just the same old response, I suspect. If you don’t ask for your rights too loud, if you sit down and are good and look pretty (women) or serve well (non-whites), eventually, when we get through all the really important things (war, the economy, groping all the women, snatching all the goodies for ourselves), we’ll have time to consider what it is we can do to help you sweethearts out a bit. See, like Ms. Deneuve over there – she’s a good girl, willing to wait for what she wants rather than demanding it. So we’ll retweet her and praise her and talk about how brave she is.
It doesn’t take bravery to agree with white men about how the world should go. The real bravery is the women who speak out, who risk everything, who face daily threats and hatred because they dared to challenge the kings of the universe. Deneuve didn’t risk a damn thing; she might have gotten a bit of lip from feminists, maybe even a lot of lip, but they have little power to ruin her, and as far as I can tell, she hasn’t lost a position, a chance at a degree, or any of the other things the women who speak up about abuse have lost, and are probably still losing all over the world (and in some parts of the world, the risk is your very life if you dare accuse a man of sexual impropriety).
By the way, I’m not particularly surprised about Krauss. When he spoke up for Epstein, I figured he was definitely of questionable integrity, and there’s something about the way he talks to women (at least when I’ve seen him at conferences) that make me uneasy.
I got clued in about Krauss around ten years ago. It was said by a woman science journalist that a few days after a TAM in Las Vegas that she’d been telephoned by “a skeptic superstar” who blatantly asked if she would be interested in becoming his “next mistress.” Because there were several men on the program who could have fit that description, I asked around. Every woman I knew who was on the grapevine answered “Krauss” without hesitation.
Ten years.
Yet on Twitter there are people screaming in outrage that it’s all just wild allegations by two crazy women.
Oh, sure, just two crazy women. More like:
1. Hensley’s accusation, which her husband and “several employees at CFI” confirm she made to them before she ever went public.
2. Nora at Case Western, who initially didn’t name Krauss, but Krauss’s Dean figured out it was him based on rumors of prior similar actions. CW reprimanded Krauss.
3. The complainant from the Perimeter Institute event. The PI apparently found sufficient merit to justify not inviting Krauss back.
4. “A”, who was harassed and groped at the American Atheists meeting in Des Moines. Corroborated by her friend.
5. The woman who complained about being propositioned by Krauss on the CFI Greek cruise.
6. The friend of Melanie Thompson’s whose breast was groped by Krauss. Thompson and two other named eyewitnesses confirmed seeing this themselves. A photograph of the incident is consistent with their account.
7-10. Four former employees of Arizona State who complained of his offensive behavior. One of which is confirmed by two eyewitnesses. One of the former employees kept a journal recording this behavior.
So, all told, 10 different specific accusers mentioned in the Buzzfeed article alone, not counting corroborating witnesses, and not counting the various unspecified rumors.
There’s also no suggestion of a reasonable motive for any of these women to lie. None of them has sued him, or tried to write a tell-all book, or blackmailed him. Many of them never even tried to have him disciplined by his employer or the sponsoring organization, and some of the ones who did had to be talked into it. There’s no apparent ideological motive, either, as the women were all members of either science departments/organizations and/or skeptic/atheist groups who are sympatico with Krauss’s positions.
Note that Krauss has flatly denied that these incidents ever occurred, so the usual defenses don’t apply. For example, you could argue that Krauss has every right to proposition a CFI cruise patron for a threesome, as long as he isn’t coercive or harassing — but Krauss denies it ever happened.
You basically have to believe that these ten women all made shit up, and in some instances either (a) got friends to lie for them, or (b) planted the false story with friends years in advance so as to have corroboration in the future, in order to…. take down a prominent figure in a movement they supported?
Didn’t you know? It’s just that women hate men. They want to see men castrated, emasculated, and de-testosteronized (okay, I made up that last word, I admit). They want to feminize men by forcing them to deny their libido and act like somehow women aren’t really eager to be their sex toys. In short, they want them to feel less like a man, so the women can rule.
Which is, of course, bullshit, but unfortunately, apparently a lot of people believe it. Plus, there is the other story that women are so weak and fragile that they can’t handle a little sex play, a little unasked for feel. Men, you know, would love it it women just did that to them all the time! (no, they wouldn’t).
Screechy and Iknklast, two other commonly claimed motivations are the allegedly super cool fame that comes with being a woman accusing a famous man of sexual harassment, and that women just naturally want to be victims so that manly men can leap to their defense.
Interestingly, the people that claim that are also in the habit of claiming that the lefty men that do defend them are all wimpy beta cucks with bad body habitus…
The resistance to unpleasant facts, on the basis of issues outside of the question of his conduct, is terrifying. This is no better than the troglodytes voting for Roy Moore.
A month or more back, a Jezebel writer reported her own groping and belittling at the hands of Jesse Jackson, with photographs of the incident. Here too, the unwanted fact seems to have sunk beneath the waves.
I’m just waiting for the “we can’t do truly innovative physics without the locker room banter” defense. After all, if comedy writers can’t write comedy without belittling women behind the scenes, why would it be assumed physicists could do physics without it? Or biologists biology? Come to think of it, why should we assume judges can do justice, doctors can doctor, or sanitation engineers heft trash cans without ugly belittling of women in front of the women?
Screechy @ 5-
I too confirm. I know a whole bunch of others who can confirm. I told Azeen that when she talked to me – without a name at first until it was clear we were talking about Melody so I said so. I’d bet that most of the 50+ people BuzzFeed talked to were able to do the same.
Iknklast, I think that is a perfectly cromulent word and I endorse it. (Endorphine it? No.)
Also, when you’re a star geyzer, they let you. Official words from the Big Orificious Potato, so must be true. Believe me.