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Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

This article is awful and does a terrible job explaining the facts, and specifically blurs the timeline in a way that paints a different picture than the facts.

https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2020/report-regarding...

Does a far better job.

1. Jeffrey Epstein gives 9 million dollars to Harvard researchers. 6.5 was for PED, with an additional 23.5 from his foundation. This funds PED's creation

2. Jeffrey Epstein gave $200,000 to Department Chair of Psychology, he applied to be a Visiting Fellow. The Chair supported his application, and Epstein was granted Visiting Fellow status for the 2005-2006 academic year.

3. Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, so he withdrew his application for being a Visiting Fellow for the 2006-2007 academic year.

4. Epstein tries to donate to Harvard again, and Harvard denies him due to his arrest record. He makes no more donations to Harvard despite several professors lobbying administration. He does however introduce several professors to rich philanthropists who do make donations.

5. Epstein maintained a relationship with Martin Novak (director of the PED, which Epstein funded), who let Epstein on campus 40 times between 2010 and 2018. There is no evidence he engaged with any undergrad students. He used these visits to speak with prominent faculty.

View on HN

Agree. People's response to all this is so strange. It seems clear to me that this guy was legitimately interested in supporting science, and was a sexual predator. For some reason people really can't handle the idea of him being both things simultaneously. The world is actually just complicated sometimes.

There is a long history of great scientific advancements being made by otherwise unsavory people. Werner Von Braun, Ronald Fisher, Francis Galton, just off the top of my head. By all accounts these people legitimately loved science and reason and also held otherwise abhorrent views, and in some cases took abhorrent actions. This is just an ambiguity we have to live with.

His views on eugenics were particularly creepy, even from an academic perspective.

Epstein? You could easily be referring to the other three I mentioned too, i'm legitimately unsure.

Epstein wanted an island of pregnant women raising his babies.

And yet, for someone who certainly had the resources, Epstein seems to have had... no children at all? (Or has he simply successfully hidden his parentage?)

Did he own any fertility clinics?..

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jeffrey-ep...

Larry Hillblom (the H in DHL) did just exactly that.

Yes, Epstein. There's a few trustworthy articles out there which share a quote that he 'hoped to seed the human race with his DNA'. He had allegedly confided with quite a few people about it.

It's creepy by modern western norms but it's been a fairly basic drive in rich and powerful men for a long time. Look at the percentage of men who share Y chromosomes from Genghis Khan, or the sultans who kept large harems.

I don't understand why that's relevant. You should know that your comment reads as an excuse or an acceptance for the deeply creepy and awful things that Epstein said and did, not sure if you meant it that way so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Which awful thing did I even remotely justify? My comment was in reference to the comment I replied to, which was:

>'hoped to seed the human race with his DNA

I then gave examples of powerful men attempting to seed the human race with their DNA. I make zero justification of exploiting/grooming underage girls, that's an entirely seperate issue.

Doesn't seem like he had kids, or at least publicly.

Are you referring to Bill Gates?

I agree that people are many things and that monsters can also do good things. People are complex. But...

> This is just an ambiguity we have to live with.

This just isn't true. I'm quite sure that Epstein supported what he thought was good science. I'm also quite sure that Epstein had opinions about why his treatment of girls was justified. We do not have to accept that people who have violated our basic ideas about humanity should be allowed to do science. The most obvious example is the controversy around what to do with the results of the Nazi / Unit 731 human torture / experiments[1]. Both the idea that Epstein should be allowed to fund research and the idea that he should not are ethical positions. We should not pretend we don't have a choice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation#Mod...

> We do not have to accept that people who have violated our basic ideas about humanity should be allowed to do science.

Science is permissionless. The ethical restrictions of the research are good enough to monitor and remain vigilant about.

The idea of whitelisting transactions is misguided.

It’s some kind of only those of pure heart may partake in our magic type mentality.

... The centerpiece of which is "Your process/idea/thinking must consult our oracle of moral rightness and adhere to its adjudication" which is why it's so useful to woke culture proponents as a political tool, because it implies that it's not possible to write down the rules by which the oracle operates so that you don't need to consult it every time. You just have to keep paying into your political capital with the rent-seeking oracle of moral rightness and hope that it is merciful in its ministrations.

Science is permissionless, yes, but science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Science is made up of scientists, journals, universities, institutes, etc, which are all a larger part of our society. We have to apply our same moral compass and ethical responsibility to them that we would anywhere else.

Let's try a relatable thought exercise: there are a lot of misogynists in tech, many of them will be "cancelled" or ostracized in some way. All of their ideas should be ignored and their money should be barred from, let's say, cancer research?

Is that what we are going for here? I'm trying to understand if there is something deeper than I'm perceiving.

That certainly sound like some of the more extreme attacks on science and mathematics from certain political perspectives.

I think ultimately this is a situation where the process is the product. There is no end goal really. People just feel good about themselves for annihilating the transgressors. People do not feel good about conflicted situations or living with realities.

The real question is are there enough serial rapists in science? They seem to be many more women than serial rapists in science, perhaps that's where we should be focusing our diversity efforts. It really doesn't matter who they rape, as long as it isn't their research subjects, as that would be unethical.

A rapist, in prison, can still operate their own scientific research organizations, invest in others, donate to others

Someone that raped is in prison for rape. Their funds are not subject to civil or criminal forfeiture, and it wouldn’t make sense for it to be, so explain the expectations of illiquidity here.

>Someone that raped is in prison for rape. Their funds are not subject to civil or criminal forfeiture, and it wouldn’t make sense for it to be //

It would make sense to me. Take away all the luxuries from those who commit the vilest of offences; use the money/resources for those not committing atrocities.

Could you expand on why you feel rich people who are convicted of rape should be allowed to enjoy massive wealth status and control of resources far beyond their needs. Isn't putting people back to zero, with support to continue in a societally beneficial way (healthcare, housing, food, education) a proper reaction?

“Prosperity preaching” is the root of your cognitive dissonance, there is no relation to moral behavior and economic reality and we have no framework for making that so, primarily due to the 5th amendment of the constitution which that bars expropriation. It is pure theology which tries to intrinsically tie morality and economic reality, and puts many people at a disadvantage amongst those who never subscribed to that theology.

Even the 6th amendment which has been used to circumvent the 5th amendment in civil forfeiture still requires the property being related to the alleged or actual action, and anyone wealthy enough can undo a civil forfeiture. Criminal forfeiture has a much higher bar of review and also wouldn't be able to be part of your version of reality.

It is not a prerequisite that prisons are full of people that own nothing and return to society with little ability to acquire anything, while people that do own things are able to avoid prison because their lawyers understand the law than the prosecutors. That's just what has become commonplace and is familiar. But the prisons or conviction itself does not strip people of their property titles, when the title is unrelated, and when wealthier people do wind up in prison they do not have the same level of inconvenience in prison or when returning to society, as they don't need as much external infrastructure to get by.

Thanks for your comment. I should note that I'm just feeling this idea out:

>Prosperity preaching //

I think you've got it flipped. I'm not saying financial gain comes to those who 'believe' (I assume we're meaning those who are beneficial in society; indeed to some extent I think it's the opposite) but that justice should strip at least some of the cushion from the wealthy who are convicted of the most heinous crimes.

Yes, I realise that might not be consistent with USA constitutional law - but that doesn't necessarily show it to be a wrong course.

Basically I agree with your last paragraph and seek to equalise things - make leaving prison less onerous for the underprivileged and more for those for whom it causes little hindrance.

Why morally shouldn't punishment of convicted offenders sell to bring them down financially to a basic level?

> This just isn't true. I'm quite sure that Epstein supported what he thought was good science. I'm also quite sure that Epstein had opinions about why his treatment of girls was justified. We do not have to accept that people who have violated our basic ideas about humanity should be allowed to do science. The most obvious example is the controversy around what to do with the results of the Nazi / Unit 731 human torture / experiments[1]. Both the idea that Epstein should be allowed to fund research and the idea that he should not are ethical positions. We should not pretend we don't have a choice.

To be crystal clear, i'm not arguing that he shouldn't be ostracized, or that Harvard should have let him donate. I'm just arguing against over-simplifying his identity because we don't want to share anything in common with him (liking science).

People's response to all this is so strange.

Sure, this article and "people's response" are indeed a reaction to terrible people driving science without any, uh, mediation.

The development of science from the situation of renaissance proto-scientists requiring noble patrons to NSF grants being evaluated based on ostensibly objective criteria was a progressive development.

The rise of direct grants by the very wealthy - for whatever they believe science should be - is a regressive development. It's a development that likely won't destroy science but one which has the potential distort it by moving results in the directions these very wealthy patrons desire.

Is there any reason to believe the spontaneous consensus that arises among the kind of people involved in government institutions can't also be biased, in an unsavory way, towards certain goals that benefit them as a class?

One could argue that this effect is negligible compared to the other influences at hand. The most significant of which is the profit motive. If you worry about a few rick patrons directing science, imagine what the r&d budget of every corporation on earth is doing.

One could argue that this effect is negligible compared to the other influences at hand

And "one" would be kind of engaging in "what-about-ism".

You certainly have some corporations indeed attempting to twist results in areas like climate science or tobacco smoke. The main limit here is that companies spend based on semi-objective cost benefits so most companies want to look better hire public relations agencies rather than paying for science but see notable except above.

Sure, I don't which different kinds of science distortion worst but it's certainly remarkable the different arguments which phenomena like Epstein's efforts aren't really a problem.

There is what-about-ism and there is contextualization.

I think the philanthropic distortion of science is such a small negative effect it is not worth considering at all.

> It seems clear to me that this guy was legitimately interested in supporting science, and was a sexual predator.

That’s not clear at all. In fact it’s a quite reasonable interpretation to think all his involvement in academics was a way to impart credibility to himself, credibility which was then exploited to forge relationships with powerful people who helped him get away with raping minors.

Academia is an indirect way to acquire that power, though. The direct way is to befriend and donate to politicians. It's much more efficient, and someone as intelligent as Epstein surely knew that.

And much harder with the criminal record he had?

It doesn't seem clear to me at all that this guy was JUST interested in supporting science.

Epstein's intrest in eugenics is pretty well documented. I don't think it's a stretch to think his special interest in funding an evolution research team at Harvard was directly related to his abhorrent views. Sure his funding probably has had some higher order positive effects but it seems incredibly silly to suggest that such a monsterous person was donating all this money becuase of his passion for science. His constant oversight suggests that he probably had an agenda and use in mind for the research and I find it incredibly hard to believe it was anything good/humanitarian. You also have to keep in mind this is not just a guy with bad views, this is a person who has wielded money and power to directly cause evil for a very long time.

> Epstein's intrest in eugenics is pretty well documented.

i don't think of myself as much of an epstein apologist, but as far as i can tell this traces back to him talking about wanting to have a bunch of children, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me

I think the comment your referring to was a little less innocent than him wanting to just have a few kids. I did a fair bit of reading on this guy a while back and I seem to recall there being quite a bit of public documents and testimony that pointed out Epsteins weird interest in eugenetics.

could you point me to them?

There is no doubt that 'any' patron to science expect to see certain results, whether that someone or some organization's expectations matches ours is another matter. The difference should be drawn with fabricating results, not donation to science

In 2007, with the support of luminaries like Steven Pinker and Alan Dershowitz, Epstein managed to finagle from Alex Acosta a non-prosecution agreement for human trafficking that ultimately resulted in a country club sentence that allowed him, during his short custodial sentence, to work from his own private office for 12 hours every day.

The problem people have with Epstein's "support for science" is that he spent his life collecting influential people, and, in at least once notorious instance but likely many others, deploying the influence of those people to his ends, which included the trafficking of minors for rape. One reasonably asks, "was Epstein actually trying to fund science at Harvard? Or was brokering donations for programs he could brag about having a hand in getting off the ground just an easy way to create social bonds with the world's most influential people?" One then looks at what Pinker did for Epstein in 2007 and, probably, quickly finds the answer to that question.

This was also the problem with the MIT Media Lab's policy of denying named donations for Epstein while allowing him to broker donations behind the scenes. They were getting money from powerful people, because of Epstein's work. But MIT and the Media Lab's management missed what Epstein was getting out of the deal.

I agree that one may reasonably ask that. But there are much easier ways to acquire power and influence if you are extremely wealthy.

The only reasonable conclusion you can draw about the man is that he was both legitimately interested in furthering science and interested in acquiring personal power. That doesn't make anything he did any better, and we shouldn't say things like "well, he did all this sexual abuse, but he also funded science". I'm not advocating that.

But I also think it's overly reductionist and cynical to say that he was funding science for the sole purpose of insulating himself from legal prosecution for abusing women. It's just a ridiculously inefficient way to do that, if that's your only goal.

My broader point is that I think we need to be better about handling moral, not ambiguity, but...ambivalence? Epstein is not a morally ambiguous character, but he did do more than one thing in his life. Some of those things were good, some of those things were bad. The bad things unequivocally outweigh the good things, but it doesn't mean we have to erase them, or find some way rube-goldbergian way to re-evaluate them as actually sinister.

Which is also not to say that we shouldn't think carefully about the kind of power/legitimacy conferred by Epstein's activities. I think that's a legitimate and important discussion. But i'd find the inability to handle multi-dimensionality in some of these discussions strange.

He was insulating himself from criminal charges for abusing children. He raped children. He had children trafficked so that he could rape them, and then hand them off to his influential friends to rape again.

Werner Von Braun was an actual nazi. He was also a great scientist. The world is just complicated sometimes.

The idea that all his science funding was an elaborate ruse to insulate himself from prosecution is just not a very well grounded view. His chosen method of insulation was terribly inefficient with respect to time and money. He would have gotten a much better ROI by investing in politicians directly, the fact that he chose to focus more on science than politics makes it pretty clear that he had a genuine interest/passion for it.

I don't see why he can't like science for its own sake and be a child abuser. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Epstein is not a great scientist. In fact, he's not a scientist at all.

That wasn't my point. My point was that people can simultaneously do evil things and like science.

Have you considered the option that Epstein didn't like science as such but liked the influence and air of respectability that hanging out with scientists and being seen as a supporter gave him? It could easily be a form of whitewashing of his reputation that he would not be able to do otherwise. Nothing spells 'good guy' more clearly than large donations to science and education.

> Werner Von Braun was an actual nazi. He was also a great scientist.

Some recent research suggests he might not have been that great a scientist after all. The story goes that he was an impostor who got to his position mostly due to his influential father and whose main skill was managing others who did the actual work.

Here's a bachelor's thesis from 2018 and an interview with the author - both in German, unfortunately:

https://www.christopherlauer.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/C...

https://wrint.de/2019/01/15/wr903-wernher-von-braun/

What are you even arguing???

Yes, everyone knows that.

It was horrible.

But that doesn't tell us whether he had one motivation or two motivations in donating the way he did.

I could understand if you were saying "we should focus on his horrific crimes, and not care about what his motivation was in donating". But that can't be it, because you've also been posting in-depth about what his motivation was in donating.

So why are you making this post? I really hope it's not that you're trying to make it so awkward to respond that you 'win' the argument. But I can't think of any other non-hypocritical motivation.

That "Epstein abused women" was not an accurate description of his behavior. I think I was plenty clear.

Oh, you're complaining about one badly-chosen word. Women instead of girls.

Well I look dumb. Sorry.

But do you have any response to the other 99% of that post?

> I think I was plenty clear.

Normally people, especially those already in the reply chain, reply to the main argument of posts, so I don't think it was sufficiently clear. I would suggest quoting the part you're responding to if it's that small a section.

For what its worth, it was totally lost on me too. I thought it was a non-sequitur rant ignoring the entirety of the post

> But there are much easier ways to acquire power and influence if you are extremely wealthy.

Please elaborate, and include details of how those ways don't involve currying favor (using money and other things) with highly influential people and the institutions they are associated with.

It's not so easy to bribe a public prosecutor, which is why the extremely wealthy in need of a reputation bailout purchase it from those who are currently publicly reputable by virtue of the institution they are associated with (i.e MIT or Harvard).

The dimensions of people's lives are not as independent as you suggest which is why we have the concept of the conflict of interest.

> Please elaborate, and include details of how those ways don't involve currying favor (using money and other things) with highly influential people and the institutions they are associated with.

Invest in local politicians by making dinners, hosting parties, etc..and slowly work your way up the stack. It's true that Epstein did some of this, but from a pure power perspective, he would have gotten better returns by allocating his science money/time towards politicians directly.

> The dimensions of people's lives are not as independent as you suggest which is why we have the concept of the conflict of interest.

To be clear, i'm not suggesting that acquiring power/insulation was not one of the purposes of his science funding. What I am saying is that I don't think it was his sole motivation, and that describing it that way seems to me like an over-simplification designed to other him, so that we can all feel like he's completely unlike us. People on HN like science and technology, which means he shares something in common with us, and I think that makes people uncomfortable, so they want to deny it.

> It's true that Epstein did some of this, but from a pure power perspective, he would have gotten better returns by allocating his science money/time towards politicians directly.

That carries the risk of ending up with a felony campaign finance violation like Dinesh D'Souza's. Epstein was evil, not stupid.

There's no evidence he had even a basic understanding of science, never mind a genuine interest in it.

There's no reason to believe his "interest in science" went any deeper than creating social leverage - at best.

Cultivating scientists, philosophers, and other intellectually prominent people is a far less risky and far more directly rewarding strategy than cultivating politicians - although in fact he did plenty of that too.

But politicians are usually considered sleazy, and someone who is courting them is clearly playing a political game and likely to be sleazy themselves.

Courting scientists and academics is much cleaner and provides exactly the kind of cover you're attempting to justify.

And of course no one should have a problem with othering Epstein. Considering his record, he's about as other as it's possible to be.

> Invest in local politicians by making dinners, hosting parties, etc..and slowly work your way up the stack.

No amount of dinner parties is going to get people with reputation to lend it to you to cover the kind of horrifying stuff Epstein did. That sort of reputation cover costs money, and lots of it.

No-one is arguing that humans can't be complicated enough to have separate and complex facets to their lives.

We're arguing that, in this case, the facets weren't actually separate.

Here is a quote from a New York Magazine writer, quoting Epstein when he (the writer) asked to interview him about his conviction for molesting a 14 year-old:

> "Have you managed to talk to many of my friends?" Epstein had been supplying me the phone numbers of important scientists and financiers and media figures. "Do you understand what an extraordinary group of people they are, what they have accomplished in their fields?"

This is an attempt to intertwine the two aspects of his life that you claim were disconnected. It was not the only similar attempt.

http://nymag.com/news/features/41826/

I'm not saying they were completely disconnected. What i'm saying is that he very clearly had a legitimate interest/passion for science. He could have acquired power and influence in much more efficient ways than funding the MIT media lab, but he chose the things he did because he liked them.

I think people here don't want to believe he legitimately liked science because they think of that as a "good" trait, and they don't want a "bad" person to have any "good" traits. And I think that way of viewing the world ends up doing more harm than good.

It's not that clear. The sense I picked up from reading accounts of people who've met him in scientific contexts is that he would ask nonsensical questions, exhibiting an unwillingness to put in the effort to understand the basics of the fields he sponsored. It doesn't sound very passionate to me.

For example, from an article:

> The Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker said he considered Epstein as an "intellectual impostor”.

That seems to fit even better, albeit it in a different way. Rather than funding science to make a good contribution out of personal interest (and understanding), he could have been motivated out of a feeling of admiration, or intellectual inadequacy. Monetary funding would then appear to place him as a peer among these scientists, which would be a bit of an ego boost either way.

This would make claims about his "extraordinary group" of friends make a lot of sense. He might have associated with those people thinking that it made him feel and appear to be an interesting, intelligent, overall better person. Seems like exactly what an "intellectual imposter" would do, more than someone trying to build a personal shield.

Besides, we all know scientists have no political influence worth harnessing.

Or he knew that donating to influential science organizations would buy him good will, put him in touch with other rich donors, be good for media coverage and get him a list of people who might vouch for him when called by a journalist because they've received funding from him.

> This would make claims about his "extraordinary group" of friends make a lot of sense.

I don't know, it sounds like a slightly better worded version of "I know great people, they're the best people really, and I am one of them". They're extraordinary and they are his friends => wow, that must be quite the great guy, or he wouldn't have those kinds of friends.

Scientists might not directly have political influence, but especially the very successful ones are well-connected and have friends in the media. If you have lots of money to spend and you want to buy good will, wouldn't you just spread it? If a journalist ever thinks about you and talks about you at a private party, what better could happen than a science guy saying "oh I know him, he funded our important research" and an author saying "oh, yeah, that guy, he donated money to some literary program" and a finance guy saying "wow, yeah, he's very successful".

I find that a much simpler explanation that fits well into the picture.

> wow, that must be quite the great guy, or he wouldn't have those kinds of friends.

All I was really saying was that maybe he believed this himself. Like his mum paid for an expensive party and invited the cool kids and they were mostly polite and now he thinks they like him and he’s part of the group. Key difference being belief in his own delusion, before bragging to others about being one of the cool kids.

Even if he had a legitimate interest in science, who cares? There are two huge problems with Harvard allowing him to continue like that.

1. He exploited his connections to obtain a very lax sentence which allowed him to continue to rape children.

2. It damages the integrity of the scientific research as laid out in the article.

I have a bigger issue with the first than with the second, but I don't see how the question of whether he also had a legitimate interest in science is relevant to either.

> 2. It damages the integrity of the scientific research as laid out in the article.

A major point in this thread is that that makes no sense. The integrity of the scientific research here is fine. Is the suggestion here that there is a paedophile agenda to promote science and technology? Do we expect to be able to identify paedophiles because of their unusual dedication to the advancement of human knowledge?

The answer is a pretty solid no to both of those questions. There is no link between paedophilia and science.

> 1. He exploited his connections to obtain a very lax sentence which allowed him to continue to rape children.

Harvard isn't a courthouse. It is probably illegal in some way for them to revise court decisions. If the court gives a light sentence Harvard has to respect that. This point isn't related to Harvard.

We might disagree on those two points (I am abivalent about the research integrity one, anyway) but I hope you can agree with me that whether Epstein has a legitimate interest in science is completely immaterial to both of them. That's what my comment was about.

Pinker didn’t do anything for Epstein in 2007. That’s a pretty horrible mischaracterization.

I think parent was referring to this

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

(disclaimer: I know nothing about this and have no personal opinion on the matter)

I’m familiar with what he is referring to. It’s the least charitable interpretation, and one that disregards Pinker’s explanation and greatly overstates his role. Something you’d only sneak in a comment if you’re eager to throw shade at someone you don’t know but who you constructed an oppressor narrative for anyway.

Source? I have one.

> *"Epstein found aid from star psychologist Steven Pinker in the form of a 2007 legal document"

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

He absolutely assisted in his defense, if you believe his story, at the behest of Dershowitz.

From what I gather from the article linked above, he privately gave his expert opinion as a linguist regarding a passage of legal text. To make the claim that he "absolutely assisted", you'd have to presume it wasn't something he'd do for anyone else, that he expected it to be used (apparently he claimed otherwise?), and that it actually helped, despite seeming completely off-the-wall. Did I miss anything?

And even so, any one of us can hire an expert witness to make a statement like that. Especially big-shot professors. They aren't cheap I bet, but they surely don't cost 6 million bucks per line.

to claim he absolutely assisted, you actually just need to presume that he did something that helped. You can argue with those other points to try to argue about whether or to what extent it was a bad thing to do, but those arguments, even if valid, do not change the bare fact that he did in fact assist to some extent in Epstein's legal defense as a favour to his friend who was representing Epstein.

Though Pinker himself has said he regrets having provided that aid, so I don't think he himself fully agrees with you if you want to argue against it being something he should not have done.

All of which are bad things, but are examples of how money can corrupt people's ethics not how the money corrupted research. Corrupting research in Epstein's case would be if Harvard started publishing studies showing pedophilia was just a lifestyle choice and shouldn't be criminalized.

There were two purposes to the funding: to drive research, and to build Epstein's influence. There are two questions: which of those was the primary purpose? And, even if you reach the conclusion that building Epstein's influence was the secondary purpose, does that matter?

It matters about the title referring to distorting research - obviously the money distorted people, not the research, the research that was done with Epstein's money did not become any less valuable, some of the people who drove that research became less ethical where interactions that were not scientific research in nature were concerned.

The research has some value, and was paid for at some cost, and if the cost outstrips the value, that is relevant. I think it's easy to conclude that it did.

>In 2007, with the support of luminaries like Steven Pinker and Alan Dershowitz, Epstein managed to finagle from Alex Acosta a non-prosecution agreement

He didn't finagle shit, his CIA handler finagled it for him. And that person will never face any consequences.

This is very true, in politics specially things are not black or white, and in this case, common sense will just label him as a bad guy, despite the fact that he may have positive impact in science contributions. One specific situation that raises questions was his donation to Long Beach PD, for protection, while they also turn one eye blind for his behavior

The core accusation is not that he was a sexual predator, it is that he was using minors to trap and control people, for as yet an unidentified beneficiary.

People try to classify everything around them in binary. As its easy to just label people. But the fact they fail to understand is that no one is just "good" or "bad". You have to evaluate each of the actions and weigh it. This is tough and most don't do it.

No one is black or white, they are just shades of grey.

Many invest in education to get influence and nudge research in a certain direction.

Love for science is one thing, love for influence is another. Science at least demands to be critical here and taking a look at which fields he invested is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. For science.

> individuals can pick and choose lines of inquiry

It is not scientific to think that would not influence results. Of course his DNA might have been just a selfless offering for scientific inquiry and maybe the pope was right all along.

Science can nurture naïveté to encourage impartiality. But sometimes you need to know when to drop it.

"To us, Hitler was still only a pompous fool with a Charlie Chaplin moustache" - Wernher von Braun.

I was disappointed with the article for a different reason. It starts out by saying it's not just about Jeffrey Epstein, but then it's mostly about Jeffrey Epstein.

I mean, Jeffrey Epstein is a problem of course, and his example helps to illustrate the problem, but the core of the issue is that things cost money, so the people with money call the shots. This can undermine the honesty and independence and objectivity of science, of journalism, of politics, of democracy, or any other aspect of life.

Money is power, and that makes a very unequal distribution of money a problem. To science, but also to many other aspects of our society.

#5 neglects the fact that Epstein had an office on campus, which is far more interesting than the number of times he was invited in by staff. (Covered in more detail by someone else, below.)

My reading is that Epstein had an office when he was a student, before being conviction, but not after. After conviction he visited others in their offices.

Epstein was never a student at any point at Harvard

He bought his way into the role, but my understanding is that he was.

From the Harvard Report:

As to Epstein’s appointment as a Visiting Fellow, the initial appointment occurred in 2005, before Epstein’s arrest. The Visiting Fellow designation is now, as it was in 2005, granted to an independent researcher registered with Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as a graduate research student.

....

Nevertheless, he applied to be re-admitted for a second year, the 2006-2007 academic year, and was again admitted, but he withdrew from that appointment following his arrest and before the new academic year began.

I'm pretty sure "visiting fellow" is not the same thing as "student"

>graduate research student

Please read the entire comment

Epstein was briefly a grad student at NYU's Courant Institute under Boris Kupershmidt

He had an office when he was a visiting fellow. Which is prior to his arrest.

But that is the statement of Harvard, I think the article depicts a wider angle of knowledge.

One was an extensive report done by Harvard that was based on first hand interviews of the people involved. This post is some guy on the internet who claims to have done no original research who has an opinion from reading 2nd and 3rd hand sources. (which were probably based on the harvard report)

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