Oh, gawd. It just never stops.
Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who served jail time for procuring an underage girl for prostitution, currently finds himself the focus of lawsuits saying that he arranged for various prominent people to have sex with underage girls. An article by Reuters notes that Epstein has also donated to many colleges and backed the work of various professors. Some researchers and charity officials said that they would not accept any more money from Epstein. But others defended him. “His interest is in interesting people and interesting ideas,” Lawrence Krauss, an Arizona State University physicist, told Reuters. Krauss directs a program on the origins of life — a program that Epstein has supported. Krauss said he would feel cowardly if he turned away from Epstein, given that he doesn’t know anything about the accusations.
Laurence Krauss, eh – the Humanist of the Year. No really: with a capital H and a capital Y. Arizona State University says so.
Arizona State University professor Lawrence Krauss has been named the 2015 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanists Association.
The Humanist of the Year award was established in 1953 to recognize a person of national or international reputation who, through the application of humanist values, has made a significant contribution to the improvement of the human condition.
Sooooo that would be defending an admitted pimp for underage girls? That’s a humanist value?
The AHA is bursting with pride in Krauss.
Rebecca has the story, which she’s been following for years.
You may recall that back in 2008, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein got a sweetheart deal in which he served just 13 months in prison for raping girls as young as 13. Evidence has since emerged to suggest that he created a vast underage sex ring in which he may have also forced girls to have sex with his wealthy friends. Amongst the accused are Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew(allegations they deny, obviously).
You may also remember that in 2011, physicist and atheist superstar Lawrence Krauss claimed that his scientific training led him to conclude that Epstein was innocent because Krauss only ever saw Epstein around girls who appeared to be 19 or so.
Remember, this was two years after Epstein had officially accepted the charge that he had paid several underage girls money for sex.
Yes but Krauss only ever saw Epstein around girls who appeared to be 19 or so.
That’s science.
It’s great that in the past four years, during which Epstein’s victims have exposed more details of his crimes, Krauss has adjusted his statement from confidently stating that Epstein was 100% innocent of the charges against him to saying he doesn’t know anything about the accusations.
Sure, you could still criticize him for not reading the court documents, or the many articles that have been written about his buddy, but at least he’s being slightly less disgusting than he was before. Slightly?
Enough to make him a worthy Humanist of the Year?
Is he referring to the accusations he was defending Epstein from four years ago? Those accusations?
Well, alrighty then. Nothing to see here. Krauss doesn’t know anything about no accusations.
Wow, this is disturbing. Seems like Krauss’s brand of humanism apparently includes an overabundance of loyalty and a dearth of empathy, in this case for all those victimized by his buddy (or whatever they are).
If I post the thing I’m wondering about Krauss right now, it will likely get me into a lot of trouble.
That said, fuck Krauss, and fuck the AHA.
In brighter news, Anita Sarkeesian is the Harvard Humanist of the 2014, so that’s a hell of a lot better. Yay Harvard Humanists! Wonderful choice!
What feat of mental gymnastics does it take to practice a form of humanism which does not include women?
How many times have we heard idiots claim, wrongly, that if there’s no conviction then it didn’t happen? Well in this case there is a conviction. So Krauss moves to the “if I managed to blank out the conviction it didn’t happen” position. Sheesh!
I may be asking for something FtB already does. If so, sorry. But, shouldn’t we maybe have our own awards? We have standards.
Hmm. I dunno…it seems kind of self-important for a blog network to hand out awards. A blog network is just a blog network, it’s not an organization or association.
“His interest is in interesting people and interesting ideas,”
As long as they are young, female, and have the interesting idea of being sex servants.
A blog network is just a blog network, it’s not an organization or association.
It’s an organization! It has a website; it’s organized!
Personally, I think that if the FTB bloggers all agreed on someone being “humanist of the year” that’d be a lot more interesting than if some monolithic entity (or DJ Grothe!) thought someone was laudable.
@4 Maureen Brian:
You made an assumption that Krauss considers women humans.
I wonder what he thinks of Bill Cosby. No, wait, I don’t.
No,shadow, I made the assumption that he hasn’t realised that yet!
Well, in the spirit of assuming the “best” of people, perhaps Krauss isn’t a sexist rape apologist… perhaps Krauss is simply cravenly following the money of his funder. They do say it is hard to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it. (Upton Sinclar).
On the other hand, WTF is up with the AHA — is Epstein funding them too?