Thread by @spiantado

Gather round, everyone--with Epstein's arrest, we all get to take @LKrauss1's master class on misusing "scientific thinking" to cover up exploitation of women. #MeTooSTEM (Thread)
nytimes.com/2019/07/08/nyr…

Scientific thinking is when you look at all the available evidence, including court rulings, testimony, and base rates (about 5% of sexual assault reports are false), and recognize the limitations of your own perceptions.

But @LKrauss1 and others used a "scientific" worldview in exactly the wrong way--not to find the truth, but to elevate a friend and funder who had already pled guilty to sex crimes (halting a deeper investigation)
thedailybeast.com/katie-couric-w…
freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/201…

Are we supposed to believe that Krauss only believes in things he has directly seen? That empirical evidence doesn't include what witnesses say? That Krauss doesn't understand his own conflict of interest in assessing Epstein?

"As a scientist," Krauss is skeptical of everything except his own social acumen.

Krauss took some criticism for it at the time--echoes of #MeTooSTEM in 2011
skepchick.org/2011/04/lawren…

Emailing with @rebeccawatson, he doubled down: "Based on my direct experience with [Epstein], which is all I can base my assessment on [WHY???!], he is a thoughtful, kind, considerate man ... I honestly don’t know who was the victim in this case. probably everyone was a victim"

When the FBI raided Epstein's mansion in 2019, they found a "trove" of pictures of nude photographs of young girls and other evidence, and charged Epstein with sex trafficking, creating "a vast network of underage victims"
nymag.com/intelligencer/…

“'Epstein had sex with underage girls on a daily basis' and that his interest in minor girls was 'obvious' to those in his orbit. His code word for this abuse was 'massage,'”
thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstei…

"jeffrey apparently paid for massages with sex… I believe him when he told me he had no idea the girls were underage" - professional skeptic @LKrauss1 in 2011

Biologist @TriversRobert, also funded by Epstein, was quoted by @Reuters in 2011: “By the time they're 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous” (he has since apologized)
reuters.com/article/us-eps…

Parroting skepticism and reason appears measured, but it often is entirely selfish.

In 2018, @LKrauss1 was found to have violated @ASU's policies on sexual harassment by groping a woman.
statepress.com/article/2018/0…

There was a call to cover up for Krauss too, in part by posting a bunch of terrible arguments patheos.com/blogs/dispatch…

(I tweeted about it too

https://twitter.com/spiantado/status/1055625929194524672

Krauss responded with a tired Christopher Hitchens quote, but if he thought that quote was a convincing argument, he should have deployed it to stop @ASU from finding him guilty)

So @LKrauss1 is "scientific" in the same way flat earthers are, using skeptical posturing to sow doubt about the truth when it serves his interests.