The sex offender-financier’s scientific connections don’t bode well for the academic culture of science. The list of confidants and friends who were fêted by the late (https://www.salon.com/2019/08/15/jeffrey-epsteins-neck-wounds-raise-suspicions-as-his-body-is-claimed-by-an-unidentified-associate/) financier and alleged sex trafficker (https://www.salon.com/2019/08/10/jeffrey-epstein-the-billionaire-awaiting-trial-on-sex-trafficking-charges-found-dead-in-jail-cell/) Jeffrey Epstein included a number of prominent scientists. Among the eye-popping names that appeared on the list (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html): the late cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Nobel-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (https://www.salon.com/1996/09/23/interview_15/), physicist Frank Wilczek, neurologist Oliver Sacks, and geneticist George M. Church. Wealth and power often beget one other, but they are not synonymous; moreover, those with one quite often crave the other. And so the wealthy financier Epstein sought to feel more powerful by surrounding himself with those whom he thought of as influential, whether politicians (like Bill Clinton), artists (like Matt Groening) or even prominent scientists. Unsurprisingly given the sex trafficking charges Epstein faced at the end of his life, many of his associates have been scrambling to downplay their associations with him (https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/tarring-steve-pinker-and-others-with-jeffrey-epstein/). That Epstein was interested in cavorting with scientists does not bode well for the sciences at large – mainly, what it says about the culture of scientists is dangerous and antithetical to the process of science. The term “star … Meer lezen over Keith A. Spencer – Why Jeffrey Epstein surrounded himself with scientists