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Jeffrey Epstein’s Harvard connections show how money can distort research

225 points by LinuxBender 6y ago

Goronmon 6y ago
Maybe someone can word this statement in a way that actually describes the problem better for someone not as well-versed in the ins-and-outs of funding in academia? The Epstein affair brings to light a much larger problem: it undermines the integrity of the research enterprise when individuals can pick and choose lines of inquiry that appeal to them simply because they can pay for them. People funding research that interests them seems like a pretty innocuous statement by itself. Sure, it's connection to Epstein is blatantly problematic, but if you remove him specifically from the statement, what is the problem being highlighted?
- sukilot 6y ago
  They pay for the results they want.
  - rsa25519 6y ago
    Maybe they do, but the article doesn't provide any data to back this up. I would have liked a sample size larger than one
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      It'd be absolute career suicide for any researcher to have their work publicly bankrolled by Epstein or reveal to the public that their research was aiming for specific goals that Epstein was looking for.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    See I think the problem with this article is that it doesn't think it could actually make the case that Epstein could pay for results. So it basically tries to muddy the waters between "If you give a large chunk of money to a researcher you get to influence what they research" and "You get to influence the output of that research." Almost everyone agrees the latter is bad, but I think most people believe that you should be able to fund whatever research you want with your own money.
- bollu 6y ago
  The article explains this in the first paragraph, does it not? - ... the mockery made of academic standards when, after donating $200,000 to the psychology department, Epstein was appointed as a visiting fellow there despite a complete lack of appropriate academic qualifications. - Even after his release from prison, Epstein continued to be a frequent visitor: between 2010 and 2018 Epstein (at that point a registered sex offender) went to the PED offices more than 40 times. During that period he had an on-campus office and a key card and pass code with which he could enter buildings during off-hours. Why should a benefactor have access to the research lab they fund? The article also mentions: - The New York Times concluded that in this case it led researchers “to give credence to some of Mr. Epstein's half-baked scientific musings.” True or not, it should trouble us that a corrupt man was making decisions affecting research at a major U.S. university. He had no academic competence—yet he effectively made choices about which research initiatives were interesting and promising. So the problem it seems to be highlighting are twofold: (1) The access and "respectability" gained by donating to harvard without intellectual competence behind it, and (2) His ability to "softly dictate" researchers to give credence to his musings. For what its worth, I disagree with what the article then proceeds to reach for: > When peer review operates properly, it identifies the best ideas to support, usually by using panels—not individuals—to see to it that a range of views is represented. The process is imperfect, but women, people of color, young scholars, investigators at nonelite universities and individuals promoting ideas that challenge conventional wisdom at least have a chance
  - catgary 6y ago
    - ... the mockery made of academic standards when, after donating $200,000 to the psychology department, Epstein was appointed as a visiting fellow there despite a complete lack of appropriate academic qualifications. Can we take a moment, and just laugh at the fact that for some reason it's cheaper to buy yourself a visiting fellowship in the Harvard Psych department than it is to buy your kid a seat in the undergraduate psychology program? Edit: I guess the most most eyebrow-raising revelation for me is that these positions are, in fact, for sale.
    - conistonwater 6y ago
- calibas 6y ago
  To me at least, the direction of scientific progress should be in the hands of scientists, not wealthy donors, big corporations or politicians. When the people who control the funding have their own narrow biases, it can't help but corrupt the results. Often, the results just disappear instead of being published when they're not what they're "supposed" to be.
  - mennis16 6y ago
    I think narrow biases and unpublished results happen to some extent anyway with the politics/beauracracy that arises from having a small subset of established scientists vote on which science gets funding. I don't disagree with the concerns about wealthy donors/corporations, and I do think it is a good idea to have a large portion of funding allocated by other scientists. But I also feel a little diversity in funding sources can give labs breathing room to be more creative. There's also examples like the development of the original birth control pill- which was largely funded by one wealthy woman. I doubt it could have happened in that time period without someone wealthy with independent interests being able to push development.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > People funding research that interests them seems like a pretty innocuous statement by itself. Sure, it's connection to Epstein is blatantly problematic, but if you remove him specifically from the statement, what is the problem being highlighted? There are two issues here. First, if it would be politically or financially more convenient to not know something, there is no money provided towards knowing it. Second, in many cases the donors get to decide whether to publish the results after the research has been done. Naturally if only one of the possible results is inconvenient and the study reaches the inconvenient conclusion, that one doesn't get published. Then all your results are totally invalidated by selection bias. It also provides the opportunity to do this: https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ Study doesn't say what you want? Fund another one, maybe tweak it a little, sooner or later it will, and you only publish the one that does.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Suppose you remove the wealthy people funding research that interests them. Now you’re left with the alternative of doing no research?
- nlosti 6y ago
  Wrong dichotomy.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  If we want to make speculations of what research could be, I would like to speculate that research could be funded by society as a whole and its benefits go to society as a whole.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    I think how much research is societally funded vs personally funded seem pretty orthogonal to me. Should society spend more money on research? Yes Should society ban individuals from spending money on research? No
    - nlosti 6y ago
      The second question is leaving a lot to be desired. Which individuals? What if they're part of an organisation? What is the actual research they are trying to fund? What could they gain from the research? What do you mean by 'should society ban'? I could go on... These are important qualifiers. There is an imbalance of power when it comes to people like Epstein and you need to be careful how this imbalance affects science. If your wealth/person ratio is immensely high i'd start to raise eyebrows.
      - JamesBarney 6y ago
        > Which individuals? What if they're part of an organisation? What is the actual research they are trying to fund? What could they gain from the research? Legally, I think any individual should be able to write any other individual a check so that the second individual can afford to study any subject. I assume institutions will have more restrictions to maintain scientific credibility. > What do you mean by 'should society ban'? This doesn't seem confusing to me. Banning means to legally restrict. With an onerous example being "Only the government can fund research, private contributions to any organization that performs research is banned". Maybe you could elucidate which part of that was unclear.
rsa25519 6y ago
> The New York Times concluded that in this case it led researchers “to give credence to some of Mr. Epstein's half-baked scientific musings.” True or not, it should trouble us that a corrupt man was making decisions affecting research at a major U.S. university. True or not? Really? I would have liked if this article shared statistics instead of being so ambigious
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  "Lend credence" is an underhanded phrasing given that it can mean both "consider it more credible in theories" vs "associating with the evil crackpot makes him look more credible". One can argue a responsiblity to avoid both but the two are not at all identical - one is a corruption of their output while the other is essentially a confidence trick like saying a Harvard professor supports homeopathy - ignoring that it was a Philosophy professor and not Biology or Medical. Bad for the institutional reputation but doesn't discredit the work in itself.
apsec112 6y ago
If people are worried about scientific donors having undue influence, a much cleaner route than trying to stop donations or screen every person is to simply require that donations be anonymous. That way, everyone still has the freedom to sponsor whatever they want, but nobody gets bribed to overlook sex trafficking.
- jackfrodo 6y ago
  I don't think that works in practice. If you donate money with the goal of advancing some agenda, and it's officially anonymous, you'll find a way of letting the right people know it was you.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > That way, everyone still has the freedom to sponsor whatever they want That still has a distortion effect on the institution and scientific community. And that's assuming the world's top scientists could never possibly guess that the only rich dude who always talks about X is making large anonymous donations to support research on X... The correct way to do this is to fund a non-profit that then hires a set of third party reviewers to award grants on a competitive basis around one or more themes. This is how Elon Musk and Bill Gates do things, for example. But no matter how you package it, anyone with a real reputation has more to gain than to lose by taking money from a pedophile. Harvard's/MIT's admins were trying to protect their faculty's reputation.
gojomo 6y ago
Article's details don't truly deliver on headline. Epstein funded his pet research areas, yes. But all sources of funding including government grants do the same, one way or another. And across all rich funders, the variety of interests is very large, and include areas other more institutional funding bureaucracies ignore. Also, despite Epstein's (somewhat still-underexplained) wealth & largesse, his money was a drop in the bucket. When the article points out that "more than two thirds of Epstein's donations—$6.5 million—went to PED director Martin Nowak" – an already well-funded researcher, it actually undermines its case. Epstein gave less than $10 million total? And to established programs? How does a tiny bit of funding, from an extreme-outlier bete-noire, to some not-even-fringe programs, make any negative general case against private funding? That such private funding picks a different mix of researchers than the Harvard Professor writing this article would pick is the point - don't send all funding through the exact same credentialed-panels of established academia. Accept some curve-ball initiatives from other uncorrelated piles-of-resources. The article's one tangible example of some favors flowing from a Harvard academic to Epstein's defense – Epstein's lawyer Dershowitz getting some linguistic advice from Steven Pinker – doesn't involve research funding at all. Someone's high-end legal counsel is being paid specifically to marshal resources & expertise for their defense. There's no distorting quid-pro-quo with regard to other payments: it's a totally up-front fee-for-advocacy relationship. (And that's even before considering Dershowitz's other alleged entanglements in Epstein matters.)
- teachrdan 6y ago
  Your argument is logically sound but provably false. Humans are known to compromise their ethics for relatively small amounts of money. For example, Martha Stewart was a billionaire when she engaged in insider trading and then lied about it to the FBI, resulting in her going to federal prison--all to avoid a measly $45,000 loss! The article makes clear that Epstein was granted physical access to facilities, the title of "visiting fellow at Harvard" in areas of study in which he had no credentials, and getting world-renowned researchers to validate his crackpot theories of racial eugenics due to his wealth. I mean, you are being reasonable: $10 million in funding is peanuts to Harvard, which has an endowment of almost US $41 billion. But apparently Harvard is willing to lease our their credibility for such "a tiny bit" of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_case_and_conviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_c... https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+endowment&oq=harvard+endowment https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+endowment&oq=harvard...
JamesBarney 6y ago
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-jeffrey-epstein-s-connections-to-harvard 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.
- darawk 6y ago
  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.
  - ourcat 6y ago
    His views on eugenics were particularly creepy, even from an academic perspective.
hpoe 6y ago
I'm just going to point out that to people that have a concern about wealthy people funding research that is how science has been done long before research grants or anything like that came on the scene. For a long time art and the sciences were funded by wealthy merchants and kings giving money to people like Lenardo Da Vinci to eat while they worked on their ideas. Also another point, people worry about the corrupting influence of money on research but there is nothing that stops someone with money from setting up a research lab independent of a university and producing their own research. In fact I would think having the research done with a prestigious university would be a better check on the results because the individuals doing the research are tied deeply into their communities and as such their is more oversight and discussion on the topic.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  What are the greatest advances in science and/or technology? How were those financed? Is there any evidence of bias toward or away from specific areas based on moneyed, political, or other interests?
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    A couple: 1. Einstein was funded by himself. 2. The Wright Bros were funded by themselves. They were motivated by the idea of getting rich selling airplanes. The government funded alternative, the Langley, flopped (literally) into the Potomac. 3. Whittle's jet engine was funded (in part) by a little old lady. Government refused to fund it. 4. The Reich refused to fund jet engines until Heinkel demonstrated a flying prototype. It was financed by Heinkel. 5. The transistor was invented by Bell Labs funded from AT&T's profits. 6. The first transatlantic cable was funded by wealthy investors looking to make money off of it. 7. Several explorers were funded by newspapers in exchange for exclusive story rights.
    - cma 6y ago
      Didn't Einstein do his work during business hours as a government-paid patent clerk?
scottlocklin 6y ago
>but we have broad evidence that the interests of funders often influence the work done. As opposed to Government, drug company and institutional funders; they NEVER influence the work done. Epstein was an evil asshole, and Harvard is a disgusting, sinister institution, but concentrating on rubbish like this overlooks the insane, ridiculous, overt and pervasive problems with science research funding that don't involve funding by the creepy dude who didn't kill himself, and who the media otherwise seems strangely incurious about.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ckemere 6y ago
There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. But it's also a mistake to think that funders have that much influence on research. Scientists usually study what they want and there's been thousands of years of attempts to develop systems to try force them to study what they're paid for that are still not completely effective. Where did Epstein get his unfortunate ideas? From other scientists! Young researchers very early learn that their main task is the same as start up founders - to inspire people they talk with about their research in order take their money (or recruit them to the lab). I think that truth and societal value are often easiest to convey but obviously not always.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. This unfortunately comment is filled with bad and dubious comment but this seems notably deceptive. Society has to various extents aimed to protect itself from the very worst behavior and the worst people - and has succeed in to a rather spotty extent, certainly. Still, every stage of science has involved some filtering out of the bad and worst. The increase in science's scale has lessened the degree to which a scientist had to be "respectable" but added filters like objective grant criteria, etc. Still, there's no way a single filtering method can work. You can't count on publications to weed out determined frauds - science counts on a certain ethos from scientists (and counts now less than it should and suffers for this). Science needs a community of honesty and it's significant the number of commentators who can't understand this here.
hartator 6y ago
> because Epstein was a criminal Just random thought: Should will be saying alleged criminal or not since he would never have a trial?
- fiblye 6y ago
  He'd been convicted before.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
godmode2019 6y ago
From my understanding Epstein was an intelligence agent, who worked the honey trap line. Compromising politicians, scientists & actors. This is pretty well laid out by now re FBI Charing documents for Maxwell. Is this not the common understanding of the situation?
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  Links?
  - godmode2019 6y ago
    https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1291491/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1291491... https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12265937 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obj... https://www.scribd.com/doc/267173868/Virginia-Roberts-Affidavit https://www.scribd.com/doc/267173868/Virginia-Roberts-Affida... "19.In addition to constantly finding underage girls to satisfy their personal desires,Epstein and Maxwell also got girls for Epstein’s friends and acquaintances. Epstein specifically told me that the reason for him doing this was so that they would “owe him,” they would “be in his pocket,” and he would “have something on them.” I understood him to mean that when someone was in his pocket, they owed him favors. I also understood that Epstein thought he could get leniency if he was ever caught doing anything illegal, or more so that he could escape trouble altogether" That's probably enough information to get you started.
mattxxx 6y ago
I see a lot of comments are criticizing the article, because it seems to damn the fundamentals of how research is funded. I think that response to the article is justified. That is, yea - science needs a way to be funded, and it should be wealthy people that foot the bill... altruistically.
alpineidyll3 6y ago
The things the average faculty member would do for a 100k grant are truly disgusting, and would probably make Epstein retch.
spenrose 6y ago
The author, Naomi Oreskes, is a prominent scholar of science history who has written extensively on the corruption of research for political purposes by, for example, tobacco companies.
theqult 6y ago
What is really distorting research are all those moralistic jerks off
gridlockd 6y ago
> What made it even worse was that Epstein was a latter-day eugenicist whose interests were tied to a delusional notion of seeding the human race with his own DNA. Given this stance, it is particularly disturbing that he focused his largesse on research on the genetic basis of human behavior. Human genetics is an ethically sensitive and intellectually contested domain where it behooves us to ensure that the highest standards of scientific rigor are in place and that nongenetic explanations for behavior are given a fair chance to compete. This is a thinly veiled attack on evolutionary biology, which keeps coming up with plausible explanations that are nevertheless utterly disturbing to the self-image of a moral human being and must therefore be suppressed from its consciousness. This is an undue conflation of science (is) and morals (ought). Morals are an artifact of human experience with nature, nature itself is amoral. For instance, let's ask: Why does rape exist? Sociologist: writes twenty paragraphs on patriarchy and rape culture while ignoring the rest of the animal kingdom Evolutionary Biologist: It's a successful strategy for reproduction, the selfish gene promotes its continued existence If the sociologist is right, then rape should disappear in an enlightened culture that has abolished all male dominance (utopianism). If the biologist is right, then rape will not disappear without identifying and muting all gene sequences that might lead an individual to be a rapist (eugenics). In reality, neither are practical solutions, both explanations are bound to be contributing factors, but with one disregarding the other, we lose the ability to draw rational conclusions and devise functioning systems.
known 6y ago
"The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught" --H.L.Mencken
idm 6y ago
It's a fact that wealthy donors support specific research that interests them. On the one hand, hasn't research always been funded like this? Wealthy patrons have always supported work that somehow gratified them. And history is replete with despicable personalities who have nevertheless financed good science. On the other hand, when the patron's interests turn out to be questionable, the research supported by those interests can be examined. It's okay to give it a second thought in light of new information about the patron. I happen to think this article raises valid questions. For example, I have questions about the idea of buying a visiting fellowship. I have questions about the mechanisms by which faculty become oddly encumbered by donations.

225 points by LinuxBender 6y ago

Maybe someone can word this statement in a way that actually describes the problem better for someone not as well-versed in the ins-and-outs of funding in academia? The Epstein affair brings to light a much larger problem: it undermines the integrity of the research enterprise when individuals can pick and choose lines of inquiry that appeal to them simply because they can pay for them. People funding research that interests them seems like a pretty innocuous statement by itself. Sure, it's connection to Epstein is blatantly problematic, but if you remove him specifically from the statement, what is the problem being highlighted?

sukilot 6y ago
They pay for the results they want.
- rsa25519 6y ago
  Maybe they do, but the article doesn't provide any data to back this up. I would have liked a sample size larger than one
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    It'd be absolute career suicide for any researcher to have their work publicly bankrolled by Epstein or reveal to the public that their research was aiming for specific goals that Epstein was looking for.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  See I think the problem with this article is that it doesn't think it could actually make the case that Epstein could pay for results. So it basically tries to muddy the waters between "If you give a large chunk of money to a researcher you get to influence what they research" and "You get to influence the output of that research." Almost everyone agrees the latter is bad, but I think most people believe that you should be able to fund whatever research you want with your own money.
bollu 6y ago
The article explains this in the first paragraph, does it not? - ... the mockery made of academic standards when, after donating $200,000 to the psychology department, Epstein was appointed as a visiting fellow there despite a complete lack of appropriate academic qualifications. - Even after his release from prison, Epstein continued to be a frequent visitor: between 2010 and 2018 Epstein (at that point a registered sex offender) went to the PED offices more than 40 times. During that period he had an on-campus office and a key card and pass code with which he could enter buildings during off-hours. Why should a benefactor have access to the research lab they fund? The article also mentions: - The New York Times concluded that in this case it led researchers “to give credence to some of Mr. Epstein's half-baked scientific musings.” True or not, it should trouble us that a corrupt man was making decisions affecting research at a major U.S. university. He had no academic competence—yet he effectively made choices about which research initiatives were interesting and promising. So the problem it seems to be highlighting are twofold: (1) The access and "respectability" gained by donating to harvard without intellectual competence behind it, and (2) His ability to "softly dictate" researchers to give credence to his musings. For what its worth, I disagree with what the article then proceeds to reach for: > When peer review operates properly, it identifies the best ideas to support, usually by using panels—not individuals—to see to it that a range of views is represented. The process is imperfect, but women, people of color, young scholars, investigators at nonelite universities and individuals promoting ideas that challenge conventional wisdom at least have a chance
- catgary 6y ago
  - ... the mockery made of academic standards when, after donating $200,000 to the psychology department, Epstein was appointed as a visiting fellow there despite a complete lack of appropriate academic qualifications. Can we take a moment, and just laugh at the fact that for some reason it's cheaper to buy yourself a visiting fellowship in the Harvard Psych department than it is to buy your kid a seat in the undergraduate psychology program? Edit: I guess the most most eyebrow-raising revelation for me is that these positions are, in fact, for sale.
  - conistonwater 6y ago
calibas 6y ago
To me at least, the direction of scientific progress should be in the hands of scientists, not wealthy donors, big corporations or politicians. When the people who control the funding have their own narrow biases, it can't help but corrupt the results. Often, the results just disappear instead of being published when they're not what they're "supposed" to be.
- mennis16 6y ago
  I think narrow biases and unpublished results happen to some extent anyway with the politics/beauracracy that arises from having a small subset of established scientists vote on which science gets funding. I don't disagree with the concerns about wealthy donors/corporations, and I do think it is a good idea to have a large portion of funding allocated by other scientists. But I also feel a little diversity in funding sources can give labs breathing room to be more creative. There's also examples like the development of the original birth control pill- which was largely funded by one wealthy woman. I doubt it could have happened in that time period without someone wealthy with independent interests being able to push development.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> People funding research that interests them seems like a pretty innocuous statement by itself. Sure, it's connection to Epstein is blatantly problematic, but if you remove him specifically from the statement, what is the problem being highlighted? There are two issues here. First, if it would be politically or financially more convenient to not know something, there is no money provided towards knowing it. Second, in many cases the donors get to decide whether to publish the results after the research has been done. Naturally if only one of the possible results is inconvenient and the study reaches the inconvenient conclusion, that one doesn't get published. Then all your results are totally invalidated by selection bias. It also provides the opportunity to do this: https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ Study doesn't say what you want? Fund another one, maybe tweak it a little, sooner or later it will, and you only publish the one that does.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

Suppose you remove the wealthy people funding research that interests them. Now you’re left with the alternative of doing no research?

nlosti 6y ago
Wrong dichotomy.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
If we want to make speculations of what research could be, I would like to speculate that research could be funded by society as a whole and its benefits go to society as a whole.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  I think how much research is societally funded vs personally funded seem pretty orthogonal to me. Should society spend more money on research? Yes Should society ban individuals from spending money on research? No
  - nlosti 6y ago
    The second question is leaving a lot to be desired. Which individuals? What if they're part of an organisation? What is the actual research they are trying to fund? What could they gain from the research? What do you mean by 'should society ban'? I could go on... These are important qualifiers. There is an imbalance of power when it comes to people like Epstein and you need to be careful how this imbalance affects science. If your wealth/person ratio is immensely high i'd start to raise eyebrows.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      > Which individuals? What if they're part of an organisation? What is the actual research they are trying to fund? What could they gain from the research? Legally, I think any individual should be able to write any other individual a check so that the second individual can afford to study any subject. I assume institutions will have more restrictions to maintain scientific credibility. > What do you mean by 'should society ban'? This doesn't seem confusing to me. Banning means to legally restrict. With an onerous example being "Only the government can fund research, private contributions to any organization that performs research is banned". Maybe you could elucidate which part of that was unclear.

rsa25519 6y ago

> The New York Times concluded that in this case it led researchers “to give credence to some of Mr. Epstein's half-baked scientific musings.” True or not, it should trouble us that a corrupt man was making decisions affecting research at a major U.S. university. True or not? Really? I would have liked if this article shared statistics instead of being so ambigious

Nasrudith 6y ago
"Lend credence" is an underhanded phrasing given that it can mean both "consider it more credible in theories" vs "associating with the evil crackpot makes him look more credible". One can argue a responsiblity to avoid both but the two are not at all identical - one is a corruption of their output while the other is essentially a confidence trick like saying a Harvard professor supports homeopathy - ignoring that it was a Philosophy professor and not Biology or Medical. Bad for the institutional reputation but doesn't discredit the work in itself.

apsec112 6y ago

If people are worried about scientific donors having undue influence, a much cleaner route than trying to stop donations or screen every person is to simply require that donations be anonymous. That way, everyone still has the freedom to sponsor whatever they want, but nobody gets bribed to overlook sex trafficking.

jackfrodo 6y ago
I don't think that works in practice. If you donate money with the goal of advancing some agenda, and it's officially anonymous, you'll find a way of letting the right people know it was you.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> That way, everyone still has the freedom to sponsor whatever they want That still has a distortion effect on the institution and scientific community. And that's assuming the world's top scientists could never possibly guess that the only rich dude who always talks about X is making large anonymous donations to support research on X... The correct way to do this is to fund a non-profit that then hires a set of third party reviewers to award grants on a competitive basis around one or more themes. This is how Elon Musk and Bill Gates do things, for example. But no matter how you package it, anyone with a real reputation has more to gain than to lose by taking money from a pedophile. Harvard's/MIT's admins were trying to protect their faculty's reputation.

gojomo 6y ago

Article's details don't truly deliver on headline. Epstein funded his pet research areas, yes. But all sources of funding including government grants do the same, one way or another. And across all rich funders, the variety of interests is very large, and include areas other more institutional funding bureaucracies ignore. Also, despite Epstein's (somewhat still-underexplained) wealth & largesse, his money was a drop in the bucket. When the article points out that "more than two thirds of Epstein's donations—$6.5 million—went to PED director Martin Nowak" – an already well-funded researcher, it actually undermines its case. Epstein gave less than $10 million total? And to established programs? How does a tiny bit of funding, from an extreme-outlier bete-noire, to some not-even-fringe programs, make any negative general case against private funding? That such private funding picks a different mix of researchers than the Harvard Professor writing this article would pick is the point - don't send all funding through the exact same credentialed-panels of established academia. Accept some curve-ball initiatives from other uncorrelated piles-of-resources. The article's one tangible example of some favors flowing from a Harvard academic to Epstein's defense – Epstein's lawyer Dershowitz getting some linguistic advice from Steven Pinker – doesn't involve research funding at all. Someone's high-end legal counsel is being paid specifically to marshal resources & expertise for their defense. There's no distorting quid-pro-quo with regard to other payments: it's a totally up-front fee-for-advocacy relationship. (And that's even before considering Dershowitz's other alleged entanglements in Epstein matters.)

teachrdan 6y ago
Your argument is logically sound but provably false. Humans are known to compromise their ethics for relatively small amounts of money. For example, Martha Stewart was a billionaire when she engaged in insider trading and then lied about it to the FBI, resulting in her going to federal prison--all to avoid a measly $45,000 loss! The article makes clear that Epstein was granted physical access to facilities, the title of "visiting fellow at Harvard" in areas of study in which he had no credentials, and getting world-renowned researchers to validate his crackpot theories of racial eugenics due to his wealth. I mean, you are being reasonable: $10 million in funding is peanuts to Harvard, which has an endowment of almost US $41 billion. But apparently Harvard is willing to lease our their credibility for such "a tiny bit" of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_case_and_conviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_c... https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+endowment&oq=harvard+endowment https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+endowment&oq=harvard...

JamesBarney 6y ago

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-jeffrey-epstein-s-connections-to-harvard 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.

darawk 6y ago
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.
- ourcat 6y ago
  His views on eugenics were particularly creepy, even from an academic perspective.

hpoe 6y ago

I'm just going to point out that to people that have a concern about wealthy people funding research that is how science has been done long before research grants or anything like that came on the scene. For a long time art and the sciences were funded by wealthy merchants and kings giving money to people like Lenardo Da Vinci to eat while they worked on their ideas. Also another point, people worry about the corrupting influence of money on research but there is nothing that stops someone with money from setting up a research lab independent of a university and producing their own research. In fact I would think having the research done with a prestigious university would be a better check on the results because the individuals doing the research are tied deeply into their communities and as such their is more oversight and discussion on the topic.

dredmorbius 6y ago
What are the greatest advances in science and/or technology? How were those financed? Is there any evidence of bias toward or away from specific areas based on moneyed, political, or other interests?
- WalterBright 6y ago
  A couple: 1. Einstein was funded by himself. 2. The Wright Bros were funded by themselves. They were motivated by the idea of getting rich selling airplanes. The government funded alternative, the Langley, flopped (literally) into the Potomac. 3. Whittle's jet engine was funded (in part) by a little old lady. Government refused to fund it. 4. The Reich refused to fund jet engines until Heinkel demonstrated a flying prototype. It was financed by Heinkel. 5. The transistor was invented by Bell Labs funded from AT&T's profits. 6. The first transatlantic cable was funded by wealthy investors looking to make money off of it. 7. Several explorers were funded by newspapers in exchange for exclusive story rights.
  - cma 6y ago
    Didn't Einstein do his work during business hours as a government-paid patent clerk?

scottlocklin 6y ago

>but we have broad evidence that the interests of funders often influence the work done. As opposed to Government, drug company and institutional funders; they NEVER influence the work done. Epstein was an evil asshole, and Harvard is a disgusting, sinister institution, but concentrating on rubbish like this overlooks the insane, ridiculous, overt and pervasive problems with science research funding that don't involve funding by the creepy dude who didn't kill himself, and who the media otherwise seems strangely incurious about.

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ckemere 6y ago

There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. But it's also a mistake to think that funders have that much influence on research. Scientists usually study what they want and there's been thousands of years of attempts to develop systems to try force them to study what they're paid for that are still not completely effective. Where did Epstein get his unfortunate ideas? From other scientists! Young researchers very early learn that their main task is the same as start up founders - to inspire people they talk with about their research in order take their money (or recruit them to the lab). I think that truth and societal value are often easiest to convey but obviously not always.

joe_the_user 6y ago
There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. This unfortunately comment is filled with bad and dubious comment but this seems notably deceptive. Society has to various extents aimed to protect itself from the very worst behavior and the worst people - and has succeed in to a rather spotty extent, certainly. Still, every stage of science has involved some filtering out of the bad and worst. The increase in science's scale has lessened the degree to which a scientist had to be "respectable" but added filters like objective grant criteria, etc. Still, there's no way a single filtering method can work. You can't count on publications to weed out determined frauds - science counts on a certain ethos from scientists (and counts now less than it should and suffers for this). Science needs a community of honesty and it's significant the number of commentators who can't understand this here.

hartator 6y ago

> because Epstein was a criminal Just random thought: Should will be saying alleged criminal or not since he would never have a trial?

fiblye 6y ago
He'd been convicted before.
deleted 6y ago
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godmode2019 6y ago

From my understanding Epstein was an intelligence agent, who worked the honey trap line. Compromising politicians, scientists & actors. This is pretty well laid out by now re FBI Charing documents for Maxwell. Is this not the common understanding of the situation?

joe_the_user 6y ago
Links?
- godmode2019 6y ago
  https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1291491/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1291491... https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12265937 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obj... https://www.scribd.com/doc/267173868/Virginia-Roberts-Affidavit https://www.scribd.com/doc/267173868/Virginia-Roberts-Affida... "19.In addition to constantly finding underage girls to satisfy their personal desires,Epstein and Maxwell also got girls for Epstein’s friends and acquaintances. Epstein specifically told me that the reason for him doing this was so that they would “owe him,” they would “be in his pocket,” and he would “have something on them.” I understood him to mean that when someone was in his pocket, they owed him favors. I also understood that Epstein thought he could get leniency if he was ever caught doing anything illegal, or more so that he could escape trouble altogether" That's probably enough information to get you started.

mattxxx 6y ago

I see a lot of comments are criticizing the article, because it seems to damn the fundamentals of how research is funded. I think that response to the article is justified. That is, yea - science needs a way to be funded, and it should be wealthy people that foot the bill... altruistically.

alpineidyll3 6y ago

The things the average faculty member would do for a 100k grant are truly disgusting, and would probably make Epstein retch.

spenrose 6y ago

The author, Naomi Oreskes, is a prominent scholar of science history who has written extensively on the corruption of research for political purposes by, for example, tobacco companies.

theqult 6y ago

What is really distorting research are all those moralistic jerks off

gridlockd 6y ago

> What made it even worse was that Epstein was a latter-day eugenicist whose interests were tied to a delusional notion of seeding the human race with his own DNA. Given this stance, it is particularly disturbing that he focused his largesse on research on the genetic basis of human behavior. Human genetics is an ethically sensitive and intellectually contested domain where it behooves us to ensure that the highest standards of scientific rigor are in place and that nongenetic explanations for behavior are given a fair chance to compete. This is a thinly veiled attack on evolutionary biology, which keeps coming up with plausible explanations that are nevertheless utterly disturbing to the self-image of a moral human being and must therefore be suppressed from its consciousness. This is an undue conflation of science (is) and morals (ought). Morals are an artifact of human experience with nature, nature itself is amoral. For instance, let's ask: Why does rape exist? Sociologist: writes twenty paragraphs on patriarchy and rape culture while ignoring the rest of the animal kingdom Evolutionary Biologist: It's a successful strategy for reproduction, the selfish gene promotes its continued existence If the sociologist is right, then rape should disappear in an enlightened culture that has abolished all male dominance (utopianism). If the biologist is right, then rape will not disappear without identifying and muting all gene sequences that might lead an individual to be a rapist (eugenics). In reality, neither are practical solutions, both explanations are bound to be contributing factors, but with one disregarding the other, we lose the ability to draw rational conclusions and devise functioning systems.

known 6y ago

"The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught" --H.L.Mencken

idm 6y ago

It's a fact that wealthy donors support specific research that interests them. On the one hand, hasn't research always been funded like this? Wealthy patrons have always supported work that somehow gratified them. And history is replete with despicable personalities who have nevertheless financed good science. On the other hand, when the patron's interests turn out to be questionable, the research supported by those interests can be examined. It's okay to give it a second thought in light of new information about the patron. I happen to think this article raises valid questions. For example, I have questions about the idea of buying a visiting fellowship. I have questions about the mechanisms by which faculty become oddly encumbered by donations.