Physicist, skeptic, atheist, and author (The Science of Star Trek) Lawrence Krauss has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment, according to Buzzfeed. A number of his upcoming speaking engagements have been canceled.
I’m not a particular fan of Krauss’, but it’s very disheartening when men I would consider “on my side” in many respects turn out to have feet of clay.
I’ve been a male all my life, and although I’ve undoubtedly been rude and inconsiderate to women (and men) many times in many ways, I’ve never once considered putting a finger on a woman when I wasn’t completely sure she wanted me to do so. (To the contrary, I know now that on many, many occasions I failed to act on positive signals that were being sent, to which I was oblivious. But that’s my problem.)
I simply can’t fathom the arrogance and sense of entitlement that would lead a man to behave so brutishly.
Well, don’t dig too deeply into the pasts of Dick Feynman or Murray Gell-Mann, or indeed, the entire Caltech physics department prior to the ‘Eighties. In general, women have bee treated as second class citizens for a very long time whose complaints were often dismissed even by well-intentioned male authorities who were effectively complicit in abuse and mistreatment.
There is a lot of correction in attitudes, and a lot of contrition to be offered, and even with all that no one affected is going to be “made whole” even if they weren’t denied career opportunitues or sexually harassed or pressured. And yes, some otherwise respected men are going to have to accept responsibility and retire from public sphere in shame as an object lesson for why we shouldn’t treat any class of people with abuse or disregard for their rights as people.
And a little further Googling turns up accusations (perhaps not as quite many, nor as serious) against Michael Shermer (editor of Skeptic magazine), from three and a half years ago. Shermer is someone I had much more regard for than Krauss. I actually spent an evening with him and Mythbusters’ Adam Savage and Kari Byron at James Randi’s Amazing Meeting in 2006.
Crap indeed.
Well put. Let’s hope that the recent prominent examples, from Cosby and Weinstein on, will lead more men, especially young men, to understand that other humans are not toys to be played with.
It feeds on constant, pervasive, omnidirectional reinforcement of the notion that the “aggressor” role is the natural order and that even the women who succesfully reject/resist will not retaliate because they know or should know that. My past history is much as you describe for yourself, but the toxic stew of what it means to be “a man” had me for a long time into young adulthood suffering anxiety about whether I was doing “man” wrong for not defaulting to “do as I want until assertively stopped or threatened with hard consequences”. Many of these men had nothing but positive reinforcement for their conduct – they suffered no adverse consequence *and *got laid a lot, “ergo, what I’m doing must be right”.
(Also, of course, for some of them rationalization that as long as you did not actually rape anyone, no harm no foul, and if not playing along meant favor or disfavor that’s just how the world works.)
Lawrence appears to be a creep, but I don’t think the article is objective.
The article goes well beyond the list of accusations made against Lawrence (which is too long to dismiss, for sure) to then make a case that the skeptic community in general is full of male chauvinist nerds. Towards the end the article sums up by saying:
*The rise of online movements such as #MeToo has increasingly divided the skeptics into two camps: those who campaign for social justice and those who rail against identity politics. *
This feels pretty out there for me. To be sure there must be skeptics who also have strong opinions about social justice, but it’s hardly a defining characteristic of the species. To the extent there does exist a social justice camp, it is clear to me that the article is written solely from the perspective of that camp.
After doing a little googling I found that the three women who figure most prominently as sources in the article (including the woman who accuses Lawrence of the gravest case of misconduct) have all been actively involved for years in trying to introduce a feminist/social justice plank into the platforms of skeptic organizations they are associated with. It seems they’ve been met with some skepticism.
I’m not a capital-s Skeptic and never heard of any of these people or organizations before, but all of this unacknowledged background leaves me pretty skeptical of the objectivity of the Buzzfeed article.
I honestly don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you accusing me of bias against Cosby, Weinstein, et al? Is it bias to accept the possibility that the testimony of dozens of women may be true?
The article is not 100% objective. No article is. Do you feel that its viewpoint impeaches its claims? Do you think that women shouldn’t be trying to bring feminist perspectives to this largely white male bastion? When you say that the three women have been met with “skepticism,” do you understand that in fact they’ve been met with death threats and rape threats? Is that appropriate?
I have been a member, of sorts, of the skeptic community, and the views expressed in the article seem quite accurate. A frequent charge against atheists and skeptics is arrogance, and I have seen and heard many male skeptics, often libertarians, be extremely callous and unsympathetic, sometimes to the point of rudeness and hostility, toward people whose life experiences didn’t line up with their own.
I was having a meeting with 2 women the other day and lo and behold, some sexual thoughts came into my mind about one of the women. She wasnt particularly attractive or anything and the meeting was professional but the thoughts did cross my mind. Now I dont say or do anything and dismissed them from my mind as quick as I could.
So I say, deep down, we men can think of some bad things in regards to women. If we have any morals at all we never, EVER act on them - not even in thought. We need to train ourselves to dismiss quickly any such ideas.
But, they still happen. It happens to almost all men regardless of IQ or status. It is even harder when your working with women in close proximity and you do become friends. Sadly many men either dont have the morals or willpower to do such things and indeed, act on such impulses.
On one hand, I have never touched a woman who didn’t indicate she wanted to be touched (and there weren’t all that many of those). On the other hand, I often meet with women professionally that I find myself attracted to. Not necessarily physically attracted to; most often after meeting them I find them fascinating and would have liked to know them better. But I never act on these impulses. As my wife says, “You can look but not touch.”
Myself, I’m firmly a dictionary atheist. While I believe in not being a jerk to women/minorities, I have no interest in making advocacy for social justice issues part of that atheist identity. (I have no opinion on the guilt/innocence of Lawrence Krauss because I honestly can’t remember having ever heard of him before the recent headlines.)
I plan to be the last man standing after the dust clears. I’ve had a heck of a lot of fun over the course of my life, and all of my costars have been very willing participants.
I suspect that many more widely respected (for their science) scientists will be exposed. The dynamic of an older male P.I. holding great power of the careers of young scientists working in his lab is ripe for abuse and cover-up.
We all have inappropriate thoughts; it is a feature of the affective (emotional) part of the mind that instincts precede deliberate intentionality. But it is part and parcel of being an adult human being in civilized society to restrain those impulses and behave in a respectful manner, sometimes even to those people who do not deserve your respect. But let’s be clear about something: the men who have been highlighted by the #MeToo movement as serial offenders aren’t just horndogs who can’t keep from looking bug-eyed and gape-mouthed at the breasts of a well-endowed woman or who have made a few inappropriate comments in a socially inept attempt at joviality or familiarity. Every woman I’ve talked to about it experiences that kind of attention on a daily basis and it is just part and parcel of humans being not-quite-really-evolved monkeys for which the LUST emotional system is still a primary cognitive driver, and the vast majority of women have learned to just ignore and deflect.
The men who have been identified and vilified have used their positions of power and authority to not only harass, pressure, or outright force women to engage in acts or treatment that they have not invited but also to create a culture of denial that this treatment has occurred or is meaningful if revealed. That it is some kind of sudden revelation that Harvey Weinstein is a lecherous rapist who used his power and hired detectives to harass victims is kind of ridiculous since it has been such a well known behavior in entertainment circles that it had become a punchline in pop culture jokes. Bill Cosby’s drug-and-rape behavior has come up at least once a decade since the 'Eighties but his coterie of apologists and legal wranglers have managed to keep sinking the story through a combination of payoffs, denials, and attacks on the reputations of his victims for attacking the ‘great man’ who was (legitimately) an inspiration to young minority Americans. There are certainly vastly more people who have been less aggressive or prolific but still have much to own up to far and beyond telling racy jokes in the breakroom or giving a side-eye glance to a woman in a low cut tanktop. Making a comment equivocating all attention as on the same spectrum of offensiveness is just a method of trying to minimize the really inexcusable behavior because ‘boys will be boys’.
Man, you have no idea. If sexual harassment and exploitation is as rife in academia as intellectual dishonesty and petty reputation sniping, we’re going to see a lot of takedowns. But you know what? That’s okay, because it clears the decks for younger, more inspired researchers, hopefully to include more women and minorities that are vastly underrepresented in the sciences will setting a new tone for respectful behavior and hopefully encouraging more collaboration rather than competition for its own sake. And we can recognize and separate the great work many scientists from the past have done from their execrable personal behavior (i.e. Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman), while acknowledging that some of the greatest minds have also been thoroughly decent people with a deep social conscience (e.g. Andrei Sakharov, James Clerk Maxwell) to illustrate that one can be both brilliant and benevolent if you so choose.
…as somebody who has been involved with the skeptics circle since 2002 the reason why women have been actively trying to “introduce a feminist/social justice plank into the platforms of skeptic organizations” is because “skeptic organizations” are chauvinistic as fuck. And I have to admit I bought into that chauvinism for a little while. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the people that are speaking out are the people that have a platform and that are people who have “less to loose.” There are some industries like “showbusiness” where #metoo opened the floodgates. But there are other industries, like the gaming industry, like tech, like skeptics organizations, where things aren’t moving as quickly.
So no: I don’t think its fair to attempt to dismiss the article based on that fact that “the accusers” all are strong believers in social justice. If you don’t want to believe, then just don’t believe. Don’t use their political views as an excuse.
Flip it the other way. Let’s assume the accusations are all true. How does this make Lawrench Krauss a less credible speaker? Why shouldn’t we continue to listen to him?
It bothers me that we have decided that “acts like some significant percentage of all men in a way that is not illegal” means “no longer employable”. I get it, whatever he did was bad. If he even did it. We also don’t seem to care anymore about proving anything in a court of law or undergoing due process. Just “did female usernames accuse you on twitter? You’re out!”.
It’s free market forces. Humans are fickle creatures and as soon as one buinessman punches them in the face they happily take their business elsewhere. Honestly it makes no sense, but people still do it.
There are people out there who claim to have this bizarre mythical emotion called “empathy”, which causes them to have personal reactions to tales of slights done to others. Presuming they’re not lying about having this alleged emotion, then when they come to believe that a speaker has done certain things they feel it like a punch to their own face. And, bizarrely, they decide they want nothing more to do with a person who has metaphorically punched them in this manner. And even more bizarrely there’s a chance that their employer may be tarred with a brush as an organization that supports and facilitates the undesired actions, due to proving the naughty employee a paycheck and potentially a position of authority.
Businesses may quite reasonably want to divest themselves of a potential risks to their market share and income, and act accordingly.
