‘Science Falsely So Called’: How Can You Prove Your Innocence, Professor Krauss?

Posted on | August 9, 2013 | 102 Comments

Professor Lawrence Krauss on Australian TV, February 2013.

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.”
— I Timothy 6:20-21 (KJV)

“Jeffrey Epstein is the infamous media mogul who was jailed in 2008 for paying underage prostitutes who said they were recruited by his aides. . . .
“One of the friends defending Epstein is none other than Professor Lawrence Krauss . . . he’s invoking the name of science to do it.”
— Rebecca Watson

“When women come to me to warn me about what speakers to avoid at conferences or confide in me sexual harassment they’ve experienced, Lawrence Krauss is by far the most common name I hear.”
— Jen McCreight

“One is almost tempted to pray that God might have mercy on these poor fellows, but why should we trouble scientific types with our primitive superstitions?”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “No Love for the Godless”

Have you ever heard of Lawrence Krauss? I had not, but then again, I’d never heard of Ben Radford until Karen Stollznow accused him of being a sexual “predator.” Frankly, I’ve paid no attention to the New Atheist movement that has flourished in the past decade or so.

The “profane and vain babblings” of these people are tedious. My attitude toward all such people has always been, “OK, we get it. You’re a scientific super-genius, and Christians are all idiots for believing the Bible, and you’re going to write another article ‘proving’ how much smarter you are than everybody else. Thanks.”

However knowledgeable and articulate the god-haters are, their logic is always backward. They begin with the conclusion that there is no God, then hunt around for “evidence” to prove the negative. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Roman 1:22).

“Science is based on telling the truth, which is a really important ethical boundary. It’s one that I don’t think religion shares, in fact. . . . I think that science can offer a better world.”
— Lawrence Krauss

God proves His existence by the truth of His word, and we see prophecy fulfilled every day when we behold the fate of arrogant fools.

Lawrence Krauss is a 59-year-old professor at Arizona State University whose curriculum vitae runs to 32 pages. The nature of academic tenure is such that nothing in the world could get him fired from his job. Lawrence Krauss is invulnerable — absolutely bulletproof — and so when atheist blogger Jen McCreight had the temerity to repeat what she said women told her about Krauss’s behavior, she had to delete those stories because Krauss tried to intimidate her:

Well, Famous Skeptic is vaguely threatening to sue me. Since Famous Skeptic is rich and I am poor, and since my two sources are too terrified to openly speak out again him (I wonder why), I have removed the part of my previous post that refers to him so I don’t go bankrupt with legal fees.

Such a tactic may seem rather familiar to regular readers of this blog. “Science is based on telling the truth,” Professor Krauss tells us, and if these women are lying about him, perhaps he can prove their accusations false, just as he claims to prove God does not exist.

Philosophy majors or attorneys may see that Professor Krauss has been presented with a more difficult problem than he imagines. If the case comes down to testimony and evidence, Jen McCreight’s sources may have less reason to be “terrified” than does Krauss.

Perhaps my good friend Herman Cain could explain to the professor how hard it is for a man to prove his innocence in these cases.

For years, however, it seems the terroristic intimidation of atheist women has kept them silent, as Rebecca Watson says:

I’ve heard of several other “big name” skeptics who loudly argue online against any and all anti-harassment measures who are known for actually sexually harassing women in the meatspace. I’m hesitant to name them for legal reasons . . .

But there is strength in numbers, and if it is true that Professor Krauss’s behavior has long been the subject of private complaints, then the current climate of public accusations — the Floodgate Effect, we might call it — has suddenly shifted the balance of terror. Every man in the atheist movement who has ever told an off-color joke in mixed company is a vulnerable target now, and Professor Krauss has the context of his own public record to deal with:

“Jeffrey [Epstein] has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed. As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people. . . . I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”

Professor Krauss defending a convicted sex offender? Professor Krauss defending Jeffrey Espstein, billionaire pedophile?

Victims alleged that Epstein molested underage girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, including three 12-year-old girls brought over from France as a birthday gift.

Certainly, Professor Krauss’s friendship with a pedophile sex offender cannot be considered relevant evidence as to whether Professor Krauss mistreated women who attended atheist events, but when the shadow of suspicion looms over a man accused of harassment, the relevance of evidence has a strange way of eluding strict rules of logic.

Lawrence Krauss and Michael Shermer celebrate their
victory, after debating against the existence of God.

Let’s talk about Professor Krauss’s good friend Michael Shermer:

At a conference, Mr. Shermer coerced me into a position where I could not consent, and then had sex with me. . . . I am very scared that he will come after me in some way. . . . I reached out to one organization that was involved in the event at which I was raped, and they refused to take my concerns seriously. Ever since, I’ve heard stories about him doing things . . .

Well, guilt by association is a terribly unfair thing, but if Michael Shermer is a rapist, and Jeffrey Epstein is a pedophile, one must ask if Professor Krauss has any friends who are not sex offenders. And if he habitually associates himself with such perverts, what does this tell us about his claims to “judge things on empirical evidence”? Or is the problem that all atheist men are lecherous creeps?

Professor Krauss is a man so brilliant that he believes he can prove that the universe is an accident created from nothing, by nothing:

A critic might reasonably question the arguments for a divine first cause of the cosmos. But to ask “What caused God?” misses the whole reason classical philosophers thought his existence necessary in the first place. So when physicist Lawrence Krauss begins his new book by suggesting that to ask “Who created the creator?” suffices to dispatch traditional philosophical theology, we know it isn’t going to end well.

No, I don’t think this will end well at all for the pedophile-defending, accused-rapist-befriending Lawrence Krauss. Remember that I said he is a tenured professor at Arizona State University, which means it is impossible that Lawrence Krauss could be fired. Yet seemingly impossible things have happened before, although only ignorant and superstitious people believe in miracles:

By what standard do atheists judge right and wrong? Other than religion, is there anything that an atheist is obliged to regard as evil and, if so, why? To say that science and reason can be our only guide in every circumstance — that we should be as coldly logical asStar Trek’s fictional Spock — may seem an obvious enough answer, but at times the evidence is ambiguous and not every situation can be easily reduced to a clear syllogism. This is not a moot discussion, nor is it a matter of mere hypothetical speculation what science says about sexual equality, at least not for Benjamin Radford.
Radford is the deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and was until quite recently among the most respected members of the so-called “skeptic community,” who esteem science above everything and regard all religious belief as ignorant superstition. So there is no one to whom Radford may pray for deliverance, now that he finds himself accused of sexual harassment, condemned as a “predator” and exposed to the wrath of feminists.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but atheists don’t believe in Hell and, although some scientists have suggested an anthropological utility for mercy, feminists don’t seem prone to heed such talk when a man stands accused of doing what Radford allegedly did. . . .

Please read the whole thing at The American Spectator.

Did I mention that Jen McCreight has solicited the aid of Popehat?

“Grace be with thee. Amen.”

 

 

UPDATE: The floodgates having opened, there are more and more people describing “creepy” incidents with Professor Krauss, such as a 2011 cruise sponsored by the Center for Inquiry (CFI) during which Professor Krauss reportedly brought along a female companion. Professor Krauss “was a bit rambunctious the whole time” and at some point, “propositioned” a woman on the cruise “to join him and his guest in his hotel room, an offer the woman turned down.” And if you’ll read down in the comments here, at #244 you’ll find P.Z. Myers saying: “I have now heard directly from someone I trust that she was sexually assaulted by Lawrence Krauss. Shit.”

These are not accusations I am making. The accusers are not intolerant right-wing Christians, but rather Professor Krauss’s philosophical allies in the atheist/scientific/skeptic movement.

 

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