The late Jeffrey Epstein cultivated a lot of people, including Darwinists who were pop science faves:
On FEB 20, 2002 Epstein Flew from JFK to MRY (Monterey, CA) with the following people: (Many names misspelled and or omitted corrected and noted by italic emphasis) …
Daniel C. Dennett- Center for Cognitive Studies – Tufts University Richard Dawkins– Author ” The God Delusion” and Prof. Oxford University …
Vox Day, “Dawkins and Dennett connected to Epstein” at Vox Popoli
This item gives the sense of it:
It’s summer 2010, and Jeffrey Epstein has just returned to New York City after serving out an 18-month sentence in Palm Beach, Florida, including parole, for soliciting prostitution from a minor. He’s hosting dinner at his townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. To his left is John Brockman, the literary superagent who seems to represent every scientist who’s ever written a bestselling book (Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Daniel Kahneman, and so forth). Brockman has brought along a client—a young professor whose line of research interests Epstein. Across the table, and to Epstein’s right, is an aspiring fashion model and her companion.
There’s no cross-talk or conversation between these pairs of guests; it’s more like Epstein has convened two separate interactions for his private entertainment, and these just happen to be coinciding both in time and space. “He would alternate between us,” recalled the professor, who asked that his name not be included in this story.
Daniel Engber, “The “Girls” Were Always Around” at Slate
Over at Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne’s blog, Steven Pinker, also an Epstein guest at one time, talks about it: “I think the dislike was mutual—according to a friend, he ‘voted me off the island,’ presumably because he was sick of me trying to keep the conversation on track and correcting him when he shot off his mouth on topics he knew nothing about. But Epstein had insinuated himself with so many people I intersected with (Alan Dershowitz, Martin Nowak, John Brockman, Steve Kosslyn, Lawrence Krauss) and so many institutions he helped fund (Harvard’s Program in Evolutionary Dynamics, ASU’s Origins Project, even Harvard Hillel) that I often ended up at the same place with him. (Most of these gatherings were prior to the revelation of his sex crimes, such as the 2002 plane trip to TED with Dawkins, Dennett, the Brockmans, and others, but Krauss’s Origins Project Meeting came after he served his sentence.)”
Epstein seems to have gone out of his way to cultivate such people but in the place where he ended up their influence could not save him. They must be wishing now that they had never accepted his invitations to anything. Or never received any.
Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd
See also: UD Newswatch: Epstein suicide
Now Steve Pinker Is Getting #MeToo’d, At Inside Higher Ed Over Jeffrey Epstein
Alleged Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Pledged $30 Million For Harvard Evolution Program
and
Jeff Epstein’s cultural dumpster fire spreads to ID vs. evo controversies. Just because people are in the news doesn’t mean they did anything. It rather shows how a bad actor can change the news picture.
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