<story><title>Jeffrey Epstein’s Harvard connections show how money can distort research</title><url>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jeffrey-epsteins-harvard-connections-show-how-money-can-distort-research/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gojomo</author><text>Article&amp;#x27;s details don&amp;#x27;t truly deliver on headline.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Also, despite Epstein&amp;#x27;s (somewhat still-underexplained) wealth &amp;amp; largesse, his money was a drop in the bucket. When the article points out that &amp;quot;more than two thirds of Epstein&amp;#x27;s donations—$6.5 million—went to PED director Martin Nowak&amp;quot; – 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?&lt;p&gt;That such private funding picks a different mix of researchers than the Harvard Professor writing this article would pick is the point - &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; send all funding through the exact same credentialed-panels of established academia. Accept some curve-ball initiatives from other uncorrelated piles-of-resources.&lt;p&gt;The article&amp;#x27;s one tangible example of some favors flowing from a Harvard academic to Epstein&amp;#x27;s defense – Epstein&amp;#x27;s lawyer Dershowitz getting some linguistic advice from Steven Pinker – doesn&amp;#x27;t involve research funding at all. Someone&amp;#x27;s high-end legal counsel is &lt;i&gt;being paid specifically to marshal resources &amp;amp; expertise for their defense&lt;/i&gt;. There&amp;#x27;s no distorting quid-pro-quo with regard to other payments: it&amp;#x27;s a totally up-front fee-for-advocacy relationship. (And that&amp;#x27;s even before considering Dershowitz&amp;#x27;s other alleged entanglements in Epstein matters.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>teachrdan</author><text>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!&lt;p&gt;The article makes clear that Epstein was granted physical access to facilities, the title of &amp;quot;visiting fellow at Harvard&amp;quot; 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.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;a tiny bit&amp;quot; of money.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_case_and_conviction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Martha_Stewart#Stock_trading_c...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=harvard+endowment&amp;amp;oq=harvard+endowment&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=harvard+endowment&amp;amp;oq=harvard...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Jeffrey Epstein’s Harvard connections show how money can distort research</title><url>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jeffrey-epsteins-harvard-connections-show-how-money-can-distort-research/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gojomo</author><text>Article&amp;#x27;s details don&amp;#x27;t truly deliver on headline.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Also, despite Epstein&amp;#x27;s (somewhat still-underexplained) wealth &amp;amp; largesse, his money was a drop in the bucket. When the article points out that &amp;quot;more than two thirds of Epstein&amp;#x27;s donations—$6.5 million—went to PED director Martin Nowak&amp;quot; – 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?&lt;p&gt;That such private funding picks a different mix of researchers than the Harvard Professor writing this article would pick is the point - &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; send all funding through the exact same credentialed-panels of established academia. Accept some curve-ball initiatives from other uncorrelated piles-of-resources.&lt;p&gt;The article&amp;#x27;s one tangible example of some favors flowing from a Harvard academic to Epstein&amp;#x27;s defense – Epstein&amp;#x27;s lawyer Dershowitz getting some linguistic advice from Steven Pinker – doesn&amp;#x27;t involve research funding at all. Someone&amp;#x27;s high-end legal counsel is &lt;i&gt;being paid specifically to marshal resources &amp;amp; expertise for their defense&lt;/i&gt;. There&amp;#x27;s no distorting quid-pro-quo with regard to other payments: it&amp;#x27;s a totally up-front fee-for-advocacy relationship. (And that&amp;#x27;s even before considering Dershowitz&amp;#x27;s other alleged entanglements in Epstein matters.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>biophysboy</author><text>For those unfamiliar with academic research budgets, my lab&amp;#x27;s NIH budget was recently renewed and totaled to 2 million. So in the same ballpark as this.&lt;p&gt;2 million is not that much. When you add up research assistantship labor costs, scientific equipment and consumable reagents&amp;#x2F;materials, it depletes faster than you&amp;#x27;d like. And our lab is quite small (~5 students); large ivy league research labs often have a couple dozen people.</text></comment>