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.)
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.
I'd agree the building-access, especially when Epstein was a post-release sex-offender (and when most observers should have already suspected he'd gotten off easy), is most-concerning.
But unless he was sneaking in after-hours to change experiments' results, it doesn't imply any research was distorted. Even something like "key card access" may have been entirely ceremonial in practice, if his actual visits were just scheduled meetings with real staff members.
In fact, as an example of the kind of 'aura-of-respectability' he was purchasing, it's an example of how the research may have been left uninfluenced – because other trinkets-of-association were delivered. If he got some really, really expensive equivalents of 'Harvard Sweatshirts' for his money, it's less likely he'd be changing lines-of-inquiry in research programs.
I don't find the 'visiting fellow' thing very significant. Harvard & others seem fairly generous with such empty titles, a bit like honorary degrees, that cost them no money but get some funding or reflected-glory back on them. (And, it's not clear if this particular credentialist tchotchke was pre- or post- Epstein's first conviction.)
You are of course correct that it's sometimes surprising the tiny amounts of money people commit ethical infractions to chase. But there's no evidence, or anecdotes, in this article that rich-person money is more corrupting in research matters than that from large institutions, including foundations & the government. The favor-trading, citation-log-rolling, buttering-up, ego-stroking, clique-protecting and everything else academia is known for seems just as bad, or worse, among those competing for traditional "panel-allocated" resources as among those receiving rich-person grants.
The tobacco companies were quite successful, yes. That's why disclosure of competing interests is mandatory these days, it mitigates somewhat the phenomenon of "one dollar, one vote".
>getting world-renowned researchers to validate his crackpot theories of racial eugenics due to his wealth.
Do you have more information on this? Is there evidence that funding recipients Martin Nowak and George Church actually had their area of study directed by Epstein, or that the science was fundamentally flawed.
On a conceptual level, there is no reason that evil people cant use dirty money to fund good academics researchers that they happen to find interesting.
So hypothetically, people are dying from some easily-cured disease (this part is not the hypothetical), and a corrupt person wants to save their lives in order to "buy legitimacy". We must righteously prevent that person from doing good in the world, because it will complicate people's view of the person? Basically you're proposing to do an evil thing for a "greater good".
Hypothetically that corrupt person might want to engage in eugenics of some sort. Let’s simply keep dirty money out of legit spaces or we might find mafia as a benefactor in some cases. As some mentioned here, the money Epstein donated was a drop in the bucket and insignificant but to him the ifluence he got in exchange was priceless
If you're meaning 'a convicted criminal guilty of a heinous crime' when you say "corrupt person" then why do we even allow them the ability to continue financially such that they can buy an appearance of legitimacy. Release them from prison with access to basic necessities (a half way house) and confiscate the rest - then the demos can direct the money to research without tainting it?
Do you currently think that Epstein is legitimate because of his past donations? Harvard rejected his donations after his convictions. Who thinks he is legit?
> For example, Martha Stewart was a billionaire when she engaged in insider trading and then lied about it to the FBI
I can't say I know anyone who would be __ethically__ opposed to insider trading. From a regulatory view point most people would be against it, but I don't think anyone views it as a ethical issue.
People work hard their whole lived and put that money into the market. If the market is rigged for insiders then those people are being robbed of their life’s work in a way that they could not have adjusted to or anticipated because the news that trades were based on was not available. It is grabbing money out of the pocket of people in a way that is deeply unfair. I know those types of folks aren’t the only investors, but they’re the ones who screwing them in this way is unethical.
For those unfamiliar with academic research budgets, my lab's NIH budget was recently renewed and totaled to 2 million. So in the same ballpark as this.
2 million is not that much. When you add up research assistantship labor costs, scientific equipment and consumable reagents/materials, it depletes faster than you'd like. And our lab is quite small (~5 students); large ivy league research labs often have a couple dozen people.
Epstein funded his pet research areas, yes. But all sources of funding including government grants do the same, one way or another
Some grant-making-organization and state and private foundations now may have degenerated to the point that they are nothing but schemes for financing someone's pet ideas. But I will claim that at their best, they are better than that.
It seems like it's fashionable to dump on bureaucracies making decisions based on ostensibly objective criteria and assume that their decisions are no better than the pet of ideas of utterly vile people. But I'll stand against fashion and claim that isn't true.
Sure, okay, agreed that 6 million is not much on a global scale. But you can't be serious if you think 6 million in the hands of one person can't be used for some serious damage. You won't be able to buy a country but you could, i dont know, buy a really nice lab, and then use it to research eugenics or something.
Not a big fan of these 'drop in the bucket' arguments. A breakthrough scientific idea can cost anywhere between 0 dollars and a billion dollars. We don't want that breakthrough to be in the field of eugenics.
Of course $6 million can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. But here, it was already in the wrong hands.
Was there actual damage done by transferring it to a legitimate research group, doing real research, that had to pass many levels of review (whatever its funding)? If not given to a Harvard research lab, might that $6 million not have done even worse damage elsewhere?
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.)