It's not that clear. The sense I picked up from reading accounts of people who've met him in scientific contexts is that he would ask nonsensical questions, exhibiting an unwillingness to put in the effort to understand the basics of the fields he sponsored. It doesn't sound very passionate to me.

For example, from an article:

> The Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker said he considered Epstein as an "intellectual impostor”.

That seems to fit even better, albeit it in a different way. Rather than funding science to make a good contribution out of personal interest (and understanding), he could have been motivated out of a feeling of admiration, or intellectual inadequacy. Monetary funding would then appear to place him as a peer among these scientists, which would be a bit of an ego boost either way.

This would make claims about his "extraordinary group" of friends make a lot of sense. He might have associated with those people thinking that it made him feel and appear to be an interesting, intelligent, overall better person. Seems like exactly what an "intellectual imposter" would do, more than someone trying to build a personal shield.

Besides, we all know scientists have no political influence worth harnessing.

Or he knew that donating to influential science organizations would buy him good will, put him in touch with other rich donors, be good for media coverage and get him a list of people who might vouch for him when called by a journalist because they've received funding from him.

> This would make claims about his "extraordinary group" of friends make a lot of sense.

I don't know, it sounds like a slightly better worded version of "I know great people, they're the best people really, and I am one of them". They're extraordinary and they are his friends => wow, that must be quite the great guy, or he wouldn't have those kinds of friends.

Scientists might not directly have political influence, but especially the very successful ones are well-connected and have friends in the media. If you have lots of money to spend and you want to buy good will, wouldn't you just spread it? If a journalist ever thinks about you and talks about you at a private party, what better could happen than a science guy saying "oh I know him, he funded our important research" and an author saying "oh, yeah, that guy, he donated money to some literary program" and a finance guy saying "wow, yeah, he's very successful".

I find that a much simpler explanation that fits well into the picture.

> wow, that must be quite the great guy, or he wouldn't have those kinds of friends.

All I was really saying was that maybe he believed this himself. Like his mum paid for an expensive party and invited the cool kids and they were mostly polite and now he thinks they like him and he’s part of the group. Key difference being belief in his own delusion, before bragging to others about being one of the cool kids.

Even if he had a legitimate interest in science, who cares? There are two huge problems with Harvard allowing him to continue like that.

1. He exploited his connections to obtain a very lax sentence which allowed him to continue to rape children.

2. It damages the integrity of the scientific research as laid out in the article.

I have a bigger issue with the first than with the second, but I don't see how the question of whether he also had a legitimate interest in science is relevant to either.

> 2. It damages the integrity of the scientific research as laid out in the article.

A major point in this thread is that that makes no sense. The integrity of the scientific research here is fine. Is the suggestion here that there is a paedophile agenda to promote science and technology? Do we expect to be able to identify paedophiles because of their unusual dedication to the advancement of human knowledge?

The answer is a pretty solid no to both of those questions. There is no link between paedophilia and science.

> 1. He exploited his connections to obtain a very lax sentence which allowed him to continue to rape children.

Harvard isn't a courthouse. It is probably illegal in some way for them to revise court decisions. If the court gives a light sentence Harvard has to respect that. This point isn't related to Harvard.

We might disagree on those two points (I am abivalent about the research integrity one, anyway) but I hope you can agree with me that whether Epstein has a legitimate interest in science is completely immaterial to both of them. That's what my comment was about.