University finds prominent astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss grabbed a woman's breast
An investigation by Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe concluded this week that high-profile astrophysicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss violated the university's sexual harassment policy by grabbing a woman's breast at a conference in Australia in late 2016.
"Responsive action is being taken to prevent any further recurrence of similar conduct," ASU's executive vice president and provost, Mark Searle, wrote in a 31 July letter to Melanie Thomson, a microbiologist based in Ocean Grove, Australia, who is an outspoken advocate for women in science. Thomson, who witnessed the breast-grabbing incident, received the investigative report from ASU's Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) and shared it with Science.
In response to an email asking what specific actions the university is taking, an ASU spokesperson wrote: "Professor Lawrence Krauss is no longer director of Arizona State University's Origins Project, a research unit at ASU. Krauss remains on administrative leave from the university. It is the policy of the university not to comment on ongoing personnel matters."
Lawrence M. Krauss and The Origins Project.
Related: Two EmDrive Papers -- Mach Effect Thruster, Too
Related Stories
German researchers have tested their own EmDrive design as well as a Mach Effect Thruster, finding that interactions between components and Earth's magnetic field may explain anomalous thrust:
The researchers – Martin Tajmar, Matthias Kößling, Marcel Weikert and Maxime Monette – presented their findings last week at the Aeronautics and Astronautics Association of France's Space Propulsion conference. The title of their paper is "The SpaceDrive Project – First Results on EmDrive and Mach-Effect Thrusters."
[...] The TU Dresden team constructed an EmDrive similar to the NASA test model. They stuck it in a shielded vacuum chamber and bombarded it with microwaves. They were able to measure thrust but it wasn't correlated with the direction the engine was pointing, leading them to conclude the test apparatus itself was affecting the measurements. They found that "magnetic interaction from twisted-pair cables and amplifiers with the Earth's magnetic field can be a significant error source for EMDrives."
The researchers will continue to conduct more tests, and will attempt to better shield the setup from interference, scale up the power, and add a missing dielectric disc component.
Meanwhile, NASA's Harold White has released another paper, Spacedrives and Conservation Laws. At a Breakthrough Discuss conference in April, he revealed plans to scale up to 400 Watts, and got grilled by Lawrence Krauss (video) and Robert Zubrin (same video) about the physics behind the device as well as a presentation slide assuming 400 times greater thrust per kilowatt than what Eagleworks observed, enabling "intersteller [sic] precursor" missions.
Also at Ars Technica, Phys.org, and Space.com.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday August 07 2018, @04:56AM
What? Someone was gonna say it, may as well be me.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:08AM (8 children)
They'll write books, achieve honors, show a brilliant true science activism, but they'll have the same urges just as any cel would.
FTFY.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:15AM (3 children)
Could you be an incel?! I'm calling the police.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:04AM (2 children)
To burn the word by overuse.
Does it trigger you? After a while you get as desensitizes as for the "special snowflake" or SJW.
It won't be cool to use it so I'll see a lot less of it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:09AM
Rather than berning it, it just seems to get funnier each time it's used (especially when used by a certain master of the incel arts who I will not name).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:48PM
Goodness, I was wondering if somebody would understand the same way I do why we need to jihad against the incels, police be upon them!
Blessed be, AC!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:46PM (3 children)
Definitely a bigtime incel.
Probably a dork who watches anime like the chick that grabbed my breasts--and then attempted to wrestle my hand over to her boobs (god damn that woman was strong, probably had an order of magnitude more testosterone than me!) so that I would know what "the real thing" was like--as a way of reminding me that incels like me need to know their role and stop being homosexual and gender non-conforming!
(As we know, acts like that are not about kink; they are about power. But there I go again, talking like an incel.)
Death to incels! Police be upon them!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:11AM (2 children)
Kurenai, this is getting really tiresome...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @03:03PM (1 child)
Huh? Are you the woman who assaulted Kurenai? There is your sig to consider.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:02AM
God, no, we've never even met in meatspace. And she has the unflattering distinction of being both the fourth transwoman I've met online total and the fourth transwoman I've met online who's been batshit insane :/ She's a walking argument for the TERF worldview.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:28AM (7 children)
Anyone got a pic of the boobs at issue?
For justice. Or science.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:43AM (6 children)
This Feb. article names only one accuser (not the unnamed conference goer mentioned in TFS), but mentions several others and names some of the witnesses/other second-hand accounts:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations [buzzfeednews.com]
I did a search on Hensley and a meme you may know popped up.
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(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:34AM (4 children)
*Shurg* She gladly meets a guy at an hotel bedroom what could expect?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:39AM (1 child)
All hotel rooms are bedrooms, unless it's a fancy suite or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:33PM
FTFY.
And welcome to the tautology club [xkcd.com], Captain Obvious, we are honoured by your +informative presence.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 07 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)
*Shurg* She gladly meets a guy at an hotel bedroom what could expect?
As a man, who has been to several cons, and met people at their room in order to go out to dinner, I definitely never expected the Spanish Inquisition! Also, I did not expect anyone to grab my nuts.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:27AM
Are you arguing that the roles are symmetric are that it is desirable to enforce a such a system? Both would be pretty dumb arguments. Men are the initiators. Women are the choosers. "as a man", your anecdote has not relevance to the discussion. Both roles have their pros and cons. Lying to people about the reality of these roles is not helping.
(Score: 2, Touché) by xhedit on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:08PM
Hah, it's triggered lady. Yeah, I wouldn't consider her credible.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:37AM (10 children)
His "victim" didn't want to pursue the issue. He wasn't at work when it happened.
The SJW mob wants another trophy kill though, and he's a white male, so GET HIM!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:01AM
Some of us have it coming. It will keep coming, and I'll laugh at the fools that get busted.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:14AM (4 children)
There are no Whitish Community Centers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:40AM (3 children)
"Jews" and Arabs are white. You racist dumbass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:16PM (2 children)
it depends where people want to draw the line. some people mean caucasoid when they say "white", while others mean aryan when they say white. but you probably know that.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:12AM (1 child)
If they mean Aryan, then the only folks who qualify are the Brahmins. The other groups of Aryans got absorbed into the great North-Euro-Asian melting pot. (And I'm not sure about the Brahmins. That would require a bit of DNA analysis.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @06:47AM
Don't forget the Persians. "Iran" == "the Land of Aryans".
Also, even for "Brahmins", it gets funky if you consider Dravidian/South Indian Brahmins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:41AM
Bad actions, even outside of work, can (and do) indicate bad decision making and bad character. Employers can (and should) consider these things, especially the higher up the org chart someone is.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:19PM (2 children)
He wasn't at work when it happened.
..by grabbing a woman's breast at a conference in Australia in late 2016.
Conferences ARE his work you victim-blaming piece of shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:26PM
Since they seem to have weak standards of evidence to begin with ("preponderance of the evidence"), I'm not sure whether or not he even did it. That's usually the issue with cases like this; universities typically don't have the experience or resources to conduct real investigations. It's a shame that the only 'opposition' in articles like this tend to be right-wing retards.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:17AM
That said, it's really too bad there is no way to keep the professional competence and remove the untoward social behavior. Perhaps they should keep him on, but restrict him to teleconferences and "work from home". If, of course, they decide he's guilty.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:42AM (8 children)
There are women out there who hate men and want to destroy men. I've met my share of such women and the ONLY correct response as a man is to distance yourself quickly and permanently from such women AND all their friends. These people have an agenda and they are full of anger and hate for men. Of course a naive person will think none of this is true, but give yourself more time and more life experience and you will come to realize that not all women are sweet nice innocent creatures.
Krauss apparently did something he should not have done. I wasn't there when he did it so I don't know what he did or did not do. But if all Krauss did was grab
a woman's breast, I hardly think that justifies his career being destroyed. But the man-hating witch-hunting females will tell you it does. These man-haters are miserable people and they would rather destroy other people than make efforts toward improving their own lives. so they want to do things like destroy a person's
life merely because that person touched another person's body. If someone grabs some part of MY body, I don't want to destroy their life, but I might punch them
in the face, and that would end the matter for me and for most other reasonable people. But not for the man-haters !!!
Bottom line : the world is a messed up place and there are a lot of seriously fucked up people running around pretending to be wonderful people. Some of these people are women. Be careful who you trust. Be especially careful where women are concerned, because they don't conduct themselves in an honorable fashion and they will use any trick in the book to screw you if they desire to do so. Ask any guy who has been through a nasty divorce whether I am lying ...
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:52AM
Always, ALWAYS get the prenup!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:55AM (3 children)
A breast grab is far from the only thing alleged:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations [buzzfeednews.com]
Basically, there is a pattern of behavior, and both men and women have been warning about Krauss privately.
Another way to look at it is that many women have been sexually harassed over the centuries/millennia. #MeToo is the blowback, and was basically inevitable. Innocents may be swept up, but they are just casualties of war. Your advice is sound, but it won't be heeded by some older men who are drunk on power, money, and/or influence. Basically, they are stuck in a decades in the past, when it was far easier to get away with all kinds of sexual harassment, billions of people weren't carrying smartphones, and the media landscape was a lot different and more monolithic.
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(Score: 0, Flamebait) by qzm on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:36AM (2 children)
Signaled enough virtue yet?
Pretty poor attempt really, but hey,I guess you feel you have to.
By the way, by such modern standards or is quite likely your father sexually assaulted your mother repeatedly, and your grandfather probably actively raped your grandmother..
Of course that is because some definitions have been moved a long way lately by a certain small group..
I don't even have to be right these days, arrive accusation is proof.
I hope you are making reperations for your families past history of sexual violence..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:42AM (1 child)
Triggered much? I don't "virtue signal". I am just pointing out the obvious. There is a lot of sexual harassment that is going on and has been going on for a long time. You can argue about why the blowback #MeToo movement suddenly blew up in 2017. For example, dead tree media amplified it by running the stories. Or it was spread because people are angry at Trump. But #MeToo is part of a new tradition of Internet rage. That's why it is inevitable. People who would have normally stayed quiet have an easy outlet to get pissed off on.
Unnamed sources have been a thing for a long time. Now unproven sexual harassment/assault accusations are hot. Because when people are talking about incidents that happened to them 5, 10, 20 years ago, they most likely aren't going to have any proof. But they can use their name recognition or soapbox to drag someone else's name through the mud.
Of course, there are also a lot of anonymous accusers, whose stories are harder to "verify". You can hardly blame them for staying anonymous. We all know what's going to happen when you publicly accuse a celebrity, sports star, politician, or famed astrophysicist of sexual assault. You're going to get any publicly known account you have clogged with death threats and other bullshit, and you may lose your job. Because that has been the pattern for years now.
In Krauss's case, the pileup of accusers is happening. Where there's smoke, there's often fire. But he has it pretty good since it's doubtful that anyone can producing convincing evidence of criminal activity. He's old enough to retire and stop giving a shit.
The less convincing cases are more obvious. Take the example of Aziz Ansari. Lone accuser, no 50-accuser pileup. The writeup appears on a site nobody's ever heard of. The actual allegations are lame and undermined by the fine details. Aziz was slightly damaged, but will come out of it strong. Others have managed to scrape by, maybe issuing a half-hearted apology or denial and waiting until it blows over.
OP AC offers some good advice about being wary of others. Maybe that means specifically being wary of women in your case, and depending on your situation, you may go as far as to become a MGHOW or volcel. And women are almost certainly at an advantage in a divorce or child custody scenario. But don't cry too hard about #MeToo. You are looking at the new normal. Adapt or die, at least until we make it to "the next stage".
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:34PM
That certainly doesn't stop many universities from suspending or expelling people accused of sexual harassment/assault and using Title IX as an excuse.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:58AM
Grab my breast, and I will fucking end you! Never without my permission! Concealed carry exists for a reason. Aim for center mass, or the gonads.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:16PM (1 child)
Sexual assault often is, and should be, a career breaking offense. Yes, grabbing a woman's breasts without permission is sexual assault. Now, stop whining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:51PM
I think we whine because we have also been sexually assaulted (pretty sure there's an AC around here who was sodomized by his da, or maybe an uncle or similar, going off the odd comment he makes sometimes when extremely triggered) and sexually harassed.
Yet when we relate those experiences, we find that they are quickly delegitimized. That AC who was sodomized, well, that was patriarchy and he should join with third wave feminism, even though it has no time for victims of sexual assault who don't have wombs and has nothing to offer him. Instead third wave feminism will tell him to man up.
The incel AC up there should have fucked the girl who sexually assaulted her right on the spot, because it's unpossible that somebody could lack sexual attraction to women or that sexual attention from a woman¹ could possibly constitute sexual assault. She just needs to man up too.
There will be more of us. As feminism succeeds in advancing women to positions of power, those women, being sinners like the rest of us, will seek to display their power with sexual assault and sexual harassment.
We work through the pain in the same way that victims of sexual assault with wombs did before there were a multitude of cultural attitudes and programs in place to help. Our conclusions are not terribly different from some of the victims of sexual assault who have wombs. Because the person who violated us will never be held accountable, especially if they had a womb, we find the only coping mechanism available is extreme suspicion of the resources for people with wombs and the justice too swift for due process they enjoy.
Of course, what we often miss is that the press is running a Narrative here. How many people with wombs will be sexually assaulted today and never see justice? (Not just rhetorical, don't feel like finding the number myself but if somebody has it feel free to post.) Thus we can see the hypocrisy here for what it is. It is nothing but a cynical attempt to drive D team votes in November.
As a side effect, it also has a desired polarizing effect to keep the working class distracted and at their own throats.
And honestly, if we do elect D teamers, will they start dragging gaymers² and brogrammers² and
homosexual menincels through the mud on a daily basis again? Or will their cupidity be appeased for a while?¹ Again, sexual assault is not sexual attention--it's power and mind game--but the SJWs do not understand this when the victim lacks a womb.
² Rhetorically and subliminally excluding lesbians and heterosexual women and accusing all men in those fandoms and professions of homosexuality in a patriarchal context where it is shameful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:34PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:49PM (1 child)
10/10 photo sleuthing
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:49PM
I concur! Bravo
I would have thought she was going to stab him with a pen, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @10:51PM (1 child)
If we turn the story around and now the offender is a middle-aged, PoC woman grabbing a young guy's ass at a conference... will there be the same outrage? Will people want her life destroyed? I somewhat doubt it.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:20AM
Turn it around and it's a lot less believable. Not that it doesn't happen, but the frequency is a lot less.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.