The PZ Myers/Epstein Connection

In a previous posting, we saw a group picture of John Brockman with atheists Dawkins, Dennett, and Pinker aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet. They were flying to a conference where Dawkins would give birth to the New Atheist movement with a militant, anti-religious speech.

In turns out that Brockman, who is an atheist, was closely connected to Epstein and was his “intellectual enabler.” I enourage you to read this article to see just how important Brockman was to Epstein. In fact, for some time, I long wondered what the “Edge” was all about, for it came across as a place for New Atheists and their allies to mainstream their radicalism. As it turns out, the Edge Foundation was formed and run by Brockman. And…

A close analysis of Edge Foundation’s (publicly available) financial statements suggests that, between 2001 and 2015, it has received $638,000 from Epstein’s various foundations. In many of those years, Epstein was Edge’s sole donor. Yet, how many of Edge’s contributors—let alone readers—knew Epstein played so large a role in the organization?

Recalling that New Atheism itself was a response to 911, it is curious to see Epstein so seriously funding the Foundation concurrent with the rise of New Atheism.

Anyway, along comes PZ Myers. He admits his relationship with Brockman:

I was tangentially involved with another character who was the recipient of Epstein’s beneficence. John Brockman was my agent, too. I published in a few of his annual question books, he got me a good advance on The Happy Atheist, I met him a few times in his office, he was always professional and cordial.

Whoa! That’s news to me. Given that PZ had never authored a book, how did he get such a high profile agent like Brockman? Was a third party involved? PZ doesn’t say. He even got a “good advance.” How much? He doesn’t say. He even visited Brockman’s office several times. He was involved in Brockman’s “annual question books.” Sounds like PZ had a fairly deep connecton with Brockman at the time.

Oh, but there is more. If you’ll remember, back on those days PZ Myers posted for ScienceBlogs, a project of Seed Magazine. Well, as it turns out, thanks to PZ’s old enemy getting a little too chatty with a reporter, we learn some more news:

In August 2007, Pivar sued a science blogger named P.Z. Myers and Seed Media Group, which hosted his blog, alleging defamation. Myers had lit into Pivar’s work, calling him “a classic crackpot.” In his complaint, Pivar made a point of mentioning by name two prominent members of SMG’s board: Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The lawsuit was later dropped.

PZ reponds:

I should have known — Seed Media Group was based in NY, was tightly focused on connecting science and media, and of course Epstein and his crony, Maxwell, would have been attracted to it, and it could well have been the recipient of Epstein money. So yeah, some of those blogging fees I was paid back then could have been stained with the Epstein taint, although I knew nothing about him at the time, never met him, and darn, never got invited to fly on the Lolita Express or visit his private island for sexy times. So while you might be able to draw a connection between us, my name would be in tiny print with only a thin red thread to tie us together.

Er, most of us have no thread tying us to Epstein (and couldn’t have made one if we wanted), so the “tiny red thread” is indeed quite significant. Not only did PZ get a “good advance” on a book that flopped thanks to his agent John Brockman (who was deeply connecte to Epstein), Myers, the Star of ScienceBlogs, was getting paid by Epstein money for his blogging! And Epstein had given ScienceBlogs millions of dollars.

Now, let’s add some more context from those of us who witnessed all that blogging back in 2005 and beyond. When Myers moved his blog to ScienceBlogs, his traffic began to skyrocket. In essence, he became the “rock star” of ScienceBlogs, receiving the vast majority of the traffic, getting mentions from the science jounral Nature and accolades from all sorts of popular atheists. So I suspect those “blogging fees” were fairly significant given the immense size of his following at the time.

Yet here is the most important piece of context – Myers’s science blog focused very little attention on science. It was an anti-religious, New Atheist blog and not a true “science blog.” I remember this clearly as I would periodically score his blog for topic material and post my results – while he would post token analyses of recent science papers, he spent the vast majority of his time mocking religion and Christians (remember him holding the Eucharist hostage?) and promoting militant atheism and scientism.

So it was Epstein’s money and Epstein’s agent who was giving New Atheist PZ Myers a stage to shout from and helping to turn him into a major New Atheist player. He was being groomed for fame. But then something happened. Thanks to elevatorgate, Myers got into a huge fight with Richard Dawkins, which ultimately led him to be cut off from the Epstein/Brockman world. His fame evaporated and today he is no longer a major player in the atheist scene.

So what’s the point of all this? When Myers writes, “although I knew nothing about him at the time, never met him, and darn, never got invited to fly on the Lolita Express or visit his private island for sexy times,” I fully believe him. After all, Myers had a long way to go in order to get those invites (like Laurence Krauss would eventually get). But he was clearly on that path.

The point is this: the rise and fall of PZ Myers, coupled with the connections to Brockman and Epstein money, adds further support to my hypothesis that the New Atheism movement was indebted to Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk.