Accountability has to start somewhere - lets start with our scientific institutions

Photo by Bryce olsen on Unsplash

Last week, I made myself look through the list of the prominent scientists that were mentioned in the Epstein files. The vast majority are men, many we have known to be hugely problematic, long before their connections with Epstein became public. These entitled men gatekeep, harass, spew racist, homophobic, and misogynistic nonsense, and pat each other on the back. They say the quiet parts out loud because they believe themselves to be invincible - and to date, many of these men have been protected by their institutions and other men. Some scientists are finally facing some repercussions for their links with Epstein, but not all and not for all the other harms they have perpetuated within their institutions.  

Even many men who are NOT in the Epstein files have been complicit through their actions or inactions:  they have protected and promoted predatory men and dismissed or punished the women who spoke up. 

Of course, this is not true for all men, and not all men in science. But it is far too common. This rot is also not limited to the Harvards and MITs of science - it’s just not getting the press coverage. 

As we have been writing for months, all these things are interconnected. From the Epstein files to AI-enabled mass murder, there is no accountability. As Avner Gvaryahu recently wrote in The Guardian “Gaza was the laboratory. Minab is the market. The result is a world in which the most consequential targeting decisions in modern warfare are made by systems that cannot explain themselves, supplied by companies that answer to no one, in conflicts that generate no accountability and no reckoning. This is not a failure of the system. This is the system.” The willingness of scientific and academic institutions to shield problematic men from accountability mirrors what we see at the highest levels of US government. Pushing for accountability has to start somewhere. Lets start with our scientific institutions.

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weekly win

  • A federal judge blocked RFK Jr’s change to the childhood vaccine schedule

weekly wonder

  • Spinosaurus mirabilis, a newly discovered dinosaur in central Sahara, has dethroned T-rex as the largest land predator of all time.

check it out

  • Agriculture is gobbling up the remaining intact grasslands, savannas, and wetlands at a rate 4x faster than that of forest conversion, mostly to feed livestock.

  • Media consolidation in the US is on a serious fast track, with the Ellison family (affiliated with Trump) poised to own a LOT of things. Check out the list and beware, the lines between propaganda and truth are harder and harder to define. They will own Harry Potter and Star Trek… so yeah, this matters people!

  • An op-ed from former NIH administrators and scientists who have resigned in protest. 

    • Related, the US has slashed grant funding for research on most diseases. 

    • Oh and if you were wondering what the DOGE bros were thinking when they took a blowtorch to DEI grants, well, it wasn’t much.

around the world

more of this please

  • Denver is one of the only cities with a bison herd and for the last 5 years, has been sending young bison to Tribal Nations rather than auctioning them, with 34 sent this year to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and Navajo Nation. 

  • San Jose State University sued the federal government for threatening federal funding over inclusion of a trans volleyball player. #TransRightsAreHumanRights

  • BBC has highlighted 22 women in science for International Women’s Day

longer reads

  • Gisela Salim-Peyer’s article in The Atlantic describes the normalcy of the slide into authoritarianism in Venezuela, with analogs to what we are experiencing in the US today.

  • AI firms are defense contractors.

book nook

  • Roam by Hilary Rosner is a book about wildlife corridors and an urgent quest to figure out how to stitch our fragmented planet back together.

  • And if you want a list of authors and books to read in March (and every other month of the year), check out this list of Black women authors.

all ears

watch this!

  • If you’re not already following @lynaevanee on social media, check out  Lynae Vanee Bogues! Parking Lot Pimpin is a must watch.

  • Ghost in the Machine, a new documentary about AI, linking the development of this technology to eugenics and the broader rise of techno-fascism.

…by the way

Ms Rachel recently posted on her Instagram page:


As the grown-ups of the world, 

our greatest and most sacred 

responsibility is to take care of 

the children of the world - 

not just the ones who live near us, 

not just the ones who look like us, 

and never only the ones people deem 

acceptable to care about.

Our mission is to serve society by making science open, inclusive, and accessible, and to transform society by fighting racism, patriarchy, and oppressive societal norms