Lawrence Krauss and the Legacy of Harassment in Science

In April, a theoretical physicist showed up at conference in California about the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe.

In one way, his presence was likely. Lawrence Krauss is a prominent scientist, author of several best-selling books, and a prolific lecturer known for his lively and engaging style. He’s not a household name like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, but he starred in a documentary alongside fellow atheist-scientist Richard Dawkins, and his lectures on cosmology regularly rack up thousands of views on YouTube—no easy feat for a physicist trying to popularize science.

In another way, it was surprising. Two months before the conference, several women had Krauss of sexual misconduct, describing behavior that went unchecked for over a decade. By the time Krauss stepped foot on Stanford’s campus for the gathering, he had been banned from three universities, removed from multiple speaking events, and was under a formal investigation by Arizona State University, his primary affiliation. But Krauss had denied the allegations, and refused to withdraw from public life. “He chatted. “He even challenged a engineer after one talk, declaring a proposed propulsion drive to be based on bunk physics.”