Ted-talking University of California professor asks sex trafficker for $3,000,000 because he thinks there’s a “50% chance” he’ll make “important discoveries” in telepathy

This is quite possibly the stupidest thing in the Epstein files.

Lord knows there’s lots of competition from the likes of Soon-Yi “Woody” Allen, Larry “Lawrence” Summers, Nathan “Clippy” Myhrvold, and Columbia’s own Richard “Axel” Foley, but I think this one takes the cake.

In honor of another Epstein associate (see here), I’ll frame it as a “Linda problem”:

Vilayanur is 74 years old, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in neuroscience. As an adult, he was deeply concerned with issues of motor control in stroke victims.

Which is more probable?

1. Vilayanur is a psychology professor who believes in extra sensory perception (ESP) 2. Vilayanur is a psychology professor who believes in ESP and tried to get 3 million bucks from a sex trafficker to fund his lab.

Here’s the story and here’s the evidence:

OK, a dog-bites-man story: over-the-hill professor on the Ted talk cycle seeks return to former glory through the funds of a shady operator.

The interesting part to me is when Ramachandran writes:

In the interest honesty given the focus on such fringe phenomena – theres a 50% chance the whole effort could go up in smoke, but the 50% chance that it COULD lead to something – makes it worthwhile.

I get it that some old guy could think that autistic people have ESP: this kind of mystical thinking was big back in the 1970s when Vilayanur was young, and I think a lot of Boomers have a soft spot for the paranormal. So, sure, why not study the topic–it does no harm.

But to think there’s a “50% chance” that it could lead to something . . . jeez, what an idiot. There’s a big difference between the sane view that doing speculative research on the high-risk, high-reward principle that even if there’s only a 1% chance it comes to something, it could still be worth a shot; and the absolutely insane view that your supernatural study has a 50% chance of being real.

Look, he had tenure, and in any case people have the right to be idiots and not get fired, as long as they do their job well. Ramachandran might well have been an excellent teacher. Or, hey, maybe he was insincere, lying to Epstein in an attempt to scam $3 million from the sex-trafficking financier. But until I hear otherwise, I’ll take Ramachandran’s words at face value and just conclude that he couldn’t think straight about science, I guess in a comparably innumerate way as that physicist who thought that scientific citations were worth $100,000 each. There are a lot of innumerate people out there, and some of them up with tenured academic positions.

It happens. We accept that there are corrupt cops; we also have to accept that there are stupid professors. Some corrupt cops reach heights of political power; similarly, some stupid professors become Ted-talk stars. That’s how it goes.

There’s also the issue, which we’ve discussed before, of which sorts of pseudoscientific beliefs are socially acceptable and which are not. We can laugh or scream at Dr. Oz for promoting astrology (“People that fall under the Aries sign are known for being resourceful, assertive, and headstrong. An Aries can tend to ‘ram or dive in to things head first.’ When an Aries feels blocked, this pent-up energy may appear in the form of migraines, sinus issues, or even jaw tension.”) or out-and-out magic (“You may think magic is make believe but this little bean has scientists saying they’ve found the magic weight loss cure for every body type–it’s green coffee extract.”), but if they believe in the burning bush or the virgin birth or whatever, that’s kind of a different category. Maybe the supernatural stylings of Ramachandran and Oz could be put in the “religion” column and then it would all be cool. I guess the problem is when they try to bring science into the mix rather than just existing on pure belief.

Dr. Oz is currently running the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That’s a U.S. government agency! I hope he’s not funneling our tax dollars to hucksters promoting “the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat,” etc.