Maybe Krauss is totally innocent. I can’t personally make any claims about his behavior since I’ve never really interacted with him. But I can say it’s true that multiple women have independently come to me with similar claims despite not knowing each other, and that is mighty suspicious. I’m not hyperskeptical of the common and mundane – aka, sexual harassment. Regardless, it is disappointing to know CFI has been informed about this multiple times and did not take any action at all, even filing a simple report to keep it on record.

One thing I can personally attest to is that Ron Lindsay definitely knew about Laurence Krauss’s history of bad behavior before this most recent cruise because I told him about it at the first Women in Secularism conference. He asked me for names of the worst harassers and promised to keep them confidential, because he wanted to know who he shouldn’t be inviting to events. The first name I told him was Krauss.

So much for that.

[A]s skeptics, isn’t it one of our fundamental axioms that unevidenced claims should be treated skeptically?

But we kind of have to wake up from the fantasy that these women are making things up and that these are women just looking for a quick 15 minutes of fame and have thin skins. Many of these women fear coming out because let’s face it… the atheist and skeptic community has been rather averse to dealing with this chosing instead to often stay silent or worse… aid the accused and portray it as a witch hunt.

But let’s be clear here. Most people wouldn’t subject themselves to the kind of harassment we see for “15 minutes of fame”. These are painful experiences. No lasting harm may have occurred and laws may not have broken but these women certainly ate dog turds rather than M&Ms and now are feeling a little nauseous whenever they see some.

And rather than trying to make the M&Ms better we are more prone to questioning their taste and claiming that their ravaged tastebuds are incapable of telling the difference. We ask for evidence but they have eaten the damn thing and so we don’t believe them. We would rather there be a conspiracy theory of anti-M&Mers who spread vicious lies about the incidence of dog turd M&Ms than accepting the reality.

My hope is that the path we are walking- full of brambles and uneven footing – will be much smoother for the skeptic and atheist women and other minority groups who follow after us. And I hope that those who keep trying to block that path will realize their mistakes. I also hope that those voices that we have recently heard speak out will continue to rise up. Because the louder our voices are in unison the lesser the price each individual will have to pay.

Now I’ve been sitting here trying to resolve my dilemma — to reveal it or not — and goddamn it, what’s dominating my head isn’t the consequences, but the question of what is the right thing to do. Do I stand up for the one who has no recourse, no way out, no other option to help others, or do I shelter the powerful big name guy from an accusation I can’t personally vouch for, except to say that I know the author, and that she’s not trying to acquire notoriety (she wants her name kept out of it)?

My skeptical thought process on this:

1 Sexual assault and rape happen, and happen often. Claims of such are not extraordinary
2 Lack of action on the part of organisations when such claims are made is a demonstrated phenomenon.
3 Dire repercussions to victims who speak out is a demonstrated phenomenon.
4 Men in a position of power abusing that power in the service of obtaining sex, and in the service of covering up wrong doing is a demonstrated phenomenon.
5 People with power, prestige and money can survive a false accusation better than those without it.
6 Shermer has all those things.
7 If the allegation is true then other people are at risk.

Of course none of this proves that the claim made in the OP is true. But it does mean that choosing to believe this woman is the right thing to do and I would go so far as to say that it is the rational thing to do.

But in the absence of credible evidence either way the rational position to hold is that the victim is telling the truth. Not only is it the compassionate stance, it’s the one that does the least harm. Should the accusation be false, Shermer has more than enough power, prestige and money to weather the storm. Especially since the victim is not planning on taking legal action.

Should the accusation be true then other people can be spared being harmed. It could also embolden other victims to come forward with their experiences.