EPIC! Rebecca Watson openly reveals all the behind-the-scenes scandals behind Epstein, Krauss, Shermer, Dawkins, Brockman, and the whole of the skeptic-atheist sphere, and she posts all the documentation. It’s good to see all the sexism and abuse that was going on since 2011 laid bare.
I was aware of most of this stuff at the time, and it was what led to me staggering, shell-shocked and disillusioned, from the whole atheist movement, and leaves me feeling still scarred now in 2026. I was there when it was quietly revealed that Dawkins had a string of mistresses that he then set up in leadership positions at various atheist and skeptic organizations, tainting the entire community. And now, reputations are torched, the whole damn thing has been set on fire.
Lawrence Krauss was an amazingly stupid, bumbling idiot who was the center of the exposure, but Jesus, Richard Dawkins wrecked the entirety of the New Atheism that he initially inspired. Christ, what a shitshow.
I am grateful to Dawkins for his role in getting me over my knee jerk reaction to anything doing with religion and realizing that it’s just another tool that is used by awful people. Give me a progressive believer any day over the likes of him and so many of the people ElevatorGate exposed.
I’m a relative newbie to the atheist scene. I arrived by way of the late Robert Todd Carroll’s Atheist Dictonary and, soon after that, Scienceblogs. This was right around the time of Elevatorgate.
I remember a young woman on Scienceblogs (was it ERV?) who went off the deep end around that time viciously insulting anybody who had even the slightest criticism of Dawkins. Also, her posts became, just, crude. I knew I didn’t want to be associated anybody like that.
Fortunately, Freethoughtblogs came along and I found a home.
I remember a friend asking me why I didn’t put any effort into going to TAM or any of the other skeptic get-togethers, saying, “These are your peeps!”
Any time I’ve gotten together with people because they’ve got similar interests, I find that I don’t like a lot of them very much. And/or vice versa.
She is quite a good communicator.
John Morales #4
Indeed.