The more we learn about Jeffrey Epstein, the more mysterious he seems, right? Like, we still don’t know how he got all that money. We still don’t know how he wormed his way into royal, celebrity and academic society. We don’t know how many girls he abused, molested and raped over the course of decades. With each new article about Epstein these days, I find myself gasping in horror. This is another one: the New York Times probably started investigating how Epstein ingratiated himself into scientific and academic circles. But then they learned that Epstein actually wanted to create some kind of master race with his own “seed.” And so that became the lede.
Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch. Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme, according to four people familiar with his thinking, although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition.
Mr. Epstein’s vision reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Critics have likened transhumanism to a modern-day version of eugenics, the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding.
Mr. Epstein attracted a glittering array of prominent scientists. They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking; the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate. The lure for some of the scientists was Mr. Epstein’s money. He dangled financing for their pet projects. Some of the scientists said that the prospect of financing blinded them to the seriousness of his sexual transgressions, and even led them to give credence to some of Mr. Epstein’s half-baked scientific musings.
Scientists gathered at dinner parties at Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, where Dom Pérignon and expensive wines flowed freely, even though Mr. Epstein did not drink. He hosted buffet lunches at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, which he had helped start with a $6.5 million donation.
The most deplorable people in history share a fascination with eugenics and populating the earth with their own seed. I imagine Epstein’s fantasy was that he would populate his ranch with girls aged 13-16 and they would all live as sister-wives as he raped them and impregnated them until they all “aged out.” Like Warren Jeffs without the Mormonism. Just a cult, really. I wonder if… this New York Times article would have been written differently if Epstein hadn’t insinuated himself into the highest levels of scientific academia.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
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