Troutful posted:

I don't know what kind of research you do, but some fields are extremely insular and competitive, and I wouldn't be surprised if those women were keeping a lid on any negative comments for the sake of their careers (their scientific careers, not twitter fame or whatever). It's totally possible that he was a great mentor to his female students but I'd take any quotes coming out of a high-stakes environment with a grain of salt.

Troutful posted:

I manage a genetics lab and I think this dude's a piece of poo poo lol

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

quoting myself because that ain't what happened

Troutful posted:

I don't know what kind of research you do, but some fields are extremely insular and competitive, and I wouldn't be surprised if those women were keeping a lid on any negative comments for the sake of their careers (their scientific careers, not twitter fame or whatever). It's totally possible that he was a great mentor to his female students but I'd take any quotes coming out of a high-stakes environment with a grain of salt.

hard counter posted:

it is cool that you can form a character judgement out of a soundbite that's been wrung through the lowest dregs of social media

Troutful posted:

I don't know what kind of research you do, but some fields are extremely insular and competitive, and I wouldn't be surprised if those women were keeping a lid on any negative comments for the sake of their careers (their scientific careers, not twitter fame or whatever). It's totally possible that he was a great mentor to his female students but I'd take any quotes coming out of a high-stakes environment with a grain of salt.

ArbitraryC posted:

katlington posted:

you are the worst of gbs

Helical Nightmares posted:

I love it how logic and rationality triggers losers

hard counter posted:

it is cool that you can form a character judgement out of a soundbite that's been wrung through the lowest dregs of social media

tell me, what other opinions have you wiki'd for yourself lately


Did you read the article? He lost more than just an honorary position. He was also sacked from his active position with the ERC. While he was certainly involved with the less rigorous work of a dude at the tail end of his career, he was definitely more active than just being a nobel figurehead. That all this severing happened so quickly, being asked to leave the university without being able to give an account of himself is insane and reeks of a knee jerk appeasement to mob outrage.

Check this quote from Athene Donald. “During the time I worked with him he was always immensely supportive of the ERC’s work around gender equality. His off-the-cuff remarks in Korea are clearly inappropriate and indefensible, but … he has worked tirelessly in support of young scientists of both genders.”

Sounds like he was a true rear end in a top hat, eh? Whether you can take comments like these at face value or not doesn't matter - there was no attempt at looking into the heart of the matter because this was pure snap judgement.

That this dude was old and probably on his way to checking out of academia anyway is the only thing taking the edge off.

Samuel posted:

Why was his opinion even indefensible? He wouldn't hold these opinions because he just makes them up right? Haven't studies already shown that having segregated basic education is already more productive than mixed? Wouldn't there be even the slightest chance that while people need to grow up to cope with mixed environments like adults, that there can be tension in the work place(labs) like in the army for instance? I don't think labs should be segregated like basic ED but I don't think a nobel scientist would just blab about poo poo he hadn't observed first. It might constitute as anecdotal evidence on his part, but for gods sake can't somebody just persuade him he's wrong instead of getting him loving fired through lynch mob justice?

Ork of Fiction posted:

Yeah, but then who would want a lady lab?

quote:

If they can do this to someone as eminent as Hunt, for no real cause other than temporary embarrassment of an institution that manifestly gives women a fair deal, what else will they do if someone raises real issues – such as the gross disparity in remuneration between academic and senior admin staff, or the appalling conditions of employment of temporary staff and junior academics? Men and women alike!

Nelson Mandingo posted:

But for real though firing Tim Hunt over a really loving stupid comment that everyone would forget about in 2 weeks is dumb as poo poo.

quote:

My Facebook feed is awash with people standing up for Tim Hunt: “The witch hunt against Tim Hunt is unbearable and disgraceful”, “This is how stupidity turns into big damage. Bad bad bad”, “Regarding the Tim Hunt hysteria”, and so on. Each of these posts has prompted a debate between people who think a social media mob has unfairly brought a good man down, and people like me who think that the response has been both measured and appropriate.

I happened to met Tim Hunt earlier this year at a meeting of young Indian investigators held in Kashmir. We both were invited as external “advisors” brought in to provide wisdom to scientists beginning their independent careers. While his “How to win a Nobel Prize” keynote had a bit more than the usual amount of narcissism, he was in every other way the warm, generous and affable person that his defenders of the last week have said he is. I will confess I kind of liked the guy.

But it is not my personal brush with Hunt that has had me thinking about this meeting the past few days. Rather it is a session towards the end of the meeting held to allow women to discuss the challenges they have faced building their scientific careers in India. During this session (in which I was seated next to Hunt) several brave young women stood up in front of a room of senior Indian and international scientists and recounted the specific ways in which their careers have been held back because of their gender.

The stories they told were horrible, and it was clear from the reaction of women in the room that these were not isolated incidents. If any of the scientists in positions of power in the room (including Hunt) were not already aware of the harassment many women in science face, and the myriad obstacles that can prevent them from achieving a high level of success, there is no way that could have emerged not understanding.

When I am thinking about what happened here, I am not thinking about how Twitter hordes brought down a good man because he had a bad day. I am instead thinking about what it says to the women in that room in Kashmir that this leading man of science – who it was clear everybody at the meeting revered – had listened to their stories and absorbed nothing. It is unconscionable that, barely a month after listening to a women moved to tears as she recounted a sexual assault from a senior colleague and how hard it was for her to regain her career, Hunt would choose to mock women in science as teary love interests.

Hunt’s words, and even more so his response to being called out for them, suggest that he does not understand the damage his words caused. I will take him at his word that he did not mean to cause harm. But the fact that he did not realize that those words would cause harm is worse even than the words themselves. That a person as smart as Hunt could go his entire career without realizing that a Nobel Prizewinner deriding women – even in a joking way – is bad just serves to show how far we have to go.

So, you’ll have to forgive me for recoiling when people ask me to measure my words based on the effect they will have on Hunt. I understand all too well the effects that criticism can have on people. But silence also has its consequences. And we see around us the consequences of decades of silence and inaction on sexism in science. If the price of standing up to that history is that Tim Hunt has to weather a few bad weeks, well so be it.

Troutful posted:

I don't know what kind of research you do, but some fields are extremely insular and competitive, and I wouldn't be surprised if those women were keeping a lid on any negative comments for the sake of their careers (their scientific careers, not twitter fame or whatever). It's totally possible that he was a great mentor to his female students but I'd take any quotes coming out of a high-stakes environment with a grain of salt.

BigBoss posted:

Remember when they lost their poo poo about that guy's shirt when that Mars thing happened?

bonvivant posted:

another old white scientist has zero people skills and is clueless to the point of damaging say it ain't so

Troutful posted:

The fun part about this whole thing is that cell biology is a huge field with better-than-average minority representation, as far as STEM goes. There's no shortage of brilliant cell biologists with enough sense not to make cutesy hee-haw jokes at major conferences at the expense of their coworkers

spacemang_spliff posted:

lol at getting mad about an old man saying something dumb

double lol at the university not ignoring the story for the whole 24 hours it will take for the twitter outrage machine to move on to the next great microagression

Samuel posted:

There's an undertone to this post I can't quite place, it's like you're saying good riddance we can get better minority representation now