What Nobel winner Tim Hunt's sexist outburst actually says

[cronus]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... Xn1uflVhBc

What Nobel winner Tim Hunt's sexist outburst actually tells us
by D. Mackenzie, New Scientist

Update 11 June 2015: Tim Hunt has since resigned from one of his several academic positions, that of honorary professor of life sciences at University College London.

Original article, published 10 June 2015

It's usually nice to see a Twitterstorm about something scientific. It's painful, though, when the storm isn't about what science does well – understanding the universe – but about something it, with few exceptions, does badly: gender equality. And so it is with the reaction to comments made at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea, by Tim Hunt, a British scientist who shared the 2001 Nobel prize for physiology and medicine for helping figure out how cells decide to divide.

"Let me tell you about my trouble with girls," he reportedly said. "Three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry."

The Twitterstorm this unleashed (#TimHunt) is in places hilarious. I urge you to browse it for a taste of how unacceptable this kind of statement is in 2015. But why did he say it?

Let's look at the mitigating circumstances. Hunt is 72. You don't have to be that old to remember a time when a senior white male scientist could and did say things like that and have it considered "funny". If the man doesn't quite get that values have changed, is that so bad? Yes, it is. It was once OK to make remarks belittling racial and religious groups, and ridiculing gays became a no-no embarrassingly recently. We all know comments like this are not just a bit of fun.

(continued)

[JimC]

Storm in a conical flask, really...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Bella posted something about this on Facebook...

11390219_10206397701441945_7039462141507496438_n.jpg (40.63 KiB) Viewed 4321 times

[JimC]

They are getting turned on by counting sperm on a slide...

[mistermack]

What a twit.

Why would you resign something, just because of that?

[laklak]

Because LIBERAL OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!

There are people calling for old dudes to be banned from science. Who's gonna ban them? Is there some new Science Police I don't know about? God they're a humorless bunch, could easily be mistaken for Puritans.

[pErvinalia]

I'm the new science police. You're all under arrest!!

[cronus]

If you are over sixty you shouldn't be doing no science. Men become dumber with the years, women uglier.

[laklak]

I may not be able to do Science any more, but I'm pretty good at drinking beer.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Some good lollage here...

http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/ ... xy-twitter

[Mr.Samsa]

Because LIBERAL OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!

I'm not up to date on political beliefs, but surely liberals aren't the only ones who are anti-sexism and discrimination? Or have I been too optimistic in my estimate of non-liberals?

There are people calling for old dudes to be banned from science. Who's gonna ban them? Is there some new Science Police I don't know about?

There are ethics boards and university panels which ensure that employees are still an asset rather than costing them money, so if someone makes comments like Hunt did (especially if he's enacting his comments, and rejecting women from his lab) then he's costing them money and they should be allowed to fire him on that basis.

What political position is it which thinks that employers should have the power to do what benefits them the most? Is it liberalism?

God they're a humorless bunch, could easily be mistaken for Puritans.

Doesn't "humorless" imply that some form of 'humor' has taken place? He wasn't making a joke, you understand that right? He was saying that women were shit at science, were a distraction in a lab, and that's why he doesn't like to hire them. Stated at a conference for women scientists trying to tackle issues women face in science. The humor is coming from the ones laughing at his comments, like in the tweets linked by Xamonas!

Even if you ignore the whole gender issue, ignore any political agendas and soap boxing, surely we'd all agree that someone stupid enough to go and make those ridiculous comments deserves to lose his job?

[Hermit]

God they're a humorless bunch, could easily be mistaken for Puritans.

Doesn't "humorless" imply that some form of 'humor' has taken place? He wasn't making a joke, you understand that right? He was saying that women were shit at science, were a distraction in a lab, and that's why he doesn't like to hire them.

Exactly. Hunt was trying to sugarcoat his idiotic view that women should be kept out of labs where men do science with what Laklak alludes to as humour. Trouble is that Hunt was serious. He made that crystal clear in what can only laughingly be described as an apology. If he can't resist the temptation of "emotional entanglements" to the point that they interfere with his work when sharing a workplace with women, it is he who ought not be there.

Laklak, in your eagerness to poopooh political correctness you overlook the fact that unfortunately it is all too often right on the button.

[cronus]

The guy is a arse. Newton was a arse. Being good at science doesn't mean you are not a arse. Indeed being good at one thing, very good at it, is the classic sign of arse in progress...

[Hermit]

The guy is a arse. Newton was a arse. Being good at science doesn't mean you are not a arse. Indeed being good at one thing, very good at it, is the classic sign of arse in progress...

True, but nobody at the age of 72 has contributed anything to science. Whatever redeeming feature he once had lies in the past. Hunt is just scrap now, and with his attitude he belongs on the scrap heap. Even the great public relations man of science, Richard Dawkins, displayed more sense when he relinquished his professorial chair at the age of 69.

[cronus]

It is my thesis. Anyone who was over twenty five in 1989 is a metaphorical dinosaur. Habits and customs formed in a pre-globalist environment are bound to be tainted by gender biases and what not. And because these issues have not been addressed in the past thirty or so years the pressures are building towards a full on cultural revolution in the west where the resources are being guzzled needlessly by our elders and 'betters' who are not so much better than cro-magnons.... In fact I would say only the total obliteration of the aged neanderthals will save the planet.