Tim Hunt’s very bad day
Here we go again. Eight Nobel prize winners have come out to defend Tim Hunt.
They warned of a chilling effect on academics’ freedom to speak their minds after Sir Tim was forced to resign his honorary post at University College London amid pressure from social media users.
Sir Andre Geim, of the University of Manchester who shared the Nobel prize for physics in 2010 said that Sir Tim had been “crucified” by ideological fanatics , and castigated UCL for “ousting” him.
Oh, no! There might be a “chilling effect” on the ability of coddled, privileged Nobel prize winners to say stupid, demeaning things about half the population of the planet! What will we do without the ability of Tim Hunt to freely accuse women of being emotional hysterics, or without James Watson’s proud ability to call all black people mentally retarded?
I am so sorry to hear that Tim Hunt was nailed up on a cross until he suffocated. How tragic. How sad that “ideological fanatics” used hyperbole to cause him such mortal suffering! And by “ideological fanatics,” of course, we mean anyone who complained about women being stereotyped. That is a right that every man possesses, and Nobel prize winning men possess to an extreme degree!
Others described the response on social media as a “global firestorm”. Nice. Mocking Nobelists is as serious and devastating as setting human beings on fire. They are very delicate and thin-skinned, don’t you know, so that #DistractinglySexy hashtag was exactly the same as dousing Tim Hunt with napalm.
Tragically, this response also has the effect of making millions of ideological fanatics around the world realize that winning a Nobel prize does not grant god-like wisdom, which means they’re almost certainly going to wither and die at a revelation that diminishes a bit of the respect they’ve been getting.
From UCL’s statement, via Butterflies and Wheels:
So. A funny hashtag in response to contemptuous joking about “girl” scientists is “crucifixion” by “ideological fanatics,” and Poobah Hunt quitting is him being “ousted.’
Golly, boys are emotional.
There are days, like today, when it’s really, really difficult not to curse all males. Yes, I know there are a lot of good guys out there, but these “Nobel”-winners are making it really hard to be fair.
Cowards and fools, these men that claim justified outrage at that twit Hunt is on the level of a witch hunt or a Global Firestorm are cowards and fools.
Of course, if we’d just stick with the status quo and let Tim Hunt continue to be an ass, they couldn’t be too worried about the “chilling effect” it would have on the women who have to work with him.
Last I checked, there’s SUPPOSED to be a chilling effect in polite society about certain things. Virulent sexism is one of those things.
Again, people aren’t content with the ability to say whatever they want, they want to say whatever they want with no consequences.
Oh for FFS, so it’s crucified now, is it, with Hunt as the brave persecuted Saviour of Privileged White Men? Aren’t we women always being told that we’re the ones who are prone to melodramatic hysterical outbursts and over emotional? Odd, because it doesn’t seem that way at all. The Drama is a bit unbearable at this point.
Excellence in one narrow field is no guarantee of competence in any other. It would be great if more people (even Nobelists) learned that.
If proof you require, consider that these folks just fanned on the dying embers of the controversy. Maybe the journalists prodded them for comment, but they could have just kept quiet. Or, in the classic formulation: When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
Can I suggest we try to assemble a time line of this case, with links and information on exactly what happened? I get a nasty feeling this is going to turn into another one of those cases that will be frequently misrepresented and turned into a narrative about the evil feminazis. It might be good to have a handy resource to refer people to in the future.
E.g. The post Lady Mondegreen refers to is this one, which quotes the UCL statement made here.
A few relevant links:
The original remarks
The first “apology”
The “slightly better” apology
Hunt attempts to defend himself
Borked one of the links:
The first “apology”
We should make a movie called the passion of Tim hunt. Tim gives a sermon on the Mount about how the ladies has the distracting sexy. The sjws call for his blood. He’s then forced to carry a giant set of testicles around town, and finally mumbles a half arsed apology at Calvary. He then goes home and the viewer is left outraged by his treatment.
Dawkins would make a good ponitus pilot.
Ah, the old-boy network is trying to come to the rescue.
Hunt said nothing that I would construe as an academic discussion, just declaimed his opposition to women in the laboratory at a conference celebrating women in the laboratory. Academic freedom has its limits, and deliberate sexual harassment, which his statement was, is not part of valid academic discussion of science.
These highly intellectual scientists can’t see that problem, and see nothing other than one of their buddies is being criticized, hence their knee-jerk circle-the-wagons response with red herrings attached as justification. Why don’t they step back, look at the situation in toto, and add their voices to the valid criticism?
Hyperbole is by it’s very nature deception.
It’s an increase in intensity of emotional rhetoric so that your signal carries farther, and is heard over other people (so much of this looks like signal and noise stuff to me). I don’t like it, but it’s perfectly natural. I consider it a moral issue to be able to unpack [hyperbole] with whatever it contains upon request. But people like these Nobel prize winners, Dawkins, Nugent and others that are part of the status quo seem to rely on hyperbole as assertion of fact that they very often can’t or won’t unpack.
One of my most often used tactics nowadays is to isolate the hyperbole and other pieces of non-literal language and demand that the person I am talking to unpacks it. We are at the point where the dominant members of the status quo replace hyperbole with argument and implicitly (perhaps unconsciously and strategically) agree to support one another in making the hyperbole the message.
I think this is a major pillar in how they characterize the people criticizing them as “impolite”.
If speaking their minds means spewing vile shit…GOOD. In fact chilly is not enough, can we make it frosty?
It’s very telling that these people are afraid that if they spoke their minds, there’d be negative consequences…it makes you wonder what kind of disgustingly bigoted crap is in their minds.
And once again, we see people quite flatly stating that what they want is the freedom to say whatever they fucking want without having the content of their commentaries scrutinized, evaluated and critisized if needed. Nope, you’re not getting that and as scientists you should be deeply ashamed to even imply that that’s desirable.
Nobel Prize Winner Sir Tim Hunt FRS is being criticized by non-knighted non-Fellows of the Royal Society who haven’t even been considered for Prizehood by the Nobel Committee. Don’t the lumpen proletariat know their place?
I’m really starting to get fucking tired of the vocabulary these people use…How can they accuse others of having a disproportionate response, when they are using the most surreal hyperbole and misrepresentation to fucking silence people? For saying “oh wow, that was fucking sexist” which is clearly an outrageous reaction to hearing something that is fucking sexist.
You guys talk to me about what is an apropriate response when you learn not to pee your pants and throw a hissy fit.
We know it isn’t in the lab, don’t we?
Thoughts I actually thought today:
“This makes me glad I don’t have a job. At least in my house no one talks to me like I’m a damn dog.”
Followed quickly by:
“Oh, that’s right. That’s exactly what it’s meant to do.”
Attitudes like this are meant to get us back in the kitchen where we’ll be quiet and not interrupt the Great Men running the world.
We might call this fracas The Witch-Hunt Delusion. Some seem to be very sure there’s a witch-hunt going on, but no one I have seen has actually bothered to link or otherwise point to an example of it.
Continuing my previous thoughts.
In fact I see a huge non-literal language problem in general in these conflicts. Whenever I see someone referring to something else in emotive “feels about” language (especially with outrage) my first instinct is to see the specific object they are talking about. I simply do not give a benefit of the doubt to anyone in a privileged position expressing outrage anymore, especially in situation where the statistics show huge social problems. I will choose how I approach them carefully though.
I would want these filled in:
I’ll give some of these people some credit for putting things like “witch hunt” in quotes though. It makes what I want to dissect easier to find. They are not quite at the creationist point in that area.
… and someone in the radio just now exclaimed “there is still so much bullshit going on in the world” …
In any case,
#17 Andrés Diplotti
So I’m the first? points at RD and several Nobel winners
@Anna Elizabeth 2
While I applaud your desire to represent people accurately, you do not have to be fair with everything when it comes to fixing things that are inherently unfair. After all does not this situation require treating people differently based on behavior and beliefs? And when it comes to emotional effectiveness in social change, forget fair. I would rather see things fixed.
@Brony #20
Thank you for saying that. I have a lot of anger in me, and I’ve been known to splash damage innocents and bystanders with it.
I’m often not fair, and I’m trying really to be more fair. Thank you for reminding me that being fair isn’t always best. :)
Etymologically speaking, we men are incapable of being hysterics, but we can be really nutzoid.
Andre Geim is full of, er, opinions. But he has effectively brought hundreds of millions into Manchester, so we have to tolerate him. I don’t know how many Christmas cards he gets.
Just to add balance; Nancy Rothwell – President and VC of the University, and a high achieving female scientist and academic leader (and a Dame) – was joking about Tim Hunt recently, so I think it would be fair to say that she would probably disagree on this.
Manchester is very vocal about its commitment to diversity, and is justly proud of the various Athena SWAN awards it has received. I am very happy to be part of a Manchester group where female scientists form at least half of the group, where one of the PIs is female ( and absolutely a leader in her field), and where we’ve -male and female – spent the last couple of weeks calling Hunt’s views exactly what they are.
So what exactly is the damage if Nobel Prize Winners (defer, defer) couldn’t ever speak their minds in public? I mean, they could still publish papers, and speak at conferences where they were invited, but as for not being able to get a wide audience for whatever other subject that they are not expert in? Boo-frikkin-hoo.
@Anna Elizabeth 21
It’s a matter of rational discrimination which is probably a tough one for a lot of people because we are used to thinking about discrimination in bad terms because many of us are so bad about discriminating among things when it comes to sex, gender, race and similar.
It’s rational to discriminate between defined social groups when it comes to behaviors and beliefs that contribute to problems. In fact there is no other way to learn to recognize the things we want to change and properly place emotional emphasis on. It is rational to look at men and woman differently when it comes to the details of these things. In fact a lot of the conflict strategy depends on keeping that discriminatory eye of society fixed and anything but themselves. It probably feels just awful, the poor dears.
It is irrational to discriminate between defined social groups with respect to features that do not reflect reality or are irrelevant to something. Tough for the poor racists and sexists. Not all of the “bitches be lying” so they should be soundly mocked if that is their reasoning. All of the women are experiencing sexism to varying degrees to so “Not all Men” is mock worthy as well.
It can be tough because that social filter is tricksy, but it’s well worth it to be able to focus rage and disgust effectively.
But they are Very Important Gentlemen and therefore, must be heard at all times or the world might crumble under the lack of pure brilliance!
They probably don’t belong in science labs, with all that hyperbole and emotional hand-waving. How can they get any work done?
Huh. I guess it’s 8 more of the sort of Nobel laureate I mentioned in a previous post: more like Tim Hunt. The sooner we kick them out of academic institutions the better.
@17 The Witch Hunt Delusion. I like it!!
Dawkins, Nobel laureates… Even intelligent people can’t change their minds once they entrench on a position.
Paraphrasing Max Planck
“
Sciencesociety advances one funeral at the time.”So sad.
This is amazing. One of them can say something extremely insensitive about women, and women are supposed to just suck it up and take it because that’s Hunt’s “academic freedom” to free speech. But when women respond with criticism and ridicule they aren’t supposed to have the same right to free speech, otherwise it’s a “witch hunt.”
Apparently “academic freedom” is a code word for “having a penis.”
If those guys are too delicate to take criticism for the things they say, then they should be more careful not to trample on others’ feelings (and more important, avoid trampling on others’ hard-earned respect as professionals).
When this kind of man says “free speech”, they mean “the thoughts of properly educated white males”. The rest of us are supposed to be grateful that our betters have deigned to “thought lead” us.
Brony@#12:
We are at the point where the dominant members of the status quo replace hyperbole with argument and implicitly (perhaps unconsciously and strategically) agree to support one another in making the hyperbole the message.
I also wonder to what degree Dawkins’ reaction is owed to the fact that the same powers that criticized Hunt criticized him. Dawkins is using Hunt as a proxy for himself; by defending him he’s going on the offense against the people who continue to point out his own failings. I suppose it’s just a question of academic interest whether he is self-aware. I’d predict he’s not because that would require detaching from the cognitive dissonance of “hey, my critics are holding a consistent position, maybe this isn’t just about me, me, me!”
Wait, I thought the Nobel prize jumped the shark with Henry Kissinger. As if that weren’t bad enough, Barack Obama won one. WHAT.
I can’t help it; I read “Nobel Laureate” as “war criminal.” Yes I know the peace prize is a different category, but Kissinger? KISSINGER?! I simply cannot take seriously anything these people say.
@Marcus Ranum 32
It’s a tough question. This is where we start dancing on the divide where some people can be either malevolent or clumsy and good intentioned. Some of it is “human flocking” among like minds feeling defensive I doubt they would feel “used”. The average is difficult to determine which is why listening to women scientists is important here.
I do enjoy dissecting what they say for clues though. If they want social power and prestige they damn well better be prepared for the consequences.
I agree on Dawkins likely not being self-aware here. Those authority/leader emotions are probably pretty serious things when the sensation of public attention is focused on you like the eye of Sauron. I wonder what his definition of “group think” would be?
Jeannette Norman @30:
Sadly, they would have to acknowledge the existence and validity of those feelings and then care about those feelings before they take care not to trample on them. So basically someone needs to invent an empathy pill.
https://twitter.com/cgseife
Dead horse beating: Tim Hunt is lying. There was no “my” trouble w/girls, nor “now, seriously.” I was in the room.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/20/sir-tim-hunt-gratitude-female-scientists-support-joke
Khandro Jigme @ 36
I took a peek at that twitter thread and there’s a guy responding with (paraphrasing) “criticism is one thing but negating an entire career is another”.
What the hell does it even mean to “negate” someone’s career? His Nobel Prize hasn’t been revoked. Are his past employers busily deleting Hunt’s name from all their records? Are the authors of every publication Hunt has ever been mentioned in feverishly replacing his name with someone else’s? What do you clowns actually think is happening here? Get a grip on yourselves, please. Good grief.
I’m imagining Ninja Feminists breaking into libraries all over the world and stealing every scrap of paper with any mention of Hunt on it. Then they’ll take them all back to the official Femicommunazi Lair (built in the base of a volcano, obv) and burn them in some obscene Femicommunazi emasculation ritual involving lots of cackling.
@37 Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy
Exactly
Grown men throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler who missed their nap coming to the defense of a guy who claimed that women shouldn’t be allowed in men labs because they react too emotional to criticism.
Seriously, irony is dead and so is satire.
Like, I said you can’t work with them ‘Cause they always cry when you say something mean, and then, and then, and then they mocked me and now I’m taking my ball and go go because they’re meaaaaaaaaaaaan
re @37:
who paraphrased a tweet:
Without reading the twitterverse (I refuse to), I could see that as a subtle defense of the “firestorm”; characterizing it as simple criticism, that it is nowhere near negation of Hunt’s career, etc.
Then again, I’m a very optimistic person and provide ample allowances to give people the best benefit of the doubt. Sometimes also arrogant enough to tell people the correct way to read offensive stuff without thinking the offender is totally “~~~~”
The next day, boys whispering to each other:
” Did you hear that Timmy got kicked out of the playground by a bunch of mean older girls?”
” Yes, I hear they sometimes come to the park to kick the boys around.”
” Are they really 3 meters tall and all have bright purple hair?”
” I heard they sometimes take off their clothes and burn their bras”
[boys giggling]
” He, he. Bras for their boobs.”
[more giggling]
” So, are we going to the park?”
” Dunno, there are always all those stupid girls there and they make me have to wait for the swing and they cry when I accidentally on purpose push them in the mud!”
” Don’t worry, we’ll kick them out in no time from our playground.”
“Grown Men” have probably spent years surrounding themselves with safety to avoid having their feelings hurt. I probably have.
I know from experience that when someone points out you have said something stupid in front of an audience the first reaction of such a grown man is “no I didn’t” or “You have misunderstood”. At that point if everyone holds back for a bit I, and others like me, have a chance to go “oh, fuck. Yes I did. Sorry.” Maybe we say “let me try to explain, because I think you didn’t see x…” We say this if its true or if we are horribly wrong and trying to avoid seeing it.
If there is a viewing public that just keeps coming us dummies don’t pause and marshal our thoughts, we get our backs up and go full stupid and start yelling witch hunt.
That is unfortunate for the dummy that let a stupidity burp escape their mouths. From the point of view of society at large the best outcome is if Mr dopey is given a chance to see what’s wrong and admit it. Second best is if everyone makes a noise to alert others that the stupidity burp is toxic and wrong. The worst thing is if no one does anything and stupidity becomes “the way things are”.
you know, when comedians go the way Hunt was trying to emulate, they’ll often say the offensive thing, and then follow with “did I say that outloud? ooh, sorry.”<chuckle>
If Hunt had did that during the original speech, maybe the firestorm would have been more a “tsk, tsk”<smiles> than outrage.
So reiterate: he may be a profound thinker in academia and Nobel worthy, but those academia skills do not extend to social/humor skills.
The tears and hurted feels of “great men” taste like Tequila to this chick. XD
DanDare:
Well, the ‘second best’ is what actually is happening, but, according to Dawkins, et al, this is causing a ‘chilling effect’ on Tim Hunt’s freedom of speech, and, by extension, the freedom of speech of every other scientist on the planet (if they want to make idiotic and sexist comments, anyway).
The ‘best outcome’, according to you, I don’t really see as acceptable, quite frankly – if Mr Dopey, as you’ve termed him, is incapable of marshalling their thoughts whilst continuing to receive criticism for what they’ve already said, I don’t see why everyone else should have to limit their freedom of speech to accommodate Mr Dopey’s limitation.
True freedom of speech is an illusion. When working for a company, they can control your speech when representing that company. Freedom of speech also comes with the responsibility to not deliberately cause suffering to people, and cause microaggressions against those not of your privilege level. Nobody should make statements that amount to sexual harassment, except in private.
slithey tove @ 41
No, this person was definitely on Hunt’s side.
slithey tove @ 44
No, that’s not better and I doubt it would have changed anything. People have said repeatedly that it doesn’t even matter if it was a joke. Incessantly making women the butt of these misogynist jokes is a problem in itself. Can we please stop trying to find a way where, if you hold it up at just the right angle and squint, Hunt’s comments would be excusable?
Could all this whining and carrying on be because men are realizing that no matter their education, peerage, or credentials as “thinkies”, that there might be a price to pay if they don’t limit the verbal flatulence issuing from the anus-with-teeth under their noses?
Nerd of Redhead:
Actually, I would say that true freedom of speech is not an illusion, it’s just that sometimes people confuse ‘freedom of speech’ with ‘freedom from consequences’. If you are employed by a company, but want to say something that brings that company into disrepute, or in some other way negatively affects the company you work for, that doesn’t mean you cannot say it, it’s just that saying it might have the consequence of you getting fired. Whether this is actually fair or not depends on other factors (for example, getting fired for complaining that your employer has sexist hiring policies would be a different situation than getting fired for complaining that your employer actually employs women, but, in both situations, you are free to make that complaint, just with the possibility of getting fired as a result).
It is effectively self-censorship, as you know. Freedom of speech is limited by both law and consequences, as you point out. It is an illusion that you can say what you want, when you want, and where you want at all times, without the possibility of push-back. Which is why we call that concept freeze peach, which is that illusory freedom.
Given these comments on what constitutes free speech, I have to wonder if our Nobel Thinkee Leaders are so arrogant that they really do think they are suffering as Galileo suffered?
The problem with all the Nobel Thinkee leaders is that while they probably did have some sexual harassment training at some point in time, they essentially dismissed it, due to the message that the person making the comment isn’t in control of how it is accepted. Control of how it is accepted rests with the recipient.
I would say the twitter outrage says TH’s non-joke was not well received by women, who consider it a form of harassment. The Thinkee leaders are realizing they are out of step with society, and losing their ability to control. And they are scared. The old method of keeping women down by microaggressions isn’t working any more. But rather than doing the right thing, they using hyperbole to hide the fact that they are out of touch with reality. They are trying to reassert their ability to hand out microaggressions.
Anna Elisabeth @45:
As Lounge bartender, would you like your shot chilled and dressed (salt & lime)?
I read something long ago, that said you should live so that if anything you say is published, you can still be proud, even if what is published isn’t what you actually said. Or something like that.
Tim Hunt may have been joking, or trying to joke. (That would certainly make more sense than any sane person letting rip with that seriously.) But it would not have been a funny joke, nor an appropriate matter for humor. And so easy to strip out of context and splash around the world, which is what some say happened. Even if, and I say IF, he meant it as absurdity, it was a bonehead move. The actual damage to to him, what little there has been, is not inappropriate for being stupid in public.
(And seriously, most of what has happened to the not-poor man hasn’t even happened to him. It was mostly just people talking about it. He resigned one honorary post. Ow?)
But the conversation now has to be about all the reactions, and the reactions to the reactions. There are people saying that he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and that he wouldn’t have said it because he is nice – both of which may be. But now it is about Dawkins and the witch-hunt rhetoric, not just whatever was originally said.
@Tony! #54 – Yes, Please, and thank you. :)
@Nerd of #53 – That was well said. I wish I had something profound to add. I will say, “get used to the pushback, Everyone”.
I’m wanting to ask all the Nobel-winners what they have done since.
The Nobel is nice and all but after you win one do you just sit down and rest?
Really?
or
If someone points to their Nobel, I say, “Just the one?”
Good grief, circling the wagons because a fellow nobel winner is actually suffering consequences due to his everyday sexism? As with the Matt Taylor shirt fiasco, I find it so odd that people are trying to defend a person who has already acknowledged that they acted in a sexist manner. Tim Hunt resigned the position because he understands that he dishonored himself with his remarks, even if he doesn’t wholly own his faux pas., This quote from the Guardian article linked above #36 shows that he understands the problem and chooses not to perpetuate it.
Cool. Now if only the other nobel winners and RD would take a clue from Tim Hunt.
chigau @57
Four people have won two Nobel Prizes:
Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. She won unshared the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie won the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his work on stopping nuclear weapons testing. This makes him the only person to be awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes.
John Bardeen shared the 1956 and 1972 Nobel Prizes in Physics.
Frederick Sanger shared the 1958 and 1980 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry.
@irisvanderpluym #34 Unlike the other Prizes, the Peace Nobel prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, pretty much composed by retired politicians.
Hence the nominations are much more political and much more embarrassing than the others.
Al Dente #60
I got the idea from the Pffft article.
All four are dead.
Since Matt Taylor got mentioned, I think that men, who say/do something sexist should learn from how he phrased his apology ans should say in principle “I offended people and I for that am sorry”, instead of “people were offended, which is sad”, as it unfortunately so often happens.
@Brony #25 – Sorry, I had missed your response before.
I like what you are saying here. If I’m reading you correctly, you are saying attack what is real. and the fairness will take care of itself?