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Rewriting history and sucking up to misogynists

integrity
There’s a reason I’ve lost all respect for Hemant Mehta: wearing smug sanctimony while pandering to MRAs, slymepitters, and notorious harassers is not a good look. He’s now insisting that Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson, and I owe Tim Hunt an apology, on the basis of a poorly written bit of hackery, inspired by that blinkered obsessive, Louise Mensch, in a far right wing rag. It’s the latest bit of revisionist history, and it’s published in Commentary magazine, alongside articles whining about Obamacare, the Iran deal, and students opposing campus rape culture, overseen by editor John Podhoretz. I suppose it’s possible that he didn’t notice the stench of the company it’s keeping, but he might at least have thrown a red flag at the title: The Timothy Hunt Witch Hunt.
I’ve noticed that people who fling around accusations of witch hunting tend not to be at all aware of nuance and complexity. And when they also complain about a white guy losing an honorary position as “lynching”, it’s safe to say you’re reading garbage. It’s also ironic when they accuse others of some kind of Manichean view that demonizes said poor white guy.
It’s a terrible article that excises inconvenient facts from the narrative. Never mind that Hunt said dismissive things about women scientists at a luncheon; never mind that he himself confirmed that he actually said them, and that he honestly meant them. Now we’re supposed to simultaneously pretend that his words were maliciously misstated, and that he was just joking.
And further, now everybody who reported and deplored his comments is guilty of conspiring to destroy a good man’s career…further, that he has been a lifelong champion fighting for women’s progress in science, and now we have actively hampered women’s rights. To back that up, Mehta links to a post I wrote as an example of our wretched efforts to destroy Hunt.
I guess he doesn’t expect anyone to follow that link, because it’s a post in which I openly state that Hunt isn’t an evil guy, but just oblivious. I said:
Here’s what it all means. It does not mean that Hunt is a terrible scientist (I know his work, it’s important stuff), it does not mean that he has to give his Nobel back or get fired from his real positions. It means that Tim Hunt has not thought very deeply about inequities in science. He questions whether it’s even important. Even after all this criticism, he’s baffled that anyone would find his opinions objectionable, and he’s still not questioning his own privilege.
I also backed it up with a quote from Hunt from 2014, well before this affair, in which he was similarly clueless about the underrepresentation of women in science was “actually a bad thing,” the point being that a well-off white man with a Nobel and multiple honorary positions is pretty much the definition of privilege, and it’s completely unsurprising that he would fumble an attempt to talk to science journalists about discrimination in science. He might mean well, but he has no appreciation of the many levels of sexism that women have to face.
So no, I’m not going to apologize — I don’t even have any regrets at all — for highlighting a massive pratfall by a major name in science. I am particularly not going to be persuaded by a couple of hacks trying to claim that a) he didn’t trip up, and b) he meant to do it for a laugh, anyway. I’m only going to roll my eyes at the affronted claim that I was out to destroy his career (or that we succeeded in destroying him), and that I and all the other critics painted some kind of false portrait of the man as an evil monster with no redeeming characters who hated women, since that didn’t happen, either. I recommend instead that everyone read this article by Thomas Levinson, which points out the real problem: not evil intent, but casual ignorance.
As for Mehta…I’ll suggest that he look at the commenters he caters to with that article. It’s a who’s who of the slymepit and various deranged characters who’ve spent the last few years losing their minds to rage about those damned women who are ruining atheism and skepticism. That’s his audience now.

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Comments

  1. ::Sees Rich Sanderson in the comments; quits reading::
    On a more serious note: apologize for what? All you did was criticize the guy for making sexist comments. Apparently that’s verboten.
    And the hyperbolic bullshit about how poor Tim Hunt has been harmed by all this. Harm? He resigned from an honorary position! And FFS, these fools tossing around “witch hunt” don’t seem capable of recognizing that the so-called witches were innocent! Tim Hunt actually said sexist things. He’s not innocent. He deserves the scorn and criticism he received. And that’s *all* he received. Damn, it’s like Mehta doesn’t like certain figures criticized. Perhaps he holds Tim Hunt up as a hero or an idol? Does he think Hunt should be shielded from criticism?
    I [almost] can’t believe Mehta is defending Hunt’s sexist comments by telling his critics they need to apologize. But then I remember which side of the Rift he’s been drifting toward for a while now.
  2. savant says
    I used to post over at The Friendly Atheist, until I was torn apart by … well, some guy, I don’t remember his name. At the time I didn’t realize that the slymepit was well-represented there, but looking back, it’s all too clear. I’m glad I stay away now.
  4. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    I read the article when somebody linked to this on another thread. Nothing but a hack job, with the whole point of the criticism of TH going *whosh* over the head of the author, and overweening male privilege trying to paint over any and all opposition, and failing. Obvious misogynist apologetics.
  5. CJO, egregious by any standard says
    I saw that, and I was going to comment to the effect that Hemant’s representation of the article was totally false in that he commends it as containing new information, when all it manages is a rhetorical attempt at revisionist history and argumentum ad nauseum on the “just kidding” defense.
    And then I read some comments and realized what a massive waste of time it would be. Does Hemant really not care that this is his audience?
  6. What, again? Mehta is going to run out of paper, and ink, and correction fluid, or whatever he’s using, if he doesn’t stop rewriting reality. And aren’t we all too old for this sort of high school clique behavior (Mehta’s, not PZ’s) of sucking up to the mean kids and bullies group?
    I know which side I’d rather be on, and it’s got tentacles.
  7. carlie says
    Also, Richard Dawkins just shared Hemant’s link to his piece on twitter, I guess to make sure nobody might have a shred of doubt as to his position that Tim Hunt was horribly witch hunted into oblivion
  8. tuibguy says
    I never liked that he called himself “The Friendly Atheist,” accepting the stereotype that we are not as a rule friendly and placing himself as the “Safe Alternaitve” for Christians to read.
  10. Amphiox says
    If he was “just joking”, it’s even worse.
    Because it shows that he thinks that it is appropriate to joke about that topic in that manner.
  11. Amphiox says
    If he was sincere, it means he was ignorant and thoughtless.
    If he was “joking”, knowing the implications of his words, and doing it anyways, it means he’s an asshole.
  12. August Berkshire says
    Sam Harris tweeted the Commentary article as a must-read. So I read it. How does the following quote from Hunt, which appeared in the article, absolve him? It seems to confirm the criticism of him.
    “It’s strange that a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls.”
  13. grasshopper says
    The Thomas Levison article mentions The Bechel Test so I looked it up . The test asks if a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man, and the wiki article goes on to say, unsurprisingly, that only about half of all films meet these requirements.
  14. sigurd jorsalfar says
    I’m confused. I clicked the link and the Commentary article titled “The Timothy Hunt Witch Hunt” says it’s written by Jonathan Foreman. And I can’t find any reference to PZ in the article. What am I doing wrong?
  15. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
    @10, @11:
    yes, yes , yes, *raises fist, in support*
    I went through that learning period myself, when I gave examples of other standups, saying insulting phrases, then catching themselves with the staged remark “did I say that out loud?” It was pointed out to me that the whole standup routine was inherently misogynistic, by expecting the audience to also be misogynisticly inclined to “get the joke”. To which I acknowledged the oversight on my my part, and now react strongly to any use of “just a joke” as justification for throwing around insults [IOW “notpology”].
    Pointing out that Hunt made an egregious error in the misogynistic sense is not attempting to pillory him as a terrible person at everything he ever did. That is some kind of ad hominem inference fallacy.
    .
    how about — turn it around, the Hunt sycophants are on a witch hunt after anyone how says anything bad about Hunt. Even when correcting his errors, trying to help him from becoming a total fool.
  16. My first exposure to Mehta was from a video (via link on Sb Pharyngula, iirc) of a talk or some such he had given, in which the thing i took away were a couple of casually sexist comments he had made. I recall being relieved that some other people had pointed out the little sexist quips.
  17. anthrosciguy says
    “Drifting”, Tony?
    Yep, you’re right. Hemant jumped that rift like he was driving the General Lee.
    Shame about Hemant.
  18. Intaglio says
    I stopped reading Mehta and his best buddy, Terry Firma, because of their constant bigotry about Islam as well as the pandering to the slymepit and gamergate.
  19. Can there be someone calling themselves the Asshole Atheist, standing in direct opposition to this “Friendly” Atheist?
    Hemant Mehta is not fucking friendly, and frankly it’s getting embarrassing that he continues to call himself that when, in reality, he’s more accurately labeled the Sexist Asshole Atheist… although labeling only him that would be unfair since there are now so many atheists taking the label.
  20. Nate @19:
    Can there be someone calling themselves the Asshole Atheist, standing in direct opposition to this “Friendly” Atheist?
    That’s my nickname for TJ Kincaid, the “Amazingmisogynisticscumbag Atheist”.
  22. Michael says
    Okay, I’m confused, so perhaps someone could enlighten me without name-calling or insults (toward me, Mehta, or anyone else). I’m looking for facts to change my opinions, not critiques of my naivety.
    I first heard of Tim Hunt on pharyngula, and simply accepted the ‘facts’ as stated by the media.
    However reading the article, it claims that the ‘facts’ as originally reported were either out of context, distorted, or false. It claims the major media outlets picked up on the story without fact-checking first, and then Tim Hunt was penalized without any real due process.
    If the article is correct, and Tim was penalized because the original reporter had an axe to grind, and the major media outlets just ran with the story, then I think Tim is owed an apology. This is regardless of the sexism that exists in academia.
    If the article is wrong, and revisionist history, where is the article wrong? What are the inconvenient facts excised? Are they relevant to the case (making a comment a year earlier isn’t relevant if you didn’t make the comment(s) you are accused of making last month)?
    I find it disturbing that Donald Trump can say ridiculous sexist/racist things and rise in opinion polls; while a scientist can at worst make a bad joke at a luncheon and be raked over the coals in public opinion.
  23. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    However reading the article, it claims that the ‘facts’ as originally reported were either out of context, distorted, or false.
    Claims. Evidence, of course, is lacking. He said something stupid and misogynic, admitted he was quoted correctly, and meant what he said. Can’t get any better evidence then that to show he put his foot in his mouth. What is your real problem?
  24. Rowan vet-tech says
    Did Tim Hunt ever say that he did not say those words? Because what I saw reported, in various locations, was that he did indeed say those words. And then later said that the words were a jest.
    Even if a joke, the joke is not funny and is in fact horrifically sexist. Add in the venue and the audience, it becomes even more horrifically sexist.
    The problem is that many people don’t see it as sexist at all; that’s why Trump is doing so ‘well’. There are many people who *agree* with him, and who agree with what Hunt said. If you followed the conservative news sources, I bet you would have seen articles defending him.
  25. Rowan vet-tech says
    Or, if they do agree it’s sexist… they don’t think it’s bad and that he and trump are just telling the truth.
  26. AlexanderZ says
    Michael #22
    If the article is correct, and Tim was penalized because the original reporter had an axe to grind, and the major media outlets just ran with the story, then I think Tim is owed an apology. This is regardless of the sexism that exists in academia.
    Why?
    Suppose that the original reporter had a two-handed double-headed battleaxe to grind. He still said what he said. Furthermore, he admitted that he said those things and that he meant to say those things:
    Compounding the faux pas, Sir Tim then appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme admitting that he ‘did mean’ his comments and saying it was ‘terribly important’ to be able to criticise scientists without them bursting into tears.
    Add to that his history of sexism (it’s in PZ’s post) and you get someone who is a sexist whether people hate him personally or not. The words and the fact stand regardless of how you feel about the people involved.
  27. Onamission5 says
    Let us not forget that KOFWST, the group hosting the luncheon, whose members I assume were present and heard Hunt’s comments verbatim, demanded a formal apology for his inappropriate, sexist, and damaging to science (their words) remarks.
    Were they likewise on a “witch hunt?”
  29. A. Noyd says
    Michael (#22)
    Tim Hunt was penalized without any real due process.
    Penalized? Really? Penalized how and by whom? Be specific. Also mention which government those people represent and which court handed down his punishment, since you’re invoking violations of due process.
  30. denaturesd says
    Having had some limited interactions with patheos bloggers (including Hemant) last weekend, I came away with some opinions, which may or may not be valid.
    1) Unsurprisingly, P.Z. is thought to be the unreasonable one re: past criticisms.
    2) The Patheos business model is insidious.
    Real money is being thrown around. A click on an article = money. If you are in the top tier of bloggers, a link to an article on the Duggars and a quick commentary can put $400 in your pocket. You may have noticed that the patheos site is unreadable if you don’t accept cookies. People lacking significant day jobs consider patheos their business. This click pressure means that bloggers should always be thinking about the ethics of a post. This is not an accusation, but when clicks are money and your August is slow, there is pressure to look at the metrics and see what posts brought in the outside clicks previously.
    I don’t have as much of the same hypothetical concern here, since the money is significantly smaller.
  31. Caine says
    Oh FFS…Hemant Mehta is now in the business of beating dead horses to keep his ‘pitters amused and engaged? You’d think he had better things to do.
  32. leerudolph says
    Also mention which government those people represent and which court handed down his punishment, since you’re invoking violations of due process.
    An institution needn’t be a governmental institution for it to have internal systems of penalties (and rewards) in place, and it is perfectly reasonable (and common) for there to be notions of “due process” within such systems. For instance, my university of last employment is a private university, but when (for example) various faculty (or faculty-administrative) committees are engaged in business that can have a large (positive or negative) impact on a faculty member’s (or student’s) rights and privileges within the university, “due process” is expected (if not always delivered).
    I agree with your implicit (and PZ’s explicit, at one point) claim that Tim Hunt was not in fact “penalized”, and that no requirement of “due process” should reasonably be attached to removal of an hono[u]r. But if, counterfactually, he had been removed from an ordinary, tenured position (in the sense in which such positions ideally exist in the US, as encoded by the American Association of University Professors; I have no information about the present state of tenure in Great Britain), then (again by US standards, maybe not GB standards) he would have and should have had (by AAUP standards) the right and expectation of “due process” in that process of removal, and a loss of tenure would have been a penalty.
  33. PZ Myers says
    If he had been stripped of tenure, I would have been howling with the rest of ’em: the point of tenure is that you get to be an asshole and say objectionable things without fear of loss of position.
    Stripping a Nobelist of an honorary position in no way inhibits their ability to persevere.
  34. PZ Myers says
    #30: So our virtue is our poverty? I don’t know how I feel about that — I wish our bloggers got the same rewards as the people at Patheos.
    It has been a problem — Patheos drains away our bloggers regularly with the seductive scent of cash. Not much we can do about it.
    What I find insidious about Patheos is that I have no idea where they get their money — they pay ridiculous rates. They’ve got a great big sugar daddy organization somewhere, and it’s probably religious. It makes me wonder what would happen if they succeeded in getting a virtual monopoly on the major atheist bloggers…then they start with imposing standards & practices to restrict criticism of religion, once everyone is dependent on that sweet money.
  35. Al Dente says
    Hunt had an honorary, unpaid, no-teaching-load professorship at University College London. He either resigned that position or had it withdrawn, the exact way he lost it depends on who is reporting the story. In either case, all he lost was some prestige and a bunch of good will.
  36. marcus says
    Oh, for the love of…
    Why must they continue to flog this poor dead beastie?
    This particular incident is over already, or would be if his brave defenders would just STFU about it. Hey Hemant, look up the Streisand effect.
    Hunt fucked up and said something really stupid, something he obviously believed and tried to turn into a “joke”. An honest apology and a real commitment to help improve the obvious disparities and unequal treatment that women in the sciences face and he might have actually earned some respect out of all of this.
    These assholes should just get over themselves.
  37. A. Noyd says
    leerudolph (#32)
    An institution needn’t be a governmental institution for it to have internal systems of penalties (and rewards) in place, and it is perfectly reasonable (and common) for there to be notions of “due process” within such systems.
    Then people who want to talk about someone being ill served by the system that functions like due process can refer to that actual system using the correct terms instead of equivocating with a borrowed term that makes it sound like there’s some sort of governmental oppression going on.
    There are reasons they don’t do that. One, it has less impact. Two, they’d have to actually know what they’re talking about beyond having read one or two opinion pieces. Three, what they’re usually referring to is not a system like you describe but the “court of public opinion,” which they want to pretend has the same authority and responsibilities as an actual court of law.
  38. anthrosciguy says
    Wow. I’d never thought about the money being flashed there. Now up to $5,760,000 apparently, after a $1,850,000 additional investment last year. That’s a lot of coin.
  39. anthrosciguy says
    And there was “due process”: the university asked Hunt to come by and discuss the matter (naturally, since it reflected badly on them and getting good reflections is the reason for honorary positions to be given to people like Hunt) and he simply quit rather than be bothered to show up.
  40. chris61 says
    @39 anthrosciguy
    <blockquote+And there was “due process”: the university asked Hunt to come by and discuss the matter (naturally, since it reflected badly on them and getting good reflections is the reason for honorary positions to be given to people like Hunt) and he simply quit rather than be bothered to show up.
    Really? I thought I followed the story pretty closely and I never saw that. Do you have a link?
  41. Michael says
    #23 My problem is that I’m presented with a claim by one reporter (on twitter?), and that claim is disputed by another reporter. I would like to know who is trying to mislead me/us.
    #24 Context plays an important role with jokes. If as the article claims he was making self-deprecating humour about himself and his wife (the lab assistant he married), then it could be quite funny.
    #26 Why? If you are accused and fined for speeding on a day you didn’t drive anywhere, that isn’t fair, even if you were speeding last week and didn’t get caught. Thank you for being the only person so far to link to some evidence.
    #29 I chose the word penalized as I consider it to mean a minor punishment, not a severe one. As noted, he was asked to resign from an honorary position. However the article states that he was told to resign immediately, before he was even aware of the controversy, and before he could explain his side of things. If that is true, based on statements made up by the reporter, without the opportunity to defend oneself, then it is lacking due process.
  42. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
    Mehta is going to run out of paper, and ink, and correction fluid, or whatever he’s using
    Whatever he’s using, let’s hope it’s two-ply.
  43. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
    Hemant Mehta is not fucking friendly, and frankly it’s getting embarrassing that he continues to call himself that when, in reality, he’s more accurately labeled the Sexist Asshole Atheist…
    “The Nice Atheist?”
  45. ianrennie says
    A generally good rule for life: Louise Mensch is only ever right by accident. If she takes a side on an issue, either it’s the wrong one, or she’s misunderstood the issue.
    Odious, useless person.
  46. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says
    So the big reveal is… It was all just a joke? But we already heard that excuse in the first chapter.
    If the author of the article can’t keep up, then he shouldn’t be trying to resurect a dead story.
  48. A. Noyd says
    Michael (#41)
    I chose the word penalized as I consider it to mean a minor punishment, not a severe one. As noted, he was asked to resign from an honorary position.
    First, “penalize” is not specific to minor punishment, whatever you consider it to mean. (What do you think “death penalty” refers to? Executions that only leave you mildly dead?) Second, you’re begging the question that Hunt’s resignations were any kind of punishment in the first place. Show how you know that.
    Third, you still haven’t articulated who you’re saying supposedly “penalized” him. Spell it out. Don’t try to say it’s obvious because it’s not. You’re relying on passive language like Hunt “was penalized” or “is owed an apology.” Penalized by whom? Owed an apology by whom?
    However the article states that he was told to resign immediately, before he was even aware of the controversy, and before he could explain his side of things. If that is true […]
    Here’s the thing. By your own admission, you don’t know if it’s true or anything about how Hunt’s deal with the Royal Society or UCL actually worked, but you’re willing to sling loaded words like “penalized” and “due process” around. You’re giving it a very particular framing that shows your mind is made up a certain way. If you’re really here in good faith, surely you can find more appropriate words.
  49. Alexander says
    @33 PZ:
    There is one and only one aspect of the article’s version of this event which, if accurate*, causes me concern.
    “In only 48 hours, [Timothy Hunt] found himself compelled to resign his positions at University College London… after being told that failure to do so would lead to his outright firing.”
    “While [Hunt] was on the flight, the dean of life sciences at University College, London, telephoned his wife—herself a full professor at the school—to say that if Hunt did not immediately resign, he would be fired. No one at University College had even tried to get his side of the story or any independent confirmation of the incident described…”
    For me it is not the punishment that is worrisome, but the speed. Haste is a very good way to ensure that innocent parties, unable to respond in a “timely” fashion, are swept away with the guilty. The article claims that the college didn’t take the time to: actively and independently verify the accuracy of accusations, get the accused party’s side, or wait so they are capable of responding—just demanded an instantaneous punishment. Less than two days, particularly when one is in the middle of a stressful event like international travel, is not sufficient time IMO for the things which are actually required to respond to accusations of this severity in a just manner.
    [*: Noted as “if accurate” only because, unlike Hunt’s problematic speech itself, there are no possible third-party witnesses or sources to verify this private conversation. Assuming this retelling to be accurate would be an even worse miscarriage of justice than the supposed witch hunt the entire article claims occurred.]
  50. joyousrevelation says
    I have less than no love for Louise Mensch, but I’ve read what she written and taken note of the fact that shes produced some first hand witnesses, who contradict the initial reporting.
    Leaving aside her own biases in the way things are presented (she is sometimes as uncharitable about opponents intentions and meaning to the extent that she may have been learning from this site).
    But just looking at the quotes and tweets she has pulled together from first hand sources paints a very different picture from the initial reporting of the event and what was said.
    Even the “The Koreans complained!” meme looks less impressive when you realise that the request for an apology was made by someone who was not present, and that those Koreans who were present “didn’t notice or hear anything peculiar in Sir Tim’s speech”.
    Its a long way down off a high horse, but maybe a little more charity and a little less pavlovian response would go a long way towards making this place less polarized?
  51. MadHatter says
    @49 Alexander
    According to UCL he refused to talk to them, and I’d guess that was partly because he was already hearing that he’d screwed up and wasn’t going to back down. Hunt made the comments on June 8 (in Korea), June 10 he stood by them on BBC radio while making a not-apology, then apparently resigned that day. So he himself had already confirmed what he said, then stood by it before he resigned.
  52. leerudolph says
    Then people who want to talk about someone being ill served by the system that functions like due process can refer to that actual system using the correct terms
    Within the one specific example that I gave (my university of last employment) it was, in fact, called “due process”, and that was, in fact, “the correct term”. I see no reason to doubt that in other similar situations—certainly, at other universities—it is also called “due process”, and that that is “the correct term”; because, you know, there is a process spelled out (in a Faculty Handbook, contracts, or elsewhere) and it has to be duly followed.
    You don’t seem to be very bright. Pity, that. It makes conversation with you even less interesting than it might be otherwise.
  53. throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor says
    joyousrevelation @50:
    she is sometimes as uncharitable about opponents intentions and meaning to the extent that she may have been learning from this site
    Here we see an attempt at instigation. If anyone digs their claws in you at this point, I’d say it would be well justified by that dismally worded attempt at pre-emptive smearing. What kind of charity do you want? Have a handful of fucks to give but I’m saving them for something better.
  54. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    because, you know, there is a process spelled out (in a Faculty Handbook, contracts, or elsewhere) and it has to be duly followed.
    So, what is the process for an HONORARY position? Since tenure and recompense isn’t involved, my guess is that there isn’t any process. Just what senior management thinks needs to be done.
  55. joyousrevelation says
    @MadHatter
    Yes yes thats completely true … your guesswork and supposition (based on a badly edited BBC report [see Louise Mensch’s article for info]) has convinced me that all those people who were there and were not offended and realised that he was being ironic and self depreciating must be mistaken.
    I read a tweet the other day (forget from whom) someones 12 or 13 year old child said that “If Tim Hunt is really a misogynist, why is it necessary to tell lies to prove it”.
    For me thats what it comes down to.
    If this event was him accidentally outing himself as a misogynist, where is the other evidence? Where are all the women who were belittled mistreated or had their careers cut short? Where was the previous evidence of his misogyny?
    Apparently it was so well hidden that Connie St. Louis and Deborah Blum were actually on the committee that decided to invite him to a “World Conference of Science Journalism luncheon sponsored by the Korean Federation of Women in Science and Technology.”
    Based on his example, these misogynists could be anywhere!?
    Concealing their true natures by treating women with respect and equality.
    Installing creches in labs to cover their tracks.
    Insisting that female colleagues stand in for them to give important presentations of joint work in order to conceal their secret contempt.
    The sneaky bastards!
    Trust no-one!
  56. Dunc says
    So, what is the process for an HONORARY position? Since tenure and recompense isn’t involved, my guess is that there isn’t any process. Just what senior management thinks needs to be done.
    Somebody did actually dig this up over on B & W back when the whole think happened. As I recall, the University can withdraw honourary positions at any time, for any reason.
  57. MadHatter says
    Read the link from UCL leerudolph, he resigned voluntarily. Whether he feels it was unfair or not is besides the question because he was not removed therefore no “due process”, which is unlikely to be involved in an honorary position, was required anyhow.
  58. MadHatter says
    And I’m not surprised to see yet another example of someone who is willfully missing the point and is themselves misrepresenting what Hunt actually said because it doesn’t fit their narrative @55.
    He is “sorry if he caused offense” but he “did mean the part about having trouble with girls”…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tc22c
    You’ll excuse me if I go back to my work of disrupting the men in my lab now, by staring hard at my computer screen and occasionally muttering about my data…
  59. joyousrevelation says
    @throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor
    re: my “dismally worded attempt at pre-emptive smearing”
    I’m not looking for your charity (or fucks, my own crop was good this harvest season).
    I may have worded it dismally but I meant what I said .. (about Louise Mensch and about this site) it depresses me (on all sides) to see people that I agree with about some or many things be uncharitable when it comes to interpreting peoples meaning.
    It polarizes people makes discussion difficult. We should be able to disagree (even forthrightly) without pointing “claws” (really? :O) at eachother.
    Anyway, I’m glad I read what Louise M wrote, her _evidence_ (despite the fact that I am from the UK and know her for the right wing mouthpiece she often is) puts the original reports (and later off the cuff exaggerations by Connie St. Louis) in a different enough light for me to doubt them as being completely honest.
    Neither do I know much about the exact level of amiability of “the friendly atheist”, but he seems to have reached the same conclusion.
    Very few people here seem to be discussing the _content_ of the Tim Hunt reporting as opposed to restating how “it doesn’t matter”.
    My opinion changed when I looked further than the original reports, and I would urge others to do the same.
  60. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    My opinion changed when I looked further than the original reports, and I would urge others to do the same.
    Nope, won’t bother, as I have lived through it, checking out reports at the time. Nothing in the mess of misogynist apologetics changed my mind. And it doesn’t matter at this date, except to those who want to maintain institutional misogyny.
  61. leerudolph says
    Read the link from UCL leerudolph, he resigned voluntarily.
    I’m perfectly aware of that, as I hoped I had made clear in my first reply to A. Noyd; Noyd is the person who’s unclear (or playing deliberately obtuse) on the utter fairness of what happened to Hunt, and who has made the misguided (or deliberately trollish) complaint about a supposed failure of “due process”.
  62. I’m not an academic, so correct me if I’m wrong…
    Honorary positions seems to be simply PR. That is to say, a way to get “big names” associated with organizations that are otherwise not associated and vice versa. Both parties agree to the arrangement seeing mutual benefit with regards to publicity.
    If either party comes to the conclusion that they no longer want to be associated then the association is severed via “firing” or “resignation.” But, as there are no actual terms of employment, “firing/resignation” is really not occurring, rather it is simply withdrawing from the relationship, removing the previously established endorsement, if you will.
    Now, assuming that the above is true…
    What are “valid” reasons for Party A to want to sever their association with Party B?
    There is only one, that I can see: Party A no longer sees a benefit from maintaining the association. The reasons for the loss of benefit is irrelevant because the entire relationship is predicated on the existence of that benefit.
    Given the above is true and accurate, a statement to the effect of “Tim Hunt was penalized without due process”, is just …well kinda dumb really.
  63. chris61 says
    @51 MadHatter
    According to UCL he refused to talk to them,
    How in the world do you get from the UCL statement to THAT?! UCL said they tried to contact him but failed. No where does it say he refused to talk to them.
  64. joyousrevelation says
    @58 He was being honest _about_his_own_life_ (he met his wife in a lab while she was married to another man, they fell in love and it apparently caused trouble).
    Thats what he was being “honest” about .. about something that actually happened.
    But to take that “honesty” and to assume that he seriously meant that men and women should be segregated?
    He was making an ironic comment about his own life and something that happened and a lighthearted remark about how that could have been avoided.
    He then went on to say “But seriously” and praised the contribution of korean women to science and encouraged them to go further, “despite monsters like him”
    That what I mean about less than charitable interpretation.
    Do you genuinely think that he meant to say that men and women should work separately? Seriously?
    Here is the EU transcript:
    “‘It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. 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. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?’ Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.””
    He might have been able to put that better, but he was clearly being ironic and the take home message was one of encouragement for female scientists.
    The original “reporting” left out the second part, and the fact that he was being ironic (accidentally I’m sure).
    If a story like this jumps up and fits exactly into the ready made space in your preconceptions, maybe thats the time to look in the mirror for confirmation bias, or wait to find out more about what actually happened?
  65. Dunc says
    The original “reporting” left out the second part, and the fact that he was being ironic (accidentally I’m sure).
    This is rubbish. All the original reporting I saw at the time made it perfectly clear that he intended it as a joke. The point is that that doesn’t change the fact that it was a lousy, sexist joke, told in a wildly inappropriate venue. Nobody, but nobody, thinks he was actually being serious, and nobody ever has.
  66. Alexander says
    MadHatter @51:
    Put yourself in Sir Tim Hunt’s shoes for a moment. You give a speech at a convention, and within 48 hours one remark from that speech has snowballed into a howling rage of voices online. When you are contacted by the university administration, it is not to question the veracity of the accusations or obtaining your account of the event, but asking for a resignation: they appear to have already caved to the Jacobin voices asking you be sent to the guillotine.
    In that circumstance, is it really that outrageous for someone to think that “If those to whom I might plead have pre-determined my guilt, then it is a waste of my resources and energy to fight.”? Assuming the accusations against Sir Hunt were exaggerated or misleading, in those circumstances how should he have responded?
  67. I don’t care whether he was talking about his own failings (but no, that bit where he confirmed he thinks it’s important that scientists not cry is not about him). When he suggests that the solution for his failings is that women not work in a lab with a Nobel winner, that’s a problem. Science is not there to segregate because a guy has issues. Neither are his issues a “problem with girls”. It’s a problem with him.
    And I have gone back and looked at the evidence again in light of recent assertions. I followed Mensch’s links and seen that she’s mischaracterized them. I looked again at the request for apology from Hunt’s hosts and the apology he provided that said his remarks were not appropriate for the venue. I’ve read all the things Hunt had to say about his words and what he meant. I noted that the “obviously talking about his own failings” doesn’t seem to have been obvious until Cathy Young introduced the idea a month after the words were spoken. I looked at the number of people corroborating parts of statements now asserted to be lies. I saw the “transcript” to be admitted to not be a transcript. I listened to the recording of laughter and noted it’s not in the same place where St. Louis said there was none. I saw how reporters worked together to be accurate and had this turned into “conspiracy”.
    Yeah, I’ve looked at the evidence again. The article Hemant links to is the end result of a giant game of Telephone played by ideologues. I’m also noting just how much people arguing for that interpretation have to leave things out to get there.
  68. “And another thing, blacks should totally have separate water fountains from us white folk…nah, I’m just joking.”
    Second part of statement does NOT mitigate first part of statement. It just doesn’t. If you can’t see the parallels between my joke and Hunt’s joke, you’re being deliberately dense.
  69. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    Thanks Stephanie Zvan #67. A precise summation of the lack of evidence for the alternative scenario, and the real attempts to rewrite the true facts of the situation by those with an agenda.
  70. chris61 says
    @67 Stephanie Zvan
    I’m also noting just how much people arguing for that interpretation have to leave things out to get there.
    That statement is true for people arguing for either interpretation. Everyone who’s posted on this topic (starting with the journalists who were there) has approached it from a position of bias.
  71. Crys T says
    Oh give it up, Alexander (‘@66) There were no hordes bellowing for his head. The response was a large number of “can you believe what an out-of-touch tosser this guy is??” comments and a lighthearted hashtag on Twitter.
    The screaming hordes came after the fact of Hunt’s resignation (from his FREAKING HONOURARY POST) and were made up of the uncritical fans of anti-feminist dweebs such as Mensch, Dawkins et al. They are the ones that wouldn’t let this go, who kept yammering on incessantly about it, etc.
    This is one of our side’s principal points: you are outright rewriting the past in order make Hunt into a martyr.
  72. Crys T says
    Aaaand I see that chris61 is evidently The Only Vulcan In The Room. Well, congratulations, you special little snowflake.
    I note that you don’t claim to have done any of the investigation into this that Svan has, so why the smug on your part?
  73. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
    written @64:
    But to take that “honesty” and to assume that he seriously meant that men and women should be segregated?
    He went on to say he stood by some of the remarks.
    I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he said. “It is true that people – I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.
    I agree, he may have been trying to be self-deprecating and ironic, smirking at how obviously sexist his comments were and how could anyone possibly believe he would say such things seriously.
    Yet his notpology of denigrating the audience for “not getting it”, does not help his case at all. Nor does all the fanboys rushing to his defense by claiming he was attacked by a femi-witch hunt mob.
    sorry to continue this Hunt-thread-nonsense. Sorry you read this that way (*smirk*) [Huntspeak]
  74. joyousrevelation says
    Dunc @65 “Nobody, but nobody, thinks he was actually being serious, and nobody ever has”
    You should meet.
    Stephanie Zvan @67 “When he suggests that the solution for his failings is that women not work in a lab with a Nobel winner, that’s a problem. Science is not there to segregate because a guy has issues. Neither are his issues a “problem with girls”. It’s a problem with him.”
    Some people think he genuinely meant it, and that _would_ be a problem (but he didn’t).
    Some people think he didn’t mean it but that what he said was “a lousy, sexist joke, told in a wildly inappropriate venue”
    I think that he was using an ironic comment based on a personal experience to point out that even old monsters shouldn’t put women off from science.
    His words may have been ill chosen, and open to misinterpretation (ha!) but I dont think that its sufficient evidence that he’s a misogynist.
    For the record Stephanie, Blum denied that Hunt said “but seriously” or “now seriously” (making the first part and ironic dig at himself as a monster) until one point where she feared that there might be a recording, when she started saying that she couldn’t recall.
    Everything St. Louis and Blum said could be true, but there’s enough error and omission in the reporting to make me doubt their truthfulness.
    I think they saw a story that looked a bit like a nail and decided to chop bits off it until it fit in the right hole.
  75. chris61 says
    @72 Crys T
    Zvan states
    When he suggests that the solution for his failings is that women not work in a lab with a Nobel winner, that’s a problem. Science is not there to segregate because a guy has issues. Neither are his issues a “problem with girls”. It’s a problem with him.
    Hunt ran a lab for many years including at least 8 years following his Nobel prize. Did he only mentor male scientists? Don’t think so. As far as his issues not being a problem with women but with him, well he said that himself. So it would appear Zvan agrees with Hunt.
  76. Dunc says
    joyousrevelation @74: Do you seriously expect everybody to attach explicit disclaimers stating that they understand that he was being ironic every single time they discuss the matter? Do you always assume that everybody is treating the matter as an absolutely deadly serious statement barring such disclaimers? If you insert the wording “jokingly” in Stephanie Zvan’s first sentence you quoted there (i.e. “When he jokingly suggests…”), does it radically alter the meaning or her conclusion?
    I’ve read more than enough of Stephanie Zvan’s writing to be fairly certain that she’s perfectly well aware of concepts like sarcasm and irony, and has a very good grasp of their subtleties.
  77. A. Noyd says
    leerudolph (#61)

    Noyd is the person who’s unclear (or playing deliberately obtuse) on the utter fairness of what happened to Hunt, and who has made the misguided (or deliberately trollish) complaint about a supposed failure of “due process”.
    I know perfectly well what the fuck is going on, you pompous ass. If you were paying attention, you might have noticed Michael was the one who came in claiming confusion. And yet somehow still chose to employ very particular overblown terms that suit a very particular overblown narrative. I’m trying to get Michael to explain why those terms are appropriate in this case.
    We’re not talking about some theoretical case involving paid or tenured positions. Even if divesting someone of those has procedures called “due process” in some places, it still doesn’t apply here and trying to adopt the term still creates an equivocation (between paid/tenured positions and honorary ones). That attempted equivocation is the goddamn point I’m getting at.
    See, when someone trots out legalistic terms like “due process” and “penalized” in discussions of sexism, especially when they rely on lot of passive voice, and even more especially when they’re simultaneously buttressing deniability by professing ignorance, it’s almost always because that someone wants to claim some poor man is facing an egregious punishment for, at worst, the most minor of transgressions and wants to be able to insert the details of their choice (the villains, the harm suffered, etc.) at their convenience, like a bad-faith Mad Lib, depending on where the counterarguments lead.
    You think I’m playing obtuse? I’m only asking what one ought to ask if one refuses to buy into the sort of rhetoric Michael’s using. If you want to fall for it instead, you go right ahead there, smartypants.
  78. @74 joyousrevelation
    For the record Stephanie, Blum denied that Hunt said “but seriously” or “now seriously” (making the first part and ironic dig at himself as a monster) until one point where she feared that there might be a recording, when she started saying that she couldn’t recall.
    This is the sort of thing that really needs links. Have I missed them somewhere?
    Also, when did the proposition being argued become “Tim Hunt is a misogynist” rather than that he said harmful things? Also, please stop acting as though you’re introducing the topic of jokes into this conversation. The fact that jokes and harmful things are not separate categories has been long covered with respect to this situation.
    @75 chris61: I agree with Tim Hunt about what exactly? If you’re going to go the absurd route of putting words in my mouth, make them less mealy.
  79. Also, to clear up some of the confusion about UCL, last I heard, it did appear that someone contacted Hunt’s wife without discussing it with other administrators first. That means there were official and unofficial communications at roughly the same time. My understanding was that UCL was going to investigate the matter and decide whether any policy was violated. I don’t know of anyone who’s thought that was a bad idea.
  81. chris61 says
    @78 Stephanie Zvan
    @75 chris61: I agree with Tim Hunt about what exactly?
    You agree with Tim Hunt that his issues with women are a problem with him, not a problem with them.
  82. Crys T says
    Wow, chris61, I’m surprised you didn’t get flattened by those goalposts, you whipped them from one position to another so fast. I don’t recall that who Hunt did or did not mentor ever being a topic of this conversation.
  84. chris61 says
    @83 Stephanie Zvan & @82 CrysT
    I said everyone was arguing from bias. That different people, including Stephanie Zvan, were taking the same facts and interpreting them in a way that was most favorable to their position. I commented on who Hunt mentored as being evidence against him seriously suggesting that labs should be segregated.
    Also @ 78 Stephanie Zvan
    This is the sort of thing that really needs links. Have I missed them somewhere?
    It may be elsewhere as well but as best as I recall, Charles Seife tweeted that Hunt never said “now seriously” and Blum retweeted it without comment.
  85. @84 chris61
    I said everyone was arguing from bias. That different people, including Stephanie Zvan, were taking the same facts and interpreting them in a way that was most favorable to their position. I commented on who Hunt mentored as being evidence against him seriously suggesting that labs should be segregated.
    None of this follows in any logical way from one point to another, nor does it relate to your following comments. I don’t think I’ll be taking the time to try to argue with you after this comment. You don’t have arguments, just a bunch of sentences that have order only because you can’t use HTML to put them on top of each other.
    It may be elsewhere as well but as best as I recall, Charles Seife tweeted that Hunt never said “now seriously” and Blum retweeted it without comment.
    That is in no way support for any statement saying Blum changed her story about what she remembered.
  86. Crys T says
    Firstly, can we stop with the silly idea that having a bias automatically invalidates a person’s conclusions?
    In this case, those people who are suggesting that Hunt was the victim of some sort of campaign to oust him are simply factually wrong. There was no campaign.
    As I said above, there were a lot of comments about Hunt’s cluelessness, and there was #distractinglysexy on Twitter. Neither of these represented any attempt to go after Hunt, get him “fired,” or cause him to be “lost to science,” as some of his more melodramatic supporters have claimed.
    UCL may or may not have “fired” him. But even if they did, that was their decision, and not something that they were driven to by some entirely fictitious howling mob. I was following the whole thing very closely and never saw even one person suggest contacting the institutions Hunt was connected to in order to demand he be let go.
    The “witch hunt” was entirely made up.
  87. squarecircle says
    It’s pretty crappy to imply Blum, a pulitzer prize winner and professor of journalism, invented a story or lied about what happened. But just downright bizarre to say her, Connie Booth head of the science journalism program at City University London and Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction-watch ALL conspired to misreport the events…. In her account …
    As St. Louis recounted yesterday, she, Oransky, and I sat down, and compared our notes to make sure we had an accurate account. We wanted to call out the remarks but we didn’t want to be heavy-handed about it or to be rude to our hosts. Yes, journalists really think like this. So we fretted over it; we decided to keep it simple. Connie would tweet the event; Ivan and I would retweet her. And that’s what we did.
    The joke / not a joke thing is bizarre. Blum detailed her questioning him and asked if he meant it as a joke at the time. But he also said that while he was “being ironic”, he was making a joke about something he believed. That “he did think it was hard to collaborate with women because they are too emotional “. So “just a joke” is no defense, clearly.
  88. Alexander says
    @71 Crys T:
    I want to make sure I understand what you’re claiming. Is it that there was no harassment in this particular case, or that comments on social media only rise to the level of harassment once they are insults and threats, regardless of the target?
  89. joyousrevelation says
    @78 Stephanie, thanks for making me check it was actually both St.Louis and Blum who denied him saying “now seriously”.
    “Hunt now claims he added the words “now seriously” before going on to praise the role of women in science and in Korean society. “The words ‘now seriously’ make it very clear that I was making a joke, albeit a very bad one, but they were not mentioned in the first reports and I was deluged with hate mail,” Hunt said. He did not say this, nor did he praise the role of women in science and in Korean society. I wish he had; things would have been so much better.”
    Blum backed this account.
    Later, when the EU precis of what he said came out (and backed up what Hunt said he had said), Blum was asked on twitter if the precis (including “now seriously”) reflected what was said and replied:
    “‘@sennoma It’s got some of the right elements but it’s not precisely what he said. It’s more polished.’”
    When Natalia Demina @demna25 (a russian journalist who was also present at the talk) challenged Blum and asked her “If you accuse a person in smth you should publish all his words not pulling out a fragment of the whole speech”
    Blum replied:
    “but yes, of course, if its accurate the whole quote is better. I used what had been verified by many.”
    (This is summarised on Louise Mensch unfashionista blog with pictures of the tweets and suchlike.)
    To summarise further there was an initial absolute denial by St Louis (backed by Blum) that Hunt said “now seriously”, or “but seriously” (and an admission that if he had said it “things would have been so much better”, which is nice).
    Then a few tweets from Blum saying something considerably less definite after the EU precis came out backing him up.
    Many people have said that it doesn’t matter, but from my POV it looks like,
    a) the inital complete denial of what he said was at least bad journalism; omitting facts to make things look as bad as possible.
    b) the later less complete denial-‘lite’ (of what most people accept is a good summary of what he said) was fear of a recording proving a) to be a lie.
    @87 squarecircle “a pulitzer prize winner and professor of journalism” are we really playing that game now?
    If prizes are a guarantee of honesty how do we decide in a contest of pulitzer vs nobel?
    FIGGGHHHHTTTTT! :O)
  90. Crys T says
    Ah Alexander, it’s so cute that you think that’s a gotcha. And do I detect the fetid odour of slyme?
    The comments being made about Hunt were simply people commenting on what a public figure had said at an event. No one was bombarding his Twitter account, Facebook page or inbox with insults, abuse or threats. Nobody was calling in bomb threats to events he was appearing at. People were commenting TO EACH OTHER, “Wow, what a git!”
    If you can’t tell the difference between that and harassment, you’re probably beyond help.
  91. @89 joyousrevelation: You simply keep asserting that Blum backed up the lack of “now seriously” despite telling me you went and checked on it. Where did this happen?
  92. squarecircle says
    @joyousrevelation, Hunt agreed he was quoted accurately. So no need to set his word against theirs, he agreed with how it was reported. “Now seriously” changes nothing, as I mentioned Blum asked him if he was joking AT THE TIME. He said he was being “ironic” but he meant what he said. So it modifies nothing, changes nothing.
    Weirdo pedants picking over two words that don’t change what he meant or what the problem was!
  93. joel says
    Is it too much to expect a Nobel Prize-winner to welcome women in his lab, treat them with respect, make sure they have what they need to excel, and not publicly denigrate them?
  94. squarecircle says
    Alexander’s harassment on Twitter claim is new. I believe Melody Hensley and others are ridiculed by the same people defending Hunt because they were effected by harassment on Twitter. At least they are actually on Twitter to witness the harassment, unlike Hunt! Imagine the howls of derision and outrage if a feminist called even outright abuse on Twitter harassment when she wasn’t on there. But apparently white male academics are so fragile they can’t stand people laughing at them on any social network anywhere, regardless of if they even see it or it is directed at their non-existent Twitter account.
  95. chris61 says
    @86 Crys T
    Firstly, can we stop with the silly idea that having a bias automatically invalidates a person’s conclusions?
    I agree with this. But what you seem to be saying is that bias doesn’t invalidate the conclusions of people you agree with but does invalidate the conclusions of those with whom you disagree. You can’t have it both ways.
    @92 squarecircle
    Hunt agreed he was quoted accurately. So no need to set his word against theirs, he agreed with how it was reported
    It isn’t clear how much he agreed with and how much he disagreed with. Some of his quotes certainly indicate that he believe his comments were misinterpreted due to being taken out of context. He has chosen not to defend himself but that doesn’t mean he believes he was quoted accurately.
  96. Crys T says
    Oh come on, chris61, I can’t believe you are that obtuse. My words imply no such thing.
    In the Hunt case, actually going back and looking at what happened clearly shows who is making up fairy stories. It’s not a question of interpretation.
  97. joyousrevelation says
    @91 apologies, I thought that St Louis strong assertion was enough (given that they collaborated on the story), but you are right that she was not co-author on the guardian article.
    Here is a tweet from Blum;
    https://twitter.com/deborahblum/status/613831553731416064
    “Important series of tweets from @cgseife about #timhunt who is proving himself a spinner of self-protective tales”
    Retweeting,
    Charles Seife @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…”
    She retweeted someone who backed her account of events and described the lack of “now seriously”, is that enough?
    In any case, you should read the quotes and facts (if not the interpretation ) from Menschs blog.
    If you think his remarks as reported are beyond the pale and beyond explanation or redress, then so be it, but if you are interested in a different perspective (even as an example of how eyewitness accounts of the same events sans tape and video can differ) then its a useful exercise.
  98. Michael says
    #44 Please explain what you are talking about. If some context is required, I teach high school science and math. I am always concerned that if I make a joke in class, I can suffer consequences if it is taken the wrong way, which is a challenge for me since I was raised on British comedy (eg. Monty Python). (Please don’t argue that I shouldn’t make jokes in class, or you are asking teachers to be boring). Another worry is false accusation. If a student was to falsely accuse me of inappropriate behaviour (eg. sexual) because they didn’t like me or had mental issues, I would be suspended immediately, and could wait months for the school to clear my name. I know of teachers who left teaching because of the stress of being falsely accused (student with mental issues). I myself had to deal with a female student who was ‘stalking’ me (not in a hostile/threatening way).
    @A Noyd I’m writing in the context of a high school teacher. If you are ‘penalized’ on a test, you lose some marks; you aren’t expelled from school. By ‘due process’, I mean having consequences determined after examining the evidence and giving you a chance to explain/defend yourself. If I am fired on the spot because my boss heard a false rumour about me, and didn’t check the facts, then due process wasn’t followed. Most companies have a procedure to follow before someone can be fired. Was any such procedure followed in Hunt’s honorary case, or just a knee-jerk reaction to what they read in the media?
  99. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    He has chosen not to defend himself but that doesn’t mean he believes he was quoted accurately.
    Either provide exceptional evidence that he wasn’t quoted accurately, or drop the accusation. It is time for extraordinary evidence for such extraordinary claims. Do you have said evidence (*do a reality check first*).
  100. Crys T says
    Seriously, I can’t see that a “my trouble” or a “now seriously” more or less makes a damn bit of difference in this case. The guy made a jaw-droppingly stupid series of comments- especially given the context of the event he was speaking at – whether those little extra bits were included or not.
    It actually DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER whether he meant what he said or if he was making an attempt at a joke. Either scenario shows that he is absolutely clueless about women working in STEM fields. And in either scenario, UCL’s severing their connection with him (no matter whose version of how that played out is correct) would still be the correct response on their part. Hell, if they wanted to retain any credibility at all, it was the only response open to them.
    So what we’re left with is the totally fabricated story of a witch hunt, feral mobs screaming for blood, etc. WHICH NEVER HAPPENED. It’s a totally made-up lie.
    So why are we still talking about this?
  101. @97 joyousrevelation
    She retweeted someone who backed her account of events and described the lack of “now seriously”, is that enough?
    Not even close to supporting your claim that she said insisted it happened one way until she thought a recording might surface. Blum supported what she thought to be consensus–because others backed her own recollections–until other people said their recollection varied, including a Russian reporter who responded to that tweet and the person whose notes were released as a “transcript”. That’s not sinister. That’s updating based on new evidence.
    In any case, you should read the quotes and facts (if not the interpretation ) from Menschs blog.
    I already said that I did. I found the way they were presented to be about as bad as your characterization of Blum here, if not worse, at least where they weren’t trivial.
    If you think his remarks as reported are beyond the pale and beyond explanation or redress, then so be it, but if you are interested in a different perspective (even as an example of how eyewitness accounts of the same events sans tape and video can differ) then its a useful exercise.
    When did we start talking about Hunt being unforgivable instead of about him doing damage? I’m seriously tired of people showing up to argue with their own preconceptions. Particularly while calling for looking at things in a charitable light.
  102. squarecircle says
    @joyousrevelation, so your “argument” is that events at a conference have some inconsistencies in them when reported back by multiple people (that’s a surprise!).. something, something… witch hunt?
    I don’t see your point. It is not indicative of anything that there are inconsistencies in peoples recollection, skepticism 101. We’ll never know exactly what he said as it wasn’t recorded. He agreed he was quoted accurately as we both seem to agree, with a little bit of moaning that people didn’t realize he was “joking”. What he repeated in the interview on the BBC was equally sexist and damaging, in his own words, unambiguously. So none of this nitpicking over the exact words said at the conference changes anything, what he said was still sexist, still damaging and he was right to apologize. The end?
  103. chris61 says
    @96 Crys T
    In the Hunt case, actually going back and looking at what happened clearly shows who is making up fairy stories. It’s not a question of interpretation.
    Were you there? At the luncheon and at the interviews in which Hunt participated? I’m guessing not. So you have no more idea of what really happened or was really said than anyone else commenting on this post (including myself) does. Of course it’s a question of interpretation.
    @101 Stephanie Zvan
    Blum supported what she thought to be consensus–because others backed her own recollections–until other people said their recollection varied, including a Russian reporter who responded to that tweet and the person whose notes were released as a “transcript”. That’s not sinister. That’s updating based on new evidence.
    New evidence? Blum was there. She claimed to be reporting on what happened but when other people remembered something else her memories changed too. I don’t think it’s sinister but it does demonstrate that she is as unreliable a witness as any one else. Personally I might have found it scary that a journalist could be such an unreliable witness were it not for the fact that I learned that years ago.
  104. @103 chris61: You excel as ever at truisms. Oh, no, people have biases and imperfect memories. Until you can explain how things would have changed with perfect recall–whatever that may be–you’re just typing to no point. See Crys’s comment #100.
  105. Alexander says
    @90 Crys T:
    @94 SquareCircle:
    Are you really so ready and willing to say that behavior that doesn’t involve “insults, abuse or threats” directly to a person can never be harassment? So under which category should I put wolf whistles? How about the pervasive negative stereotypes in mass media? The ever more ludicrous trial-by-Kochtopus-media of “GOP vs. Hillary Clinton’s server”?
    In my view, it doesn’t matter what sort of undesired behavior is being repeated, or even if it’s being directed specifically at the person it offends. Simply that the behavior is unwanted and persistent is sufficient: all of my examples above are (to me) harassment, not for the nature of the individual events but merely by being incessant and undesired. [Okay, full disclosure: the only possible exception would be the last example, because for that case there is one solitary target—Hillary—and currently, she seems to have accepted it as the slings of politics instead. I still define it as harassment anyway.]
    Furthermore, in the specific case of Sir Tim Hunt, this was not some quiet hallway or email conversation: these were public Twitter posts. Having a number of people stand up and publicly, loudly proclaim: “See the town idiot! Oh what a fool!”, rather than in a private forum or even (shock!) addressing their complaints to him directly… yes, I believe that can rise to the threshold of harassment. It certainly contains enough elements of the examples I gave to warrant considering the possibility.
  106. squarecircle says
    @Aexander, so you really are saying #distractinglysexy, which wasn’t aimed at him, had little to no abuse of him, was harassment? He’d maybe see a small selection of tweets on news sites, which obviously wouldn’t be abusive ones at all.
    Where did he call it harassment by the way? No one else can determine that …
  107. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    yes, I believe that can rise to the threshold of harassment. It certainly contains enough elements of the examples I gave to warrant considering the possibility.
    Nope, no way Jose. Nothing but trying and failing to make a connection beyond the realm of rational. Typical of those trying to raise doubt without solid and conclusive evidence….All you have is hyperbole.
  108. Crys T says
    Alexander – This is the last time I’m saying this here: there was no fucking mob going after Hunt. There was no attempt to get him removed from any position, paid or honorary, that he held. There was even no attempt to get in his face or go after people he knew. There was no attempt to blacken his legacy. THERE WAS NO FUCKING HARASSMENT.
    The fact that you can equate people having a conversation amongst themselves to either “wolf whistles” (that are street harassment designed to get in their targets’ faces), and media representations (really, that one is so stupid I have to believe that even you don’t buy it) shows how warped your own perspective is.
    I love the fact that you guys are apparently seriously proposing that people discussing something amongst themselves, with no attempt to throw it in others’ faces, is now harassment and shouldn’t happen. I’m sure that the next time you hear about a public figure sticking their foot in it, you’ll quietly tut to yourselves but will not dream of actually commenting on it where anyone can hear. Right?
    chris61: Seriously? You do realise that your response to me actually doesn’t address what I said, right?
    Hint: the fairy stories were the ones about the howling mobs with pitchforks chasing after Tim the Martyr, NOT what or wasn’t said at the event.
    My point still stands: whichever version of events you believe, Hunt fucked up royally. And when you actually look at who did what in the subsequent fall-out, there was no fucking witch hunt.
  109. squarecircle says
    @Aexander, just scrolled back through the hashtag, took a while! I found one person calling Hunt an “a-hole” fairly recently, again not to him on their own timeline. Other than that a few people mocking his nose hairs as not #DistractinglySexist at all.
    I saw a lot more sexist and racist abuse to Connie St Louis on there, funny how that works? Especially given it was over the “CV scandal” that never was. People leaping to the conclusion it must be all made up because her CV was out of date. Such an obvious smear it was ridiculous. So no, unless Hunt says he was somehow on Twitter and somehow harassed by people joining in the hashtag. I don’t see it.
  110. Crys T says
    Sorry for double post, but need to add: “no fucking witch hunt TARGETING TIM HUNT.”
    Because Mensch/Dawkins/the right-wing gutter press/etc certainly launched a campaign against their favourite enemy of “political correctness” or SJWs or whatever else you crazy kids are calling it these days. They saw an opportunity in the Tim Hunt saga to demonise the people they hate and they ran with it. If Alexander and the rest of you who say you are so concerned about the humiliation Hunt has experienced over this are sincere, you can direct your ire to that lot. They’re the ones who refused to let the story die and they’re the ones who’ve dragged it back into the spotlight now.
    If it hadn’t been for them, all there would have been to this would’ve been an amusing hashtag, probably now forgotten, and the (deserved) loss to Hunt of one unpaid position. If you guys care about the man so much, why are you using him as a weapon to fight a war he may not even want to be in?
  111. Al Y says
    I quit reading Mehta when I realized he was a fucking buzzfeed pearl-clutching content mill.
    This revelation is unsurprising. He’s a hack and a panderer.
  112. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
    Crys T #110
    If it hadn’t been for them, all there would have been to this would’ve been an amusing hashtag, probably now forgotten, and the (deserved) loss to Hunt of one unpaid position. If you guys care about the man so much, why are you using him as a weapon to fight a war he may not even want to be in?
    Can’t agree with you more.
    And as far as I can tell, Tim Hunt has no interest being defended. So Alexander, why don’t you follow TH’s wishes and let the episode a natural death…which it already had until you and your fellow misogynists resurrected it. Next time, get permission from TH before you infest the internet defending him.

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