Tim Hunt

[Doggy Styles]

Can I hand back my UCL degree? I hate the craven bastards with a passion after this.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I would have disagreed before the Hunt affair. However it must be pointed out that US "college campuses" are solidly under the heel of the PC jackboot, and their behaviour is even more craven that UCL.

PC is putting it mildly.

[unixman]

UCL provost Michael Arthur defended the sacking last week in a statement consisting largely of PC babytalk. Ugh.

[unixman]

MIT has been for decades the best place.

I would have disagreed before the Hunt affair. However it must be pointed out that US "college campuses" are solidly under the heel of the PC jackboot, and their behaviour is even more craven that UCL.

[minestrone]

I used to admire UCL, revered it even, as probably the best place to study engineering in the UK/World. Now I have changed my mind. They are a load of cowardy custard dunderheads.

MIT has been for decades the best place.

[unixman]

I am struggling to find in the Mail's report any suggestion that the accuser is a scientist at all.

If is is the same report I read on Sunday, she has declined to reveal her qualifications.

Hunt is a real scientist. A pretty good one: do most people have any grasp of what it takes to get a Nobel?

Indeed. Even Hawking hasn't got one of those (yet)

Agree with the rest of your post.

I used to admire UCL, revered it even, as probably the best place to study engineering in the UK/World. Now I have changed my mind. They are a load of cowardy custard dunderheads.

[SueEllen]

If you work for any organisation and represent them in the public domain then you don't have any automatic right to freedom of speech.

Employers can sack you for your actions damaging or having the potential to damage their reputation.

[NickFitz]

Worthy of note: Hunt himself has not disputed the initial allegations, nor did he mention any of this new stuff in his own defence, nor has he confirmed any of this new stuff even though it would presumably be in his own interests to do so. There is absolutely no reason to believe the Times story (now nicked by the Mail).

Oh, and the Mail's sentence "The EU report appears to dovetail with Sir Tim’s own version of events" makes no sense, as he has never disputed the version of events that the EU report appears to contradict.

[SueEllen]

Moral of story - when making an after dinner or equivalent speech, particularly in a foreign country, get someone to record it even if it's on their phone.

[expat]

I am struggling to find in the Mail's report any suggestion that the accuser is a scientist at all. She seems to be a "science journalist" and the Times and the Mail question much even of that; but I see no "scientist" there, if that matters (I think it does). Hunt is a real scientist. A pretty good one: do most people have any grasp of what it takes to get a Nobel?

Secondly, it does rather look as though Hunt wasn't even a dinosaur old buffer who made a joke that was in bad taste by modern standards: rather that he made an ironic joke but despite heavy signalling the irony was missed and he was crucified as if he had been serious.

Thirdly, I would ask whether, even if the very worst was true, one would prefer to have the progress in our lives that could be brought by scientific work of Hunt's standard, with some bad jokes thrown in, or eliminate the tasteless jokes and throw the scientific research out with it. Personally I regard humanity making the second choice so badly that I would characterise it as a scared monkey climbing back up the tree; but it seems to me that many commentators that I have read would, in all seriousness, throw out any science if it would let them eliminate the transgressors.

Fourthly, I am appalled that almost everyone - on all sides - seems to think that the only point is to decide what would be a just punishment for Hunt. This makes my blood run cold. As Lord Justice Sedley said of freedom of speech, "Freedom to say only what is inoffensive is not worth having". Where is the sane and sound idea that the only judge and jury are, well, a judge and jury; and the only place they get to do their work is in a court of law; and then only on an accused criminal. Is Hunt a criminal? Does anyone understand that that is not the same question as whether he did anything wrong? And that in its turn is not the same question as whether he did or said something that one might disapprove of, and whether that is to be a punishable crime.

I despair.

[NickFitz]

Several people who were present at the talk say the Times story is completely untrue, and he definitely never said any of the things the "individual, who has not been named" is claiming he said.

So, a number of well-known and widely respected scientists and science journalists go on the record saying one thing, and somebody who insists on remaining anonymous says something else. Who should we trust?

[minestrone]

A 6 page CV filled with lies?

Pah, I've seen Suity's CV, that is 9 pages.

[darmstadt]

Some of this came out a couple of weeks ago, shortly after the affair happened but not much was made of it. Presumably the Daily Mail are on a bash the lefty campaign and in this case, good for them. There is too much of this type of thing where someone says something, people jump onto social media without knowing the full facts and a person's life is (un)justifiably ruined. Pity it wasn't Katie Hopkins though

[SimonMac]

WGAS

Mob justice was served, it doesn't matter if it was correct

[SpontaneousOrder]

Did this already get posted?

Sir Tim Hunt investigation reveals flaws about Connie St Louis' testimony | Daily Mail Online