So... Tim Hunt?

[Anakin McFly]

Since this board has been slow.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015 ... ry-collins

(don't read the comments, they're full of misogyny)

I agree that his joke was inexcusable and hurtful, but I continue to be disturbed by the fast and deadly fervor with which social media goes out of its way to utterly and indiscriminately destroy the name of anyone who does (or is perceived to have done) the slightest wrong.

I believe that Hunt should have been reprimanded, yelled at, made to do a proper sincere public apology, educated himself about the misogynist attitudes and pressures that make it difficult for so many female scientists to succeed or even enter the industry - lots of women have been sharing their stories of workplace harassment and blatant discrimination - and hopefully encouraged to do something to actively push for greater gender equality in science, perhaps even become an advocate for it. The bulk of the anger (and people should be angry) should have been directed not at Hunt as a person but at the institutions and systems that produced and continue to support his mindset. And at least some of those discussions are happening, which is great.

But this witchhunt is terrifying and almost feels like scapegoating an individual for structural problems that go far beyond his words and actions. Especially since he's 70. His age doesn't excuse his words, but I'm willing to bet that most if not all of the people criticising him - especially the men - would have held the exact same views had they grown up at a similar time and environment. Blame the system, not the people. The latter is an ever-changing group. The former is a constant.

But that's me, and I prefer conversion to destruction and compensation to punishment. No matter how angry we might get at a person for whatever reason, justified or not, or how horrible a person they might be, I think there should be a limit to how far we go.

It's also why things like this make me happy: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/ ... them-both/

[Derived Absurdity]

I don't know. My view on these types of things has changed a small bit recently. I suppose I agree with you that social witchhunts are generally disturbing and unhelpful, but only in a somewhat bloodless way; there are some things I keep in mind now which preclude me from getting too upset about them anymore. First of all, as was pointed out the last time this was brought up here, these things don't actually happen very often, despite the noise you often hear about them on the Internet. I mean, really, they've happened, like, what, a dozen times? Out of all the times some low-profile-to-mildly high-profile person has said some stupid or destructive nonsense since social media has been around, we can draw upon maybe a few dozen cases of this kind of thing happening so far at most. So there's not really a gargantuan problem here, I don't think, and so far this phenomenon has been - very ironically - blown way out of proportion.

It's also very jarring when you set it against the fact that I hear so many high-profile people say stupid, immoral, and destructive nonsense all the time in public and yet so often the criticism on social media I see has been largely muted, not nearly as loud and aggressive and critical as (I think) the original comment usually warrants. I get so angry and frustrated when I hear someone say something I think is awful with virtually no blowback or even acknowledgment on social media - and it happens so often, on a regular basis - that I have a hard time finding it within me to get too upset during the incredibly rare cases when the opposite happens. Instead I find myself largely thankful. Finally someone is facing some consequences for being a shit in public, even if those consequences might be a bit disproportionate. And I think, for those who get so outraged at the level of vitriol sometimes directed at people who don't deserve it, why aren't you equally or even more outraged at people saying vile things with no consequent vitriol at all? I rarely see that, and it frustrates me. So, yeah, a part of me is very glad when these social witchhunts do happen. A part of me says they don't happen often enough.

I do feel sorry for what he went through, although not too sorry, because in my opinion it's abundantly clear that he has some deeply ingrained sexist beliefs which he accidentally let show to the world, and mostly he's paying the rightful consequences. I can't get mad at the universities and institutions that sacked him, since it's perfectly reasonable why they wouldn't want to be associated with sexist bullshit, and his narcissistic self-pitying whining about all this doesn't endear him to me. He's a sexist ass, he accidentally let his true colors show, he was dropped because of it, and he interprets this as them leaving him out to dry and sets himself up as some sort of martyr. Cry me a fucking river. He's a highly influential figure, he has a degree of social responsibility. It's not as though this is going to overshadow any of his scientific achievements in the long-run anyway. James Watson even today is still known as the co-discoverer of DNA and not the guy who said black people are genetically stupid. This guy will be fine.

You might have a point about the scapegoating issue, but the fact is individuals like him are helping to prop up these structural problems you're talking about. "Blame the system, not the people"? The people are the system. You're talking like the system is somehow separate from people like him. It's not. He was a sexist ass who was very powerful and respected within the institutions he belonged to. He is a good part of the system. People like him make it up, they prop it up, they strengthen it, they perpetuate it. Taking down him is helping to take down "the system" in its own small way.

[Anakin McFly]

I mean, really, they've happened, like, what, a dozen times?

I think it's quite a lot more than that. It happens pretty often to celebrities in particular - similar to the thing with Jeremy Renner a while back - and easily a hundred times or more, though most don't get this high profile.

I get so angry and frustrated when I hear someone say something I think is awful with virtually no blowback or even acknowledgment on social media

Same here, actually. But once they've got some angry criticism in proportion to the crime, preferably enough for them to take notice, then I'm satisfied. Someone like that deserves perhaps a few dozen angry voices; but a few hundred or tens of thousands are overkill to me, especially for just one comment by one individual.

why aren't you equally or even more outraged at people saying vile things with no consequent vitriol at all? I rarely see that, and it frustrates me.

I'm not sure if that scenario would logically work out: usually when someone does that, it leads to the subsequent vitriol, and it moves from the latter category to the former. I guess I'm just wishing that there were some middle ground where we could make it clear that this is unacceptable behaviour/speech without going into vigilantism where it sometimes feels like anything goes.

It's not as though this is going to overshadow any of his scientific achievements in the long-run anyway. James Watson even today is still known as the co-discoverer of DNA and not the guy who said black people are genetically stupid. This guy will be fine.

I don't think the comparison works here, because I think things would have been different if Watson were alive today and made those comments today. But this incident was the first time I ever heard of Tim Hunt, and I'm sure it's the case for many others who'll remember him primarily for this. Same with Justine Sacco. Even if neither of them were nice people, it just seems sucky to be remembered primarily for one's flaws or the things one did to hurt others, and have those things broadcast all over the media. Everyone has flaws, everyone has hurt people. I'm going by the Golden Rule here - I'd hate to see my own failings (or an insensitive joke made unthinkingly) made public, and have who I am effectively reduced to them. And to that extent I feel sorry for anyone it happens to, regardless of whether or not they're good people.

The people are the system. You're talking like the system is somehow separate from people like him. It's not.

Yes and no. It's like those arguments back at the Pit - that if a random evangelical Christian had been born in a Muslim country, they'd almost definitely have been Muslim instead, even if they were otherwise the exact same person. But that goes to questions of just what makes someone who they are, and whether that can be removed from the social structures and upbringing they grew up in. In general I prefer broader criticism when it comes to people, e.g. "women are often discriminated against by male bosses", and perhaps even giving specific examples like this one, but without focusing all firepower on that one person.

[CashRules]

I think things would have been different if Watson were alive today and made those comments today.

Um, Watson is very much alive today and made his comments as recently as 2007.

[Anakin McFly]

Ahaha sorry. Thanks for the correction, and point taken. I tend to assume that old scientific pioneers are dead. >_>

My mom often says a lot of offensive things, often out of ignorance; I do my best to educate her where I can. But her job also puts her in a semi-public position, and I'd hate for her to end up targeted and vilified in this way even if what she says is grossly inappropriate; because I love her, and I also know that she's an incredibly caring woman who would never intentionally hurt another person. Everyone's still human in the end, and much more complex that the media makes them out to be.

I don't really have a solution. I hate injustice and discrimination and people making thoughtless insensitive jokes without any blowback. I like what we have on these boards: where if one of us says something offensive we get called out on it, and we work it through, presumably without someone taking it and running with it to the media to let the entire world know. It would be great if that were applicable on a larger scale, but I don't know how.

But the way the media currently does this is still disturbing to me, not so much for the issues concerned but the whole mechanism of finding a target and piling onto them and sensationalizing it for clickbait at someone's expense. Sometimes it's used for good, but it's just as easily used for evil, and at times even when it's used for good it doesn't seem that different.

[Ptolemy_Banana]

You might have a point about the scapegoating issue, but the fact is individuals like him are helping to prop up these structural problems you're talking about. "Blame the system, not the people"? The people are the system. You're talking like the system is somehow separate from people like him. It's not. He was a sexist ass who was very powerful and respected within the institutions he belonged to. He is a good part of the system. People like him make it up, they prop it up, they strengthen it, they perpetuate it. Taking down him is helping to take down "the system" in its own small way.

Individual people are not the system, the collective of people are the system. Hunt's statements may help perpetuate a sexist system but they are only a tiny brick in an enormous edifice. A comment like "the trouble with girls is that they cry when you criticize them" is not the patriarchy, it's just an example of the kind of thinking a rather insensitive member of a patriarchal society might say. Enacting the kind of vengeance that would be merited if he was to blame for the system rather than just a tiny little annoying part of it is inhumane.

[BruceSmith78]

What happened to Jeremy Renner? Did Marvel cancel his contract? Is he now considered unemployable in Hollywood? I didn't know he suffered any real consequences.

[Derived Absurdity]

I mean, really, they've happened, like, what, a dozen times?

I think it's quite a lot more than that. It happens pretty often to celebrities in particular - similar to the thing with Jeremy Renner a while back - and easily a hundred times or more, though most don't get this high profile.

You consider what happened to Jeremy Renner a witchhunt? From what I could tell a small group of people got pissed at him, a bunch of clickbaity websites exaggerated their noise level way beyond what it originally was, and then the people were immediately drowned out by a much larger group of people who got mad at the fact that they got mad. Eventually he issued a half-assed apology which clearly signaled he didn't give a shit and we all moved on. That's not a witchhunt. That's just a bunch of people getting mad at a celebrity saying stupid and damaging things. He faced zero repercussions. In fact the amount of support he got probably outweighed the criticism by about ten to one.

If you want a better example, go with Matt Taylor. But I wouldn't say he counts either, since all that happened is that he issued an apology. He got immense support and virtually everyone ended up on his side. It was a very small group of people who got angry at him - and I would say most of them were merely mildly critical - and it was, again ironically, blown way out of proportion by people who want to manufacture drama and an imaginary SJW menace to hate. That wasn't a witchhunt either. Criticism - even angry or hostile criticism - is not a witchhunt.

I get so angry and frustrated when I hear someone say something I think is awful with virtually no blowback or even acknowledgment on social media

Same here, actually. But once they've got some angry criticism in proportion to the crime, preferably enough for them to take notice, then I'm satisfied. Someone like that deserves perhaps a few dozen angry voices; but a few hundred or tens of thousands are overkill to me, especially for just one comment by one individual.

Really? Do you think them simply "taking notice" of criticism is proportionate, even if the criticism is completely impotent and doesn't negatively affect them in any way? Even if it doesn't give them any serious cause to introspect or alter their thinking and behavior? Even when what they say is actually hurtful and/or damaging? No, I think people deserve a reasonable amount of consequences for the stupid shit they say in public, as damaging words from public individuals carry a lot of weight.

why aren't you equally or even more outraged at people saying vile things with no consequent vitriol at all? I rarely see that, and it frustrates me.

I'm not sure if that scenario would logically work out: usually when someone does that, it leads to the subsequent vitriol, and it moves from the latter category to the former. I guess I'm just wishing that there were some middle ground where we could make it clear that this is unacceptable behaviour/speech without going into vigilantism where it sometimes feels like anything goes.

As I said, I don't think the vigilantism happens very often, and what I see more often than not is that "aggressive but reasonable criticism" gets willfully misinterpreted as "vigilantism" by people with an agenda to push.

It's not as though this is going to overshadow any of his scientific achievements in the long-run anyway. James Watson even today is still known as the co-discoverer of DNA and not the guy who said black people are genetically stupid. This guy will be fine.

I don't think the comparison works here, because I think things would have been different if Watson were alive today and made those comments today. But this incident was the first time I ever heard of Tim Hunt, and I'm sure it's the case for many others who'll remember him primarily for this. Same with Justine Sacco. Even if neither of them were nice people, it just seems sucky to be remembered primarily for one's flaws or the things one did to hurt others, and have those things broadcast all over the media. Everyone has flaws, everyone has hurt people. I'm going by the Golden Rule here - I'd hate to see my own failings (or an insensitive joke made unthinkingly) made public, and have who I am effectively reduced to them. And to that extent I feel sorry for anyone it happens to, regardless of whether or not they're good people.

Sure, I get that. I thought that until fairly recently. But now I can't help but think this is an excessively self-interested perspective. You're thinking primarily of how potentially stupid/damaging words will negatively affect you while a better perspective is on how your words will affect other people. This is probably the line of reasoning of most of the people who push back against the "SJWs" who perpetuate these supposed "witchhunts" with such vigor. They're thinking of how it'll feel when they themselves get in trouble for saying something dumb, and they're not bothering to think too much about the damage their words have on the people who are actually affected. It's pretty egocentric. I think the perspectives of the people who are being targeted - in this case, women, and in James Watson's case, black people, etc. - deserve far more weight than the person who is targeting them. It's a misplacement of priorities otherwise.

The people are the system. You're talking like the system is somehow separate from people like him. It's not.

Yes and no. It's like those arguments back at the Pit - that if a random evangelical Christian had been born in a Muslim country, they'd almost definitely have been Muslim instead, even if they were otherwise the exact same person. But that goes to questions of just what makes someone who they are, and whether that can be removed from the social structures and upbringing they grew up in. In general I prefer broader criticism when it comes to people, e.g. "women are often discriminated against by male bosses", and perhaps even giving specific examples like this one, but without focusing all firepower on that one person.

Sure, but when one example sticks itself out so far like what happened here, it's hard not to focus on it. I think broader systemic criticism is far more useful than criticisms of individuals.

[Anakin McFly]

What happened to Jeremy Renner? Did Marvel cancel his contract? Is he now considered unemployable in Hollywood? I didn't know he suffered any real consequences.

Well, lots of people hate him now, and that probably will have some consequences in the long run.

You consider what happened to Jeremy Renner a witchhunt?

Sorry, that was badly phrased - I categorise that under the less high profile cases of an example of one person being slammed by thousands. I wouldn't say it was a small group, but I probably hang out on different parts of the internet.

I realise I don't register it as support when people are defending someone's offensive words, because then I just shunt them into background noise of bigotry - they're not so much defending the person as defending the patriarchy etc. vs how the critics often target the person rather than the patriarchy.

Do you think them simply "taking notice" of criticism is proportionate, even if the criticism is completely impotent and doesn't negatively affect them in any way? Even if it doesn't give them any serious cause to introspect or alter their thinking and behavior? Even when what they say is actually hurtful and/or damaging?

No, my 'taking notice' encompassed all of that - enough to negatively affect them, cause them to do some introspection and alter their thinking, and make amends as much as they can. But potentially give them PTSD, no. (I can't say for sure if that has happened. But if a few thousand people were screaming at me online and the media was running news articles about what a horrible person I was, I would be pretty traumatised and not be in a state to do anything to turn things around.)

You're thinking primarily of how potentially stupid/damaging words will negatively affect you, while I think a better perspective is on how your words will affect other people.

I agree with that stance. But it's primarily an issue of volume for me. If Hunt had been speaking to a room of about 100 people, say, and the women (and some men) were rightly offended and angry, then I'd have had no qualms whatsoever if they'd proceeded to vocally criticise him for it and have their perspectives heard, saying everything that people have been saying, but just within that 100 or so of them. But that one insensitive joke has blown up into global news, with his face attached to it as a premier example of misogyny in science, and that's the proportion I don't think is justifiable - not least because it also extends the reach of that joke's power to hurt even more women all around the world who otherwise would have been completely unaware.

My morality basically works on the principle of minimising hurt and distress where possible. When it comes to incidences like these, criticising offensive speech does initially cause more good than harm, because it identifies that harm has been done and seeks to stop and correct it. But only to a point, after which the reverse starts to happen to both the culprit and the targets.

[phe_de]

My opinion: It was a stupid thing for Tim Hunt to say; but I don't believe it's worth sacking someone for.
If the university sacked him, than they were probably looking for a pretense to sack him anyway.

Which is weird, since the man obviously is a brilliant scientist.
Maybe the university wanted to push him towards retirement; or the son of a sponsor wanted Hunt's job...

I believe that asking for a public apology and possibly a fine would have been appropriate, if the university had wanted to keep him.

[Anakin McFly]

Nah, they didn't sack him - it was a honorary position that didn't pay anything, and that was justified IMO - they didn't want his name associated with them, fair enough.

I just hate the way that social media deals with this - someone does something minorly offensive, and they have to tell as many people as possible about it so they can all be angry too, and then those people spread it even further; for all its insensitivity, I can't see how this warranted being global news drawing the ire of tens of (hundreds of?) thousands against a single person. I know people who make far worse jokes all the time, some of whom are in pretty prominent positions in society, and they've never even had someone make so much as a single tweet about it.

I can see the rage as far more justified when it came to James Watson - he was a public figure whom most people know about, was positioned as an expert (the expert?) when it came to DNA, and what he said was a deliberate, racist statement whose impact he couldn't have been ignorant of and whose factuality had long been proven untrue. It was premeditated, he stood by his words in an actual book, and there was a whole lot of bad science involved which as a scientist he should have known better about. If it's not victim-blaming if he's not an actual victim, I'd say he was asking for it.

Likewise for that other scientist guy who outrightly stated that women were inferior at maths and science because girlbrains. That was blatant misogyny and also untrue, as countries like China clearly show. Whereas saying that men and women fall in love with each other when they work together and that women cry when criticised... that's nowhere on the same level as any of that, and the former at least has been used as justification for same-sex education for centuries; I'm not sure it's necessarily misogynist, because most people are straight and do get distracted by the other sex. Of course, it would then be misogynist to decide that the solution is to kick women out, because there's just as much reason to kick the men out instead. But I doubt that's what Hunt intended, given that he's apparently been pushing for greater gender equality in science.

[Derived Absurdity]

Lol... so in slightly related news...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... r-faces-c/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's sort of similar in that it falls under the heading of "angry mob wants someone fired for saying something they don't like", although it's different as I have sympathy for the guy under fire this time. And this really does seem to be a case of that... unlike all the others, who said things which are purely damaging and have no societal value at all, Singer is simply advocating for a position which to many people seems morally and intellectually coherent, and which has been calmly debated in philosophy for a very long time. So I don't think it's fair to call it "hate speech" or "bigotry", although it's of course understandable why people reacted the way they did.

[phe_de]

Lol... so in slightly related news...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... r-faces-c/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's sort of similar in that it falls under the heading of "angry mob wants someone fired for saying something they don't like", although it's different as I have sympathy for the guy under fire this time.

So do I.
I just read through the comments in that article. Most people who are arguing against Singer don't have rational arguments. They just spew out strawmen, slippery slope fallacies and ad hominems. No wonder they prefer to silence Singer instead of debating him. Singer would probably own them in a rational and honest debate.

I wonder how many of those who are against Singer's philosophy are vegetarians. If they are not, they are hypocrites or speciecists. In other words: Not moral authorities.

[Derived Absurdity]

The Washington Times from what I understand is a very reactionary website, so I wouldn't expect the comments to be much different than they are.

It's true that the vast majority of people who are so hostile to Singer probably don't have a tenth of his intelligence or integrity. But that's true of a lot of people like him. I guess you just learn to deal with it.

[CashRules]

And this discussion just took a detour into the twilight zone, no reality allowed.

[Anakin McFly]

That doesn't mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents.

That rationalisation rubs me the wrong way - does that mean that people who are loved have lives more worthy than those who are not, due to their disability? I don't think that the morality or terribleness of killing a person should be at all dependent on how much and whether or not their parents - or anyone else - loves them, especially given how superficial humans can be when it comes to loving others. Lots of parents hate their children for all kinds of stupid reasons, like because they're gay, and it's no justification for their children to be considered less worthy of life than a child who is cherished. One's worth should not be based on others. It feels unsettlingly close to the not-uncommon mindset that it's wrong to rape a woman mostly because her husband or father or brother would be upset.

I agree with his support for euthanasia in the case of a severely disabled child who is unlikely to live very long and will suffer for most of it. The merciful thing then would probably be to end their lives swiftly and humanely rather than force them through unnecessary suffering. But there are other disabilities where they'd still be capable of living relatively good lives, even if requiring medical support, and in such a case I don't think it would be morally right to kill them just because it wasn't what their parents ordered.

[Derived Absurdity]

Well, I support killing everyone, so I'm not sure if I'm the right person to be arguing about all that.

[Pope Bucky]

Well, I support killing everyone, so I'm not sure if I'm the right person to be arguing about all that.

Hypocrit hasn't killed himself yet.