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[Liber celi]

Why are you even reacting to mainiac's Straight White Males post. It's a bad post only there to lower the local standards of discourse.

[Rex Invictus]

Men are more likely to succeed in killing themselves than women are, since men prefer methods like firearms and hanging, while women prefer methods involving drugs. Studies show that men and women are about as equally likely to attempt to kill themselves.
(From Wikipedia, so take it as you will.)
That talking point doesn't have the legs it sounds like it should, I'm afraid. Now, if one were to rephrase it as an issue where suicide prevention should focus on men to maximize their impact, I'd bite. But it's not useful as a case to use as a counter to the "White men aren't allow to complain" tactic.

I distrust almost everything on Wikipedia nowadays, just due to the huge control that interest groups have over it.

To be honest, taking pills to end your life isn't much of an effort. It's a shout for help rather than an actual attempt. It doesn't help that mental health campaigns almost invariably focus on women and most doctors will put men to the wayside.

There's a variety of other things that men are falling behind on (educational achievement being a huge one, especially in the Western world), but suicide cannot be readily dismissed because of the idea one gender is less likely to do less lethal methods than the other.

Why are you even reacting to mainiac's Straight White Males post. It's a bad post only there to lower the local standards of discourse.

Probably dumb of me, I know. I have a sneaking suspicion this thread will be closed and nothing will be done to him.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sheb]

You're managing to loose my sympathy fast here Rex Invictus. Anyway, it's kinda sad he was forced to resign. A reprimand and maybe an investigation to see if he was discriminating in his lab would probably have been better.

I did get to make some nice signs for my own lab though.

[ChairmanPoo]

A reprimand and maybe an investigation to see if he was discriminating in his lab

That's the thing: he wasn't - many former female coworkers of his have spoken in his favor. Up to and including sending letters to Nature. So yeah, it was pretty much just a poor-taste joke.

[Sheb]

One of the saddest thing is that now something like half of his wikipedia page is devoted to that one sentence. The guy discovered cyclins for Christ's sake!

[SirQuiamus]

THE FEMALE SUPREMACIST CABAL IS INFILTRATING WIKIPEDIA RIP EQUALITY AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Don't forget to wear tinfoil underwear, mVIII.

[Rex Invictus]

THE FEMALE SUPREMACIST CABAL IS INFILTRATING WIKIPEDIA RIP EQUALITY AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Don't forget to wear tinfoil underwear, mVIII.

What a clever and witty edit. Truly, you have proven my point completely false.

Also, don't forget that I couldn't be talking about FBI editing Wikipedia pages or the House of Commons doing it. No, I must surely be talking about the university gender studies courses offering credits to edit Wikipedia pages to a feminist slant.

[SirQuiamus]

Your "points" have been beaten to death on B12 and elsewhere, as you probably know already. At this point it's really starting to look like RK's initial hunch was spot-on, but on the off chance that you are not a stereotypical MRA troll, I urge you to peruse these two articles for a thorough refutation of every argument you could possibly muster in defense of your interest group.

[Rex Invictus]

Your "points" have been beaten to death on B12 and elsewhere, as you probably know already. At this point it's really starting to look like RK's initial hunch was spot-on, but on the off chance that you are not a stereotypical MRA troll, I urge you to peruse these two articles for a thorough refutation of every argument you could possibly muster in defense of your interest group.

Looking through those two articles, most of their data is hilarious cherry picked and / or outmoded. One of their citations on the MRM article is to an article about a study of gender divide amongst lawyers.. The article itself is from early 2009 and the study is from 2008. Seven years have gone past. The world's economy can change in a month, nevermind a year, nevermind seven for a single country for a single field.

I mean, look at this:

Education of boys: Another claim, far more common in the anti-feminist camps, is that the modern education system is "sissifying" our boys. Our schools today discourage boys from fighting (oh noes!). So we should continue the "natural" and "macho" state of problem-solving for big brute men, one supposes. Also, such anti-feminist MRAs claim that schools discourage competition, and "hyper protect" kids from "natural," normal, manly roughhousing. For example, after the emergence of evidence concerning the dangers of football, especially to young children, MRAs have held such studies up as proof that "feminist society" "wants boys to be girls." Because of course all young boys need to play football to realize their budding masculinity, and that restricting football on school hours will emasculate red-blooded young boys, leaving them to take up girly things like every other less-hazardous sport they could dream of.

That's the sort of Wiki you want to link to as a refutation? There's not even anything in that article that gives any refutation or support against the fact boys are falling far behind girls in schools. It's just a snarky paragraph with nothing to contribute.

It's interesting to note that your solution to me believing a Wiki is biased is to link me to an even more biased Wiki. That's impressive mental logic.

[NullForceOmega]

Rex, I do feel that this event is likely an injustice, and that without a doubt the fundamental lack of professionalism in journalism can be brought out as valid criticism of this particular journalists' behavior.  Your response to the criticism of your own post are, however, equally unacceptable.  At least try to stay on topic in your own thread.

[Rex Invictus]

Rex, I do feel that this event is likely an injustice, and that without a doubt the fundamental lack of professionalism in journalism can be brought out as valid criticism of this particular journalists' behavior.  Your response to the criticism of your own post are, however, equally unacceptable.  At least try to stay on topic in your own thread.

I'm probably making a mistake, honestly, but it's hard not to be angry when people come in for the sole purpose of derailing a thread because they have no actual arguments to make against the fact the journalist ruined a person's life over nothing.

[NullForceOmega]

I understand completely.  This is the kind of event that can be very polarizing, on one hand Tim Hunt made an insensitive comment, on the other the whole thing got blown massively out of proportion and cost him his job and possibly his career.  It is a flawless example of why journalistic integrity used to be a good thing, and an equally good example of why you should be careful what you say in public.

[Rex Invictus]

I understand completely.  This is the kind of event that can be very polarizing, on one hand Tim Hunt made an insensitive comment, on the other the whole thing got blown massively out of proportion and cost him his job and possibly his career.  It is a flawless example of why journalistic integrity used to be a good thing, and an equally good example of why you should be careful what you say in public.

If society is going to become some squeaky clean "watch what you say or we will ruin your life" shitshow, I, at least, want out.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm with you there, but reality says that we have to think before we open our mouths.  I generally don't try too hard to filter my responses to things, but I do so in the full knowledge that what I say can bite me in the ass.

[palsch]

Let's outline the actual case here.


Firstly, he wasn't fired because he wasn't employed by the organisations in question.

Hunt was an emeritus professor. The very position means that he was retired, but retained an honorary position after that retirement, with such positions having varying levels of involvement in the actual running of the labs (often advisory while running side projects purely for the interest of the professor in question - ones that don't require funding grants - in my experience). He held such positions at a number of institutes and labs, of which he resigned three that I'm aware of; UCL, the Royal Society and the ERC.

The main position mentioned was at UCL. According to their statement;

Sir Tim Hunt's personal decision to offer his resignation from his honorary position at UCL was a sad and unfortunate outcome of the comments he made in a speech last week. Media and online commentary played no part in UCL's decision to accept his resignation.

Sir Tim held an honorary position at  UCL. He was not, and never has been, employed by UCL at any stage of his career and did not receive a salary from UCL.

UCL sought on more than one occasion to make contact with Sir Tim to discuss the situation, but his resignation was received before direct contact was established.

UCL accepted his resignation of his honorary position in good faith, and in doing so sent a clear signal that equality and diversity are truly valued at UCL. We continue to be open to engagement and dialogue on how we can best deliver on our commitment to these values.

The Royal Society and ERC are professional bodies belong to, but are not employers in this sense. He resigned a position on one of the Royal Societies boards, but retains his fellowship. I can't find any details of his position at the ERC at the moment.

He still retains a position at the Crick Institute, which at least means he is somewhat involved in research in an emeritus fashion. Like most Nobel winners he likely made a considerable post-retirement income from touring and giving talks (controversy hasn't ever really blunted that, even in the case of the outright racist winners), while it's unlikely any of the honorary positions paid beyond use of facilities. So he is still in a research position and still has his primary source of income.

This isn't just semantics. This is organisations and an individual with a mutual affiliation deciding to end that affiliation, not an employer sacking an employee. This is an independently wealthy (from the Nobel and associated speaking circuit, on top of whatever pension and savings he has from a career as a senior researcher) retired man who lends his reputation to various institutions finding that reputation isn't worth as much any more, not someone losing their means of supporting themselves.


Secondly, this wasn't a single unsupported source resulting in an internet witch hunt. There were at least three initial scientists/journalists who broke the story.

Connie St Louis was the central source, but she was supported by Ivan Orlovsky (founder of Retraction Watch and Deborah Blum. All three are extremely experienced science journalists (as in, journalists with an actual background and understanding in science, not just journalists shoved onto the science beat repeating press releases), and Orlovsky holds an MD.

Blum had done a follow up informal questioning with Hunt at lunch the next day where he said he stood by the core of what he said.


Thirdly, and linked to that last bit, the resignations came after an initial interview he gave with the BBC where he said much the same thing. He part-apologised but stood by the comments. This is, to my understanding, the statement that lead to the resignations, and it does seem to admit fault.


As for this being a problem;

The more senior the head of a research lab, the less likely it is to employ women. This is a current problem, not historical. Women are still being quietly frozen out of the top levels of research, and it's hard not to see institutional views among the elite (like Hunt) as a contributory factor. The 'leaky pipeline' problem is widely recognised and a lot of effort is going into patching it. Casually sexist remarks going unchallenged (or being expected as the norm) is one of the common targeted issues.