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Medicine Science

Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Criticizes Role of Women In Labs 412

An anonymous reader writes: Tim Hunt is an English biochemist most notable for winning the 2001 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. Today he's become notable for something else entirely — at the World Conference of Science Journalists, Hunt suggested science labs should be segregated by gender. He said, "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." As you might expect, this set off a firestorm of criticism. Many asked Hunt to treat women in labs with the same respect he is afforded, and others held it up as an explicit example of the sexism that pervades the scientific community. Hunt later issued an apology, saying, "I'm very sorry that what I thought were light hearted ironic remarks were taken so seriously, and I'm very sorry if people took offence. I certainly did not mean to demean women, but rather be honest about my own shortcomings."
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Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Criticizes Role of Women In Labs

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  • I knew it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @11:46AM (#49883985)

    Today is Friday! Thanks, Dice!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The good news is if he runs into tough times, a Russian businessman will buy his Nobel at an auction and then give it back to him.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Since this DOES happen, what's the fix? Pretending that there's no shenanigans going doesn't make it any better.

    • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:14PM (#49884291) Journal

      Since this DOES happen, what's the fix?

      The fix is for people to deal with it, like grown-ups. Office romances happen across the entire working population. If people are idiots there's fallout. So far the world has survived, and nothing needs to be done to fix this.

      Also, if you want to fix it, what do you do about gay people? segregate them out so you have one gay person in an all-straight office of the opposite gender? And just isolate those awkward bisexual people on their own?

      Nothing needs to be done.

      • Clearly he's the rock star scientist.

        Your average geek story would go something like this...

        "you fall in love with them"
        "they reject you and things become awkward"
        "you cry when they criticize you"

        • Hmm... I much prefer Conan the Barbarian's office rules.

          - Crush your enemies
          - See them driven before you
          - Hear the lamentations of their women

      • by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @01:24PM (#49885055) Journal

        Yes, and I would need my own lab because I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me "Apache" and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.

      • by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @01:39PM (#49885163) Homepage

        The fix is for people to deal with it, like grown-ups. Office romances happen across the entire working population. If people are idiots there's fallout. So far the world has survived, and nothing needs to be done to fix this.

        Significant enough numbers of grown-ups are sufficiently unable to act like grownups that yeah, the rest of us really do need to fix it.

        More importantly, this is not new. Interpersonal struggles and conflict are as old as humanity itself, and we've discovered, as a species, that we really do benefit from having rules, laws, guidelines, and social norms to help us navigate these choppy waters.

        "Just deal with it like grownups" is a cop-out philosophy of managers not wanting to do their jobs and employees not wanting to grow beyond what they already are. "Just deal with it like grownups" means nothing more than "I don't like dealing with the strife and drama that is the human condition, therefore I'll pretend that MY employees/co-workers are somehow magically above all that."

        Lastly, if you think that the world has survived without people having done anything to fix this, well, you [bible.com] haven't [archives.gov] been [ancient.eu] paying [luther.de] any [cornell.edu] attention [google.com] at [justice.gov.za] all [forbes.com].

        • Significant enough numbers of grown-ups are sufficiently unable to act like grownups that yeah, the rest of us really do need to fix it.

          So, we need to set rules on human behavior based upon the limitations of the people who are unable to act like grownups?

          You haven't thought this thing through, friend.

          Why not just expect grownups to act like grownups and ask the ones who cannot to leave the lab?

          Lastly, if you think that the world has survived without people having done anything to fix this, well, you [bible

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stephanruby ( 542433 )

      Since this DOES happen, what's the fix?

      We fire the guy for speaking his mind. We replace him with a female scientist.

      And we pretend that this very kind of problem doesn't happen in any of the female-dominated professions.

  • Hialrious (Score:4, Funny)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:04PM (#49884163) Homepage
    Those were light hearted remarks.
    • by SumDog ( 466607 )

      And you know, if he left out the part about "they cry" this wouldn't be newsworthy. Also, if we just said the fall-in-love bits and padded the end with the Einstein quote about science not being able to explain why people fall in love; this would be placed in a totally different light.

  • So I see from Wikipedia and other sources that he is married to professor Mary Collins, immunologist. I wonder how she feels about him falling in love with women in the workplace. I know my wife doesn't take too kindly to that.

  • If you have to pick one rule to stick to at work, it's don't date your coworker.

    • by bsolar ( 1176767 )
      You don't need to date your coworker to be in love with him/her, or for him/her to be in love with you.
    • He responded to the question "what is the problem with women in science" with something he felt would be funny and people would laugh at. When he was informed others didn't find it funny, he apologized. What more do people want? When did it happen that science geeks were expected to have good social skills?

  • by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:06PM (#49884185)

    "I was just being honest about my own shortcomings -- by talking about what 'you' do when there are women in the lab. 'You', of course, being a straight male, because duh, who else would I be bothering to talk to about science?"

    • "I was just being honest about my own shortcomings -- by talking about what 'you' do when there are women in the lab. 'You', of course, being a straight male, because duh, who else would I be bothering to talk to about science?"

      Well, what you have to realize is... see what I did there? It's totally normal.

  • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:21PM (#49884373) Homepage Journal

    In a world where the Internet gives every crackpot a soapbox from which to preach to his fellow crackpots, it's not longer possible to distinguish ironic self-deprecation from a serious but deranged complaint about other people.

  • by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:25PM (#49884419) Journal

    What idiot can be so humour-impaired as to not realize that Hunt was just kidding? And it was a pretty tame, light-hearted joke at it.

  • Specializing in science basically means more and more about less and less. The limiting case of a specialist is someone who knows everything about nothing. He is a great bio-chemist, no doubt. But thinking he is great in anything other than that narrow sub-speciality within sub-speciality of bio-chemistry, is illogical.
  • by qeveren ( 318805 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @12:31PM (#49884495)

    "I'm sorry you were offended. I'm not sorry for what I said."?

    • "I'm sorry I'm not sorry enough for you!"

    • by neminem ( 561346 )

      No, because it's not even remotely new. I inherited a stack of vintage Mad magazines going back to the earliest days of that magazine from my grandfather a while back, and I remember it poking fun at that sort of nonapology. That said, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find evidence of the same type of nonapology going back basically as far as language itself.

  • Earned his Noble stamp of approval!
    Did you think that Nobel-anything would respect women?

  • ...doesn't mean you aren't a dick.

  • Acknowledging the consequences of gender is not sexist.

    Too many stupid people confuse issues that are intrinsic to gender with sexism... The fact that humans have gender creates problems, some are specific to one gender and some apply to both: Women need bras... that's not sexist, that is being a woman.

    In this case; Straight people of opposite genders have higher probability of being attracted to each other, this creates issues in the workplace - not exactly shocking is it.

    Feminazis what us to be asexual or

    • by danlip ( 737336 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @01:23PM (#49885051)

      Acknowledging the consequences of gender is not sexist.

      Yes, but calling for segregation is. So is stating that women are not capable of handling criticism (unless you've got some objective evidence). He said both of those things.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        >> stating that women are not capable of handling criticism (unless you've got some objective evidence).

        you're either
        a) female
        b) been single all your life
        c) found and dated the one woman on the planet who can handle criticism calmly.

        • >> stating that women are not capable of handling criticism (unless you've got some objective evidence).

          you're either
          a) female
          b) been single all your life
          c) found and dated the one woman on the planet who can handle criticism calmly.

          I think the existence of GamerGate shows that this is not anything unique to women.

      • Yes, but calling for segregation is.

        If you think that's an honest call for segregation, than I shudder to think what happens when you're at a stand-up comedy show. Then again, Jerry Seinfeld made that point recently [youtube.com].

        So is stating that women are not capable of handling criticism (unless you've got some objective evidence).

        How about the example where the Nobel prize winning scientist made a poor joke that they can't take criticism, and it blew up into a huge feminist issue with him being labelled a misogynis

  • Very good. Get your prize, speak your mind.

    It is isn't hatred of woman (misogyny) to hold that woman are different in important respects and are sometimes suited for different roles as general rule. Maybe that view is sexist (never heard the word defined, honestly) but then reality is sexist and we a need a another word to describe unjust unequal treatment on the basis of gender.

    And even if you are of the 'gender is a social construct or personal preference point of view, though to be fair I've never met an

  • If a ladies are allowed in the lab, scientists will be continually distracted by having to help them with all their twisted ankles and fainting spells.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @01:23PM (#49885041)

    See, this is what happens when a guy gives his honest opinion. So he shuts up, and the girls start whining about why he won't talk about his feelings! You cannot have it both ways, ladies!

  • Ex-Nobel prize winner. Sweden is calling him.

  • I wonder if the esteemed scientist Tim Hunt would be OK with women in the lab if we forced them to cover their bodies and faces in dark clothes and made sure they never looked the male scientists in the eye?

    Or we could just do like the Ultra-Orthodox and make sure women just don't have face-to-face contact with any men who are not family.

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