Sexist scientist "apologizes" for conference remarks, says he was being "honest"

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it is honestly time for him to leave whichever leadership posts he holds and free up some grant money for other peoples research projects, was his unstated subtext, I assume.

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In his defense, he was being honest by stating what he really believes. And honestly? Christ, what an asshole.

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I hear his next project is on the requiste use of two-wheeled locomotion devices by gilled aquatic species.

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I’d heard it was researching backwards tracking in public arenas.

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This sounds like a reason Hunt should stay out of the laboratory.

Sorry, just being honest.

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So as the kids say now days, “sorry, not sorry”?
What a dick.

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The universe almost had this one perfect, IF his first name was Micheal…

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His wife is a professor of immunology, and I’m guessing he’ll be sleeping on the couch.

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Hunt’s wife, Mary Collins, is a professor of immunology at University College, London. She is active in leadership roles encouraging gender equality in the sciences at the Infection and Immunology Division of UCL. I wonder what her take on her husband’s statements are. I wonder how disruptive her ~150 academic publications have been to science.

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Male chauvanist? Not at all - he’s honestly admitting that he has an internalised issue with female colleagues and suggesting that his lab should be all-female. What else could being in favour of single-sex labs but not standing in the way of women mean? Next time he should stop assuming that all men have the same problem as him, but it’s quite a radical step for someone in his position to suggest.

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What that tells me is that she would have accomplished even more without that millstone dragging her down.

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“Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

But I guess he provided a public service by opening it. No one, not even Nobel winners, are immune from misogynistic idiocy.

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When asked what the Nobel laureates had in common, Fermi–a hardass if there ever was one–thought for a moment, then answered, “Nothing. Not even intelligence.”

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This is close to what I was wondering, which is how many female scientists has he harassed or discriminated against during his career?

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What an idiot.

It’s a good reminder that a scientist is an authority on their own specialised field, and nothing else.

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In the 21st Century, honesty will be punished, and cowardice rewarded.

(And everyone in Baltimore will look like Ernest Borgnine.)

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To be fair, children of any sort would be a distraction to adults trying to accomplish science tasks.

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A more benign example:

Or take Boltzmann. Giving a course in Advanced Ideal Gases, he peppered his lectures with involved calculus, which he worked out quickly and casually in his head. He had that kind of
head. His students had so much trouble trying to puzzle out the math by ear that they couldn’t keep up with the lectures, and they begged Boltzmann to work out his equations on the blackboard.
Boltzmann apologized and promised to be more helpful in the future. At the next lecture he began, “Gentlemen, combining Boyle’s Law with the Law of Charles, we arrive at the equation pv = po vo (1 + at). Now, obviously, if aSb = f (x) dx÷(a), then pv = RT and vS f (x,y,z) dV = 0. It’s as simple as two plus two equals four.” At this point Boltzman remembered his promise. He turned to the
blackboard, conscientiously chalked 2 + 2 = 4, and then breezed on, casually doing the complicated calculus in his head.

–from The Men Who Murdered Mohammed by Alfred Bester

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Same excuse puts women in burkas. :hankey:

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