Thursday, June 11, 2015

Correctness Run Amok


“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.” --Tim Hunt, holder of the Nobel Prize in medicine, who for this no longer holds his position at the University.

Agree with his position or not, your choice, it is a sorry world in which a man of his stature cannot express his opinion on social issues without losing his job.  Also, he admits he is a "chauvinist pig" so what is the problem?

6 comments:

Secondary Roads said...

Perhaps the reason he lost his job was intolerance. The university absolutely will not tolerate intolerance.

vanilla said...

Chuck, I believe yours is an accurate assessment, and the standard that applies all too universally these days.

Grace said...

This man has the moral stature of a 12-year old. I wonder what the 'girls' in his lab think of him or maybe they are laughing their butts off about "they fall in love with you". For a 'smart' man, he is a social moron - did he really think he could say that out loud, in public and not get blow-back? How stupid is he? Should he have been fired? Maybe they should just confine him to his cave.

vanilla said...

Grace, clearly any number of doctorates to his name did not proscribe his utterance of stupid things. My point is that the right to say stupid stuff should not be revoked. I did not relate the funny part of the story which is that the man is 72 years of age. Perhaps it is time.

Lin said...

Gone are the days when you can say stuff like that and it stays within the boundaries of the room/department/company. Today's litigious world has sent words and thoughts like these around the world. It's both a blessing and a curse.

I'm sure he has no idea why he lost his job. Am I correct?

vanilla said...

Lin, I don't know whether or not he is that clueless, still I think that freedom of speech should include the right to mouth inanities. Anyway, the part I really thought was a hoot was a 72-year old man talking about the "girls" in the lab falling in love with him. Yeah, right.