It’s bad enough that Tim Hunt has a baying mob of witches howling for his blood, now they’re unlimbering the heavy artillery: they are using satire. Exactly like a witch would do.

Frankly, I don’t even know how I managed to become a scientist. I can only name a handful of important women in science, and they are all dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I remember wanting to become a scientist when I was young, but I knew this must be a mistake; as a woman, I was better suited to a career in something more traditionally feminine, like becoming a prostitute or dying in childbirth. I likely only made it to my current position in a well-established lab by using reverse sexism, which is rampant in science.

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Here we go again. Eight Nobel prize winners have come out to defend Tim Hunt.

They warned of a chilling effect on academics’ freedom to speak their minds after Sir Tim was forced to resign his honorary post at University College London amid pressure from social media users.

Sir Andre Geim, of the University of Manchester who shared the Nobel prize for physics in 2010 said that Sir Tim had been “crucified” by ideological fanatics , and castigated UCL for “ousting” him.

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In a letter to the Times, Richard Dawkins protests.

Along with many others, I didn’t like Sir Tim Hunt’s joke, but ‘disproportionate’ would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch-hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness.

Fortunately, I’ve also already written my reply. It’s a simple question.

If you’re one of those people who called this a “witch hunt”, an “Inquisition”, a “lynching” — what would you have people do differently when an esteemed senior scientist gets up to a lectern and says something sexist, or racist, or simply idiotic?

I’m also curious, and have an additional question. How should we reply when someone says something stupid in public about evolution? If a government official were to spout creationist nonsense, for instance, would a full-throated roar of disapproval from the electorate be appropriate, or would that fall into the category of “feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness”? Would you propose that after one thought-leader says “tut, tut”, the rest of us should withdraw to a decorous silence?

Sometimes, these lines are hard to draw, and where we draw them says a lot about the biases of the delineator.

Tim Hunt was chastised by his hosts at the Korean meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists, and he replied with a slightly better apology.

The federation asked for an apology. And got one almost immediately. Hunt wrote that he regretted his “stupid and ill-judged remarks.” He added: “I am mortified to have upset my hosts, which was the very last thing I intended. I also fully accept that the sentiments as interpreted have no place in modern science and deeply apologize to all those good friends who fear I have undermined their efforts to put these stereotypes behind us.”

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Ophelia posted this bad cartoon.

The cartoonist might want to consider reading Nature magazine today.

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I am not a fan of Brendan O’Neill. I think he’s a libertarian ass and under all the pretense, an old-fashioned conservative. He has, of course, decided that Tim Hunt is being persecuted.

The Illiberal Persecution of Tim Hunt
An old guys tells a bad joke and academia descends into a frenzy

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Poor, poor pitiful Tim Hunt. He’s now complaining about his treatment as a victim of the “savage power of Twitter”.

I am finished, he says. I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have become toxic. I have been hung to dry by academic institutes who have not even bothered to ask me for my side of affairs.

He does not make a convincing argument. His wife takes his side; he’s a good cook and has a nice garden; he was just being totally jocular, ironic (which is an odd thing to claim when even in his apology he said he meant it). Oh, and of course, it was just part of his upbringing. He went to a single-sex school in the 1960s, because no one ever escapes the harm done to them in their childhood, unless it’s sexual abuse, in which case they should just grow up and get over it. It’s basically a cry that everyone is being so mean to him…which is a bit ironic, given that he’s relatively wealthy, has a nice home, has international prestige, and has a Nobel prize.

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Nick and Sarah Jensen have announced that they will get a divorce if marriage equality is allowed in Australia, which is simply the most childish, spiteful response to the situation that I’ve heard of yet. It’s like, if stupid people were allowed to marry, I’d have to top Jensen by divorcing my intelligent wife and tearing up my Ph.D.

The logic behind their decision is inane.

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