The professor of the #distractinglysexy fame loses his job

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, I think I was wrong in my initial assessment. I was thinking this was kind of similar to the guy who got fired for a comment some female overheard him make to someone else during a conference, which she then tweeted, and which he never intended for her to hear in the first place. This is not the same thing at all.

This is not someone being hoist for comments he never intended to be public, it is for something he said in a speech TO the public. He can hardly complain or feel like it was not fair that people would have an opinion about comments he made in his role and to journalists. He had a chance to walk them back, and declined - which I guess kudos to him for sticking by his beliefs?

Meri is right, I was wrong.

[crazy canuck]

You do not get to dictate how he should be treated and I hate that we live in a world where this is even a possibility.

I can state with confidence that there is zero possibility that merithyn dictates high level personnel decisions of University College London.  Those decisions are presumably made by the provost and council who are full of equally or nearly equally eminent professionals.  So both you and Dr. Hunt can rest assured that any decisions to can him are being made by people with plenty of fancy degrees, titles, and honors.

But he felt better having told Meri she doesn't get to decide these things.  Let him have his victory of stating the obvious.

[Eddie Teach]

Mozart was a self-centred narcissistic asshole

With a major scat fetish.

[The Brain]

Bee-bap-bap-badam-bam. Bap-bap-badam-bam.

[Barrister]

So basically 'if we are going to put up with your bigoted ass you better be brilliant'?

Yes. Most brilliant, great people were assholes. Michelangelo was a sexist, mysoginistic ogre who rarely if ever showered. Mozart was a self-centred narcissistic asshole. Turing was borderline autistic, unempathetic jerk. I'd rather have them in the world - and give them as much leeway as necessary to work their genius than have mediocre nice guys instead.

Quit making this conversation all about yourself Martinus.

[MadImmortalMan]

So basically 'if we are going to put up with your bigoted ass you better be brilliant'?

Yes. Most brilliant, great people were assholes. Michelangelo was a sexist, mysoginistic ogre who rarely if ever showered. Mozart was a self-centred narcissistic asshole. Turing was borderline autistic, unempathetic jerk. I'd rather have them in the world - and give them as much leeway as necessary to work their genius than have mediocre nice guys instead.

Quit making this conversation all about yourself Martinus.

I thought it was a pretty good post as well. 

[The Larch]

They all has positive things to say about him, and claimed that they were treated very fairly, and were sad that one incident like that would define his career.

It's not going to define his career. Winning a Nobel prize doesn't fall off one's resume even if you spout nonsense around afterwards. I mean, Watson is still remembered for discovering the structure of DNA even after also embarrassing himself in public with controversial statements several times.

[merithyn]

Anyone even know what this guy won the Nobel for?

[HVC]

Anyone even know what this guy won the Nobel for?

gender studies

[LaCroix]

then your complaint is with the companies that fired him rather than those that complained about his actions.

No, my complaint is with the people that create conditions where the employers just want to rid themselves of the headache.  That makes them cowardly, but that doesn't make them the entities that created the headache.

do you think the companies that fired him didn't consider the punishment fitting?

They didn't consider anything other that the cost/benefit of defending the victim of mob justice.

re: your first comment, do you think it's a good idea to remove companies' ability to fire someone for statements he makes in public?

Sometimes I think it's a good idea to remove companies' ability to give in to coercion.  That often makes the coercion itself go away, when those that perpetrate it know that the legal situation of the target will not allow them to succeed.

where's the coercion here? was a gun pointed to these organizations' heads - no, there was no gun, and this wasn't "coercion." this was a situation where companies chose to fire someone because he made public comments that resulted in backlash. there's no difference between what this guy said and someone publicly promoting rape. the only difference is that your personal opinions find the latter horrific but not the former. that's on you. like i said in my first post in this thread, if you think someone should never be fired for any statement they make, OK. that's consistent. but if you think it's OK for someone to be fired for a statement they make, then, well, you're gonna see situations like this.

i think the real problem here is that society has changed to the point where it's no longer acceptable to say X when twenty years ago saying X was fine, and some don't like that. things change, and what's acceptable to say now isn't gonna be acceptable to say twenty years from now. that's always been the case.

[DGuller]

where's the coercion here?

Coercion is when the victim's employer is identified, attacked for employing the victim, and is spammed by the lynch mob.  At that point it's rational for employer to wash their hands of the employee regardless of anything else.

[Martinus]

Anyone even know what this guy won the Nobel for?

Are you now going to question the validity or relevance of his Nobel prize? Wow. 

[Martinus]

where's the coercion here?

Coercion is when the victim's employer is identified, attacked for employing the victim, and is spammed by the lynch mob.  At that point it's rational for employer to wash their hands of the employee regardless of anything else.

Yeah, he wasn't pressed to resign after he said these things at the conference - it was only after a torrent of tweets with calls for him to go being made on social media.

[katmai]

Anyone even know what this guy won the Nobel for?

Are you now going to question the validity or relevance of his Nobel prize? Wow. 

Says the guy who said dismiss the Peace Prize winners.

[Gups]

Anyone even know what this guy won the Nobel for?

He shared the medicine prize with two others - research in cell cycle regulators