The great man is still on the job.
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins
Tim Hunt. Eight Nobel scientists condemn “lynch mob”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4475398.ece … “Chilling effect on . . . academic freedom” #ReinstateTimHunt
There is no lynch mob, not even in scare quotes. Tim Hunt hasn’t been harmed. He hasn’t been beaten or stabbed or dragged behind a truck or thrown in a river or hanged from a tree. He hasn’t lost a job. He lost honorary positions, and respect.
On the other hand Dawkins later tweeted a different thought:
Young woman at Doctor Who Cares asked me whether she should go into science. Yes yes yes yes YESS. Please do. We need more women scientists.
That’s nice, but it’s also very easy. He says yes yes yes, but at the same time he calls women in science who protest against Tim Hunt’s public contempt for them a “lynch mob.” He calls them baying witch-hunters. He says yes women should go into science, but he also says no women should not publicly protest public contempt from senior male scientists. He says if they do he will call them names, not just on Twitter but also in letters to the Times.
Those are arduous conditions, and they’re unfair. “You can work here, we want you to work here, but you have to put up with a hostile work environment. We want you to work here, but only if you smile politely when we up here at the top feel like throwing some shit down at you. We want you to work here, but only if you accept that we consider you our inferiors. We want you to work here, but if you talk back we will use our power to make your lives shitty.”
Put it this way: “We need more women scientists” and “#ReinstateTimHunt” don’t go together.