Well, it turned out from leaked transcripts that Tim Hunt was making a self deprecating joke. No apologies yet. And of course no application of the principle of charity.
Two things. First, one really needs to be independent to open one’s mouth and avoid falling prey to a bunch of mob misinterpreting what you are saying. Misinterpretation is iniquitous and independence is the only shield –financial independence is not necessary, working a minimum wage job provides protection. As we saw on this page from the people I zapped there is a high density of militants with some localized brain damage who are oblivious to any reasoning, attacking people on things about which they actually agree.
Second, the Tim Hunt episode effectively would not have happened in the U.S. where we take the first amendment and free speech very, very seriously. There have been only few cases of academics losing jobs and these took place for technicalities (as in the Salaita case).
To explain how one can be misinterpreted by the press, I once presented our precautionary principle in the UK, with 5-7 newspapers and many bloggers calling me “climate denier”, which was the exact opposite of my position. I struck back but the only solution is to not depend on the press. Again, the UK press is vastly more unprofessional as these things do not happen easily here. I thank God every day I live in the U.S.
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Guardian link (my letter):
http://www.theguardian.com/…/climate-change-taleb-tax-conse…
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Tim Hunt link
http://www.independent.co.uk/…/richard-dawkins-demands-apol…

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