We are so quick to ostracize people these days, blacklist based on even an accusation or admission of prior guilt. Imagine a university that fired someone with the potential to become the next Feynman or Einstein because of an unfortunate sexual or racial comment. I'm not justifying the comment, but it's an interesting question.

Of course this is not a new idea. Think Wagner, for example, a notorious antisemite. Or consider a utilitarian view. It is to me somewhat alarming, though, the swiftness with which we pass judgment these days, and I think it's worth considering the impact.

But we may also lose the next potential Einstein by NOT firing them, based on victim stories we know this is the kind of behavior that convinces people to leave institutions or even the entire field itself.

When looking at historical figures context is everything. I judge men who sexually harassed women in the 80s way less harshly than men who harass women today, why? Because in the 80s society still told you, 'this is ok, this is normal, feel free' for many forms of sexual harassment. That doesn't exempt them from culpability but given the degree of effort that would have been necessary at the time to understand what was wrong with their actions we should temper our condemnation of them.

The point this leads to is: If Feynman was alive today, sexually harassing women, that's significantly worse than similar behavior in his heyday; making your question hard to give a meaningful answer to.

This is a good point, although I suspect the so-called "victim" here wouldn't have trouble finding gainful employment elsewhere.

Basically we're a bunch of crybabies today.

It's either a good point, or we're all crybabies, not both.

It’s an odd way of trying to make that point. Wouldn’t it be better to just directly say that? It doesn’t seem controversial. A better scenario to contemplate would be the Nazi medical experiments. Absolutely horrific in every way. Suppose they were beneficial to our understanding of some major disease. Should we use the results?

I'd also say we should absolutely use the results in that case. But that's not the hypothetical. I was asking whether to blacklist someone who might make future contributions to humanity based on an accusation is really a reasonable sacrifice.

In an era when there were few women scientists around for someone to harrass, there is little risk employing the harrasser. Now that there are enough women in the field, the harrasser will cause more damage to the scientific output of the organization than he can contribute.

In this more enlightened age, people should call the harrasser out on their behavior before it becomes a big problem, and the harrasser should have enough awareness to stop the damaging behavior, which is not necessary for their work.

The atrocities of the Nazis are not in any way comparable to sexual harassment.

Sir Tim Hunt might be a better comparison. One (possibly) out-of-bounds joke and he's kicked out of science, no matter how bad the results for humanity. Not to mention his students, some of whom are women.

Sir Tim Hunt is a high-profile public person, not merely a scientist.

See these three letters before his name? The ones that spell out S-I-R? Those three letters, along with other titles and positions he held, come with some very tangible benefits that none of use have -- and also some very tangible responsibilities, which, again, aren't bestowed upon everyone else.

He wasn't forced to be Sir Tim Hunt, the VIP, the public speaker at conferences. He accepted the titles, the positions, and the responsibilities that came with them (unlike, say, Grigori Perelman[1], who, by showing the middle finger to the establishment, has also freed himself from any burdens of the sort - or Alexander Grothendieck[2]).

One of the responsibilities of being Sir Tim Hunt is that you can't be a self-titled chauvinistic pig that cracks stupid sexist jokes.

There is an unspoken contract that Sir Tim Hunt violated, and suffered for doing so.

There is absolutely nothing new here. The rules of the society have not changed. Jim Simons[3] was kicked out of his high position in a crypto lab in the 70's for criticizing the Vietnam war in an interview to a small paper (a well-known story that hasn't made it to Wikipedia yet). One (possibly) out-of-bounds remark.

I am only giving examples of very-high-profile mathematicians here, but they are quite representative.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck

[3]

It doesn't appear that there is any consensus that he is a "self-titled chauvinistic pig". And frankly, I'd trust him to babysit my kids before I'd trust most of his detractors. If anything, his handling of the situation makes him even more admirable.

>It doesn't appear that there is any consensus that he is a "self-titled chauvinistic pig".

He literally called himself a chauvinist monster in that joke. Hence self-titled.

My point is that people in his position are held to stricter standards. The standards include carefully choosing what to say.

Sure, he'd make a great babysitter for your kids - he just didn't make a great public person.

I'm not comparing the atrocities of the Nazis to sexual harassment. I don't understand how you can think that I was. I specifically wrote that the scenario that started this thread was hardly a controversial one. I then said a better scenario, that is, one that isn't so easy to know the answer to, would be Nazi medical experiments. Clearly, I'm not in any way comparing Nazi medical experiments to sexual harassment.

That's also a valid question, albeit with a more radical example. But we shouldn't deal in absolutes. To equate someone exposing himself to another people in an inappropriate way to Nazi war crimes is a bit of a stretch, which raises the question "where do we draw the line"? There is no right answer to the question, I suppose.