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If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

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Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#11

Post by modbait »

sykh wrote: post #6
ardent_uno wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point they are trying to make is that we should be careful to not completely erase someone because of crimes they may commit, sexual or otherwise.

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?

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.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#12

Post by sykh »

modbait wrote: post #11
sykh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#14

Post by hkmurakami »

alephnullz wrote: post #7
ardent_uno wrote: post #2

Hopefully not. In the heat of the moment certain people would have thought it necessary to disregard everything he said, but over time cooler heads would remember that a person is not a monolith. We can appreciate the good and dislike the bad.

Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his clear talents as an actor. I wouldn't call Spacey's work life-changing, but it does bring a level of satisfaction and happiness to a number of people. And yet we'll now be deprived of that satisfaction. I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, positive contributions, but in the current politically charged environment we seem to…

Or Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt's situation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hunt#Controversy_at_WCSJ

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#15

Post by neilk »

And in the other timeline, they're saying "Phew! Can you imagine what would have happened if we hadn't taken discrimination, bias, and harassment seriously back in the 1960s and 1970s? We would never have had the brilliance of Ricarda Feynmann or Jamal Watson."

Seriously though, I think Feynmann would have figured it out and adapted. Some say he was notably nonsexist when it came to teaching or talking physics, but horribly sexist when it came to everything else. Maybe he could just move some of that from one column to another.

Interventions should be appropriate. People are complicated. There are some high profile cases (usually involving "Twitter activism") that collapse all that complexity, which may be good for awareness or motivating institutions, but it's often bad for justice.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#16

Post by Magmatic »

alephnullz wrote: post #5
ardent_uno wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point they are trying to make is that we should be careful to not completely erase someone because of crimes they may commit, sexual or otherwise.

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 c…

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.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#17

Post by romwell »

alephnullz wrote: post #7
ardent_uno wrote: post #2

Hopefully not. In the heat of the moment certain people would have thought it necessary to disregard everything he said, but over time cooler heads would remember that a person is not a monolith. We can appreciate the good and dislike the bad.

Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his clear talents as an actor. I wouldn't call Spacey's work life-changing, but it does bring a level of satisfaction and happiness to a number of people. And yet we'll now be deprived of that satisfaction. I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, positive contributions, but in the current politically charged environment we seem to…

>Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his clear talents as an actor.

You seem to be surprised that a person in the business of selling his public image can't sell it successfully once that image has been irreparably tarnished. (You are aware that popular actors are celebrities, and what they do off screen matters, right?)

> I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, positive contributions, but in the current politically charged environment we seem to be acting before we consider that.

Where's the evidence for that? It's always a business decision. Spacey has been discarded because it is profitable to do so.

What a surprise, pissing off a that contains has a negative impact on your career as a public person. Who would have thunk?

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#18

Post by alephnullz »

romwell wrote: post #17
alephnullz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his clear talents as an actor. I wouldn't call Spacey's work life-changing, but it does bring a level of satisfaction and happiness to a number of people. And yet we'll now be deprived of that satisfaction. I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, positive contributions, but in the current politically charged environment we seem to…

>Can we? It's not looking likely that Kevin Spacey may work again, despite his clear talents as an actor. You seem to be surprised that a person in the business of selling his public image can't sell it successfully once that image has been irreparably tarnished. (You are aware that popular actors are celebrities, and what they do off screen matters, right?) > I'm saying that horrible people can make meaningful, posi…

Don't agree "profitable to do so." Where are your statistics to back up that claim?

These aren't arguments; they're hypotheses. "Pissing off" huh? Because a few jerkoffs Tweet they're upset doesn't mean most of America cares. That's the problem.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#19

Post by alephnullz »

Magmatic wrote: post #16
alephnullz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

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…

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.

Re: If Feynman were accused of sexual harassment, would we have lost his insights?

#20

Post by romwell »

modbait wrote: post #11
sykh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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]

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