Nobel laureate forced out of studies after making joke about women

[Kwak]

You're right, he's actually clarified that he meant exactly what he said.

His clarification where he says women are important in science you mean, *right after the first part*?

Sorry you didn't find it funny, but not only is the joke anchored in a real and known gender difference but it certainly wasn't equivalent to anti-Semitism. You just went Godwin's law up in here.

It wasn't a joke, unless your idea of humor is rooted in bigotry. That last bit of course is cute, but I hope that most people here understand the different between metaphor and comparison.

It was a joke, *if that's how he meant it*; it doesn't mater that it was not what you personally consider humorous, as it is plainly obvious to all but the deliberately obtuse that he meant the first in a way to satirise his own attitudes, the second as an encouragement to persist in spite of attitudes such as the one he satirically characterised.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Their RIGHT to fire him is not something I dispute. An employer should be able to hire and fire people for whatever reason they want. I just don't see how it's a sensible (or decent) thing to do given the situation.

Why exactly is 'feelings' suddenly important to the equation?

What's hypocritical about that? Also, your analogy lacks the irony of the original incident. He called them thin-skinned, and they reacted in a thin-skinned manner. Calling an officer an egotistical pig would only be similarly ironic if the officer then did something egotistical and/or piglike.

The hypocrisy is that, because people are defending his right to work according to their feelings, but then concluding that feelings people have to wishing his departure (for a sexist diatribe and a non-pology) is somehow an 'overreaction'. Or did you miss that facet? If I said the same thing, every business I've worked for or run would have me fired, or possibly brought up with a warning from a union/industry liaison.


Guy got fired for being a dick. End of story.

Did you just call old people "dinosaurs"? How offensive. Lol Stop going on like an ageist "fuckwit".

Dinosaur, someone who fails to evolve to the modern workplace. Guess what!? Every older person who still works does it. Guess what? So will I, you, and your friends! Has nothing to do with age (thanks for assuming that), it has everything to do with refusing to accept the modern workplace.

If it was poor teamwork skills and inability to coordinate that got him sacked that comment would be relevant.

Which is the modern laboratory. And no, his job was about image ... and guess what? He's not good at image.

It's a pointless sacrificial bloodletting. Whenever an organization gets involved in a scandal that threatens their image they have to fire the people most closely involved and publicly disavow them, regardless of what history they have, and then return to business as usual.

Whjich has been a business practice since he, and HIS predecessors, also laboured under. If he didn't learn his lesson in 40 years of employment, then sucks to be him.

 

[Kwak]

It's not an excuse, it's the thing he said immediately after which puts it into context. You not 'believing' that is persisting to deny reality to justify your view, and frankly, childish.

 

[Kwak]

I am trying.
You said you don't have to 'believe his excuse after he got nailed' - I assume you mean when he said it was a joke after the outcry against him. But the actual words of the speech, the thing that everyone is arguing about, show that he provably did mean it as a joke, in the way he took a satirical view of his past relationships with women in the lab, as a preface to saying that women should persist in that environment. It may be poor humour or a misjudged way to encourage women, but it is not just an empty excuse - it is what actually happened proven by the words of the address.
So unless you're referring to another controversial comment that he tried to pass off as a joke, he was not making an excuse that can be believed or disbelieved, he is making a true statement that can be checked objectively against the evidence and found true.

 

[Lightknight]

See, the problem is that you're only really sourcing some of your claims, then trying to pretend you've sourced them all. Nobody is debating that women cry more, your assertion was very specific about WHY they cry.

What? Emotional/stress tears contain prolactin as opposed to other tears which do not. Women have 60% higher levels of the hormone in their system (which is also associated with lactation, fyi) and are known to cry in situations of stress far more than males at comparable stress levels. We've known this since Frey's study in the 1980's which have only be verified in subsequent studies. Women also cry far more during their periods and when they have children which also happen to be times where they have higher levels of stress.

Are you making the claim that women do not cry due to stress? What sort of evidence are you willing to present to conflict with my claims and the current working theory of, again, all of academia on the subject. Medical and Psychological arenas agree with this being the cause.

I'm unsure what your goal is here. Do you think I'm calling women weak or incompetent at their jobs? I'm saying that this is a quality women have for better or worse. I personally believe that crying is an excellent natural method of reducing stress and so is a biological advantage that women have over men. I actually find it fascinating. But if you think you're somehow defending or championing women here, you're not. Your denying a natural process that is unique to women that they could instead be celebrating where beneficial and mitigating damage where not. Denial (unfounded denial) is the basest of responses in understanding ourselves.

The rest is honestly not very interesting, and naturally has nothing to do with this discussion at all.

If you don't find something interesting, don't post. Derision of discussion of subject matter you don't like is covered under the "Don't be a jerk" clause in the site's code of conduct. Kudos on not crossing the line though, you're really good at subtextual insults in a way I suspect will never warrant so much as a warning for you. It's a very delicate line to walk and you're doing it splendidly. Alternately, there's the possible that you don't know how you're coming across which would itself be an impressive feat.

It's all either a reflection of your understanding of the issue, or extremely dishonest.

Or, and this is my favorite possibility, perhaps your understanding of the issue is what is severely lacking or you're the on that is being extremely dishonest. You've presented no evidence, none. If my position is the one that's in line with professional researchers then you may want to reevaluate which one of us is ignorant of the topic.

What is your goal here? To claim that women don't disproportionately cry at work? To claim that women don't cry in response to stress at a far higher likelihood than men?

Or are you just taking offense to my claim that it is involuntary and therefore usually non-manipulative even though it can have its benefits? Generally events which are caused by higher levels of hormones in the system aren't due to cold calculation of social perception and are instead biological which is what leads me to believe that the crying is mostly involuntary.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm NOT talking

Yes you are. I can clearly see that you're talking (posting) so why would you say that you're not talking? Surely there's no additional context in your post following that phrase that would have elaborated your meaning, right? You said it so you must have meant it and no additional words could possibly paint that in a different light...

The context of the scientist's second paragraph explains the reason for the first. He wasn't calling women cry babies. He was calling the question posed to him ridiculous. He was ridiculing the sort of man who would think that way and actively called them bad people. His comment is more like "OF COURSE women played an important role" and he is encouraging women to pursue a career in it despite anyone who would say that kind of silly thing. This has been an incredibly misplaced attempt at a lynch mob to strike out at sexism against a man who was decidedly doing the opposite. Holy Poe's Law Batman...

 

[Lightknight]

SNIP

A glance shows absolutely no citations, so nothing new.

I already cited Frey's 1980 study and the 2011 study published in the Journal of Research in Personality by Dr. Lauren Bylsma.

I'm unsure what you want. Do you want me to go into the studies themselves and just copy and paste their results? Is that it? That you can't be bothered to click on the links I provide to the full studies that already list their overall findings in the abstract and have been regularly cited by the supporting articles I presented?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears#Types

" Tears brought about by emotions have a different chemical make-up than those for lubrication; emotional tears contain more of the protein-based hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and leucine enkephalin (a natural painkiller) than basal or reflex tears."

If you follow the citation of that phrase you'll see it refers back to the Frey study in 1980 [http://www.scienceiq.com/Facts/ScienceOfTears.cfm] where he discovered that the content of emotional tears (crying when emotionally upset or stressed) is different from other tears in that it contains a lot more hormones like prolactin which women have 60% more of after puberty (that puberty comment is important because prepubescent boys and girls have the same amount of prolactin and cry the same amount of time).

The composition of tears and prolactin's impact on them is universally accepted. Article after article citing Frey's 1980 study time and time again as well as newer studies confirming his findings. We know that the body releases these hormones when stressed.

You are literally arguing against one of the most firmly proven biological facts that science has to offer simply because of how frequently it has been confirmed and how readily it can be confirmed. Is your insistence that I haven't cited anything just you being unwilling to click links? If so, get over it.

 

[EvilRoy]

Snip

Dude, you are putting way to much effort into this. Normally I just read and think when it comes to this stuff, but right here I need to sound off. Not only is Dynast clearly not even reading your responses, but he hasn't actually contributed in any way to the thread yet. Every response thus far has ranged from one sentence to about a paragraph, but is typically devoid of any content at all.

He seems to be attempting to take a position of superiority and 'grade' your response, but you getting an 'A' isn't going to help you, and I've already read all the posts and sources and I can tell doing the ridiculous little bits of extra credit for him isn't really going to expand on anything in particular.

 

[EvilRoy]

@EvilRoy: The irony of claiming that I've added nothing to a discussion while all you're offering is invective, isn't lost on me at least.

I'm offering advice to Light. I've seen him post on the forum for long enough to know that, although he tends to be overly verbose, his points are typically made clearly and backed up - and he has way too much patience for this kind of stuff for his own good.

Consider the self-quoted portion of your post. Re-reading the thread, this single quote is the first and only time you have ever actually explained what you felt was lacking in Lights arguments. It took you seven posts and three days to make it there. Since then you have similarly offered nothing, even an explanation of what specifically in his sources is failing to support the 'why', and clearly out of hand refused to read whole posts he has written to you on the basis that you didn't see blue text.

I'm simply advising Light that attempting to finish out this conversation is at best not worth it, and at worst an act of self flagellation.

 

[EvilRoy]

It seems that you still have a more careful reading to do then, and this recent post does reinforce just how pointlessly hostile that other was. Did you think that you actually invented passive aggression?!

I could quote each post of yours, and explain why they fail to actually communicate at all what specifically you felt Light was failing to demonstrate, but we both know that is a waste of time.

As to my hostility, I can't really deny that it is pointless, but I do feel it is necessary to point out that it is in no way passive. This is absolutely how I feel about you, after never having a conversation with you and you being here about a week. You have broken several records, and I feel as though I must somehow acknowledge it to you. This conversation serves that purpose.

 

[Lightknight]

Snip

Dude, you are putting way to much effort into this. Normally I just read and think when it comes to this stuff, but right here I need to sound off. Not only is Dynast clearly not even reading your responses, but he hasn't actually contributed in any way to the thread yet. Every response thus far has ranged from one sentence to about a paragraph, but is typically devoid of any content at all.

He seems to be attempting to take a position of superiority and 'grade' your response, but you getting an 'A' isn't going to help you, and I've already read all the posts and sources and I can tell doing the ridiculous little bits of extra credit for him isn't really going to expand on anything in particular.

I must concede that you are right and I am wasting far too much time with nothing to show for it. I was trying to get a better gauge of the poster. Was hoping to get them to expose some bit of actual knowledge on the topic. But the responses are the same each time, void of information or specificity. I figured at worst I would benefit from researching the topic more thoroughly but the more I research the more they just keep saying the same thing. So with no benefit, I'll take your advice.

Judging from your posts below this one I'm quoting, I'll return the favor and advise you do the same.

Thank you for stepping in. I do appreciate it. I was unsure if I was the only person seeing this.

 

[Lightknight]

Forgive me for a moment, EvilRoy, but this is the first genuine response I've gotten from Dynast here in a long time and it includes an actual complaint that I can directly respond to. Shame the first real response also includes a poorly veiled insult.

No, from what I've seen here you probably share the views and general perceptions of a few dozen (mostly) guys. I doubt it's a coincidence that you all spend what appears to be a lot of time and energy in a mostly closed circle of cultural and ideological reinforcement. In my experience that's an indication of aimlessness and hostility, but then what do I know.

I just spent a "lot of time and energy" with you trying to get some sort of information out of you to learn from or to engage in dialogue. So what does that make you then? A member of my mythical closed circle? Thanks for being presumptive and insulting, though.

All of this has certainly served to distract from the gulf between your essential claim of women as manipulative criers, and the reality that women cry more than men according to research.

Hahaha, what? Every post from the very start has been me explicitly stating that women do not cry more voluntarily. I specifically said, multiple times, that it is not for manipulative purposes because it is involuntary and I made this statement from my very post here. Do some women cry to manipulate? Sure, and people also lie to manipulate.

Why in the world would you arrive at the belief that I'm somehow saying women do it to be manipulative when I'm citing works that show women do it because of biological differences like hormones and the shape of the tear ducts that they have no control over? A biological difference is the opposite of cold and calculated manipulation. More importantly, why would you come to that conclusion when I took specific care to say that it is involuntary? But hey, I'll leave you with one of several quotes of me in which I tell you directly that it ISN'T manipulation in this thread. So if your beef all this time has been because you thought I was calling women manipulative then... *sigh*. Everyone's time wasted for want of you actually reading posts before responding to them.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.877096-Nobel-laureate-forced-out-of-studies-after-making-joke-about-women?page=11#22089868

" It isn't a manipulative one, since it is involuntary, but it is something that triggers an emotional response from the person causing the tears. "

How very disappointing. To think, all you had to do was tell me that you didn't believe women were manipulative criers and I could have agreed with you. Instead you had to drag me down your rabbit hole thinking I was some sort of imaginary stereotype of whatever group you're on a crusade to combat. Have fun with that.

 

[EvilRoy]

Judging from your posts below this one I'm quoting, I'll return the favor and advise you do the same.

Thank you for stepping in. I do appreciate it. I was unsure if I was the only person seeing this.

Yeah I know, I let myself get pulled in too often despite the lurker status I claim I have - my post count is proof enough of that. Its just some times and some people are too much to ignore. At any rate I'm still going to claim victory because it seems an actual real statement got squeezed out, even if it is just basically proof that: no, he wasn't actually reading any of your posts.