4 ms·
It depends on when in his life this hypothetical is supposed to have happened. Given the era he did his important work it’d have to be rape that he was accused
by sykh 8y ago
It depends on when in his life this hypothetical is supposed to have happened. Given the era he did his important work it’d have to be rape that he was accused of to have had a major impact on his employment as a professor. Sexual harassment was rampant back then. Fortunately times have changed.
What is the purpose of the question? Is there some broader point you are trying to make? The only thing that I can guess is that you are trying to point out that people can make great contributions to human knowledge and also be crappy people in certain respects. I don’t think anyone denies this as being true.
EDIT: If it happened at the beginning of his career then he possibly wouldn't have become a professor and thus not have made his discoveries. If it happened at the end of his career then the discoveries would have already been made and hence nothing lost.
- ardent_uno 8y agoI 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.
- alephnullz 8y agoWe 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.
- Magmatic 8y agoBut 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.
- alephnullz 8y agoThis 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.
- corinroyal 8y agoIt's either a good point, or we're all crybabies, not both.
- sykh 8y agoIt’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?
- alephnullz 8y agoThat'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.
- alephnullz 8y agoI'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.
- lern_too_spel 8y agoIn 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.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- modbait 8y agoThe 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.