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I'll preface this by saying that I obviously don't support anti-LGBT+ rhethoric, no matter when it happened. But without digging into the claims themselves, I'
by scrollaway 5y ago
I'll preface this by saying that I obviously don't support anti-LGBT+ rhethoric, no matter when it happened.
But without digging into the claims themselves, I'd invite people to look at this article critically, and pay careful attention to the weasel words. Specifically:
- "Some astronomers argue…"
- "NASA is investigating…"
- "Many people have…"
- "Many are keen…"
I'm not familiar with the field of astronomy, but to me this article is just full of red flags that it's trying to make a big explosive story out of what amounts to a few people annoyed about Webb's past, four of which think he shouldn't have a telescope named after him and circulating a petition; and NASA doing its due-diligence and launching an investigation rather than ignoring the petition outright.
Or, to put it another way, clickbait. A non-story until something concrete actually comes up. Something to keep people busy, and yelling out "just don't name anything after anyone because chances are they are not flawless".
- azinman2 5y agoIt claims 1250 signatures, which is more than “a few”.
- scrollaway 5y agoI'd wager it isn't. Depends a lot on who the names are (the article does claim there's some relevant ones in there). I'd probably sign such a petition if the evidence called for it. With an easy enough CTA, you could gather 1250 signatures just off that HN post alone. But 1250 signatures is very little. This one (https://www.change.org/p/eight-years-later-it-s-still-too-darn-hot-to-learn-in-denver-public-schools https://www.change.org/p/eight-years-later-it-s-still-too-da...) has 6500 signatures on change.org calling for some air conditioning in Denver public schools. The JWST is on a completely different scale than those schools.