4 ms·
He clearly was an exceptional scientist, but also likely an a*hole. Also unfortunately when people get older, many people's negative qualities are amplified. Th
by sega_sai 1y ago
He clearly was an exceptional scientist, but also likely an a*hole. Also unfortunately when people get older, many people's negative qualities are amplified. That seem to have happened with Watson and has tarnished his legacy.
- kulahan 1y agoWho cares? Lots of assholes have done lots of great things. Some of the most important people in history have been assholes.
- edmundsauto 1y agoI care. His legacy is tarnished by being a bad human being, when it is pretty easy to be a decent person. It’s worth recognizing the accomplishment without lauding the person. Especially when the accomplishment is built on basically stolen/unacknowledged work. I’d rather have more Rosalynd Franklin in the world than more James Watson.
- jojobas 1y agoThe work was given to him by Wilkins who was in his right to do it.
- peterfirefly 1y agoIt was Gosling's photo. Ask yourself why we talk so much about Franklin and so little about Gosling. Perhaps the world is, in fact, NOT as discriminatory against women as you think. (There is also plenty of evidence that Franklin could be quite unpleasant. If that tarnishes Watson, then it certainly also tarnishes her. What is good for the gander is good for the goose.)
- soulofmischief 1y agoHow unpleasant, exactly? Watson was an outspoken racist whose remarks led to him losing most of his connections and opportunities, to the point where he had to auction off his Nobel prize in order to survive.
- kulahan 1y agoBut he wasn’t a bad human being. He did things so great they completely outweigh anything you’ve ever done. At the very least, he’s a much better human than you. If we accepted peoples’ completely biased views of what makes a human “good”, that’s how I’d respond. But we don’t, which is why that would be a ridiculous response - just as ridiculous as pretending that being a meanie-head makes you a “bad person”.
- Teever 1y agoBecause there are lots of people who do great things who aren't assholes. We as a society should prioritize valourzing the non-assholes who do great things over the assholes who do great things.
- bdangubic 1y agowhy?
- Teever 1y agoCollective action to dissuade assholes from being assholes is a net positive for everyone. The less assholes you have to deal with in your day to day affairs the better off you are.
- jojobas 1y agoThere's no dissuading someone from being an asshole.
- bdangubic 1y agoyup! and I love they are around and celebrated as that helps weed out people not worthy of your time better than most other things
- DonHopkins 1y agoApparently not. Which is why we should call them out instead of whitewashing them.
- hollerith 1y agoBy the time you start advocating for "collective action", you should have defined what the goal of the action is a lot more precisely than "dissuade assholes from being assholes" because a social movement with an ambiguous goal is a menace to society: there is a reason no one want another witch hunt. If the goal of the collective action is to cancel anyone who (like Watson did) asserts that one race of people is on average less intelligence than another race, then say so.
- dyauspitr 1y agoA lot of people care. Love his work, hate the person, feel obligated to rightfully demonize him, not his work.
- ecoled_ame 1y agodemonizing anyone shouldn’t be done. it makes the demonizer demonic.
- dyauspitr 1y agoHe did that all by himself.
- DonHopkins 1y agoYou know you're just virtue signaling that you're demonic yourself with that statement, hypocritically telling somebody not to do something that you're doing yourself. Such childish playground logic exuberantly deployed in the pursuit of defending an unrepentant flaming racist asshole. Do you always get so triggered when people call out racists that you're compelled to reflexively leap to their defense for some reason? "I know you are but what am I" was funny when Pee-Wee Herman said it ironically and comedically, but not when you do.
- ecoled_ame 11mo agono, i’m just helping a guy out who’s being mean online.
- sriram_malhar 1y agoPerhaps I should be repentant calling Pol Pot a demonic evil? /s
- ecoled_ame 11mo agowhy is it on u to call him demonic evil?
- speed_spread 1y agoThose great things were accomplished _despite_ them being assholes and often would have been accomplished by the next person in line anyway who would have just happened not to make an ego trip out of it.
- InfiniteRand 1y agoI think if he had died at 50 his reputation would be much much better, although he is certainly not unique in that regard