Thursday, October 15, 2015

Famous astronomer resigns


Lubos Motl has a rant about this.

I do not know the details, but this seems weak:





The NY Times draws this comparison:


Update: Lumo posts a 2nd rant.


  1. Roger,
    I have actually done some digging on this Dr. Marcy scandal. The way it was hyped by Ethan Siegel I thought Dr. Marcy had seriously hurt, raped, beaten, or blackmailed some women. Sexual harassment sounds so vile ....and It turns out he may have....hugged a few of them, and kissed a few others.
    Umm. Wow. That is ....uh, truly terrible.

    Perspective please. Getting shot or physically raped at school is traumatic. . Getting kissed and maybe hugged....considerably less so. Awkward and embarrassing, yes, but survivable with no ill effects. I should know, I speak from direct experience.

    Having been forcibly kissed by girls trying to infect me with cooties back in grade school, I can relate to the absolute horror those girls must have much agony and pain...sigh. In college a girl I wasn't interested in once kissed me catching me by surprise. She also almost died of embarrassment when I told her outright "I'm really not interested in you like that, don't do that" before I almost passed out from the trauma of sexual harassment. How on earth did I ever survive? I was somehow able keep a friendship with this person once the awkward wore off a little. Turns out, awkward moments and social embarrassment can't kill you. Who knew?

    I do actually pity young girls at Berkeley. I can see why they are so confused. They have been told they are every bit as strong and capable as a man, that they should flaunt their sexual charms openly, yet they are encouraged to be immature fragile timid snowflakes that must be protected by social justice inspired parenti loci which considers young women as virtuous maidens and judges young men guilty by gender. The young women want to live among young men in co-ed dorms...and not have guys treating them like...well, gals. What fresh new hell is this? Camille Paglia had these conflicted idiots down pat to a science over a decade ago. Sex and relations between genders are messy, have always been messy, and will continue to be messy, and if you want to play with the boys as equals, you aren't going to achieve it by trying to neuter all the boys, or turn them into trained dogs.

    In regards to how the faculty behave, read some history. Even the kings of old knew that genius and superior talent gets more leeway in regards to social conventions and norms. You knew you might have hired the best painter in the country to paint your portrait, but he would be trying to bugger your page boy...this is an old dilemma. You would think universities knew this as well: If you wish to find people who can think outside the box or have exceptional ability, you will have to make exceptions and accommodate some behavior outside of the box as well. If you are looking for zealous adherents to PC Emily Post to populate your faculty with, much boring mediocrity will ensue...and not much else.

    Berkeley will be a wonderful experiment, to see if confusing skin tone ratios, racial grievance laundry lists, and gender identity quotas with actual diversity of thought and ability will produce anything but more complaints of inequality. It certainly won't accomplish more science or make discoveries. If it weren't for the fact that Berkeley is publically funded, I'd wish them well in their descent into lunacy as they chase their hurt feelings around in circles.

  2. This is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt.

    I guess that the people who forced Marcy out think that they needed to do this in order to make a public statement that the field of Astronomy welcomes women.

    They might get the opposite impression. Here is a field where someone supposedly misbehaved for 20 years, everyone supported him, until they suddenly turn on him, and gang up to ruin his career. Sounds like a horrible career choice to me.

    In any healthy profession, minor misbehavior is prompted by minor action to correct it. Waiting 20 years and then destroying him is the worst way to handle it.