Nobel scientist is forced to resign after calling women in labs a distraction

What was meant as a jolly comment was no such thing to the humor-deprived Left.  Like me, he is in his early 70s so comes from a time when jollity was safer.  I don't think I would much like being young today

A Nobel winning British scientist has quit over his claim that women are a distraction in the laboratory.

Sir Tim Hunt had outraged feminists by saying: ‘Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.’

And last night University College London announced the 72-year-old father of two had resigned from his position as honorary professor.

It had emerged earlier that Sir Tim was speaking from personal experience when he suggested same-sex laboratories would be a good idea to stop colleagues falling in love.

For he met his wife, Professor Mary Collins, 56, while directing her biochemistry studies at Cambridge University. At the time she was dating a fellow student, Bret Collins, who she married in 1981.

A source told the Mail last night that Sir Tim at Cambridge was ‘well known for liking women, and they seemed to like him’.

He added: ‘After Cambridge Bret and Mary moved to London to do Phds, his was in a different area of science, and she stayed in touch with Tim, visiting him in Cambridge.

‘In about 1982 she went off to visit Tim at Woods Hole in America, where he was doing the research that led to his Nobel prize. When she came back she was full of remorse – and admitted she’d slept with Tim there. She also said she’d slept with him before she and Bret got married.

The university said: ‘We can confirm that Sir Tim Hunt has today resigned from his position as honorary professor with the UCL faculty of life sciences, following comments he made about women in science at the World Conference of Science Journalists on 9 June.

‘UCL was the first university in England to admit women students on equal terms to men, and the university believes that this outcome is compatible with our commitment to gender equality.’

Her husband, who won the 2001 Nobel for medicine, insisted his remarks were ‘light-hearted, ironic comment’ that had been ‘interpreted deadly seriously’. He told the BBC: ‘I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.

‘I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I’m really, really sorry I caused any offence, that’s awful. I certainly didn’t mean that. I just meant to be honest.’

But leading female scientists criticised Sir Tim.

SOURCE