Free Speech > PC

Sir Tim Hunt is 72, and won a Nobel

prize in physiology or medicine in 2001.
In 2015 he made some inappropriate comments... by today's standards.

"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."
His apology was basically a confession that he meant what he said.
He is 72, raised in a different time, and with different cultural mores.
When you are 72, you will not agree with everything the young people of the day think. Should you be allowed to voice your opinion? Or should you be branded a chauvinist and publicly shamed?

As I said... inappropriate comments by today's standards.
But I believe he had the right to make them, even if they don't fall into today's PC rules of what you can and can't say without social media coming down on you like a house of bricks.

I don't support what he said.
I don't support the hordes of angry people attacking his character for one misguided comment.
I support the right to speak freely.

People aren't angry that Sir Tim Hunt believes he is correct. Nor are they arguing his points. They want to silence  something they don't agree with. They want him censored.

How many posts have you seen refuting what Sir Tim Hunt said?
How many posts calling him an asshole?
How many posts asking if he cried when he resigned?
How many posts telling him to shut up?

Censorship does not stop ideas. It drives them to silence so that a favoured idea is the only one heard. It is the activist's voice that censors with bullying tactics and all other opinions are silenced.
What Sir Tum Hunt said is irrelevent.
The number of people that don't hold the same view is irrelevent.
He has the right to speak his mind.

I am for free speech before any other cause, excepting violence or the inciting of violence.
Free speech is the start of all freedoms. If you don't have free speech for all, you don't have free speech, and you cannot have freedom.

I am a New Atheist, but I believe people should have free speech regarding religion, just as atheists should have free speech to denounce religion.
I would love to see religion silenced... but not by censorship!
I would rather have religion in our society than the censorship of one non-violent voice.
And the voice of a 72 year old Nobel Prize winner who is out of touch with modern mores is infinitely less dangerous than religion.