One of the most renowned nobel price winning scienstis fired over a joke.

Kiyoris

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-forced-to-resign

The beleaguered British biologist Sir Tim Hunt has revealed that he was forced to resign from his post at University College London (UCL)

Hunt, who won the Nobel prize in 2001 for his work on cell biology, was the focus of widespread controversy last week after suggesting at a conference in Seoul that women in science were disruptive and prone to crying. He has since apologized for his remarks, which were supposed to be ironic and jocular, he said.

British biologist Sir Tim Hunt

 

On Monday, June 8, a British academic called Connie St Louis uploaded a sensational document to her Twitter feed. Beginning with the question ‘Why are the British so embarrassing abroad?’.

Really, does this Nobel laureate think we are still in Victorian times?’ she asked.

So began an extraordinary course of events that saw her tweet shared more than 600 times, kick-starting a viral scandal which resulted in the 72-year-old academic, famed for his pioneering work on cell division, being vilified across social media.

Connie St Louis

 

 

Within hours, Sir Tim was being hauled across the coals in newspapers and TV bulletins across the world. Unable to defend himself, since he was travelling back to the UK, the bespectacled professor’s only response was delivered via a voicemail message to Radio 4’s Today programme recorded in haste via mobile telephone in Seoul airport.

 

Under siege at his Hertfordshire home, he sank into despair.

‘Tim sat on the sofa and started crying. Then I started crying,’ his wife, Professor Mary Collins (herself a prominent scientist) later recalled. ‘We just held on to each other.’

 

 

Troubled by Sir Tim’s fate, a collection of eminent scientists, including eight other Nobel Prize winners (and several senior female academics) chose to speak out publicly in support of him.

 

Reklaw

YAY! for Social media...NOT!

It's really a shame how things can get out of context. Then again it's this time and day, while this story is very sad we already see these things happen in more common live aswell.

It's even more a shame that a person that is a fraud herself (Connie St Louis, just look her op) is able to destroy someone's personal life that actually has achieved allot.