Many Nobel Prize winners have leapt to the defence of under-fire scientist Sir Tim Hunt, insisting that academics’ must retain their right to absolute freedom of expression.
The eight top thinkers voiced concerns that their liberty is under threat following Sir Tim’s social media lynching for comments made about females working in laboratories reports Daily Mail.
Speaking earlier this month, Sir Tim claimed women are a distraction in science labs, outraging 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.’
When his words reverberated around the world to much criticism, the 72-year-old father-of-two – who himself met his wife Professor Mary Collins, 56, while directing her biochemistry studies at Cambridge University – resigned from his professorship.