Influenced by existing beliefs and prejudices

So the speech was recorded? Back to the Tim Hunt affair in the Times (£):

Claims that Sir Tim Hunt’s infamous remarks about his “trouble with girls” in science were a joke have been bolstered by a recording that shows his toast was received with appreciative laughter.

The British Nobel prize-winner was swiftly caught up in a social media row over alleged sexism in his speech at a lunch event in Seoul last month and within 24 hours was asked to resign his honorary professorship at University College London (UCL).

Sir Tim referred to himself as a “chauvinist monster” in his short speech and said there were three problems with mixed-sex laboratories: that women were prone to fall in love with male scientists, that men were prone to fall in love with female scientists, and that women cried when they were criticised.

The three journalists who first reported his remarks initially insisted that they had been meant seriously, although two later backed down. Connie St Louis, a journalism lecturer at City University London who was present at the toast, said it had met with a “deathly silence” and “nobody was laughing”. She has stood by her account.

But in a recording of the end of Sir Tim’s toast, made by the Russian science journalist Natalia Demina and passed to The Times, the Nobel laureate can clearly be heard to say to an audience of female scientists and science writers: “Congratulations everybody, because I hope, I hope, I hope — I really hope — there is nothing holding you down, especially not monsters like me.”

A peal of laughter is then heard from the audience. Several eyewitnesses said that the speech was followed by sustained applause. A source close to Sir Tim confirmed the authenticity of the file. Demina has also released a picture she took of the toast which appears to show both Sir Tim and others in the room laughing....

In a joint article published on The Times’ website today, Demina and Louise Mensch, the columnist and former Conservative MP, said it was now clear that Sir Tim’s remarks were both intended and received as a joke.

“It will be crushingly embarrassing for those who persecuted this good man without even the most basic fact-checking,” they write. “Sir Tim’s gently self-deprecating tone is unmistakable. As he has always maintained, he was clearly poking fun at himself.”

Debbie Kennett, a genealogy expert and honorary research fellow at UCL, said the recording confirmed that initial reports of the speech had been wrong.

“I was always of the opinion that Tim Hunt was attempting to be humorous,” she said. “Toasts are after all supposed to be humorous. The eye witness accounts confirm that many people thought the toast was humorous.

“The recording merely confirms the fallibility of eyewitness accounts which we know can be influenced by existing beliefs and prejudices. Only one eyewitness claimed that the toast was received in ‘deathly silence’ whereas multiple eye witnesses testified that there was applause...."

Comments

[RY]

This whole affair has been appalling.
Now we wait to see what UCL do.
It will be interesting to see if they have the integrity and the courage to reinstate him.

[Dom]

I wonder if St Louis will lose her job.

[Mick H]

I very much doubt it. City University - last I heard - had a quiet word with her about her somewhat imaginative CV. And that'll be that.

Not that I think she should lose her job over this Tim Hunt business, mind. Though she certainly doesn't come well out of it.

[Recruiting Animal]

"Imaginative CV". Love that.