[ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.

[William Flynn Wallace]

Should a scientist’s personal views matter in regards to recognition of
their scientific achievement?

SR Ballard
It's the same question in baseball.  One player of the Black Sox, so
-called, was kicked out of baseball forever because he participated in some
way about throwing games.  But he batted a quite good average of .365 or
something.  Didn't matter.

Then there is Pete Rose.  Certainly one of the greatest hitters of all time
- top five.  Bet on his own team while managing it.  Will never get in the
Hall of Fame.

Then there are some home run hitters who took steroids - and one very great
pitcher.  McGuire, Sasa, etc.  Not even close in the Hall of Fame voting.

So clearly the baseball writers, who have the votes, think the Hall should
also be some sort of moral godfather and deny entrance on extra-baseball
grounds.

Me? I would vote them in there.  For the steroid guys I would put asterisks
by their home run numbers to indicate that they cheated.  Ironically, all
of these guys would be in the Hall if they had never used steroids.

bill w

On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 11:34 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Should we stop honoring famous scientists and mathematicians because they
> were racist or supported things like eugenics?
>
>
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/amid-protests-against-racism-scientists-move-strip-offensive-names-journals-prizes-and
>
> “Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) decided to change the naming of its
> graduate school
> <https://www.cshl.edu/cshl-trustees-vote-on-future-of-graduate-school/> after
> Nobel Laureate James Watson because of his past racial comments.”
>
> “The current movement isn’t the first to target scientists whose actions
> were judged unconscionable by subsequent generations. After the fall of
> Nazi Germany, apartheid in South Africa, and various communist nations, the
> names of scientists who supported oppressive policies were stripped from
> institutions and awards. And even before the recent demonstrations against
> systemic racism in the United States, many scientists had lobbied
> universities and science groups to stop honoring prominent researchers who
> had bigoted views. In 2018, for instance, years of activism prompted the
> University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, to remove the name of Clarence Cook
> Little, an influential 20th century geneticist who supported eugenics, from
> a science building and a transit hub.”
>
> Should a scientist’s personal views matter in regards to recognition of
> their scientific achievement?
>
> SR Ballard
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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