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Nobel Laureate Resigns Post After Comments on Female Scientists

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A Nobel laureate has resigned as honorary professor at University College London after saying that female scientists should be segregated from male colleagues because women cry when criticized and are a romantic distraction in the laboratory.

The comments by Tim Hunt, 72, a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for groundbreaking work on cell division, unleashed a torrent of fury and added fuel to a global cultural debate about gender bias and discrimination against women in science.

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” Mr. Hunt told an audience on Monday at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. “Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”

Within minutes, the comments, which were greeted with stony silence and no little anger at the conference, spurred a global backlash. The remarks gained wide attention after they were first noted on Twitter by Connie St Louis, the director of the science journalism program at City University London.

Following the backlash, Mr. Hunt, who acknowledged a reputation as a chauvinist at the conference, issued what some on social media called a “nonapology apology.” He told BBC Radio that he was “really, really sorry” for causing any offense, even as he stood by some of what he had said.

He said the comments were meant to be ironic and lighthearted but had been “interpreted deadly seriously by my audience.”

“I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he told the BBC. “I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me, and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.”

He elaborated on his comments that women are prone to cry when confronted with criticism.

“It’s terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth,” he said. “Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”

University College London said in a statement that Mr. Hunt, who was knighted in 2006, had resigned his post in the faculty of life sciences on Wednesday. “U.C.L. was the first university in England to admit women students on equal terms to men, and the university believes that this outcome is compatible with our commitment to gender equality,” it said.

Mr. Hunt’s comments reflected the larger debate about the challenges facing women in science, with research suggesting that they must struggle with widespread sexism and gender bias. Referring to Mr. Hunt’s remarks, an article in the newspaper The Independent in Britain noted, “With lab rats like him, is it any wonder there’s a shortage of women in science?”