

Homophobia Defender Ousted [from DOE Oil Spill Team] - tptacek
http://metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5208

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tptacek
This is not (really) a politics article.

When the story about Steven Chu assembling a "Feynman-studying - the -
Challenger - disaster"-style team, one of the news articles pointed out that
Katz had a bunch of weird essays on his website.

I read them, and, sure enough, the guy's... uh... pretty impolitic.
Particularly about the politics of sexual orientation. (If you care: I think
he's a total nutcase, but I'm not a physicist).

Here's what bugs me, and it's obvious: what does this have to do with physics?
If this is an epic natural disaster then clearly we can suffer through
someone's buffoonish social theories (those being afflictions not unknown to
professional scientists) if it gets us ideas to deal with the real problem.

~~~
chrischen
Perhaps his essays expose flaws in his underlying rationality. He says gay sex
is not what the human body is designed for, but isn't evolution defined as
being able to do something not according to the original design? Therefore
he's saying anything not normal is bad? So I think a valid logical reason for
excluding him may be the suspicion that he is prey to his emotions. Do they
really want someone who can't be truly objective?

~~~
tptacek
The official reason appears to be that his writings are a "distraction" for
the effort. But... so what? Dealing with annoying questions seems like a
smaller problem than cleaning up a massive oil spill.

~~~
chrischen
That just might be a reason they put out to avoid the controversy of arguing
why his ideas are faulty. And like I said, his faulty ideas are a hint to
possible flees reasoning abilities. It questions his ability to make sound
judgements.

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davidmurphy
What does this sort of article have to do with entrepreneurship? Not sure it
belongs on Hacker News, regardless of any merits of the article.

~~~
tptacek
Click "Guidelines" at the bottom of your browser screen. First two paragraphs.

~~~
nailer
Perhaps he already did?

'If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off topic'.

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temphn
Interesting parallel: a while back there was an outcry over the military
ousting gay translators who were fluent in Arabic. The point was that in a
time of exigency, it was silly to let a mere sexual orientation issue take
precedence over solving the problem at hand.

How things change.

