Regarding commentator Jonathan David Farley's recent opinion piece "Tim Hunt's Witch Hunt" (June 23), Mr. Hunt is a Nobel Prize winner in physiology who recently gave a talk at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea.
At that conference, he initially praised women scientists but, then unfortunately went on to say that "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."
Next he made a case that science might work better if we separated researchers into single-sex laboratories.
Mr. Hunt was appropriately called out on these remarks but no reasonable person demanded he lose his job or his Nobel prize.
The last time I checked, Mr. Hunt had not been burned at the stake, so calling criticism a "witch hunt" is mere histrionics.
All that happened is that he lost three honorary positions at universities because of his remarks.
The response to Mr. Hunt's remarks was not so much about him as it was a challenge to the sexism found in many scientific professions that discourages women from pursuing careers in the field.
Mr. Farley wonders how this kind of criticism could derail scientists' careers, but he fails to wonder how sexism derails scientific progress by having a chilling effect on women pursuing careers in science.
How much more progress can we make if we include men and women equally and cooperatively together in science?
Laura Gaffney, Baltimore