Besides
Blum and
Oransky, both of whom confirmed the accuracy of St Louis’s account under her Tweet, at least three other conference delegates — all independent of the decision to report — tweeted confirmation of St Louis’s account while still in Seoul.
[..]
We followed up with all three. Dr Scott Watkins told us:
‘I don’t think the comments were appropriate. . . I do believe that Sir Tim probably did intend to joke and he doesn’t appear to be a terrible or sexist person. However, I think he missed the mark by quite a long way. He was in a position of power and showed poor judgement.’
We asked Leigh Dayton to describe the reaction in the room after the comments were made. She wrote:
‘The room went silent and I confess I hissed in a wry manner. I was sitting beside a male academic from Britain who said something to the effect of, “I never thought I’d hear anything like that again.’
We asked if she agreed with the accuracy of Connie St Louis’s report. Her response: ‘Absolutely.’
We asked if she thought Hunt intended the remarks as a joke:
‘I found Hunt’s comments to be badly judged remarks from someone who grew up professionally in an old-fashioned, hierarchical, male-dominated world. The fact that he claims it was a joke suggests he’s completely out of touch with the 21st century.’
Charles Seife, an author, journalist, and Professor at New York University told us:
‘My recollection is slightly different in details from Connie St. Louis’ version, but the essence is the same. I remember it as “the problem with girls in the lab” rather than “my problem with girls.” (I didn’t have any idea about his personal history until after the story broke, and I didn’t get any impression that he was referring to a specific experience.) I remember it as a numbered list: 1) The girls fall in love with the boys, 2) you fall in love with them, and 3) they cry when you criticize them.
My recollection is that the end of the speech was basically more thank-you noises, and he thanked the hosts for listening to a monster like him. There was a small smattering of polite applause. But many people sat stonily and didn’t applaud — I, for one, took the affirmative decision not to applaud.’
In addition to these initial six corroborating eyewitnesses, a large number of other respected, credible people were present and have gone on the record to back St Louis’ account.
