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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45703700
A senior scientist has given what has been described as a "highly offensive" presentation about the role of women in physics, the BBC has learned.
At a workshop organised by CERN, Professor Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation".
He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit. He was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics. Professor Strumia has since defended his comments, saying he was only presenting the facts.
CERN, the European nuclear research centre, described Prof Strumia's presentation as "highly offensive".
The centre, which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012, has removed slides used in the talk from its website "in line with a code of conduct that does not tolerate personal attacks and insults".
Prof Strumia, who regularly works at CERN, presented the results of a study of published research papers from an online library.
He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that his results proved that "physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside".
In 2015, Nobel laureate Prof Tim Hunt resigned from his position at University College London after telling an audience of young female scientists at a conference in South Korea that the "trouble with girls" in labs was that "when you criticise them they cry".
@esdoornblad
Straight Fax, homie.
A senior scientist has given what has been described as a "highly offensive" presentation about the role of women in physics, the BBC has learned.
At a workshop organised by CERN, Professor Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation".
He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit. He was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics. Professor Strumia has since defended his comments, saying he was only presenting the facts.
CERN, the European nuclear research centre, described Prof Strumia's presentation as "highly offensive".
The centre, which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012, has removed slides used in the talk from its website "in line with a code of conduct that does not tolerate personal attacks and insults".
Prof Strumia, who regularly works at CERN, presented the results of a study of published research papers from an online library.
He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that his results proved that "physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside".
In 2015, Nobel laureate Prof Tim Hunt resigned from his position at University College London after telling an audience of young female scientists at a conference in South Korea that the "trouble with girls" in labs was that "when you criticise them they cry".
@esdoornblad
Straight Fax, homie.
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