[HN Gopher] David Sabatini lands millions from private donors to...
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David Sabatini lands millions from private donors to start new lab
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 54 points
Date : 2023-02-07 19:13 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I don't know anything about Sabatini or his past.
|
| In criminal law we have the concept of restitution, of paying
| your debt to society. There are no second chances in the court of
| public opinion, no punishment severe enough, no act of
| restitution sincere enough.
|
| Should we have locked Kevin Mitnick out of society forever? Danny
| Trejo? Some people can turn it around and do good things in the
| world.
| laughinghan wrote:
| _There are no second chances in the court of public opinion, no
| punishment severe enough, no act of restitution sincere
| enough._
|
| This just isn't true. Look into how Dan Harmon gave a genuine
| apology and accounting for his wrongdoing and was forgiven. Can
| you point to Sabatini doing anything that even arguably rises
| to that level of contrition?
| google234123 wrote:
| What did Sabatini do that requires an apology? People
| shouldn't be forced to apologize when they didn't do anything
| wrong.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Should a lack of contrition prevent Sabatini from ever
| working again? He should be indefinitely held in contempt of
| the court of public opinion?
|
| I fully understand criticism of his personal manner but I
| have not seen much criticism of his actual work. Why not
| allow a position where he is not managing career paths?
|
| Edit: He lost his positions, he suffered consequences. When
| are the consequences enough, is there ever a point?
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| trynewideas wrote:
| [flagged]
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| > "Just think of all the good that could have been done with that
| money. There are so many excellent young scientists who could
| replace and outperform Sabatini. Instead, it's been put into the
| hands of a failed leader," says cognitive neuroscientist Jessica
| Cantlon, who is now at Carnegie Mellon University but was
| involved in another sexual harassment furor at Rochester
| University.
|
| I'm not well versed with this case but this sounds arrogant af.
| These are just two private donors that have decided to fund
| someone's research. No one but the donors alone decide how to use
| their money.
|
| It's not like Ackman is hurting for $2.5 million yearly or will
| necessarily use it for something better.
| cjf101 wrote:
| She's just saying Ackman is throwing good money after bad.
| Don't see how that's arrogant, it's just a good analysis.
|
| Based on his history, Sabatini will most likely end up costing
| Ackman time/money/trouble. There are other people that wouldn't
| come with that risk whose likely research output would be the
| same or better.
|
| I mean, he's welcome to make the investments he wants, but it's
| a bad look.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Or maybe people can have a second chance, or maybe there are
| more details that they know about and we don't. Maybe a
| talented scientist shouldn't have the rest of their life
| thrown away even if they did make a mistake.
| mcguire wrote:
| When does the "second chance" clock start, the first time
| you do something heinous or when you get caught? How many
| "mistakes" (Really? "Mistake"?) does that first chance
| cover?
| [deleted]
| bilqis wrote:
| I kinda missed, did this biologist served some time or
| was he convicted?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Don't you know that accusations are just as good as
| convictions^? According to some other comments in this
| discussion, he has been so thoroughly _accused_ that he
| is now "disgraced" and funding him is "evil".
|
| ^ Except of course when they aren't. When they are or
| aren't depends entirely on the politics of the beholder,
| and woe unto you if you ever get it wrong.
| acdha wrote:
| I'd think a second chance would start with him admitting a
| mistake rather than suing the victims. It's unlikely to go
| better if he doesn't want to learn from the past.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| He denies any wrongdoing. He was never convicted of
| anything. How can you be so certain that he has anything
| to apologize for at all?
| consumer451 wrote:
| You don't need to break the law to have something for
| which to apologize for, do you?
|
| He apparently broke the rules of his org. He hid his
| relationship with a student, who now says she was coerced
| into the relationship.
|
| Is that not something that might deserve apology?
| acdha wrote:
| Three separate organizations (HHMI, Whitehead, MIT)
| investigated and concluded he did. He also resigned from
| MIT rather than having tenure revoked, which also seems
| like he knew there was at least some merit to the claims.
|
| Now, it's possible that one of the lawsuits will reveal
| some information which discredits those investigations
| but that's a pretty relatively low probability. Occam's
| razor suggests that the successful guy in a position of
| authority took advantage of that stature like so many
| before him.
| vkou wrote:
| > Or maybe people can have a second chance
|
| Second chances for people are great. And the way to get a
| second chance is to to follow a simple three-step process:
|
| 1. Admit guilt.
|
| 2. Express remorse.
|
| 3. Make amends.
|
| So far, he's not reached step 1, he's still in step 0,
| which is deny everything and threaten everyone around you
| with lawsuits. That's not quite asking for a second chance.
| eastWestMath wrote:
| Yeah, it's spending a lot of money to start a lab that:
|
| - will probably be stonewalled out of any collaboration with
| reputable universities (because his reputation is so toxic),
|
| - will have trouble attracting talent (because his reputation
| is so toxic),
|
| - people will be ready to believe any sort of accusation of
| impropriety coming out of that lab from sexual harassment to
| more general academic fraud (because his reputation is so
| toxic).
| vkou wrote:
| > These are just two private donors that have decided to fund
| someone's research.
|
| It's a free country - they are free to fund a harasser, we are
| free to judge them and their judgement for it.
|
| If someone gets fired from Wal-Mart for stealing from the till
| (no criminal charges necessary), and is running a Chick-Fil-A
| franchise next week, there'd be a fair bit of judgement of
| that, too. Even if the only people he's going to hurt are his
| employers, and employees.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Fair point...although the accused claims he was unfairly
| judged. It's likely that Bill Ackman believes the guy or
| something.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| > The Whitehead probe concluded that Sabatini fostered a
| sexualized lab environment in which he rewarded those who
| participated in sexual banter, threatened retaliation
| against lab members if they raised questions about his
| conduct, and threatened another faculty member who refused
| to hire a young visiting scientist whom Sabatini would
| later marry. It also found that he and Knouse carried on a
| sexual relationship against Whitehead rules.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| That's one version. Who knows if the "probe" reached
| accurate conclusions. It seems at least some investors
| might think it didn't.
| mcguire wrote:
| Clearly, you would like an investigation into the probe?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| https://www.thefp.com/p/he-was-a-world-renowned-cancer-
| resea...
|
| Alternatively: He had a consensual relationship with a
| woman in the same institute, but had her own lab and he
| had no supervisory power over her. 2 years later she
| retroactively decided the relationship was abusive. It's
| rather unusual to ban all relationships across the board,
| even between people without a supervisor-employee
| relationship.
|
| "Sexualized lab environment" is an incredibly vague
| allegation to make. These people are adults. Chances are
| a large number of the people working in the lab are
| dating or looking for a partner - are they just not
| supposed to give any mention to their social lives at
| work?
| acdha wrote:
| That's a right-wing activist's personal site. Bari Weiss
| doesn't have any insight or information into this, just a
| political and financial motivation to hype up "cancel
| culture". Of course she's going to say that he was
| innocent because she needs a constant source of new
| material to maintain the narrative which pays her bills.
| carabiner wrote:
| [flagged]
| tehwebguy wrote:
| > I've noticed some entitlement from feminist groups in
| science or other white collar careers
|
| What are you talking about? This entire story is even a thing
| because of a male scientist's own entitlement!
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into gender flamewar hell, or on
| generic ideological tangents generally.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| BenSahar wrote:
| What do feminist groups have to do with the quote or the OP's
| response?
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| > Btw weird username. sikorskyUH60?
|
| Oh yeah, was meant to be that, but I mixed it up in my head
| and wrote BoeingUH60 when selecting a username...just decided
| to run with it.
| dang wrote:
| We can always rename accounts if people want; not that you
| should. But if anyone wants to, email hn@ycombinator.com.
| [deleted]
| tptacek wrote:
| Serious question: who cares? Do we need to have an opinion about
| this? This is Bill Ackman spending a pittance on a disgraced
| researcher. Maybe it'll pan out, and we can have a searching
| discussion about the implications of funded discoveries being
| made by problematic professionals. But until the lab actually
| does something meaningful, why bother picking it apart? Bill
| Ackman doubtless spends much more money than this on much more
| distasteful things than this; he's a billionaire, so his loafers
| are almost certainly former gophers.
|
| It feels like one of those "announcement of an announcement" or
| "bill introduced in Parliament" stories that we usually deem off-
| topic for HN. Not that it couldn't possibly matter, simply that
| it doesn't matter enough for us to intelligently discuss _yet_.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| "Billionaire so rich and evil that we shouldn't care about the
| details."
| cperciva wrote:
| Mobs derive power from their ability to lynch people they don't
| like.
|
| If a billionaire follows along behind the mob, cutting people
| down from trees and resuscitating them, it severely diminishes
| the power of the mob.
|
| Whether you think this is a good thing or not probably depends
| on whether you're part of the lynch mob, but it's hard to
| imagine being _neutral_ about this.
| tptacek wrote:
| What are you talking about? Nobody is being lynched.
|
| This is the kind of weird discussion we don't have to have if
| we just wait to see if any of this matters before trying to
| parse it as an important story.
| eecc wrote:
| analogy /@'nal@dZi/
|
| noun a comparison between one thing and another, typically
| for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
|
| a correspondence or partial similarity.
|
| a thing which is comparable to something else in
| significant respects.
| cperciva wrote:
| 1. A group of people decided that Sabatini is a Bad Person.
|
| 2. As a result, they want to end his career.
|
| 3. A billionaire came along and undermined those efforts,
| by providing Sabatini with independent funding.
|
| 4. The people who decided that Sabatini's career should be
| ended are upset by this.
|
| Sure, nobody is being literally lynched; but the
| fundamental story -- people being upset that their ability
| to exercise extrajudicial punishment is being undermined --
| is the same.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't care. Why do I care? Why does any of this matter?
| He got fired from his previous job. Now a billionaire is
| funding his lab startup. It will probably come to
| nothing, just like every other investment does. You
| apparently care enough to equate what's happened with a
| torture-murder. The conversation here seems unhinged.
| This is all very low-stakes right now.
|
| If you ask people to be upset about things, they will
| oblige you. Here, it seems like you're more or less
| begging for it.
| [deleted]
| groffee wrote:
| You're the one commenting here.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| It's tptacek arguing with cperciva. The essence of HN.
| version_five wrote:
| Looks like you got modded down but that was my first
| thought browsing this now. It's odd to see someone who
| doesn't care so much that they'll fight you tooth and
| nail to show you how much they don't care. This raises a
| beige alert for me.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| There is one side saying "omg look at this horrible
| person who didn't get punished enough for being
| horrible".
|
| And there is one side saying "omg this guy is a good
| researcher and the mob is out to get him".
|
| And there is tptaceck saying "none of this matters and
| you are both obnoxious".
|
| That's my interpretation of it - I do not endorse any
| particular statement.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Women who are constantly fucked over care, I guess. But I guess
| you can't sympathize with them as easily as you can the
| powerful man. It sucks to see shitty people make millions,
| meanwhile people who are decent can't pay their fucking
| electric bill and have to hear bullshit lectures from CEOs
| about accepting responsibility in the form of golden
| parachutes.
|
| Fuck all you people.
| stenl wrote:
| Boston Globe did a long, thoughtful writeup of the whole affair a
| while ago, for those interested in more nuance.
|
| https://apps.bostonglobe.com/metro/investigations/spotlight/...
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/aYFsh
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. toxic crony capitalism at the helm.
| [deleted]
| MengerSponge wrote:
| I'd be really leery of anybody who went to work in his lab. It's
| going to lead to tough conversations for any junior scientist as
| they apply for advancement.
|
| I guess they'd be able to go to Hillsdale (now) or New College
| (in a few years), but I'd love to see the DEI statement good
| enough to get a Sabatini lab alum hired to a faculty position.
|
| This, among many other reasons, is why this whole thing is such a
| waste and such an insult. He did real and lasting harm. He hasn't
| apologized. He hasn't attempted to make amends.
| version_five wrote:
| Maybe they won't go to a cult that requires "DEI Statements"
| from people that are there to do scientific work.
|
| Upon reflection though the above post is actually an
| interesting example of how this kind of statement could be
| weaponized to enforce some kind of ideological compliance.
| "Don't do this because of how it could affect your DEI rating"
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