Update (3hrs ago): https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-lan...uct-2022-2
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Lander’s all-staff mea culpa is the latest in a string of apologies
https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/06/land...apologies/
EXCERPT: It wasn’t his first apology. But the sweeping mea culpa that Eric Lander issued this past week might have been his most remarkable yet. In an all-staff email, the White House science adviser apologized to his employees for speaking to them “in a disrespectful or demeaning way.”
The letter, which Politico reported on Friday, represents just the latest in a string of Lander controversies dating back years. It is sure, also, to cement his reputation as a researcher whose brilliance is often interpreted, fairly or not, as arrogance.
[...] The apology was extraordinary even by Washington standards, largely because it appeared to be an attempt to preempt an investigative story into his conduct that Politico disclosed it had undertaken. Politicians often attempt to brush criticism under the rug, or ignore it altogether, making Lander’s decision to tackle it head-on noteworthy.
Almost immediately after Lander’s apology became public, a handful of his detractors cast it as an “I-told-you-so” moment. “I like Joe Biden,” one professor wrote on Twitter, “but I swear he and Eric Lander may be the only people on earth who didn’t see this coming.”
Robert Cook-Deegan [...] said ... “Eric is good about apologizing when he makes a mistake ... But I don’t know what the offense was or who was involved, so it’s difficult to say much as an outsider.”
His appointment in January 2021 was met with a mixed reaction: While many celebrated [...] others warned his selection failed to account for his past missteps or the need to diversify the the upper echelons of science.
In particular, detractors cited a handful of incidents from Lander’s past: His toast of James Watson, who has expressed racist and misogynistic sentiments; his perceived slight of two women researchers who helped develop the gene-editing technology CRISPR; and his broader penchant for soaking up the scientific limelight and the funding that accompanies it... (MORE - details)
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Inner Cynic: Sounds like the usual member of the Church of Woke congregation (celebrities, movement leaders, administrators, magnates, and academicians) who cryptic shouts "praise Holy Karl and the collectivist version of social justice" at key propaganda moments during the preachy sermons, while opportunistically doing one's own thing on the side.
- - - - - -
Lander’s all-staff mea culpa is the latest in a string of apologies
https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/06/land...apologies/
EXCERPT: It wasn’t his first apology. But the sweeping mea culpa that Eric Lander issued this past week might have been his most remarkable yet. In an all-staff email, the White House science adviser apologized to his employees for speaking to them “in a disrespectful or demeaning way.”
The letter, which Politico reported on Friday, represents just the latest in a string of Lander controversies dating back years. It is sure, also, to cement his reputation as a researcher whose brilliance is often interpreted, fairly or not, as arrogance.
[...] The apology was extraordinary even by Washington standards, largely because it appeared to be an attempt to preempt an investigative story into his conduct that Politico disclosed it had undertaken. Politicians often attempt to brush criticism under the rug, or ignore it altogether, making Lander’s decision to tackle it head-on noteworthy.
Almost immediately after Lander’s apology became public, a handful of his detractors cast it as an “I-told-you-so” moment. “I like Joe Biden,” one professor wrote on Twitter, “but I swear he and Eric Lander may be the only people on earth who didn’t see this coming.”
Robert Cook-Deegan [...] said ... “Eric is good about apologizing when he makes a mistake ... But I don’t know what the offense was or who was involved, so it’s difficult to say much as an outsider.”
His appointment in January 2021 was met with a mixed reaction: While many celebrated [...] others warned his selection failed to account for his past missteps or the need to diversify the the upper echelons of science.
In particular, detractors cited a handful of incidents from Lander’s past: His toast of James Watson, who has expressed racist and misogynistic sentiments; his perceived slight of two women researchers who helped develop the gene-editing technology CRISPR; and his broader penchant for soaking up the scientific limelight and the funding that accompanies it... (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Inner Cynic: Sounds like the usual member of the Church of Woke congregation (celebrities, movement leaders, administrators, magnates, and academicians) who cryptic shouts "praise Holy Karl and the collectivist version of social justice" at key propaganda moments during the preachy sermons, while opportunistically doing one's own thing on the side.