Article Resignation at the Royal Society (to protest Elon Musk's continued membership)

[C C]

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/...l-society/

EXCERPTS: The outward spread of American divisions over science and fact has reached Britain in the form of dissent within Britain’s preeminent scientific organization, the Royal Society. On November 25, the neuropsychologist Dorothy V M Bishop published a blog post announcing she had resigned from the Royal Society in protest against the continued membership of Elon Musk, who was made a Foreign Fellow in 2018. The story has since been picked up by The Guardianand is rapidly spreading through the scientific press

[...] In her post, Bishop explains that the events leading to her resignation began with a letter a group of seventy-four fellows sent the Royal Society’s president in early August suggesting that Musk was not a fit person to hold “the considerable honour of being a Fellow of the Royal Society.” The immediate inspiration was inflammatory comments Musk posted to his 206 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), which he bought in 2022, during the violent aftermath of the stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in the northern English town of Southport...

[...] It’s not clear what happens now. Bishop writes that after the initial letter the Royal Society consulted a lawyer, who advised that Musk had not violated the code of conduct. Now, she says it appears the Royal Society Council is willing to reconsider. But it’s 150 years since a fellow was last ejected, and Bishop concludes that the Society’s statutes protect the Society from ever having to make such a decision.

[...] It’s also not clear how other fellows will respond; the seventy-four who signed the letter are a small percentage of the Society’s overall 1,800 members.

Diffie went on to say, “According to a book called The Fellowship, the Society went through a period of admitting a lot of people who were more noted for their wealth than their scientific accomplishments because it needed money. I suspect that any attempt to throw Musk out will founder on the Society’s common sense.”

[...] The internet pioneer Jon Crowcroft, elected in 2013 [...] thought it was wrong to accept Musk’s nomination in the first place, for a different set of reasons: “We normally only elect people where there are not necessarily world-leading scientific contributions, but some other factors—for example, industry impact or public understanding of science—but that also we are convinced they will actually show up in the UK generally and the Royal Society specifically, and make a contribution ” The present problem, he adds, is “the problem of due process of actually getting rid of anyone, which is often a much trickier proposition in practice than getting them onboard.” (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

Like I wrote in an earlier thread, wake me up when the Royal Society (or Dorothy Bishop) lands humans on Mars.

At the present time, Elon is without a doubt the Royal Society's most prominent Fellow. Probably the only one of their Fellows that deserves the description 'World historical genius'. It's true that he isn't a pure science guy. He's more of a technologist, an applications guy. Perhaps he compares more with Thomas Edison than Isaac Newton. A mix of Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. A guy with visionary ideas and an historically unprecedented ability to turn ideas into reality. That's not a bad thing.

What typically happens is that relatively unknown academics (like Dorothy Bishop) are inducted into the Royal Society, where the 'FRS' after their name adds greatly to their reputations. It puts them in the same club that Newton and Darwin were members of, and the more recent Fellows benefit by the association.

But Elon isn't like that. He's the world's richest man (all self made) worth about $350 billion. He controls Tesla, SpaceX, X, Neuralink, xAI and the relatively boring Boring Company. He presently provides America's only crew access to space. He flies the world's only reusable orbital class boosters which launch some 90% of the entire world's mass-to-orbit. Orbiting fuel depots and giant affordably practical lunar and interplanetary spaceships are coming. Starlink is revolutionizing world communications in underserved areas and may be on its way to becoming the world's largest telecom company. The likely next NASA administrator will be a friend of his. He dominates electric vehicles in the US and Europe. Tesla Energy is transforming power grids with battery buffering. Self-driving cars and robots are coming. Revolutionary developments are coming for quadriplegics and potentially for amputees and the blind. Cyberpunk brain-computer interfaces (sci-fi's usb ports in heads) where you jack your sensory and motor cortex's directly into computer networks. Building the worlds most powerful AI. His X is probably the most influential social media platform in the world...

And right now he has the ear of the President-elect of the United States who has enlisted him to redesign the US government. It probably isn't an exaggeration to call him the world's most influential man.

Elon doesn't really need the Royal Society to make his reputation the way lesser known academics do. He made his niche in history all by himself. It will just be underscored if he takes humanity to Mars and out into the Solar System.

But the Royal Society arguably does need the prestige that their most illustrious present-day Fellow adds to their organization. They can only coast on Newton's and Darwin's reputations for so long. They need similar world-changing names today, and Elon helps give them that.

https://www.scivillage.com/thread-16408-...y#pid66029