This article, in which Paul Nurse compares Elon Musk with Isaac Newton (“a nasty piece of work”), leaves me completely speechless.

@sellathechemist what if Isaac Newton hadn't published anything?

@sellathechemist is it surprising this article appears in the Financial Times? more than an article, it feels like propaganda... oops, advertising. which is which?

@pookiesorcery Not at all. Michael Peel and Clive Cookson are excellent journalists. Michael has followed this story for quite a while and I have spoken to him several times in the past. The Grok thing is no doubt what prompted them to go and ask Nurse whether his position had shifted at all.

@mrkeen In that case Robert Hooke might have had a happier life.

@Netraven What????? Please don't spread nonsense.

@sellathechemist oh, sorry, forgot the world is shit now.

@njr When all you have is a spade everything looks like a hole to be dug… 

@sellathechemist oh. thank you for clearing that out. in this day and age, i am terribly sceptical of ths kind of stuff. my apologies

@Robbins There's no conspiracy. Just an ability to see the moral wood for the trees.

@xs4me2 I have been told that much of the push for his election was based on neuralink rather than the other higher profile stuff. But I suspect that there may have been the hope that he might contribute something to the Society's funds. The latter is just speculation on my part, nothing more.
Either way it was a massive error of judgement to elect him in the first place.

@lionelb @pa27 One of the concerns is that withdrawing the fellowship would be contested through the courts. And someone with his net wealth would be in a position to bankrupt the Society even if they didn't actually win. I can see that argument - it's a difficult position to be in. But I still think that using a whataboutist argument using Isaac Newton makes the Society look very weak indeed.

@sellathechemist "Science should have no ethics."

That's what I heard.

They do get in the way of making real money in a society that has none.

Comparing Musk to Newton just proves him a liar. This demonstrates his consistency with his original thesis.

@sellathechemist @lionelb Fair point. But, tbh, if the RS as it is now ceased to exist I wouldn't cry.

@njr @sellathechemist Nurse's comments in this article make me think he thinks the RS needs no code of ethics. Well, fine, but that does literally nothing for the advancement of science nor society.

@sellathechemist The real problem is that ‘we’ give out honours. Do not venerate people. Do not name things after people.