On March 3rd the Royal Society had a meeting to discuss whether it should revoke Elon Musk’s Fellowship. He was appointed a Fellow (strictly, ForMemRS, not FRS, as he is a foreigner) in 2018. The meeting was necessary since not only had two Fellows resigned from the Royal Society, but a few thousand Fellows (all of whom, one supposes, must have what Charles Moore would call Left-wing faces) had signed a letter – after the election of Trump – which complained about Musk’s political incorrectness. Who resigned? Professor Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford was first, and Professor Andrew Millar of the University of Edinburgh second. Millar said Musk was guilty of “disinformation”. Alas, the Royal Society code of conduct does not mention either “misinformation” or “disinformation” as offences justifying the disfellowshipping of Musk.
The letter signed by the thousands of scientists alleged the following: Musk had voiced “conspiracy theories”, had criticised Fauci and had made a provocative post about Jess Phillips MP. That was it. The letter was written by Professor Stephen Curry of Imperial College. As well as being an Important Professor, he is an Assistant Provost for Xiversity, Yequity and Zinclusion at Imperial. Obviously, in such a role, Curry found Musk’s politics to be too – spicy, and felt obliged to say so.
Prof Dorothy Bishop, who was the first to resign, in November of last year, wrote the longest criticism of Musk. She complained of his abuse of the “woke mind virus”. She noticed that Musk had posted: “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” This is usually very amusing, but she of Oxford was Not Amused. She also, a bit more seriously, suggested that Neuralink did not abide by good scientific practice – the only time a scientist cared to allege that Musk’s science was not as ‘scientific’ as it should have been. Musk had also been critical of vaccines. And, taboo of all taboos, he had expressed doubts about climate change. Prof Dorothy Bishop, as I live and breathe, quoted Prof Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann, without any sense of irony or self-doubt. Here is Mann on Musk: “It is sad that Elon Musk has become a climate change denier, but that’s what he is. He’s literally denying what the science has to say here.”
Hellbound and Down 