This week, the World Conference of Science Journalists is taking place in Seoul, South Korea. It's mostly an opportunity for journalists to exchange ideas and discuss global and regional issues that affect their reporting. But they do bring in a few scientists to talk to the journalists, and this year that group included two Nobel Prize winners. One of those was Tim Hunt, who was scheduled to give a talk on creativity in science.

Hunt's talk ended up being notable for its blatant sexism. While the reporters weren't actually reporting when Hunt cut loose, Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch confirmed that several of them quickly huddled to get his quotes down. They were later shared by Connie St. Louis, who heads the journalism program at City University, London. Hunt later confirmed the accuracy of the reporting.

Referring to women, he said, "Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry." He later went on to say that, while he doesn't want to get in the way of women, he's "in favor of single-sex labs."

Outrage quickly followed. The Royal Society, where Hunt is a fellow, issued a short statement entitled "Science needs women." In it, it states that "in order to achieve everything that it can, science needs to make the best use of the research capabilities of the entire population," and that it wanted to distance itself from Hunt's remarks. University College London, where Hunt had an honorary faculty position, announced his resignation by stating that "UCL was the first university in England to admit women students on equal terms to men, and the university believes that this outcome [the resignation] is compatible with our commitment to gender equality." The American Association for the Advancement of Science pulled Hunt from a planned webinar in which he was scheduled to offer advice on "persevering in science."

The President of the European Research Council, in contrast, defended Hunt, saying "during the time I have worked with him on the ERC Scientific Council he has only ever been a supporter of gender balance."

The ERC's statement also referred to Hunt's semi-apology, in which he said that his statement was meant to be "a sort of light hearted, ironic comment." However, he also said that "I just meant to be honest, actually," raising questions about the degree to which he believed in his own comments. However, the head of MIT's Knight Science Journalism program (and Pulitzer Prize Winner) Deborah Blum confirmed to Ars that she approached Hunt the next day, and he repeated his original comments and elaborated on them.

Hunt's position at University College London was honorary. And the successor of the place where he did his research, the Francis Crick Institute, indicates he shut his lab down several years ago, and switched his appointment to emeritus status. Given that, is there any reason to even care what Hunt is saying? Isn't this a case where an older Nobel laureate is getting a bit loopy?

The answers, in reverse order, are maybe and yes. Like it or not, the status conferred by receiving a Nobel Prize means that a person's public statements matter. And if their statements indicate that leading labs may still be a hostile or awkward place for women, then at the least, they're going to raise questions in the minds of women who are potentially interested in research.

And, while Hunt may not be running a lab, he remains a member of both the ERC and the Royal Society. Both of these organizations rely on their members to set scientific priorities and make funding decisions. The Royal Society, which didn't even admit women until 1945, uses its members to determine who to admit next. If Hunt "just meant to be honest" when he suggested science should be segregated by sex, he'd have plenty of opportunity to help direct it accordingly.

About the only thing that suggested that Hunt was sufficiently self-aware to realize how his own biases could be influencing his administrative decisions came during his semi-apology, when he noted, "it was a stupid thing to do in front of all of those journalists."