Webb was born in 1906. Why beclown themselves like this? JWST already has a name, they can't undo that association, even if they change the name.
Do you really think that Hubble didn't have such views, or any other person you name stuff after?
I never said any of that though.
> So you can't argue that we should forget his bigotry just because it's old and not relevant anymore.
If some people still hold some of those beliefs (again, I am not one of them), doesn't it seem even less good to penalize someone from the distant past for holding that belief?
I know I'm the one who put the Republican document into this conversation but it was just an example of how widespread it is. When it comes to legislation, it makes sense to me to use it for certain large-scale kinds of systematic discrimination. Since the US government passed laws against gay people having certain positions, it's probably good to legislate against discrimination for a while. If it were just a matter of individual people's opinions, it would be less widespread issue.
You really feel comfortable that you are infallible and that it's within your rights to dictate what is "right" everywhere across society? Shouldn't others get a say in what is right?
I'm all for legislation that determines our laws, but I'm a lot less ok with social media mobs exerting pressure to force others to fall in line with their beliefs.
To the technical people who're already interested perhaps, but the general public won't have that association.
It seems valid not to glorify people who were involved in atrocities (perhaps overstating things in this case, I've not looked into it - but as a general point) from the past.
Personally I can't see them deciding to rename it, but I don't think it's silly for them to consider it, and if they did I wouldn't be bothered... just get the thing launched so we can do more science!
There will be plenty of figures for whom "something bad" is just generally being rude/an asshole their whole life, for example - and that's quite different from actively furthering the systematic persecution of people based on something they can't control like who they love.
I think this is all quite silly, but wanted to push back on this narrow point. Renaming works. Uluru was renamed in the last few decades; the new name has stuck [1]. (With more time, New York and Istanbul.)
Mt McKinely -> Denali is another great example.
I think these factors will usually be stronger than any moral dimension.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali
"McKinley" occurs 60 times on that page and is in the first sentence of the article.