A visiting professor at NYU has been forced to apologize publicly for a tweet he posted on Sunday advising obese PhD applicants that they don’t have what it takes to make it in evolutionary psychology.
“Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation,” Geoffrey Miller wrote.
The online reaction was swift. A chorus of Twitter users called the University of New Mexico associate professor a bigot while a psychologist in Wales sent an open letter to the head of the UNM psychology department expressing his outrage.
Miller deleted the tweet and posted a mea culpa.
“My sincere apologies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet,” he tweeted. “It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards.”
It is unclear what consequences Miller might face, though there are at least a few people who think it’s time for him to lawyer up as the laws of natural selection assert themselves.
