On the stature of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Weintraub replies to Calvin: The Forrest Gump metaphor was admittedly imperfect, as Scott Calvin suggests . But I disagree with Calvin’s other criticisms. Whether Henry Norris Russell forced her or Cecilia Payne merely chose to modify her dissertation conclusions after Russell advised her to do so, her decision to capitulate is the nearly universal response to force majeure. When the most prominent scientist in one’s profession dismisses the work of a graduate student as wrong, the student ignores that criticism at great peril to their career. This is true now and was certainly true a century ago.

Payne did what she had to do to secure a necessary signature and her doctoral degree and to transition into the next phase of her career. Any other decision would have been professional suicide. To imply that Russell made a suggestion Payne could ignore is to misrepresent the power dynamics of the situation, one in which Russell was extremely powerful and Payne was powerless.