JWST is great for research, but the name is a toxic reminder of the homphobia of science. For an organization known for courage, NASA certainly isn't showing any.
"This article in a recent New York Times tells a sad tale of the vindictiveness of scientific ideologues and their determination to gain control over science by flaunting their own victim status, as well as by blatantly ignoring the truth. It involves the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) over the objections of people who asserted, wrongly, that Webb was a homophobe who fired gay people from NASA and the government (he was administrator of the organization from 1961-1968, and before that the Undersecretary of State from 1949 to 1952)."
and
"Hakeem Oluseyi, who is now the president of the National Society of Black Physicists, was sympathetic to these critics. Then he delved into archives and talked to historians and wrote a carefully sourced essay in Medium in 2021 that laid out his surprising findings.
“I can say conclusively,” Dr. Oluseyi wrote, “that there is zero evidence that Webb is guilty of the allegations against him.”
My "main squeeze" at Duke at the end of the 60s was one Kathy Webb of Oxford, NC. She took me home at the end of freshman year to meet her parents. What I remember most from that visit was the small framed photo on the living room coffee table. It was a black and white picture of a middle-aged man in a suit with blazing eyes. I assumed they might be the same brilliant blue as Kathy had, and as her father had. "Who's this?" I asked. She answered, "That's Uncle Jimmy. He's very interested in exploring outer space." I turned out Kathy was far more conservative than I, someone who'd come back South from NYC, son of a liberal Southern father and a very liberal French-born mother. When we came back from summer, Kathy gave me a hard time about my new "hippie" wire rim glasses, which were identical to the frames my father wore to his cultural foundation job in midtown Manhattan, from the same store on Lower Broadway. The Webbs were, and probably still are, a conservative family.
Right Telescope, Wrong Name
There isn't any evidence against James Webb. This is just left-wing hysteria gone off the deep end., See "The controversy continues about naming the Webb Space Telescope; the woke won’t give up in the face of the facts" (https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/12/20/the-controversy-continues-about-naming-the-webb-space-telescope-for-the-woke-wont-give-up-in-the-face-of-the-facts/). Quotes
"This article in a recent New York Times tells a sad tale of the vindictiveness of scientific ideologues and their determination to gain control over science by flaunting their own victim status, as well as by blatantly ignoring the truth. It involves the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) over the objections of people who asserted, wrongly, that Webb was a homophobe who fired gay people from NASA and the government (he was administrator of the organization from 1961-1968, and before that the Undersecretary of State from 1949 to 1952)."
and
"Hakeem Oluseyi, who is now the president of the National Society of Black Physicists, was sympathetic to these critics. Then he delved into archives and talked to historians and wrote a carefully sourced essay in Medium in 2021 that laid out his surprising findings.
“I can say conclusively,” Dr. Oluseyi wrote, “that there is zero evidence that Webb is guilty of the allegations against him.”
That, he figured, would be that. He was wrong."
Aren't You Glad You Aren't Named James Webb
http://mileswmathis.com/webb.pdf
Here's some of the best science I've found: https://cataclysmicearthhistory.substack.com/archive
Also: https://substack.com/profile/98340589-len-kinder
My "main squeeze" at Duke at the end of the 60s was one Kathy Webb of Oxford, NC. She took me home at the end of freshman year to meet her parents. What I remember most from that visit was the small framed photo on the living room coffee table. It was a black and white picture of a middle-aged man in a suit with blazing eyes. I assumed they might be the same brilliant blue as Kathy had, and as her father had. "Who's this?" I asked. She answered, "That's Uncle Jimmy. He's very interested in exploring outer space." I turned out Kathy was far more conservative than I, someone who'd come back South from NYC, son of a liberal Southern father and a very liberal French-born mother. When we came back from summer, Kathy gave me a hard time about my new "hippie" wire rim glasses, which were identical to the frames my father wore to his cultural foundation job in midtown Manhattan, from the same store on Lower Broadway. The Webbs were, and probably still are, a conservative family.