Thats another story, and while my previous comment on a general basis stands (or rather I stand firm with this position), because the same twisted logic gets applied to other "bans", I stand corrected in the light of your note. Lena has a right to demand the image to be retired. But last time I read interview with her this demand was not included in her responses. thanks for update.
That’s misleading. She has been quoted multiple times saying she was amused and thought nothing of it. Until a bunch of activists came and told her she should be offended, and that the matter was of great importance to the future of mankind. Then of course she changed her mind, why not.
I would assume that as an adult she’s capable of making her decisions and we should respect that. Even if you disagree, there is no reason why we need to continue using it and it’s not a good choice purely on technical grounds, so a better question would be asking why anyone would be so committed to continuing to use an objectively obsolete image over the objection of its subject.
She's capable of making her own decisions now, but not when, for many years, she thought it was harmless?
It's weird that papers are banned based on which sample images they pick, rather than technical merits.
When will the HeLa cell line papers be cancelled? To this day scientific experiments are being carried out on cells take from a black woman without her consent.
> She's capable of making her own decisions now, but not when, for many years, she thought it was harmless?
The IEEE is acting now, so her current position seems most relevant. It’s not the primary reason - that’s the technical limitations and general wisdom of using pornography in professional publications – but it’s a good third point. Switching is trivially easy, why not do what the subject requests?
Your comparison with HeLa is interesting because it directly highlights the difference: nobody’s work depends on LENNA.JPG - anyone doing serious work is using multiple images, and there are many easy alternatives so nobody’s paper is getting rejected unless they throw a performative tantrum trying to get an interview with Tucker Carlson.
HeLa is different in several ways: it does things which other cell lines could not, allowing some fundamental research to be performed which wasn’t possible when cell lines could only survive for a few days, and the owner isn’t around to tell us how she feels about this. Most relevant, of course, is the reaction in the field: you know about that because it’s been widely recognized as an ethical failure, it’s taught as such in schools, there’s going to be a building named after her on Johns Hopkins’ campus, and there’s a scholarship fund in her honor.
Lenna’s contribution is far less significant from an academic standpoint but I can’t help but notice that none of the people complaining are actually doing anything which would benefit her – it’s all about personal entitlement to continue using her photo without compensation.
Maybe you should learn from her. Updating your position on something when you get more knowledge is laudable. Instead of digging your heels in.
I wonder why you mean she's incapable of making her own decisions? I hope it has nothing to do with her sex, but I do feel it's weird how you and others in this thread are very quick to dismiss both her and the women scientists not wanting to use the picture. It paints a picture..
Somehow I think a true researcher knows enough about STEM and the reason for existence of certain bodily processes and attributes to not be offended by an image of testicles or clitoris. Otherwise we would not have such images in the schoolbooks for children (at least in most developed countries these images are part of the education).
Indeed you can argue that usage of pornographic material in academic articles is similarly offensive as going to school with horn implants. Or perhaps the horn implants are not so offensive? But then the question here is whether the image of someone's face, which originates from a pornographic material is offensive. I find it hard to make a concrete decision about this, because Lena's face (and many other women and men's faces) is very very lovely taken out of the pornographic context. Besides pornography seems offensive only to few people as a percent of the world's population...
This also reminds me how children across the world answer the question whether a drawing of a head is image of a person or image of a head. If I remember this correctly, a story was told by psychology teacher back in school, so long time ago, the children in Europe see a person, the children of natives in Northern America see a head. So this all is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Thus being offended by the usage of Lena image implies the author knows the source of it and imagines the missing pornographic part.
I think you're getting hung up on the "bunch of activists being offended" bit of the story here. I'm just trying to respect the original models wishes, I don't care about the activists.
