Bracketed by kneejerk outrage these words were tweeted round the world and used to destroy the reputation of a distinguished scientist on no solid ground at all.

Every distinguished scientist from academia or industry can be become a member of acatech.

It would damage our ability to recruit the brightest young talent, as well as distinguished scientists, into our universities and industries.

To 'savour' a moment of human misery - to 'savour' the hounding of one of our most distinguished scientists - goes beyond schadenfreude and spills over into cruelty.

He had supervised many distinguished scientists and experts, who later became university professors and heads of many institutes and university chairs.