Neuroscientist Sophie Scott's Talk on Brain Sex

[Mermoose]

Sophie Scott has an interesting talk on sex differences in the brain. It was meant to be part of Skeptics in the Pub's online lockdown events, but for some reason they've decided not to include it, so Scott uploaded it to Vimeo.
vimeo.com/414833798

[NonnyMouse1337]

Thank you so much for sharing this!! I was really looking forward to the talk and was quite disappointed that Skeptics in the Pub didn't go ahead with it. I wondered if it was due to pressure from the usual types to not host what sounded like a controversial (but interesting) talk. They were keeping the cancellation very quiet with no reason as to why or whether it would be rescheduled.

Anyway, really glad it's up now. Will take a look. :)

[Mermoose]

I wondered if it was due to pressure from the usual types to not host what sounded like a controversial (but interesting) talk.

Yeah I wondered that too. A lot of self-professed skeptics have shown themselves to be as hostile to counterargument as any of the people they criticised. Skepticism should have been about the humility to recognise that we ourselves are fallible, but I think for a lot of skeptics it was more about pointing at other people's foibles and laughing at them, while considering themselves immune to similar mistakes.

Sophie Scott is great. If that's what's happened there's no better woman to handle it, I think. Her Witchfinder General thread on Twitter is hilarious. Have you watched her Royal Institution Christmas lectures?

[NonnyMouse1337]

Skepticism should have been about the humility to recognise that we ourselves are fallible, but I think for a lot of skeptics it was more about pointing at other people's foibles and laughing at them, while considering themselves immune to similar mistakes.

You've hit the nail on the head there.

Skepticism for me has always been about humility and self-awareness of how all human beings are prone to biases and mistakes and we need to question our ideas and beliefs to ensure we are making sound decisions and judgements. Nothing and no one should be above criticism.

It's really disappointing to see how cowardly so many of these 'skeptic' groups and individuals are - quite happy to sneer at people who believe in certain things and criticise them, but then behave in the same manner themselves by refusing to analyse their deeply held positions and engage with counterarguments.

The irony of a group of skeptics shying away from debate!

I don't know if that's exactly what happened to Sophie Scott, but that's the impression I got based on what I observed .... Someone thought 'oh shit' and plugged the plug.... Cancelled the Facebook event without any warning or apology... Removed the image banner used to advertise the event. Never even said 'we'll try to reschedule it asap' which is usually what any group hosting an event says. Some comments by others and myself were deleted. They wanted this to slip away as quietly as possible without any online bun fight kicking off. 😆

I started watching her RI Christmas lectures a couple of weeks ago. I should go back and finish them. I listened to her being interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili. That's what brought her to my attention as her talk was to follow on from his the week after.

I've been meaning to listen to some of her own podcasts.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-neuromantics/id1455641494

[Mermoose]

Oh my gosh, they deleted comments? Were they just people asking what had happened to the talk?

Is this the Skeptics in the Pub Online FB page? I see they have Jonathan Jarry giving a talk on the 'Blinding Light of Sophisticated Pseudoscience'. Ah, the man who had a meltdown when people asked him to explain exactly what he meant by gender identity and faffled on about how incredibly...uh, sophisticated sex actually is, and nobody really understands it so actually when a five year old says they're male, they entirely are. (I'm paraphrasing, but I find it ASTOUNDING that this man has the gall to give talks criticising pseudoscience when he has signed up to the most outrageous quackery going).

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

The Skeptics have a massive blind spot when it comes to sex.

It's fascinating.

Sophie Scott is brilliant. And brave.

[NonnyMouse1337]

Yes, it was on the Skeptics in the Pub Online FB page. I went looking for the actual FB event and couldn't find it, so checked their FB page. There were two image banners posted on their timeline of Sophie Scott's event. One of the posts had a few comments from people, including myself, like hey is this still going ahead, aww I was really looking forward to this etc. I think I tried to reply to someone's comment at one point, and found I couldn't. I thought it might have been the app acting up so reloaded it and discovered that the post with all the comments was no longer there. The one without comments was still standing, though I think that one might have also been eventually removed.

It was so bizarre. Like they were trying to delete all trace of the event being advertised or any reference to it when they initially went as far as organising a date for the talk in the first place. My only guess is someone discovered the event, and disapproved of it and there must have been a kerfuffle behind the scenes about it.

Anyway Sophie Scott has been brilliant as she posted the link to her talk on their page yesterday in a comment.

I was interested in the 'Blinding Light of Sophisticated Pseudoscience' event as it sounds like exactly how I would describe transgender ideology and the 'science' around it. I had no idea the speaker was a believer in gender identity. Some cheek to be criticising others when he's a fan of pseudoscience himself! 😂

[Mermoose]

I was interested in the 'Blinding Light of Sophisticated Pseudoscience' event as it sounds like exactly how I would describe transgender ideology and the 'science' around it. I had no idea the speaker was a believer in gender identity. Some cheek to be criticising others when he's a fan of pseudoscience himself!

Yeah it'll be interesting to see what he says in the talk. I'm not on Twitter any more & I kind of wish I was, I'm interested to see how many of posturing type of Skeptics(TM) will say anything about this.

[Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons]

thank you for linking I want to be Sophie Scott when I grow up

[FWRLurker]

Great talk. Bookmarked for future use!

Most striking point definitely that brain region sizes in adults differ more than 10x as much by AGE as they do for sex. (Around 14 min)

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Oooh thank you sounds fascinating.

And a great antidote to virus stuff.