I'm going to a talk by Alice Roberts tomorrow, what should I ask her?

I dare you to put satanist in the sexual orientation box.

Gender identity, but no box for sex. At a science event ! I don’t have a “gender identity” i don’t have any friends with a gender identity.

You have to tell them your sexual orientation in order to ask a question?

Or just to attend?

Oh brave new world that has such over-zealous data collection in it...

Yes, funny that JP was previously bragging about how easy it is for JP to use sock puppets on MN and making out other sock users simply get banned forever.

(Just point the socks out to MNHQ btw, they'll zap them.)

Ah, I see dear Joss in there telling Alice not to worry because MN is just 30 cranks and a lot of sock puppets.

Which Joss devotes hours and hours of Joss's life to supervising and attempting to control, so a bit of clanging logic there.

Honestly it's depressing the utter stupidity underpinning this, particularly from someone I thought of as an intelligent woman. Ignore the emotion, ignore the emoting, look at the plain facts. They speak for themselves.

Here's some more reading for you Alice. This is an article by a clinical psychologist. You might recognise her thought processes.

www.feministcurrent.com/2019/04/10/i-supported-trans-ideology-until-i-couldnt-anymore/

I'm really struggling to believe that a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science would think that posting links to a comment piece in the Guardian about a Nature article (whose author has since clarfied emphatically that interpreting it to say that sex is not binary is frankly deluded)

I thought that was odd as well. Why didn't she link to the actual Nature article? And @ the author?

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

twitter.com/ClaireAinsworth/status/888365994577735680

I'm really struggling to believe that a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science would think that posting links to a comment piece in the Guardian about a Nature article (whose author has since clarfied emphatically that interpreting it to say that sex is not binary is frankly deluded), and to an article by Katelyn Burns (someone who appears to find it impossible not to tell lies every time pen is put to paper) constitutes anything approaching a reputable or intelligent contribution to this subject.

I mean, I don't think Roberts is trolling, obviously not. But why would a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science be so keen n ot to talk about, er, science?

During the early Nazi era, when that was a brave thing to do, my ancestors had themselves listed on official documents as Freidenker (free thinkers, the old German word for humanist).

Freidenker, resisting all attempts at totalitarian thought control. Rejecting the notion of thought crimes and compelled speech so prevalent in Nazi Germany. They would not recognise Ms Roberts version of humanism.

I was brought up in the humanist tradition btw. And was paying a membership fee to the Humanist Society. I cannot adequately explain just how much it hurts to see them embracing an ideology that is so offensive and harmful to women and girls.

For much of the last 100 years or so, humanists have concerned themselves with human rights and civil rights. Both examples I gave earlier are covered under human rights legislation. The traumatised child is specifically provided for under Article 39 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and female-only services are of course legal under the provisions of the Equality Act.

So for Ms Roberts to call those of us right wing bigots and transphobes who care about the most vulnerable among us, who understand their needs and who want to ensure they can be met, is inhumane.

I feel for her, I really do. When she finally realises just how unfounded her contempt for us is, how misinformed of the issues she is, it will be painful. It may even be impossible for her to admit. Shame can be an overwhelming emotion and become a crippling stumbling block for those who so publicly condemn us.

If I was a professor with an academic reputation to protect I'd be uncomfortable with the team I found myself siding with there.

Well, I hope she has the sense to feel uncomfortable. I think if you're a scientist with a high public profile, then you can expect to be called out if you make public statements that are either profoundly anti-scientific or ideologically dubious - or, as in Roberts's case, both. It reminds me of when James Watson, who discovered the double helical structure of DNA, decided to endorse the idea that black people are less intelligent than white people. He was ostracised by the scientific community.

I think the sad thing about Roberts is that she doesn't even realise why her views are so offensive.

They do the emotional thing as well - 'thank you for sticking up for us against the bigots!'

I've just had a quick scroll through the replies to her tweet.

I'd say maybe 70% GC, 30% TRA, but what's notable is that the anti-women tweets only get as far as pointing the finger at TERFs, haters and transphobes. The GC ones are from some high profile names, contain concise points, scientific and sociological facts, and links to high quality articles.

It's quite striking. If I was a professor with an academic reputation to protect I'd be uncomfortable with the team I found myself siding with there.

There seem to be two Alice Roberts: the intelligent, thoughtful evolutionary biologist and the kneejerk twitter biology-denier. Very odd.

I think if Alice thinks sport is different, then it won't be long before the usual suspects start calling her a TERF and hounding her for her bigoted views.

World's smallest violin, etc.

Nightfever, and also like the phrase 'far right'.

Hi Alice, could you let me know exactly what the magical quality is that I share with ALL other women (aside from XY chromosomes, vaginas, uteruses, etc)?

Is this a quality that all women are born with, or does this quality develop in response to society’s exceptions of how women (and men) should behave? I’m guessing you think women are born with this quality otherwise trans women (who have been raised as boys and men) wouldn’t feel it too. So what is it?

And if a little boy starts to feels this magical quality do you think it’s right that we tell them they are indeed female and they need to be castrated?

Because I don’t think it’s right. We need to fight against the idea that women (and men) must behave in specific ways. Our battle ground should be society and not the human body.

Hi Alice. Literally overnight women and girls who are interested and fascinated by Science stopped listening to you. Carry on with your beautiful, floaty nonsense but leave the real work of advancing women in this field to others. Charlatan.

Stalkerish! 🙄 Like the word woman, is this another word we are widening the bandwidth on?

Alice Roberts has (rather unkindly, IMO) called the OP ‘stalkerish’. That’s not nice, Alice.

Dear Alice

Large women's forum commenting on something a public figure has said or done = not stalkerish.

Males obsessively monitoring a large women's forum for non-compliant wrongspeak = stalkerish.

HTH because I'm beginning to suspect that you can't see the wood (there's a rude pun in there somewhere) for the trees.

Lang

I should have been clear

In women’s sport not sport

Shame the talk is in the middle of the day.