Alice Roberts in The Times

So she can recognise material reality in one context but not in another.

Anyway, never mind the sensitivities, I don't know to what extent Christ counts as "people" if you're religious or have even just read the mythology. Part human, part supernatural being

I was going to post the same.

The level of the 'discussion' is dreadful.

The Humanists are pretty captured - as an organisation it opposes defining sex in the EA as biological sex, and the US bunch threw out Richard Dawkins because he drew parallels between men thinking that they are women and Rachel Dolezal.

I do enjoy her work, and wouldn't shun her because she doesn't share my views.

I disagree with adult DD over my terfy opinions but she would be shocked and horrified at the thought of missing my funeral over it!

Surely there is more going on with Alice/her Mum than a mere difference of opinion. I feel very sad for her.

Apparently, one Good Friday she tweeted that " Dead people don't come back to life".

Her first degree is in medicine/anatomy, and she has a PhD in paleopathology.

Really interesting to read about her issues with her parents in the light of how she acts on social media- I've never understood why someone claiming to be a humanist would deliberately goad and upset religious people as she does but now I know the background it makes a lot more sense.

Wow, some of the vitriol on here.
Why is it no longer possible to disagree -vehemently- even violently- with another person’s viewpoint, without deriding and denigrating, and refusing to ever read a word written by that person ever again ( even someone you used to enjoy)?

You can be very clever and adept at manipulating language, but that is not the same as being able to construct rational arguments; or being able to differentiate between one type of thing and another when drawing conclusions.

Lots of people are 'educated' and have degrees and even higher degrees - but that does not necessarily make them intellectual. Many people process information primarily through emotional channels ( we all do to an extent and on occasion).

In so vehemently rejecting the faith of her parents, Roberts has replaced it with another unanalysed doctrine of faith - for reasons of emotional security.

Am actually shocked....I didn't realise Alice Roberts held those views. she is meant to be an educated woman. This is probably why I don't like her 🤣 I must have subconsciously known what an idiot she is

And yes how can you complain about religions while espousing another completely non-evidence-based dogma? I wish Alice would just stop and have an actual think for 5 minutes.

Religious beliefs are not for me either, but they mainly can’t actually be proven wrong, unlike gender woo.

Is it cos she's a massive anti woman bigot?

And we’ve had decades of feminism where we’ve been trying to get away from women being reduced to their genitalia.

This is just regurgitated TRA-speak with no thought to what she actually means. I’ve been a feminist for decades and never felt that what I was fighting was “being reduced to my genitalia” - what a weird concept. Being female, or male, is far from just being about genitals. Our bodies are different and those differences enable the subjugation and sidelining of women.

”reducing people to genitalia” is the argument TRAs use to oppose people being able to have a sex they prefer/exclusively wish to have sex with. It’s got nothing to do with feminism. And I find this a giveaway, that somewhere in Alice’s brain, her education and logical thinking ability have been suppressed in favour of parroting what she has unthinkingly swallowed as what “lefty progressive cool people” think, because she has a need to be seen that way. I find it bizarre as she must be, or must have been at one point, someone who can think things through.

And as PPs say, how do you know a clownfish has changed sex? It’s sure as hell not their dress, lipstick, hormone pills, heels, handbag or pronouns. It’s because they functionally change sex in a way that is understood scientifically on the basis of gametes. It’s such a non-argument.

Oh no what's Lucy worsey done 😱 I like her.
Like Mary beard
Weirdly I've never liked Alice Roberts but can't pinpoint why.

Alice's mother Wendy wrote in her letter:

'Some humanists complaining about, and campaigning against, the 'indoctrination' of children in our church schools seem to be unaware that they are doing almost exactly that about which they are objecting.'

I thought it deeply sad that she did not even attend her mother's funeral. She cut her family out, it seems, because of a disagreement about the influence of Christianity in schools.

In other articles I've seen, her mother seems entirely rational and capable of intelligent discussion. She was not a fanatic; though there certainly seems an element of intolerant fanaticism in Alice herself.

There was an excellent post below the interview:

"It may be true that the observable features of male and female brains do not differ greatly, but the way in which the endocrine system works in their bodies seems to be markedly different. Hence in order to bring about a ‘transition’ we have to artificially pump human beings full of hormones and even surgically remove certain glands - so the parallel with the clownfish does not quite work.
Also even with clownfish as well as with human beings, the notion of transitioning is hardly possible without the normative fixed goalposts of the male and female versions. Without them how do you know what you have transitioned from or to, or when you have arrived?

More generally why do trans activists urge us to support trans people ‘because they have no choice’ (an appeal to biological determinism), but are happy to disparage women who claim their identity is bound up with their sex, because ‘sex is only a social construct’. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways"

But sex isn't that complicated. She must know that. She talked about the tyranny of natural childbirth ideology when she was having her first baby. She knows perfectly well that only females can give birth.

I don't have any patience with her now. It's interesting that when Andrew Billen (who isn't by any stretch of the imagination a Terf) put a logical objection to her she fell silent. Why? Because she obviously hadn't thought about it up to then. Every single person who has put logical objections to her on Twitter has been blocked. She deals with the logical flaws by refusing to think about them. She couldn't block Billen so had to come up with an answer. And not a very good one.

Isn’t she a spokesperson for the humanist society? I seem to remember some nasty posts with digs at religious people which I thought was unnecessary.

Most likely she is a Glastonbury witch in disguise

HoneyButterPopcorn · Today 09:37

And she is a smug atheist (under the guise of a humanist which is a joke really when you make horrible comments about/to religious people).

Actually no, she is a new ager, she does yoga and she said that the birth of her children was something very spiritual

She is basically a concocted mind, so sad, I really liked her also

Yes, she used to handle human bones at digs and confidently assert that it was the pelvis of a woman, or of a man. She seems not to know that any more….

….Or actually she does, because I’ve definitely heard her saying it on ‘Digging for Britain', but apparently it’s all very complicated so it doesn’t always apply. Or something. Because clownfish. 🤡

Wasn’t she on Time Team? Famous for having pink hair or something.

I used to like AR, but her dogmatic views on religion and religious people, and quite unhinged tirades about them finished her for me, along with the trans thing. She isn't an archaeologist, so why she should be the poster girl for archaeology beats me. I used to follow her on Twitter, but her self-satisfied self promotion got very wearing and I unfollowed.

She’s just popped up on my newsfeed with an article in the times.

Something about why her family doesn’t talk to her. I have a few ideas…