Alice Roberts - what the hell?

[GenderApostate19]

I can’t tell you how utterly disappointed I feel by her comments about Sex and reproduction not being binary. She knows the truth, what the hell is she doing? I’m even more upset by her than by Sarah Champion, she’s a Scientist ffs.

As someone suggested, love to know what Prof Roberts would say to a teenage undergraduate student with anorexia.

Very good alwayscoming

No. Not the same as Diane Abbott at all.
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/professor-alice-roberts-twitter-deactivated-time-team-gender-binary-hate-bile-misogyny-a8966976.html

Nice to see Elaine Morgan mentioned. Very interesting woman.
Re Alice, I despair ! I feel angry now I have seen her tweet about “hate , bile..misogyny “ very manipulative and unfair. Also depressing to see James Wong and Adam Rutherford tweeting “support”.
I think Alice has been a golden girl, the poster girl for accessible science, popular and liked by all. I think the articulate disagreement has annoyed her hence the framing of it as “hate” . Pretty terrible way to let down other women though.

Prof Roberts is a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science. Given this, I hope she will engage in proper discussion about her beliefs regarding gender identity and sex. Not on Twitter necessarily, but, say, in a debate with Prof Kathleen Stock. I'd like her to explain, clearly, what she means by words like sex, male, and female.
I wonder will she attempt to persuade gender critical people that she is right, using reason, or will she simply denounce us as meanies and never actually spell out what her position is.

The independent was rather - what’s the word? - biased?

Oh well another sleb to add to the list ‘Numpties - Don’t forget’.

Another fan of Elaine Morgan! Fascinating woman. I remember the programme David Attenborough did about her, and Alice Roberts's rebuttal.

Scientists are human. They may believe they're being rational and evidence-based, but a lot of the time they are influenced by their own personal prejudices and preconceptions.

If Alice was rational, she'd admit that compassion has absolutely nothing to do with scientific fact. Sometimes reality can be unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Prof Roberts is a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science.

Maybe she misread her title and thought it said ‘public enragement’.

Now that just sounds like a Made Up job title!

The Independent is at the point where links to it are just not worth clicking.

In this issue it's kind of a The Guardian that has really slipped its moorings.

Laughing at “public enragement” .
My Dad knew Elaine Morgan slightly, and bought me her books. He thought she was an exceptionally clever woman.

Life on Earth or any of the successor series would be pretty uninformative if they had to be presented according to an agenda of enforced compassion.

Ha ha AlwaysComingHome

Maybe this will make her a better Humanist, better able to sympathise with religious people and negotiate with them about thing like schools. She'll understand how religious people feel when their cherished illusions are challenged, now that she's in a situation where people are refusing to go along with hers.

Alice does not want anyone peeing against her door.

Compassion isn’t a fundamental force in the universe. The universe doesn’t care about us at all. Evolution in particular is a nasty, brutal process.

That brutality was part of the original humanist argument against the existence of a compassionate God.

No compassionate God would birth millions of turtles just so that most of them would never make it to the sea; no compassionate God would create a wasp that paralyses an insect to lay its eggs inside them, so that they will hatch and eat the insect alive from the inside.

Prof Roberts is a Professor of the Public Engagement in Science.

By public engagement she appears to mean disseminating catechism to the great unwashed.

The idea that engagement could a) go two ways and b) not consistent entirely of forelock tugging seems not to have occurred to her.

One wonders how long the flounce will last.

consist of

Pardon my typing.

Is it possible she could have got other nasty messages which we don't see on the threads? Though the indy don't cite them if so. Also the indy says 'to sexes' instead of 'two sexes'.

There are clearly quite a number of scientists on twitter and here, many not using their names, who completely disagree with the way the scientific knowledge is being presented and framed in this area. Any ideas of the numbers?

I might have asked before, but is there a secret network of biologists who are talking about this? If not, could there be? I feel like I really need the people with knowledge to start getting together to work out how to change the framing.

Also the indy says 'to sexes' instead of 'two sexes'.

The Indy's gonna Indy...

There are clearly quite a number of scientists on twitter and here, many not using their names, who completely disagree with the way the scientific knowledge is being presented and framed in this area. Any ideas of the numbers?

Following the thread, one of those heretics who believe that sex is binary is the woman (sorry, can’t remember her name) who wrote the original paper that The Guardian misrepresented in the article that Roberts reposted.

She was very clear that there were only two sexes, though there are variations within each sex.

Alice Roberts knows she is talking shit. She wants to retain her job and/or receive cookies.

It's embarrassing and painful but it's the world we live in.

I predict her holiday will be short. It's part of her job to engage.

I can't understand how this argument keeps getting turned around to make everyone but women victims. It really is fake news.

I am a compassionate person. I have always been on the left. No one would ever suggest there is even a hint of bigotry about me. Why am I on the other side to so many supposedly rational people?

I'd love to know what misogyny she encountered. I think we should be told...Maybe it depends on what you consider misogynistic. I doubt people who believe that being female is a fact, and who feel they have to fight against the erosion of hard won rights, would be attacking other women based on their sex.

As someone said above, I'm all for compassion for transwomen. But until aggressive activists stop using language that seems hateful towards the people whose sex they claim to feel part of, it's difficult to have sympathy for them. I'm sure there are lots of transwomen that are being drowned out by these people and are equally harmed by the rhetoric.

It worries me that women's rights are being attacked by the far-right Ann Widdecombe brigade and the far left falling-over-themselves-to be-woke brigade. Once again we are being shamed just for standing up for the rights of women and it is a-likened to racism or homophobia.

Human rights almost always results in a trade-off. I just don't think that saying people born female should race against other people born female (rather than those born male) is equivalent to saying that gay people can't get married or black people shouldn't have the same rights in the job market. It's just not the same thing. And we are not being irresponsible, uncaring or fascistic for saying it.

Remember when Dr McKinnon told Martina to go away and 'educate herself'? And she ended up finding out just how insane this shit is?!

Highlight of the year; "be careful what you wish for"!

Her twitter handle is "the Alice Roberts". Not surprised that someone using that should react with affront when challenged.