Prof Alice Roberts attacks Dr Emma Hilton on Twitter

[CaveMum]

Another low blow from Prof Alice - attempting to dismiss Dr Hilton’s credentials as a signatory to a letter to the Times on biological sex.

Twitter thread here: twitter.com/fondofbeetles/status/1204763423013244929

You are all so very clever . Very very clever women. I can’t help thinking you might actually all be men given that you know so much science and are expressing yourselves so calmly and clearly and in such a rational fashion. Are you sure you haven’t all been wrongly assigned at birth?

Somedyke giving Mockers a run for his money!!

fondofbeetles

Learning from your twitter feed is one of the few positive and useful things that has come out of the whole gender debacle for me. I feel you have done an amazing job of communicating science to a general audience.

I have been blocked today by Alice Roberts despite not interacting with her recently and then only politely and briefly. She must be using something similar to terfblocker. She is therefore overwhelmingly blocking women who are interested in scientific reality.Quite unbelievable for a Professor of Public Engagement.

She has all these qualifications yet can not deal with questioning and challenge in these areas where she is supposed to be expert. I do wonder if anyone has checked out if these qualifications are actually genuine and she did pass the courses. There are a very high percentage of CVs out there that include falsely claimed qualifications!

She has all these qualifications yet can not deal with questioning and challenge in these areas where she is supposed to be expert. I do wonder if anyone has checked out if these qualifications are actually genuine and she did pass the courses.

Universities do check your qualifications when they hire you. However, her publication record is meagre for someone who is a professor. It would not come anywhere near meeting the requirements for a normal professorship in academia (as opposed to the sort that is handed out for having your mug on TV).

She is therefore overwhelmingly blocking women who are interested in scientific reality.Quite unbelievable for a Professor of Public Engagement.

Yup! I see she's blocked Janice Turner too. Anyone, basically, who asks polite questions that challenge her brain-addled pomo nonsense about sex being a spectrum. She must think her position is unassailable and it doesn't matter who she pisses off.

the thinking person's Kate Humble

Kate Humble is the thinking person's Kate Humble!

When I see Alice Roberts I'm reminded of the lefty liberal hippy-dippy types I grew up with. Despite obviously having all that scientific study and knowledge behind her, there's a kind of culturally driven woolly thinking among some lefty middle class types where all that matters is being right on and not a bigot. It generally goes with having a suspicion of medical orthodoxy, which is why these types are often anti-vacc and think you can cure cancer with juicing - despite often being highly educated.

She is probably trying to reconcile her scientific / academic understanding with this cultural need to be woke, resulting in this type of mental and linguistic contortion.

I honestly think within a year or so science/reality will win and she'll get it.

Merrymouse, that is a great link, so funny. I have shown it to my DW (PhD Biology, MSc Biotechnology) and she thinks it is hilarious. She is stunned at Alice Robert's musings.

Sorry, that should be BSc Biology.

OK, I withdraw

Kate Humble is Innocent, OK.

I was first annoyed by Alice Roberts when she reacted OTT to Davd Attenborough (low grade geologist and junior TV production assistant) when he made a radio documentary about Elaine Morgan. Roberts went beyond disagreement and suggested that such ideas should never be given airtime. (That told him.)

I remember that, Mockers! She thought Elaine Morgan's aquatic ape theory was unscientific, which is hilarious in retrospect.

Morgan's ideas were viciously misrepresented by people suggesting she was saying humans evolved from whales. As Attenborough (no longer employed by the BBC, just temping on small projects) made a follow-up and detailed the new evidence which was pointng more and more in Morgan's favour.

I have been blocked today by Alice Roberts despite not interacting with her recently and then only politely and briefly. She must be using something similar to terfblocker.

Seriously?
David Challenor must be proud.

Elaine Morgan's ideas have been having a comeback and being taken seriously by other scientists for well over a decade now. It's bizarre that a scientist at Roberts' supposed level wouldn't address them in a balanced way.

The aquatic ape theory is flawed and considered a bit fringe but it is based on a hell of a lot more reasoned thinking and evidence than the current queer/gender stuff. It doesn't rely on belief in something that sounds like a soul, for starters. I've actually had and read long, involved, two sided discussions about AA.

All of this is never going to stop feeling like a baffling betrayal.

Was Elaine Morgan the 'Descent of Woman'? I loved that book, mostly for the shift on emphasis from the male as default to the mother/baby/child dyad as the most important evolutionary unit. Whether or not the 'aquatic ape' bit holds true.

Waterside Ape if you don't mind. A lot of people misunderstood 'Aquatic Ape,' not all of them honestly, to imply they were living permanently in the water. They were shoreline foragers, and more and more evidence for them on the coast of South Africa is being recovered.

(Which is not to say there were not also others running around with spears on the savannah as well...)

Do you reckon she's a drinker? Could that explain the mad tweets followed by blocking everyone then undoing it later? Puffy drinker's face on her these days it seems to me.

Quite right, Mockers. Although didnt Morgan base her theories on an earlier on called Aquatic evolution? Maybe that's where some of the confusion arose.

Does anyone remember Alice on Time Team? Her pink hair seems to be the main reason she got picked up by TV instead of being left behind grubbing about in Phil's trench like so many other fresh faced archeologists.

Well she is from the West Country @fgs maybe a secret cider habit ?

Aw she just being an idiot

Just cos you have a education doesn’t mea; you can’t be an idiot

A level biology isn’t even needed to understand it. There are males who produce sperm and females who produce eggs. I believe that’s O level, or it was in my day.

Very disappointing from Roberts. How can anyone take a scientist seriously when they’re spouting stuff that’s so easily debunked?

Waterside Ape if you don't mind

Always thought 'beach bum' was the natural state of humanity