Famous evolutionary biologist forced to confirm that 'humans are not worms'

[ArabellaScott]

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1753045097959100600

Thank you, Prof.

The look on robs face when Maya says man!

Nobody actually believes it, even if they think they do.

They wouldn't buy two rabbits without asking the sex, they wouldn't base their contraceptive choices on the gender of a trans person they were sleeping with, they would have totally different reactions if a trans man said "I'm six weeks late" to if a trans woman said it.

It's as impossible to "unknow" what sex is as it would be to stop understanding your own native language. In almost every instance where people try to use the "correct" language they'll eventually reveal that they know what sex is, it's why you end up-with phrases like "men and birthing people".

I so want to see Alice Roberts (never got over my disappointment in her) take him on and debate this with him....

once you pretend people can change sex, everything is in play.

I think there's two related things going on. One is the rise of postmodernism in universities, which asserts the impossibility of arriving at an objective truth because our own human perspective is partial and limited. That seems to have elided into a belief that there is no such thing as objective truth.

The other is people imagine that believing something ridiculous makes them more sophisticated and clever than people who believe in what you might call common sense. So you'll often hear it said (correctly) that while schools teach Newtonian physics, once you get to university and learn about quantum mechanics, you'll realise that much of Newtonian physics is incorrect.

By extension, therefore, a dunce with O-level biology thinks there are only two sexes, whereas really clever people understand that actually sex is a spectrum, or there are multiple sexes, or biological sex doesn't exist (or whatever the orthodoxy is today). And that fits in very nicely with postmodernism ideology, because the implication is that clever people understand that the very notion of reality and truth is contested, while only stupid, unsophisticated people believe what they were taught in school, which is that there are only two sexes.

I love the dig in RW's conclusion: " 'Gender' is a different matter and I leave that to others to define."
We're still waiting.

So you'll often hear it said (correctly) that while schools teach Newtonian physics, once you get to university and learn about quantum mechanics, you'll realise that much of Newtonian physics is incorrect.

I'm going to say that that isn't really a correct statement either.

Newtonian physics just omits some factors from the calculation, and hence makes some assumptions.

In all normal situations there's no point including the factors from other theories that only change the answer at ridiculously small scale, or near the speed of light, or in the presence of ridiculous mass.

It would not be productive use of paper or compute time for civil engineering. In normal conditions, all the more-complete theories reduce to the equations of Newtonian physics.

So we're not teaching something "incorrect", we're teaching something that is correct and more useful and productive for most circumstances.

Once you learn the other theories of physics, you're not suddenly going to come up with some amazing new pool shot, or learn to fly or how to walk through walls. You're still constrained by Newton's laws of motion at this scale, standing on Earth.

And there's no analogous more advanced "theory" of sex that produces better answers in specialised conditions. We don't need a third sex involved to make a baby if travelling near the speed of light or something.

That was certainly true for anyone who was raised pre the queering of sex/gender.

But a child who has been taught by the BBC that 'there are a hundred genders' and told repeatedly things like 'some girls don't get periods!' by the NHS, and read various things on how 'sex is a spectrum' and 'sex is much more than binary' and had their biological and social education confused, muddied, and muddled by the government, media and celebs may very easily believe that sex is optional, changeable, and comes in a huge range of different combinations.

We've heard from some younger people saying that if they regret a mastectomy they just need to take some oestrogen and the breasts will grow back.

I honestly do not know how anyone is going to teach that generation about reproduction. Nobody has ever been able to tell me how you could explain reproduction using 'gender'.

Brilliant thread! The other thread saving my sanity at the moment is the Archers thread, which is making far more sense and is a lot more entertaining than the actual programme this week (no great change there, then). But I digress.

I have a hazy idea that old school transsexuals trying to make sense of their psychological issues often came to believe that their gender identity had a biological cause. Professor Zoe Playdon, the author of The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, certainly seems to think that way. 'Variation of sex development' is what Playdon believes is the cause of being transgender. When I was googling Playdon around the time that book was published, I found several interviews and statements where Playdon stated this. This is the first one I found just now - submission to Parliament on the reform of the GRA. Fortunately just one of many submissions and not acted on.

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/16594/pdf/

Formerly trusted pop science sources positing that 'sex is a spectrum':

'Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic - Biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male'

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

'Biological Science Rejects the Sex Binary, and That’s Good for Humanity - Evidence from various sciences reveals that there are diverse ways of being male, female, or both.'

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/biological-science-rejects-the-sex-binary-and-that-s-good-for-humanity-70008

I'll attach a screenshot of the fucking madness that the Nat Geographic has published.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/how-science-is-helping-us-understand-gender/

(I should clarify that Playdon is not claiming to have been born with a physical condition of a type that used to be called intersex and would now be called Difference of Sexual Development - Playdon believes there is a physical cause for believing from early childhood that you should have had a female body instead of a male one, or vice versa. Playdon has absolutely no scientific or medical training in this area, so I think this is a case of wish fulfilment. Playdon became a Professor in Medical Humanities and a senior academic in Medical Education by way of an arts and business administration background.)

Scientific American is letting themselves down.

Females with gender identities and females with differences of sexual development are still female. Same goes for males. It's really not difficult.

Social behaviour including gender identity, well that's something we co-create in our minds and our actions, together.

Playdon believes there is a physical cause for believing from early childhood that you should have had a female body instead of a male one, or vice versa.

That could turn out to be the case - but the key word there is 'believing'. Believing or feeling something doesn't make it true.

So you'll often hear it said (correctly) that while schools teach Newtonian physics, once you get to university and learn about quantum mechanics, you'll realise that much of Newtonian physics is incorrect.

I think a better way to think of it is that Newtonian physics is a perfectly valid model for the world that humans generally experience. (I studied maths at university, and remember well the lecturer pointing out how Newton fails when things are very fast - bring in special relativity, or very small - bring in quantum mechanics. But we still then went on to study a newtonian approach to planetary motion, and it all can be used fine in practice analysing spinning tops, projectiles, pendulums, etc).

And in a similar way, that's why it's almost ridiculous that we need an academic biologist to explain sex - all humans are "experts" on sex, as it's a basic distinction we need to make (like other animals) in order to survive. And since the time of domesticating animals, we would have had a pretty clear idea which two members of a species we had to put together in order to achieve reproduction and obviously related that to human sexes.

Another scientist who has been clear on the subject

https://x.com/stephenorahilly/status/1753167840910209457?s=46&t=pi5VMRsKY2yVCCMgmFNVqQ

I know, this phrase is excellent!

The original footage was taken down, but there are still clips on youtube of the BBC claiming there are 100 genders (fine, but they conflate this with sex) on the internet, fast forward through the intros if you want to avoid the US-based political commentary.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/scientists-male-female-phased-out-harmful-language/

'A group of researchers has suggested that terms such as “female” and “male” should be replaced in science as they reinforce the notion that sex is binary.'

Once you learn the other theories of physics, you're not suddenly going to come up with some amazing new pool shot, or learn to fly or how to walk through walls. You're still constrained by Newton's laws of motion at this scale, standing on Earth.

Thanks, Necessary - I knew someone would pick me up on my statement about Newtonian physics and I'm glad you did! Another example of the wealth of knowledge and expertise on this board.

MarieDeGournay · Yesterday 20:15

I often wonder how people can believe things that are demonstrably wrong, incorrect, not true, etc etc., even though the greatest minds in evolutionary biology, genetics, and Mumsnet🙂can prove beyond doubt that they are wrong, incorrect, not true, etc etc.

It's all a bit Alice v The White Queen, isn't it?

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Dodgson/quotations/

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

I believe this is the 'I'm not a vet, but I know what a dog is' argument.

Not to mention some of the witnesses in the recent Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre tribunal, who are deeply confused about the sex of their CEO.

I heard there's over a hundred genders but surely a lot of them are going to be absolute mince like cat gender etc? Maybe I'm mince gender, who cares.

I'm Spartacus

yes you are right. I think the seriousness of what's meant by "gender" needs to be examined for WORIADS.

I'm almost sure I read a "somewhat" retraction from the author of the "sex redefined" article, something about it being taken out of context and that they never intended it the way it was written etc.

Anyway, I still love it when we get a drive-by finger wagging from a TRA who pops along during a lengthy argument about the binary nature of sex, to tell us that "sex ISN'T binary and do you that know blah blah bollocks" etc.

They know better than highly intelligent scientists, evolutionists, biologists, and geneticists JUST how sex works. It's hilarious.
The blue haired brigade is SO intelligent.

It's comforting that these facts will STILL be these facts tomorrow, next decade, next century and next Millenium.

And pretty hilarious.