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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Richard Dawkin's new book warns against denial of scientific truth by ‘astonishingly vicious’ trans activists and other threats on science

363 replies

IwantToRetire · 25/09/2025 18:02

In The War on Science, Dawkins joins several scientists and philosophers contending that academic freedom and truth in universities was being stifled by diversity, equity and inclusion policies that promoted falsehoods under the banner of social justice.

“I draw the line at the belligerent slogan ‘trans women are women’ because it is scientifically false,” he said. “When taken literally, it can infringe the rights of other people, especially women.

“It logically entails the right to enter women’s sporting events, women’s changing rooms, women’s prisons and so on.

“So powerful has this postmodern counter-factualism become, that newspapers refer to ‘her penis’ as a matter of unremarked routine.”

Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/25/richard-dawkins-trans-women-slogan-scientifically-false/ and at https://archive.is/zAFxS

Richard Dawkin's new book warns against denial of scientific truth by ‘astonishingly vicious’ trans activists and other threats on science
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Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:01

Imnobody4 · 25/09/2025 22:54

I really am bemused by this grievance mindset. I can't stand Richard Dawkins, and disagree with a lot of what he says.
But I wouldn't dream of bringing up a few tweets from 12 years ago that annoyed me.
It doesn't mean I can't read what he says today with an open mind. If he writes something stupid I'll say so then.

The book includes contributions from Carole Hooven and Alice Sullivan. It will be interesting. In fact I'll have to get my library to order a copy.

The point is he's not the feminist's 'friend' he's attempting to be.

Might of been 12 years ago but he was a grown elderly man not a child at the time with a massive influence/following particularly of men & never recanted those smears.

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:02

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 22:59

Pick a thread you’re on. You’re always posting non-sequitur arguments. “So and so said this, that person is bad somehow, ergo sex is changeable.” Do you have anything original?

So you have no evidence of what you claimed I said about the binary nature of sex. Thank you.

TempestTost · 25/09/2025 23:04

Imnobody4 · 25/09/2025 22:54

I really am bemused by this grievance mindset. I can't stand Richard Dawkins, and disagree with a lot of what he says.
But I wouldn't dream of bringing up a few tweets from 12 years ago that annoyed me.
It doesn't mean I can't read what he says today with an open mind. If he writes something stupid I'll say so then.

The book includes contributions from Carole Hooven and Alice Sullivan. It will be interesting. In fact I'll have to get my library to order a copy.

Yes, it's weird.

I've always thought he was a bit of a twit and am happy to make fun of him point it out when he says stupid things about philosophy.

But the idea that this somehow means he is wrong about everything is dumb.

Haulage · 25/09/2025 23:07

Imnobody4 · 25/09/2025 22:54

I really am bemused by this grievance mindset. I can't stand Richard Dawkins, and disagree with a lot of what he says.
But I wouldn't dream of bringing up a few tweets from 12 years ago that annoyed me.
It doesn't mean I can't read what he says today with an open mind. If he writes something stupid I'll say so then.

The book includes contributions from Carole Hooven and Alice Sullivan. It will be interesting. In fact I'll have to get my library to order a copy.

I agree with this whole post Flowers

JazzyJelly · 25/09/2025 23:09

'Evolutionary biologist knows the importance of biological sex' isn't much of a headline, but I'll give it a read. I enjoyed his earlier books.

Haulage · 25/09/2025 23:10

Funny (peculiar) that we seem to be back in 2024 being told once more about how some bloke isn’t a friend to women 🥱

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 23:19

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:02

So you have no evidence of what you claimed I said about the binary nature of sex. Thank you.

Edited

You’ve said people don’t know their chromosomes so no one can be sure. Same old tropes. Nothing new to this thread?

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:30

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 23:19

You’ve said people don’t know their chromosomes so no one can be sure. Same old tropes. Nothing new to this thread?

I've never said any such thing! 😂

Link the quote please.

OldCrone · 25/09/2025 23:36

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 22:56

Do you have any evidence that ‘sex’ doesn't comply of multiple traits, with variable distributions. Or that Individuals may possess different combinations of chromosome type, gamete size, hormone level, morphology, and social roles, which do not always align in female- and male-specific ways or persist across an organism’s lifespan?

This stuff is thoroughly uncontroversial in science.

What does this mean? Why have you included "social roles" alongside biological traits as though you think certain social roles should somehow be linked to a person's sex.

For someone critical of sexism in others you seem very sexist.

MarieDeGournay · 25/09/2025 23:37

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 22:56

Do you have any evidence that ‘sex’ doesn't comply of multiple traits, with variable distributions. Or that Individuals may possess different combinations of chromosome type, gamete size, hormone level, morphology, and social roles, which do not always align in female- and male-specific ways or persist across an organism’s lifespan?

This stuff is thoroughly uncontroversial in science.

Yes, yes and no it's not.

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 23:38

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:30

I've never said any such thing! 😂

Link the quote please.

“Howseitgoin · 31/08/2025 15:31

The single thing that unites every woman throughout time is her female body.

False. Diversity exists in morphology, chromosomes & hormones not to mention function.
Yes diversity in biology is 'real'.

Howseitgoin · 03/09/2025 11:10

Firstly whether you can accurately detect sex (& you can't) isn't the point. The point is other cues are used & they aren't chromosomes, ovaries or genitals.
Secondly, it's a spectacular ignorance of biological variation. Yes biological variation is 'real' its why intersex people exist as well as ambiguity in morphology. Whilst most people's morphology will reflect their sex, exceptions exist as they do in gendered psychological traits.
Thirdly, the time is upon us where puberty blockers hormones & surgery will render natural puberty null & void. How will you tell then?

“Howseitgoin · 02/09/2025 07:09

Ultimately what a woman is defined by is a personal subjective opinion as to what associations an individual more identifies with
Doesn't work. Is discriminatory against women (the real meaning of the word 'women', the one everybody understands, not the neo nonsense of the trans ideology). Is a supremely selfish definition that serves only the purposes of trans ideologues.

“You're confused because you don't recognise your own culpability in gender identification because you are relying on your theoretical definition. But you, just like everyone else would assume sex based on stereotypical/archetypal associations IN PRACTICE because you rarely know another persons chromosomes or full morphology for sure. Trans people don't make the rules on social sex categorisation, wider society does. Wider society has decided by their actions that female sex distinctions aren't just limited to secondary sexual characteristics or chromosomes but also include behaviour.”

My bold on your last post. You also posted a link to some weird paper that you thought debunked the fact Caster Semenya is a man.

Like I said, do you have anything new to say? It’s all so trite and tiresome otherwise.

ErrolTheDragon · 25/09/2025 23:48

Not sure if the bit about ‘persisting across an organisms lifespan’ was hinting that he doesn’t think post menopausal women are still human females or at clownfish…
…either way, I very much doubt Dawkins would agree it was relevant to why transwomen aren’t women.
Try reading what he said, he’s pretty clear on the overriding importance of anisogamy

Richard Dawkins: ‘Trans women are women’ slogan is scientifically false
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/54f726a91a9ec89b

Richard Dawkins: ‘Trans women are women’ slogan is scientifically false

New book warns against denial of scientific truth by ‘astonishingly vicious’ trans activists and other threats on science

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/54f726a91a9ec89b

Howseitgoin · 25/09/2025 23:54

Um, you claimed I said a person can't know 'their (own) chromosomes which isn't the same as we can't know for sure another persons chromosomes.

In any case that's irrelevant to the initial point of:

"rather ‘Sex’ is often semantically flattened into a binary model, for which individuals are classified as either ‘female’ or ‘male.’ A more expansive definition of sex is bimodal—with most individuals falling within one of two peaks of a trait distribution. However, even a bimodal model is an oversimplification, since ‘sex’ comprises multiple traits, with variable distributions. Individuals may possess different combinations of chromosome type, gamete size, hormone level, morphology, and social roles, which do not always align in female- and male-specific ways or persist across an organism’s lifespan. Reliance on strict binary categories of sex fails to accurately capture the diverse and nuanced nature of sex."

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 23:56

Either way mate, nothing you’ve said on this thread is new or different in its nonsense to stuff you’ve said before.

Now that we’ve established you’re a broken record, how about a novel discussion about why Dawkins is wrong about what he’s said, not because of other things he’s said?

Howseitgoin · 26/09/2025 00:02

OldCrone · 25/09/2025 23:36

What does this mean? Why have you included "social roles" alongside biological traits as though you think certain social roles should somehow be linked to a person's sex.

For someone critical of sexism in others you seem very sexist.

Social roles as in some people's natural inclinations don't necessarily align with societal expectations and norms dictating how individuals should act, think, and behave based on their reproductive sex category sex.

Inclinations are biologically influenced by genes & hormones.

NotBadConsidering · 26/09/2025 00:04

Here you go again. Are you going to post the link to the article you’ve posted repeatedly about sex and behaviour? Go on, for originality 🙄

DustyWindowsills · 26/09/2025 00:07

NotBadConsidering · 25/09/2025 22:28

Yes, you’re always the one going with non-sequitur arguments, I’m sure it’s you. Do you have an original discussion point about the facts today?

To be fair, it's usually Tandora who comes out with this stuff. Different posters, same AI-assisted word salad. 🤭

Howseitgoin · 26/09/2025 00:08

NotBadConsidering · 26/09/2025 00:04

Here you go again. Are you going to post the link to the article you’ve posted repeatedly about sex and behaviour? Go on, for originality 🙄

How genes influence behaviour? If you really want me to….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_genetics

Behavioural genetics - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_genetics

NotBadConsidering · 26/09/2025 00:11

Yes, my bad, I forgot to discern between which of the many non-sequitur links you repeatedly post 🤣

IwantToRetire · 26/09/2025 00:49

'Educated men' are only too happy to bang on about institutional 'due process' but somehow Dawkins 'forgets' about this when it comes to women's claims about sexual violence. The twitter moral failure police seems to be enough…

What are you talking about.

The feminist position is that is a woman say she has been raped we believe. We dont trust due protest.

Dawkins is doing the opposite. After a claim you ask is it true?

If you effort to, well really I have no idea, create a fuss about nothing you are just saying really stupid things.

If you are bored start your own thread.

At most this threas was just about saying this book has been, published and this quote has been made.

Most of us would have gone, oh that's interesting, and moved on to more core issues.

Seriously, even allowing for you should never work with your enemies (silly old Allies joing up with Soviet Russia to defeat Hitler) you are just like a drunk in bar looking for someone to have a fight with.

And note to self, as just about every thread on FWR is not being hijacked by trolls, dont feed them. It only encourages them.

Richard Dawkin's new book warns against denial of scientific truth by ‘astonishingly vicious’ trans activists and other threats on science
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TomPinch · 26/09/2025 01:50

Dawkins said that people who bring up their children as Christians are child abusers. So on his definition that includes me.

A completely obnoxious remark but one that has precisely nothing to do with his views on the scientific basis for the difference between the sexes, a subject on which he, as a biologist, is expert. If he was a philosopher too he might remind his opponents of Occam's razor.

Howseitgoin · 26/09/2025 02:11

IwantToRetire · 26/09/2025 00:49

'Educated men' are only too happy to bang on about institutional 'due process' but somehow Dawkins 'forgets' about this when it comes to women's claims about sexual violence. The twitter moral failure police seems to be enough…

What are you talking about.

The feminist position is that is a woman say she has been raped we believe. We dont trust due protest.

Dawkins is doing the opposite. After a claim you ask is it true?

If you effort to, well really I have no idea, create a fuss about nothing you are just saying really stupid things.

If you are bored start your own thread.

At most this threas was just about saying this book has been, published and this quote has been made.

Most of us would have gone, oh that's interesting, and moved on to more core issues.

Seriously, even allowing for you should never work with your enemies (silly old Allies joing up with Soviet Russia to defeat Hitler) you are just like a drunk in bar looking for someone to have a fight with.

And note to self, as just about every thread on FWR is not being hijacked by trolls, dont feed them. It only encourages them.

Perhaps read the article I linked for clarification of why Dawkins is considered a rape apologist:

"A woman was alleging that a man raped her when she was too drunk to give consent, and Dawkins’s immediate response was the mainstay of all conservatives: What if she’s lying? Plenty of Dawkins’s Twitter followers agreed with him. It’s her word against his, they cried. Rape accusations are serious business, they cried.

Yes, rape accusations are serious business. Actually, accusing anyone of a crime, especially a violent crime, is serious business. That’s why we have court systems in place that determine, to the best of their abilities, whether a given accusation is most likely true or false. We have this for virtually every crime. So why are Dawkins and his ilk so preoccupied about false accusations of rape in a world full of false accusations?

The “accuser-might-be-lying” theory inevitably pops up around every rape case. But false accusations of rape occur in only about 2 to 3 percent of cases. That’s roughly the same rate as false accusations of other violent crimes, according to the US Justice Department. Studies in the UK have yielded similar results, but the myth of the always-lying rape accuser persists.

Keir Starmer, England’s Director of Public Prosecutions, stated that rape investigations are “undermined by [the] belief that false accusations are rife.” Dawkins obviously fancies himself the king of reason, yet he buys wholesale into this frat-boy mentality. It’s reasonable to assume an accused person is innocent until proven guilty, but Dawkins is cherry-picking rape cases as the only focus of his doubt.

He clearly thinks of himself as someone who flies in the face of the status quo, a maverick who plays by his own God-free rules. The problem is that his perception of the status quo is completely wrong. It’s not edgy to suggest that rape survivors are to blame for their own rape. Victim blaming is the status quo. Courts, media, and the public at large have thrown at rape survivors every insane excuse you can imagine, from “You shouldn’t have been drunk” to “You couldn’t possbly have been raped because you were wearing skinny jeans.”
And Dawkins didn’t stop at questioning the alleged victim’s motives. He went on to compare being raped to driving drunk, with a couple more classy tweets in which he got both sarcastic and defensive of men: “…If you want to drive, don’t get drunk. If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don’t get drunk,” and “Officer, it’s not my fault I was drunk driving. You see, someone got me drunk.”

In Dawkins’s mind, women seem to set out to “testify and jail men,” the same way that designated drivers consciously decide not to drink at a party. So if a woman gets drunk and passes out, that’s her fault for failing to better plan around her goal: testifying and jailing a man. "

Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) on X

.@mrgregariously Exactly. If you want to drive, don't get drunk. If you want to be in a position to testify & jail a man, don't get drunk.

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/510656024169447424

GallantKumquat · 26/09/2025 02:19

TomPinch · 26/09/2025 01:50

Dawkins said that people who bring up their children as Christians are child abusers. So on his definition that includes me.

A completely obnoxious remark but one that has precisely nothing to do with his views on the scientific basis for the difference between the sexes, a subject on which he, as a biologist, is expert. If he was a philosopher too he might remind his opponents of Occam's razor.

I think Dawkins himself has revised his thoughts on the fundamentals of this proposition. It rests on the premise that believing things that are untrue is always harmful and encouraging others to do so, especially using power corrosively, is harmful, and in the later case unethical. Therefore, raising a child in a Christian orthodoxy that requires the belief in things that can't be true is harmful and thus a type of child abuse - the severity of which can be debated. Logically that is a coherently sound argument.

Where Dawkins has modified his thinking , and indeed has had his word view shaken, is his observation of the extent to which Christian untrue beliefs seem to provide a psychological resistance to believing other untrue and much more harmful things - and becoming fanatical about promoting them. This can be seen in the trans debate and which side of it most of the new atheists fell on.

Howseitgoin · 26/09/2025 02:28

Christians, particularly in recent times don't all necessarily believe in the 'miracles' part though, rather choosing to emphasise the value of Jesus' moral teachings as relevant to everyday life. I was raised this way as I raised my children so its inaccurate to characterise Christianity as a false belief.

The Thomas Jefferson bible famously omits all miracles performed by Jesus, as well as mentions of angels, the supernatural, and Jesus's resurrection. Jefferson compiled his own version of the Gospels by cutting and pasting passages to focus solely on what he considered Jesus's core moral and philosophical teachings, believing that supernatural events were not essential to the fundamental doctrines of his message. He aimed to create a guide for spiritual solace and guidance, focusing on Jesus's ethical instructions rather than divine claims or miraculous interventions.

So Dawkins clearly has form on propagating misinformation when it serves a personal or political outcome for him.

NotBadConsidering · 26/09/2025 02:29

TomPinch · 26/09/2025 01:50

Dawkins said that people who bring up their children as Christians are child abusers. So on his definition that includes me.

A completely obnoxious remark but one that has precisely nothing to do with his views on the scientific basis for the difference between the sexes, a subject on which he, as a biologist, is expert. If he was a philosopher too he might remind his opponents of Occam's razor.

It wasn’t an “obnoxious remark”. It was a thought out essay he wrote in 2006:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150217191437/old.richarddawkins.net/articles/118" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20150217191437/old.richarddawkins.net/articles/118

But you are correct, regardless of this, it doesn’t change the fact that men aren’t women and Dawkins is correct for saying so.

Religion&#39;s Real Child Abuse - Richard Dawkins - RichardDawkins.net

https://web.archive.org/web/20150217191437/http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/118