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

[IwantToRetire]

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

This can be seen in the trans debate and which side of it most of the new atheists fell on.

Yes, he’s surprised that so called atheists and humanists have so easily fallen into line believing in a different religion, one they can’t see they are disciples of because there’s no God figure at the centre of it (yet).

Except it isn't purely semantic, and JKR had threats to her life.

A remark can be wrong and obnoxious and extremely offensive and thought out all at the same time.

Just because he's Dawkins doesn't mean he's right all the time. Expecting people to nod along and give him the benefit of the doubt or never question his tone or content is demanding craven compliance.

He would laugh heartily at the idea that his thoughts should be taken as gospel.

But it wasn’t a “remark”. He explained his view in an essay, not a “remark”. It almost predates the existence of Twitter.

And no one has said all of his thoughts should be taken as “gospel”. Where has anyone said that? He’s right about sex though. Don’t you think?

I only intended to illustrate that it isn't necessary to agree with Dawkins on everything to think he's got a point about sex. It's hardly a point that needs illustrating. Isn't it obvious?

The post above illustrates why. The idea that he just casually threw out an offensive remark about Christian parents has been taken to be true. When it wasn’t.

It’s perfectly fine to agree or disagree with Dawkins. It’s perfectly fine to disagree with him on one thing and not the other. What is not fine, in my view, is to disagree with him, or anyone for that matter, because what they said hasn’t really been read or understood properly.

Yabbut the point you're missing is RD is hardly a reliable source because he has form on oversimplification of issues such as religion, rape & the binary nature of sex that coincide with his propensity for grudges particularly against those who called him out for his misrepresentations.

Saying precisely what he’s saying now. He’s been outspoken on this for ages. He was stripped of his Humanist of the Year Award by the American Humanist Association for this stance back in early 2021.

I think that's a reach. He's a biologist, ie, better informed on some subjects than others.

His obvious expertise in such matters is why he's deliberately over simplifying the binary reproductive system by not including bi/multi modal sex distinctions.

You're begging the question.

Also I think you're inaccurate in accusing him of misinformation, leastways with regard to the example you give. Giving one's opinion is just that: it's not a misstatement of any fact (obviously I don't agree with him but that's beside the point.)

Actually I do think that the deliberate simplification of scientific concepts by science outreach people over the last one or two decades is the reason why so many people now are overly confident in their own understanding of science (while being completely oblivious to the things they don't even know they don't know) but sex is really this simple: two sexes, two types of gametes, evolutions way of increasing genetic variability and therefore more for natural selection to work on and to respond to changing environments. You either make viable gametes and produce viable and fertile offspring or you don't, evolution doesn't care about your feelings and convoluted ideas about sex and gender and rainbows and unicorns.

Institutional distrust has certainly left a vacuum for a post truth culture/Trumpism to take hold whereby 'common sense'/emotional thinking has replaced deference to scientific rigour/method & expertise.

And Dawkins certainly has exploited the masses ignorance & vulnerability on such matters. The claim that 'Sex is not Binary' is cynically 'repackaged' into 'activists are claiming the the binary nature of the sex reproduction system isn't real' when in fact that's not the claim. As I said upthread:

"‘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."

IE It's a deliberate conflation of the reproductive sex system with 'sex traits' that effectively ignores the ambiguity in outcomes or tail end distribution. In other words within the reproductive system there's capacity for variation that has real world implications on gender categorisations that Dawkins would know & conveniently ignores.

It's a deliberate conflation. See my response below to Igneococcus.

It's a deliberate conflation. See my response below to Igneococcus.

The only thing that matters for the definition of sex is reproduction, everything else is decoration, and I have a suspicion that deep down you do understand that but it doesn't fit your agenda so you burble on about irrelevant things and throw stuff like "sex traits" with a neat little segue to gender into the discussion. You're just a variation on a flat earther or a homeopathy supporter, they argue in exactly the same way, throwing stuff into the discussion that aren't actually relevant to the point, like gender is utterly irrelevant to reproductive sex.

"The only thing that matters for the definition of sex is reproduction"

Depends on the context though. And in the context of the legitimacy of trans & intersex people which is what Dawkins is pontificating on, the variations that the reproductive system is capable of producing is relevant to this discussion.

IE the context here isn't about the normal outcomes rather the abnormal ones & how they are categorised in society.

What word salad is this. You need to go back and relearn primary school biology.

And here comes the conflation of trans and intersex people and the segue from the biological definition of sex to "legitimacy of trans", whatever.

"word salad" = an inconvenient truth.

No one is suggesting they are the same. There's no conflation between the two because one has purely morphological variations & the other behavioural.

Depends on the context though. And in the context of the legitimacy of trans & intersex people which is what Dawkins is pontificating on,

Conflation, right there 👆

Care to explain why this is a conflation?

Is't all that just a faux complex way of saying "women differ biologically from one another across a number of variables" and "men differ biologically from one another across a number of variables". Does that really 'challenge the binary? The concept of binary doesn't entail that all member of each of the two categories are identical.

You could equally cite a range of variables that define the biological differences between individual humans. Those don't undermine the 'binary' between being human and being not-human. Which is just as well, since these are the whole fruitful landscape of medical research.

Some of these variables might have the consequence, for example, that some humans are 'more like mice' (in a specific neuro-chemical marker or whatever). We don't conclude that the human-mouse binary is a construct, or claim that it is therefore ok to set metal traps for burglars.

Are you a bit dim?

legitimacy of trans & intersex people