I know it's important to set the record straight, as it were; even so, I got to admire your fortitude in dealing with the fabulists and the deluded in responding to these kinds of misconceived "gotchas." Thanks, Colin.
Colin I don’t know how you stay sane while dealing with these over-credentialed, barely-literate sophists. They just want to bury you an in avalanche of phantasmagorical bullshit and hope you get exhausted and give up. Please don’t.
Thanks Colin. I have noted in these debates what a shocker it would be for biologists to find out that they have been wrong about the sex binary for decades and centuries. Wouldn't you think that if someone really came up with such a startling discovery that there would be a massive recognition of such a finding, as well as a Nobel prize for sure?
There must be something especially foul in the air because the other day, on another Substack, a "PhD" with the kind of cutsey name that suggests "he" became a "she" responded to one of my TERFy comments with a ridiculous rant about intersex and the research of guess who? Anne Fausto-Sterling! Then Dr. Cutsey hurled the F-bomb at me. If only I'd had this article back then, I would have provided the link to this commenter and topped it all off with the Bronx cheer.
Thank you! I don't expect to convince any of the activists that they're wrong, but I know lots of people will benefit from reading these rebuttals as it will help arm them with science and reason.
Not sure that Colin isn't almost as much a part of the problem as of the solution. From section 9 of an article by a well regarded Belgian virologist:
"Sections 4–8 of this review followed a chronological presentation of recent developments in viral taxonomy which revealed that the field has been plagued by an uninterrupted series of conflicting views, heated disagreements and acrimonious controversies that may seem to some to be out of place in a scientific debate.
The reason, of course, is that the subject of virus taxonomy and nomenclature lies at the interface between virological science and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students (Blachowicz 2009)":
I grew up in college town, Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s and 1970s. It is all about getting published. The more radical, the more published. Have to make sense? No. That was your high school composition teacher, requiring your writing to make sense. The university is a different planet, entirely.
Be careful about making blanket statements about what does and does not get published in academia. The majority of research, at least in the sciences, makes plenty of sense, and would likely not get published if it did not. Demonizing academia broadly does not serve our cause.
The majority of research in the biomedical sciences (and probably other, but my experience is of the biomedical) only gets funding if its expected outcome supports, or at most only mildly modifies, understandings based on the prevailing paradigms. Disruptive research, that which truly advances knowledge, hardly ever gets either funded or published.
The pressure at every point of an academic career - from passing exams, to getting approval for a research degree proposal, applying for a research grant, getting published, getting a job, promotion,... requires obeisance to the prevailing ideology.
I will respond to this at length later, but at the very least it seems to me that challenging prevailing scientific paradigms and getting captured by illiberal ideologies, are not the same thing.
I didn't say, and hope I did not imply that they are! What I intended to say is that Science is no less susceptible to capture by nonsense than any other branch of what considers itself Academia. I agree with Ute Heggen's comment on the contemporary university, but would replace "radical" by "that which supports the position of powerful interest groups." Follow the money to find who gains from the promotion of an ideology.
My own pet example of entrenched dogma in biomedical science is the "germ theory of disease" that casts microbes in the mould of mediaeval demons, exceptionalises humans (much as gender theory does!) and is at the root of the mysophobia and coprophobia of public health pronouncements.
There's a simple reason - usually "disruptive research" is actually "foolish nonsense". While the paradigm is disrupted now and again, this sort of thing happens less than might be expected. Mostly "disruptive research" is just plain old "garbage".
Most of everything is garbage. The problem is that the garbage that conforms to the paradigm is more likely to be funded and published that that which challenges it.
The majority of what academia publishes, even in the best publications, is nonsense. There have been studies looking at studies and meta analysis listing the percentage that couldn’t be replicated at like over 85%. JAMA published, very recently, a nonsense “study” claiming having a Black doctor living in the same county extended the lives of the Black residents in the county even if those residents had zero clue there was a Black doctor and they had never seen the doctor. This “life extension” couldn’t be replicated based on geographic distance, or even access to a same “race” doctor. It’s pure nonsense.
Countless studies “disputing” immutable replicated biological sex differences have been published. Countless studies with faux and debunked claims that mutilating a child’s body over “gender dysphoria” is “necessary” to “prevent suicide” even though that’s been debunked nearly a decade in replication.
Countless studies were published claiming Covid shots worked.
The entire industry dedicating to “solving” Alzheimer’s went down a pointless treatment path based on debunked science.
The list of bs goes on and on and on and on.
I’m sorry, but most crap published by academics in so-called journals turns out to be abjectly false. The exception is good work that follows actually observed data.
They have jobs, just not ones where actual success or correctness matters. It’s like socialism. Pay is guaranteed performance at many institutions isn’t a consideration.
I become a paid subscriber specifically for content like this. This is the kind of thing most people instinctively know (like how gender norms =/= sex), but can't articulate elegantly due to not being up to our eyeballs in biological research. Seeing researchers deliberately conflate the two reminds me of this line I read from Seth Dillon.
These researchers appear to be uncomfortable that the mammal world at-large very easily falls into sex binary for stated reasons, but they dislike that reality because it makes them uncomfortable. They then proceed to deliberately conflate form with function to confuse the topic, or to dismiss the binary, as some kind of "own". They know it's two separate types of categorization, but choose to fuse them knowing they're mostly incompatible concepts as they relate to human biology/sexuality.
"Reality is uncomfortable for people who dislike reality" was the tweet I read, and it perfectly encapsulates this sentiment.
Yes, I see. The source of my amusement is in the obvious fact that every human walking this planet has an unbroken lineage composed of biological males & females and no individuals in between or orthogonal to those categories. And that there are biologists that claim the contrary.
It’s admittedly been a while since I read Fausto-Sterling, but I don’t recall the “five sexes” part seeming any more obviously “tongue-in-cheek” than the rest of the book. Her defense comes perilously close to admitting that a lot of academics are just taking the piss when they put this stuff out there.
Woke activists love to support their claims by asserting that "evidence is mounting" for whatever they want to believe. Sometimes the mountain consists of only one so-called study, or as in this case, ten or more. No matter what the number, woke investigators seldom if ever offer an analysis of the quality of the research included in their literature reviews, unless the data or conclusions do not support their ideology. In those instances, they direct the reader to "frame" the results of other peoples' research in such a manner as to support their ideological claims.
The review selected spotted hyenas, elephants, and the tammar wallaby because *of* they challenged a widely held assumption that “secretion of androgen and anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) by the fetal testes during critical stages of development accounts for the full range of sexually dimorphic urogenital traits observed at birth.”
I know it's important to set the record straight, as it were; even so, I got to admire your fortitude in dealing with the fabulists and the deluded in responding to these kinds of misconceived "gotchas." Thanks, Colin.
No problem! I am happy to do it!
Your rebuttal is an actual “fabulous takedown,” lol. Bless you, Colin.
My pleasure!
What are the chances Fuentes will read it?
He actually asked to read it, so I'm forwarding him the emailed version. We'll see what he says.
That’s good to hear
I would say slim to none lol...none percent chance.
Colin I don’t know how you stay sane while dealing with these over-credentialed, barely-literate sophists. They just want to bury you an in avalanche of phantasmagorical bullshit and hope you get exhausted and give up. Please don’t.
Great article by the way, spot on as always.
Someone's gotta do it! This pseudoscience drives me nuts, and I want it to go away.
Excellent analysis and rebuttals to the Leftist gender nonsense. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words!
Thanks Colin. I have noted in these debates what a shocker it would be for biologists to find out that they have been wrong about the sex binary for decades and centuries. Wouldn't you think that if someone really came up with such a startling discovery that there would be a massive recognition of such a finding, as well as a Nobel prize for sure?
There must be something especially foul in the air because the other day, on another Substack, a "PhD" with the kind of cutsey name that suggests "he" became a "she" responded to one of my TERFy comments with a ridiculous rant about intersex and the research of guess who? Anne Fausto-Sterling! Then Dr. Cutsey hurled the F-bomb at me. If only I'd had this article back then, I would have provided the link to this commenter and topped it all off with the Bronx cheer.
"hurled the F-bomb"
The very best sign the opposing argument is crashing!!! :)
Great article. Trans activists aren’t concerned with facts but we are and very much appreciate you writing these articles.
Thank you! I don't expect to convince any of the activists that they're wrong, but I know lots of people will benefit from reading these rebuttals as it will help arm them with science and reason.
So sad that this is even necessary.
I know. It's so sad what happened to academia. Drives me nuts.
Today having a recent PhD doesn't mean you've been well educated. It means you've been well-steeped in nonsensical woke propaganda.
Not sure that Colin isn't almost as much a part of the problem as of the solution. From section 9 of an article by a well regarded Belgian virologist:
"Sections 4–8 of this review followed a chronological presentation of recent developments in viral taxonomy which revealed that the field has been plagued by an uninterrupted series of conflicting views, heated disagreements and acrimonious controversies that may seem to some to be out of place in a scientific debate.
The reason, of course, is that the subject of virus taxonomy and nomenclature lies at the interface between virological science and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students (Blachowicz 2009)":
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309889266_Classes_taxa_and_categories_in_hierarchical_virus_classification_a_review_of_current_debates_on_definitions_and_names_of_virus_species
Description about a lack of expertise in "logic, ontology, & epistemology" seems to fit Colin to a T.
Why do some academics indulge in such nonsense?
I grew up in college town, Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s and 1970s. It is all about getting published. The more radical, the more published. Have to make sense? No. That was your high school composition teacher, requiring your writing to make sense. The university is a different planet, entirely.
Be careful about making blanket statements about what does and does not get published in academia. The majority of research, at least in the sciences, makes plenty of sense, and would likely not get published if it did not. Demonizing academia broadly does not serve our cause.
The majority of research in the biomedical sciences (and probably other, but my experience is of the biomedical) only gets funding if its expected outcome supports, or at most only mildly modifies, understandings based on the prevailing paradigms. Disruptive research, that which truly advances knowledge, hardly ever gets either funded or published.
The pressure at every point of an academic career - from passing exams, to getting approval for a research degree proposal, applying for a research grant, getting published, getting a job, promotion,... requires obeisance to the prevailing ideology.
I will respond to this at length later, but at the very least it seems to me that challenging prevailing scientific paradigms and getting captured by illiberal ideologies, are not the same thing.
I didn't say, and hope I did not imply that they are! What I intended to say is that Science is no less susceptible to capture by nonsense than any other branch of what considers itself Academia. I agree with Ute Heggen's comment on the contemporary university, but would replace "radical" by "that which supports the position of powerful interest groups." Follow the money to find who gains from the promotion of an ideology.
My own pet example of entrenched dogma in biomedical science is the "germ theory of disease" that casts microbes in the mould of mediaeval demons, exceptionalises humans (much as gender theory does!) and is at the root of the mysophobia and coprophobia of public health pronouncements.
You don't believe in "germs" or bacteria/viruses? Gee, what is this, 1853?
There's a simple reason - usually "disruptive research" is actually "foolish nonsense". While the paradigm is disrupted now and again, this sort of thing happens less than might be expected. Mostly "disruptive research" is just plain old "garbage".
Most of everything is garbage. The problem is that the garbage that conforms to the paradigm is more likely to be funded and published that that which challenges it.
Like most evidence-free universal generalizations, this is obviously true, yet has no meaning whatsoever.
The majority of what academia publishes, even in the best publications, is nonsense. There have been studies looking at studies and meta analysis listing the percentage that couldn’t be replicated at like over 85%. JAMA published, very recently, a nonsense “study” claiming having a Black doctor living in the same county extended the lives of the Black residents in the county even if those residents had zero clue there was a Black doctor and they had never seen the doctor. This “life extension” couldn’t be replicated based on geographic distance, or even access to a same “race” doctor. It’s pure nonsense.
Countless studies “disputing” immutable replicated biological sex differences have been published. Countless studies with faux and debunked claims that mutilating a child’s body over “gender dysphoria” is “necessary” to “prevent suicide” even though that’s been debunked nearly a decade in replication.
Countless studies were published claiming Covid shots worked.
The entire industry dedicating to “solving” Alzheimer’s went down a pointless treatment path based on debunked science.
The list of bs goes on and on and on and on.
I’m sorry, but most crap published by academics in so-called journals turns out to be abjectly false. The exception is good work that follows actually observed data.
They’ve never had a job where there are consequences to promoting stupid nonsense. 🤷♀️
They do have such jobs! The consequences are career advancement and funding.
They have jobs, just not ones where actual success or correctness matters. It’s like socialism. Pay is guaranteed performance at many institutions isn’t a consideration.
I become a paid subscriber specifically for content like this. This is the kind of thing most people instinctively know (like how gender norms =/= sex), but can't articulate elegantly due to not being up to our eyeballs in biological research. Seeing researchers deliberately conflate the two reminds me of this line I read from Seth Dillon.
These researchers appear to be uncomfortable that the mammal world at-large very easily falls into sex binary for stated reasons, but they dislike that reality because it makes them uncomfortable. They then proceed to deliberately conflate form with function to confuse the topic, or to dismiss the binary, as some kind of "own". They know it's two separate types of categorization, but choose to fuse them knowing they're mostly incompatible concepts as they relate to human biology/sexuality.
"Reality is uncomfortable for people who dislike reality" was the tweet I read, and it perfectly encapsulates this sentiment.
Your work is critical pushback on ideological distortions. Thank you
Much appreciated. It means a lot coming from you!
Yes, I see. The source of my amusement is in the obvious fact that every human walking this planet has an unbroken lineage composed of biological males & females and no individuals in between or orthogonal to those categories. And that there are biologists that claim the contrary.
It’s admittedly been a while since I read Fausto-Sterling, but I don’t recall the “five sexes” part seeming any more obviously “tongue-in-cheek” than the rest of the book. Her defense comes perilously close to admitting that a lot of academics are just taking the piss when they put this stuff out there.
Edit needed (have I gotten carried away?)
This is a very confused paper by Anne Fausto-Sterling that proposed the idea that sex, which it never *define*,...
Woke activists love to support their claims by asserting that "evidence is mounting" for whatever they want to believe. Sometimes the mountain consists of only one so-called study, or as in this case, ten or more. No matter what the number, woke investigators seldom if ever offer an analysis of the quality of the research included in their literature reviews, unless the data or conclusions do not support their ideology. In those instances, they direct the reader to "frame" the results of other peoples' research in such a manner as to support their ideological claims.
Edit needed:
The review selected spotted hyenas, elephants, and the tammar wallaby because *of* they challenged a widely held assumption that “secretion of androgen and anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) by the fetal testes during critical stages of development accounts for the full range of sexually dimorphic urogenital traits observed at birth.”
Also fixed!