Article Rise & fall of journals + Is male/female divide a social construct? (Richard Dawkins)

[C C]

The rise and fall of scientific journals and a way forward
https://publichealth.realclearjournals.o...y-forward/

ABSTRACT: Scientific journals have had enormous positive impact on the development of science, but in some ways, they are now hampering rather than enhancing open scientific discourse. After reviewing the history and current problems with journals, a new academic publishing model is proposed. It embraces open access and open rigorous peer review, it rewards reviewers for their important work with honoraria and public acknowledgement and it allows scientists to publish their research in a timely and efficient manner without wasting valuable scientist time and resources... (MORE - details)

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Is the male female divide a social construct or scientific reality? (Richard Dawkins)
https://richarddawkins.substack.com/p/is...e-a-social

EXCERPTS: In November 2024, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) published a silly article by one of their staffers, Kat Grant (“they, them”) called What is a Woman? The indefatigable Jerry Coyne took the trouble to write a reply, called Biology is not Bigotry, which the co-directors of FFRF reluctantly agreed to publish, albeit with a disclaimer, making clear that it did not represent their views. [...] The leaders of FFRF caved in and took down Jerry’s article, almost as soon as they put it up...

[...] Science, according to these social scientists, is no more than a “social construct”. What is a social construct? The perfect example is money. ... If reality is a mere social construct, society has the power to change reality. Like the joke about legally repealing the Laws of Thermodynamics so that we can have perpetual motion machines.

I would argue that legally declaring a man to be a woman, just because he wants to be a woman, or vice versa, has much in common with the perpetual motion joke, and the calendar riots joke.

[...] unfortunately it is no joke. It’s the law in several countries. There are not just males and females, so the claim goes. They are but the extremes of a spectrum. Where you place yourself in the spectrum, man or woman or somewhere in between, it’s all a matter of personal choice. This entails a denial of genetic reality, and a Marxist-like faith in the malleability of nature. A bullying lobby today thinks your sex is not genetically determined but is malleable under your personal whim, sometimes backed up by law.

[...] Medical students are to be taught that both sex and gender are “social constructed”. And, “It is appropriate to affirm each individual’s self-determination regarding both sex and gender labels.” ... It is no idle whim, no mere personal preference, that leads biologists to define the sexes by the UBD. It is rooted deep in evolutionary history...

[...] A watered down version of the ideology concedes that sex may be binary but “gender” is not. The word gender enters the discourse trailing clouds of confusion....

[...] The current fashion for transsexualism belongs in a cluster of inter-related “woke” vogues, facilitated by the philosophy of postmodernism, partly stemming from a sincere concern for social justice, but misguided and scientifically ill-informed....

[...] A feeling of being in a body of the wrong sex seems to be a real psychological condition, even if much rarer than the current vogue would suggest. Such “dysphorics” can feel genuine distress. When anorexics look in the mirror, they see an emaciated body that they think is too fat. “Gender” dysphorics look in the mirror and see what they perceive as the wrong genitals. Both deserve sympathy and understanding. Nobody is phobic about anorexics. Why should anyone be phobic about gender dysphorics? “Transphobia” is a pernicious fiction. I have seen “Be kind” advanced as a reason to accept propositions such as “Trans women are women”. “Be kind” may be an admirable maxim for civilised living, but it cannot be regarded as scientific evidence for anything. You could as well adduce “Be kind to creationists” as evidence for the proposition that the world is young... (MORE - missing details)

[Magical Realist]

It's funny to me that the very same conservative ideologues who have vigorously lambasted the left for identity politics for years now seems to be advancing some absolutist morality of sexual identity. Sexuality now as a binary and natural fate--either male or female, and nothing in between. "Biology has spoken, and you darn sure better get used to it." I recall the same sort of pious invocation of this sort of sexual determinism back when gays were being attacked and maligned. "Men are designed to desire women, and women men. Homos are all sick perverts!" Forget the fact that roughly 10% of the population defied that logic. Eventually everybody got used to gays existing and accepted the fact that nature is not always so black and white. How long before we do the same for transgenders?

[Syne]

First, Jerry Coyne is very far from a conservative. If simple biology is now a wholly conservative endeavor, there's a lot of leftist morons who are winning the Darwin awards.

Second, you have no idea what identity politics are if you think understanding simple biology qualifies. There is no voting bloc of biological men and women. If there were, the opposition would never win another election.

But you obviously have a very personal axe to grind that will never be swayed by reason or fact.

[Magical Realist]

Second, you have no idea what identity politics are if you think understanding simple biology qualifies. There is no voting bloc of biological men and women.

If you think there isn't a huge white cis-gendered heteronormative Christian bloc of voters in the US, then you haven't been around very long. They're called republicans, and is as much founded on identity-based politics as that of minority democrats.

"It’s important to understand this to understand how identity politics works. It’s a two-sided debate: One side wants to preserve a status quo that has historically protected a white identity that many white, straight, cisgender (non-trans), Christian Americans identify with. The other side wants to carve out an opening for other groups to be more accepted in mainstream America: black people, Latino immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, and Muslim Americans, to name a few."

https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/2...y-politics

[Syne]

Vox is a leftist rag.

But you are making my point. You have to add so many other qualifiers (e.g. white, heteronormative, Christian) that you only prove that biological men and women are not, themselves, a voting bloc. You also completely fail to realize that accepting biology doesn't speak to sexual orientation at all. You, presumably, are a cis-gendered gay man. Again, proves my point.

Nor do you understand Republicans. You lump them together by identities, because that's what leftists do, but we are issues/policy voters. This is why pansy leftists always whine about disagreements being personal attacks, because their identity is their politics... hence the term. Aside from ever increasing leftist extremism, most Republicans would rather not engage in politics and just live and let live. There's also the fact that there's always been much more disagreement within the Republican party than within the Democrat party.

[Magical Realist]

Vox is a leftist rag.

Genetic fallacy. I could've quoted the point from Mein Kampf and it still would be just as valid.

But you are making my point. You have to add so many other qualifiers (e.g. white, heteronormative, Christian) that you only prove that biological men and women are not, themselves, a voting bloc.

If your voting bloc is consistently voting for legislation that favors your particular identity, ie. cis gendered heterosexual people, then that's as much an identity politics as a bloc who votes for transgender rights. You are empowering your own sexual identity as the only valid form of sexuality, and so are motivated
by that identity no less than transgenders are.

You also completely fail to realize that accepting biology doesn't speak to sexual orientation at all. You, presumably, are a cis-gendered gay man. Again, proves my point.

The argument against gays was that heterosexual orientation was the natural inborn and right orientation and so biologically backed. Just as true gender is now being argued as that which you were born with.

Nor do you understand Republicans. You lump them together by identities, because that's what leftists do, but we are issues/policy voters.

I lump them together based on their hatreds and bigotries such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, nativism, abelism, latinophobia, and islamophobia. And all those bigotries are based on their identity as white, native-born, christian, and heteronormative republicans.

Aside from ever increasing leftist extremism, most Republicans would rather not engage in politics and just live and let live.

Not if your example holds any water. All you ever do here is argue and post about political issues. Politics is your whole life. And constantly vilifying a bunch of strangers as evil leftists who are controlling the world is your constant obsession. I'm pretty sure you are typical of most republicans--totally defined by and energized by what you're against.

[Syne]

It would be a genetic fallacy if that were my only argument, but I then go one to explain that leftists (at such a rag) always see things through the lens of identity.

What specific legislation favors cis-gendered people? Is this legislation on the ballot in every election, or are you just talking out of your ass?

Biological sex doesn't, itself, speak to sexual orientation. So again, you have to add something else to get your supposed "voting bloc."

You lump people together because your politics is all about identity. Your own as a gay man, your opposition's as Christian, etc.. You're just a hammer that sees everything as a nail, instead of being capable of understanding that the motives of others, unlike your own, are not based solely on identity. You even prove my point again, by saying it's all about bigotries to various identities. Hammer... nail.

Really? You actually think that what people post here is the sum of their interests? Well, that's quit the confession, sad little mooncalf.
I challenge you to show where I've ever claimed leftists "control the world." Conspiracies are your thing.

[Magical Realist]

What specific legislation favors cis-gendered people? Is this legislation on the ballot in every election, or are you just talking out of your ass?

Start here moron..

https://translegislation.com/

You lump people together because your politics is all about identity.

It has to be about my identity because the haters have always made it about that. It was the homophobes who stereotyped and discriminated against and beat up men who liked other men and forced them to band together finally as "gay". So fighting for the right to be treated as equal human beings IS about identity just as it should be. At least as long as it continues to be a label that innocent people get hated for and beat up for and killed for. Just as it now is about transgender identity. As one transgender author Julia Serano put it: “I would *love* to stop talking about being transgender. It would be absolutely wonderful to live in a world where I didn’t have to constantly consider that aspect of my person. But you know what? I don’t have the privilege of not thinking about it, because there are shit-tons of people out there who hate me, harass me, and who wish to criminalize and silence me *because* I’m transgender.”

[Syne]

Notice how much MR patently avoids. 9_9

You mean not having men be a danger to women in sports, make them uncomfortable in women's spaces, steal their opportunities, etc.? That's about safety, security, privacy, and opportunities. It wouldn't be an issue if biological men weren't invading biological women's spaces and sports. Trans people could use family/single facilities, start their own sports leagues, etc.. But they want to demand that others treat them how they see themselves. That's aggressively delusional. The only thing the cis-gender do is try to protect women.

No, gays have always fixated on their sexuality as their identity. By contrast, you don't see heterosexuals going around making a point to identify as such. Again, you're still proving my point, by repeatedly saying everything "IS about identity." Hammer... nail.

[Magical Realist]

But they want to demand that others treat them how they see themselves. That's aggressively delusional. The only thing the cis-gender do is try to protect women.

Or transphobes want to demand that transgenders be treated not as they identify. That's basically what the laws come down to--the lack of respect for one's gender identity and treating trans people as less than human mentally ill freaks just like they've always been treated and just like gays and lesbians and bis used to be treated.

By contrast, you don't see heterosexuals going around making a point to identify as such.

Actually we do. Men and women go around taking great pride in being heterosexual, whether its getting married and having a family or dating alot and having a lot of sex. Every romance movie and love song and novel is about it. It's a whole lifestyle as much as being gay is. But because it's considered the norm and in the vast majority, nobody really specifies it as just a matter of one's sexual orientation even though it is. Believe me if we lived in a society where heterosexuals were in the minority and hated and beat up by heterophobes then suddenly being straight WOULD be a political identity to be claimed and fought for and rallied around, just as LGBT is. Again, the identity is necessary because the haters have made it so by attacking people for it. Just as it is with being black or an immigrant or a Muslim or any other socially marginalized trait. You don't hide it and keep it a secret because you're being oppressed for it. Rather you avow it and affirm it and stand up for it openly until society gets over its unjust hatred of and prejudice against that identity. That's how social change happens, as it indeed has in the case of gays and lesbians and bi's over the past 20 years..