I have been told that I’m merely a “social justice” dishonest whackjob
and that There are only two sexes, therefore only two “genders”. For a biology professor to insist otherwise is a disgrace
, so I have to say just how right that is. I’m a wackjob, totally out of tune with contemporary scientific thinking, unlike Richard Dawkins.
Oh, wait. The American Society of Naturalists just sent out a letter about the White House’s policy.
Dear members of the American Society of Naturalists:
Recent actions by the Executive branch of the United States Government threaten to freeze scientific funding, disable public and scientific resources, inhibit academic freedom and free speech, and dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the United States. These actions will harm science, the people who contribute to science, and humanity as a whole which benefits from science. The Executive Council of the American Society of Naturalists wishes to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the core principles that have long guided our organization. Our mission as a society is to advance understanding of biological sciences, advocate for education and the environment, and foster an inclusive and equitable community. Political changes within the United States only serve to highlight the importance of our mission and strengthen our resolve to pursue our mission.
The pursuit of scientific knowledge requires adequate and reliable funding free from political pressures. We remain steadfast in our advocacy for both governmental and private scientific funding that allows researchers to follow evidence wherever it leads. Inquiry must not be curtailed, or data hidden, simply because the conclusion is unpopular with political leaders. Our organization will increase efforts to engage with policymakers to advocate for continued scientific funding, scientific free speech and inquiry, and rigorous application of scientific discoveries to guide policy. We will emphasize the crucial role of science in addressing society’s most pressing challenges, including the reality of global climate change, importance of conservation, or the complex nature of sex and gender. Our core disciplines of evolution and ecology are pertinent to many applied topics including public health, epidemiology, medicine, agriculture, and conservation, yielding benefits to human well-being and to nature. To suppress inquiry and ignore established knowledge is to forgo these benefits and cause active harm.
Equally important is our dedication to protecting and promoting free speech within scientific discourse. The scientific method thrives on open debate, challenging established ideas, and rigorous peer review. Efforts to police use of particular words instill fear, mistrust, and wall off important areas of research from discovery. As a society we have long supported open inquiry: funding student research grants, supporting scientific conferences, and holding debates on controversial topics. In the current state of politicized (and perhaps curtailed) federal funding, these initiatives are more important than ever, and the ASN Council will be looking into ways to expand such support to help our members (especially students) through the next few years.
Our society has always understood that recruiting, supporting and promoting our diverse membership is not just a goal, but a fundamental value. Fair treatment and equitable opportunity for our members, and for all people, are moral imperatives. Also, diverse perspectives, experiences, and approaches lead to more innovative solutions and more robust scientific outcomes. We will continue to actively support and expand opportunities for historically underrepresented groups in science. Everyone should be welcomed and able to contribute to scientific progress. These commitments—to reliable support for science, free scientific discourse, and inclusive opportunities to ensure that diverse people can participate in science —are not separate from our scientific mission but essential to its success. We want our members to know that the American Society of Naturalists will not shy away from our principles and will not self-censor. Our principles will continue to guide our actions and decisions. The Society will work to help our members through this difficult time (both within the United States and our international members affected by events in the US). We also encourage our members to advocate strongly for scientific funding, the use of sound science in guiding policy, and for diversity and equity within science. The ASN council will be discussing avenues to help our membership do so. Together, we will advance scientific knowledge while building a stronger, more inclusive scientific community that serves the interests of all humanity.
Ooops. Who is out of alignment with contemporary scientific thought, again?
In addition, here’s an older letter a 2018 letter to the HHS secretary from Hopi Hoekstra that is even stronger.
As scientists, we write to express our concerns about the attempt by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to claim that there is a biological basis to defining gender as a strictly binary trait (male/female) determined by genitalia at birth.
Variation in biological sex and in gendered expression has been well documented in many species, including humans, through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Moreover, models predict that variation should exist within the categories that HHS proposes as “male” and “female”, indicating that sex should be more accurately viewed as a continuum. Indeed, experiments in other organisms have confirmed that variation in traits associated with sex is more extensive than for many other traits. Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex or gender, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genitalia one is born with do not define one’s identity.
Diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans. Our scientific societies represent over 3000 scientists, many of whom are experts on the variability that is found in sexual expression throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. If you wish to speak to one of our experts or receive peer-reviewed papers that explain why there is a continuum of sexual expression, please contact us at [email protected].
Damn. I know I try to keep what I teach consonant with what the scientific literature says, for the benefit of my teaching. I can think of a few biologists who are so far behind the times that we shouldn’t be paying any attention to their ideas about biology.
You know, I could do this all day, producing position statements from major scientific societies that actively reject what Dawkins and Coyne say, but I fear that would get boring fast. But it’s OK, I’m amused by all the know-nothings calling me names.
A “whackjob” is anyone whose views go against “common sense”, where common sense is defined as adherence to a prescientific, essentialist understanding of reality, accompanied by steadfast refusal to learn enough science to see the fallacy.
One must wonder how conservative, anticommunist, law-and-order icon J. Edgar Hoover fit into the gender argument.
At this rate, I’m just waiting for the executive order demanding all federal agencies use 3.00 for any approximation of pi…
@ 2
Same place Roy Cohn belongs, I would imagine.
Jaws@2–
My understanding is that the story was politically motivated rumour-milling rather than fact. Of course, given the subject was Hoover, I find it amusing and ironic. It was used in a great short story, “The Godfather Paradox” by Stephen Dedman, where a time traveller goes back to 1930s America to derail Hoover’s career with incriminating photos. Needless to say, things do not go to plan.
I have a dream, that one day my children will be judged by the content of their character, not by the content of their underwear.
With apologies to Dr Martin Luther King Jr
@5: As is typical for anything originating within 15km of the Reflecting Pool, “the truth” is somewhere in between the various mythologies.† Enough evidence has accreted from people who both might have personal knowledge and had little motivation to be untruthful to reject the “it was all a smear campaign” position; conversely, the extreme spin position on something branded a “security risk” in and of itself by executive order in 1953 seems highly unlikely for someone who successfully maneuvered through DC politics for decades. My snark was pointed at the appearances-versus-reality and who-are-really-our-friends problems that get raised every damned time this sort of determinism becomes “public policy.”
† I am not going to speculate on whether that means those mythologies are truth-fluid.
Hey, didn’t Dawkins and Coyne used to argue AGAINST the idea of genetic determinism? You know, before it became about trans people?
I have been told that I’m merely a ‘“social justice” dishonest whackjob’…
Hey, at least sampie didn’t call you a meanie atheist or a fat socialist poopyhead…
Wow, that’s sad.
Mate, get a hobby
@microraptor that’s a really good point, i’ve never thought of it that way
sigh
Another fucking ignorant bigot with nothing better to do than spew lies and idiocies where no-one is going to take them seriously. Or more likely, the very same fucking ignorant bigot who was banned yesterday.
Sad character. Whoever he is.
@ mwoods as the pathetic obsessive troll calls itself this time : We only have one life and we only live so long but this is what you choose to do with yours eh? Spewing hate and lies and your sad twisted fantasies on a blog you claim to dislike and think doesn’t matter. A stream of mouth-foaming dribble that will soon disappear as tho’ you’d never written them. How very sad pathetic and obsessive you are. You really don’t have better things to do with your life than this? How very sad indeed. Seriously go get yourself some mental help – you clearly need it and are projecting here.
No. Those words are obvs entirely applicable to and true of you. Why do you think we would spare you when you just come here irregularly to spew hate towards others and void the stinky bowels of your bigotry all over the place like an incontinent dinosaur?
@ KG. “Or more likely, the very same fucking ignorant bigot who was banned yesterday.”
And many times before that too.
Dang, StevoR beat me to the punch. I’ll just add that not only is spending an hour posting 11 comments in a row full of accusations, vitriol, and various bigotries in the middle of the night when they (almost certainly) know that PZ is sleeping and can’t respond obsessive, it’s downright cowardly.
You are a coward, troll.
It is most amusing watching a troll like this bloviate. You can feel the sheer desperation in every sentence – asserting with increasing vehemence all the things he’d like to be true about the world in a pathetic attempt to contradict reality. Which seems to be what his kin in the US government are doing, truth be told – blurting out executive pronouncements that day is night and night is day in a pathetic attempt to legislate their falsehoods into truths.
Which is encouraging, in a weird kind of way. The sheer, puerile effort these people put into their coping mechanisms can only be born of a deep sense of unease. They know, deep down, that we’re right. They know their childish gender binary is inadequate. They know their precious capitalism is exploitative and failing. They know that the nation states they cheer on are heartless imperialistic monsters. They know all this. They would much rather it weren’t so, but they have tied their fragile egos to these things, so all they can do when reminded of the truth is try to pile verbiage upon verbiage to bury the truth once more.
cartomancer@29,
I wish I shared your limited optimism. I think Trump, and Musk, are simply incapable of telling truth from falsehood, or perhaps just uninterested in the distinction. All they care about is power, and the power to say what is true, what is real, and enforce those pronouncements, is the very foundation of fascist power. Of course their power will not last more than a few decades at most, but at present it looks most likely to end in catastrophe for the entire world, not in their overthrow by the decent and the sane.
@ 10 the obsessive pathetic troll :
Our troll must be pretty old to still use PC rather thn the modern word “woke” here FWIW. Not keeping up with the times at all are ya pathetic obsessive Troll. Theincontinent dinosuar metaphor seems apt huh -albeit dinosuar shit is actually something teh trolls fecal dribblings will never be – intresting, useful; and valuable. See :
https://www.dinosaur-universe.com/dinosaur-information/what-is-a-dinosaur-coprolite/
Oh, the angry little man-baby is back, eh?
Picking out just one piece of the troll’s bloviations:
Kind of demonstrating here that you think of women as inferior by talking about PZ as a woman. So, yes, I’d say there are indeed people like you who disagree with the idea that women are people.
Hey @mwoods Someone very VERY close to me is transgender, so FUCK you, you sad, hateful little bigot!
I hope Americans gonna put up a hell of fight against this anti-scientific government overreach and that you at the very least personally get punched into your nazi little face. May you rot in squalor for the rest of your life babbling your inane rants into the void.
Two things. It’s always surprising to me how often bigots debunk their own arguments in the process if making them. “What ‘rights’ are denied X group?!? They are just slur that should gave access to X!” Perfect logic, thanks guy.
Alos this is just sad as this person is clearly having some sort of episode. Like having mental health issues doesn’t make him a bigot, that’s just a coincidence.
<sarcasm> I’m sort of sad that out here on the Left Coast, those messages didn’t show up before they were cancelled. I guess I’ll just have to feed my outrage at outright lies with more-official BS (that is apparently comparable, but I’ll never know because this set was cancelled), like The Dear Leader’s forthcoming crusade against anti-Christian bias in the federal government, rather ignoring that what he’s upset about is limited (and usually ineffective) opposition to Christian bigotry.
The American Society of Naturalists says, “We will emphasize the crucial role of science in addressing society’s most pressing challenges, including the reality of global climate change, importance of conservation, or the complex nature of sex and gender.”
It is, indeed, complex. There are only two biological sexes, male and female. There are, however, many different expressions of male and female characteristics and we can legitimately refer to these as different genders or gender identities. For example, some biological men may wish to behave like, and be treated as, women and some biological women may want to be treated like men. These people, (I know several) genuinely feel that they are in the wrong body and we have to respect that and respect whatever decisions they make in order to be happy.
The point is that recognizing that biological sex is binary is not the same as rejecting the trans community or discriminating against trans people. Those are two different things and you (PZ) are wrong to conflate them. You are free to debate the science around whether there are more than two biological sexes but you shut down that legitimate scientific debate if you accuse everyone who opposes you of bigotry.
Well, PZ, you did ask “Who’s the disgrace now?” Which at least one disgraceful person seems to have taken as an invitation…
“The point is that recognizing that biological sex is
binarybimodal/a spectrum is not the same as rejecting the trans community or discriminating against trans people.” FIFY. A quibble, yes, but kind of in important oneThose are two different things and you (PZ) are wrong to conflate them.
We’re not the ones conflating them. See, just for starters, this comment of mine in an earlier thread on the same subject:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/02/05/thats-so-dawkins/#comment-2253201
You are free to debate the science around whether there are more than two biological sexes but you shut down that legitimate scientific debate if you accuse everyone who opposes you of bigotry.
If you actually read the comments about this, you’d know we’re not “shutting down” any “legitimate scientific debate;” we’re shutting down actual bigots who misuse what little snippets of information they have in support of clearly unscientific claims and harmful policies.
Don’t complain about “shutting down debate” when you yourself are clearly not following the debate.
There are two sexes IF AND ONLY IF we regard the only purpose of sex is procreation, and ignore all the other important roles that sex plays in humans and other species.
Wouldn’t it be better to say that only two sexes participate in procreation?
Procreation can occur in a ménage à trois or an orgy. You’re going to have to clarify what you mean by “participate”.
Laurence A. Moran@37,
To which of the two-and-two-only biological sexes does Mikey Chanel belong?
It would be better to say that there are “only two sexes” for purposes of natural sexual reproduction. And it would also be better to say that, when people speak of having more than two sexes in relation to their own personal experiences and non-biological-reproductive aspects of their lives, we should not sneer and quibble at them for “denying science,” because those aren’t scientific issues they’re talking about.
Procreation can occur in a ménage à trois or an orgy.
Well, that’d certainly make an interesting “how I met your mother” story…
@45: It certainly sounds less misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic than “How I Met Your Mother” was.
@46: Never saw that one, and what I heard of it didn’t interest me.
@47: Even among sitcoms it stood out for awful it was.
The problem with Laurence A. Moran’s position is that the transphobes go from “there are only two sexes, with 2 sexes defined in this really specific way that is only valid in a very niche area” to “and therefore trans people are invalid”. Maybe Laurence doesn’t discriminate against us, but a lot of those who do will read their argument as support for discrimination.
So you have to expect us to read it that way too. Even if you don’t intend it in a dog-whistle way, the bigots have made it a dog-whistle. It sucks when bigots do this, but it’s a common tactic they use
So is it more important for you to be technically right in some very specific sense, or show support for a marginalised group and not participate in fascist signalling? Personally I’m more interested in supporting marginalised people, and if you’re not then i think maybe you’re a dickhead
I don’t see any dichotomy there.
Well yeah, but i’m giving them that premise for the sake of argument here. Personally i think sex is too vague a concept to be useful and we should be more specific about what we mean
Although saying things like pregnant people rather than women really seems to annoy the bigots for some reason too…
Fair enough, dangerousbeans. Well noted.
That’s probably one of my more pedantic points, so, yeah.
Two claims that are not contradictory, but with an ineluctable inference:
“(1) These people, (I know several) genuinely feel that they are in the wrong body and we have to respect that and respect whatever decisions they make in order to be happy.
(2) The point is that recognizing that biological sex is binary is not the same as rejecting the trans community or discriminating against trans people.”
I think Laurence groks not the distinction between sex and gender, and so it is true it’s redolent of “hate the sin, not the sinner”. So, not transphobic, surely?
(Not transphobic, just, you know… no reason why not to humor them)
[mentioning professional athletes or bathrooms sometimes functions as a shibboleth]
The problem with Laurence A. Moran’s position is that the transphobes go from “there are only two sexes, with 2 sexes defined in this really specific way that is only valid in a very niche area” to “and therefore trans people are invalid”.
They also try to go from there to “and therefore we [the transphobes and “gender-critical” folks] are empowered to overrule everyone else’s choices regarding their identity, rights, needs, health, word choices, and chosen names and pronouns.”
@37. Laurence A. Moran :
Numerals added for ease of reference.
(1) Except no biological sex is NOT binary but rather a spectrum with bimodal distribution as #39. Raging Bee has noted. So your premise is false.
(2) Since your premise is wrong this part then also doesn’t logically follow here too. In correct form, biological sex is a spectrum and it is also wrong to reject the trans community and discriminate against them. Yes theyare different things however people who reject the reality that sex is a spectrum NOT binary often do use that false belief of theirs to justify mistreating and discriminating against trans people. Not always but often enough. PZ is NOT wrong to make that connection or to point out as he has in the past that “biological sex” is a tautology given there’s no non-biological sex. Unless we’re talking electric plugs and sockets or the like which, clearly, we ain’t here.
(3)a. You don’t debate science. It settled by scientific evidence. This is true of whether the earth is flat or not, whether Global Overheating is happening due to human fossil fuel emissions or not and, yes, whether sex is binary or not – and no, it’s clearly not. Spectrum again.
Also who are you to say what others are free to debate or not? Separate point & somewhat contradictory in appearance here given previous sentence i know but there’s debates and then there’s scientific debate. Rhetorical or philosophical, political, etc.. type debating or scientific evidence-based debating. The scientific debate here as noted is over.
b. Not everyone who opposes “ÿou” gets accused of bigotry. Only those who show by their words and actions that they are bigoted and as noted there’s no longer legitimate scientific debate on the question of binary or not and the answer is no, again, sex is a spectrum.
Laurence A. Moran@37–
The binary definition of sex is fine for first-order modelling in most (but not all) vertebrates, but it fails dismally for complex or edge cases, let alone by extension to gender identity in humans.
PZ@42–
There are now reproductive technologies that use germ cells from three parents to make a zygote (the third parent supplies the mitochondria), as well as even newer techniques that create viable zygotes from two female or two male gametes.
Raging Bee@44–
Some of the human counter-examples to standard binary sex determination we only know about because they got pregnant. Even people who are not capable of having children still influence the survival chances of their relatives through the principle of kin selection. Natural selection applies even when binary sex definitions don’t.
StevoR@55–
But electric connectors are defined as plugs or sockets. Induction charging does not exist and it is a crime against science to say it does!
“But electric connectors are defined as plugs or sockets.”
Look, it’s fucking binary! Everyone knows about electrical connections!
Male plugs plug into female plugs, and it was ever thus!.
(Science!)
—
(Um, sorry. Dunno what came over me)
https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/e/
PZ@40
And I guess we also erase out of existence (or humanity) those who for whatever reason cannot procreate.