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Years ago I went to a park and stumbled across a group of "Creation Scientists" who were gathering fossils from a river. They said they were looking for evidence of God's existence. Whatever they found, they were going to retroactively fit to the conclusion that God exists, because concluding otherwise was not on the agenda.

"[the paper] will help biologists 'push back against misunderstandings of the biology of sexual phenotypes that enact harm on marginalized communities.'"

This is really the crux of the problem. Science can't both uncover the truth and be directed toward proving certain predetermined ends at the same time. That includes bolstering activism as much as it includes providing evidence for a God.

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Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Colin Wright

As usual, this is a very thoughtful, and detailed analysis of this preprint. And, of course (as a fellow biologist), I agree with you. I wonder, though, how much these types of papers make a difference in the whole scheme of things. Academics are always trying to flex their intellectual muscles by coming up with odd and sometimes ridiculous theses which they defend ad nauseum. Does it really make a difference (or should it make a difference) in the real world?

I'm also not clear why the characteristics of non-mammalian animal sexuality have anything to do with human primates. We're not clown fish or earthworms, after all. At some point, the discussion should move on to how we treat each other. That really has nothing to do with how jelly fish or parthenogenic lizards have sex (or don't).

In any event, thanks again for a wonderful article. Sincerely, Frederick

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“We assign meaning to certain things…because of dominant gender ideologies.”

So we assign gender, because... gender?

This is why postmodernism is circular babble.

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Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Colin Wright

Look, I'm not a smart man. I'm actually a duck who rides a bike, so take my everything I say in that context. But this is just another, glaring example of how we as a society are slouching toward the great Closing of The Mind, the next dark ages.

There is a war on truth, reality, objectivity. We must behave accordingly.

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Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Colin Wright

This a great article and I have so many things to say about it! The picture of the spergs and speggs is awesome.

"the 'sex binary' does not refer to, and was never meant to be applied to, every measurable genetic, hormonal, morphological, or behavioral difference between males and females."

Yes. And while the paper's authors' implication is that _biologists_ can't determine sex because of all these "hormonal, morphological, or behavioral differences," it is _activists_, not biologists, who are assigning sex based on these factors. For example, claiming that a male person who is "behaviorally" female is somehow actually female.

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Mar 6, 2023Liked by Colin Wright

Joan Roughgarden is a male who ideates himself as a female persona. Surely he knows he hasn't changed his chromosomes by whatever surgeries and pills or injections he's involved himself in. Because he has this conflict of interest, his writing on any matters of the sex binary should not be considered independent or without ulterior motive. When the Harry Benjamin Institute morphed into the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), it lost the independent doctors and researchers who were previously involved. Thus, the "professional" organization for the psychiatric illness of cross-sex ideation became an advocacy group. The doctor heading WPATH is another such man, now calling himself Dr. Marci Bowers. When he and I were students at UW-Madison in the late 1970s, his name was Mark. Bowers has financial interests in the field, meaning for-profit clinics like the one in Trinidad, Colorado, which pretty much functions as the economic engine of the town. The serious conflicts of interest among proponents of these dangerous operations are rarely brought to light.

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PZ Myers and other ideological activists have caused much confusion in this arena of argumentation. Thank you for the clarity and clear thinking on display here.

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This lends further credence to my suspicion that we are in fact living in a simulated universe, except the designers of our universe installed a weird quirk of causality such that everything we're seeing now is somehow determined by an episode of South Park from 10-15 years prior...

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Even if sex were to be determined by, say, height, biologists would still be left with the question as to why Homo sapiens maximus has so many members incapable of bearing young compared with H. sapiens minimus (and why there was so much interaction between the two). Add in more characteristics, and eventually each individual would become a member of their own unique sex.

This policy-based science is paving the way for the discovery of "trans animals" based on circular reasoning so that ideologues can point and say, "See, we told you its natural and innate!"

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This is such a tour de force of clear thinking and exposition and importantly, a TOTALLY FAIR review of this paper untainted by animus or ad hominem. Someone on Twitter this week asked of Colin Wright "This is what you're doing with the biology PhD?" meaning to suggest that he's wasting his accumulated years of biological training and study. Nothing could be farther from the truth. No one without his background could have provided the service he's just rendered. We owe him a great deal for heeding his conscience and following the surely frightening-at-times road less traveled to occupy the space he now finds himself in. What he's done here is SO important and he's done it so well.

Now, after the thorough demolition of every argument in this preprint and its exposure as ideologically motivated nonsense, will a journal with a reputation dare to print it? We are watching!

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An excellent rebutal. I agree that "in saner times such a paper would perhaps elicit a small chuckle from a journal editor before issuing a swift rejection". If this paper is published in a scientific journal worthy of the name, I would be willing to sponsor a rebuttal. Feel free to contact me Dr Colin.

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Oh Colin, you must get so tired of fighting this nonsense. Thank you for your stamina.

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Ooh, thank you! A long read, but well worth it.

I remember, a few years ago, being confronted by the idea that clownfish somehow prove that there's no distinction between male and female. At the time I remember thinking, "But clownfish aren't humans." I said nothing, though, because I was a bit intimidated by the whole thing. What you have written here gives me a better handle on how to respond to these kinds of claims.

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I'm a lay person but even I can understand your review. My, how science has fallen. THANK YOU for standing up for the truth. Perhaps you could send your review in advance to publications that might fall for it and publish?

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Thanks for a very clear and measured review. I share your pessimism regarding the likely outcome of the peer review process. As regards impact, I expect to see figures from this being pasted into twitter responses without thought or comment in due course.

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As a complete layman on this subject I greatly appreciate this article. It cleared up some confusion in my own mind. For instance, I thought the fundamental sexual difference between males and females lay in the chromosomes; if I'm understanding this correctly, the chromosomes determine sex but the fundamental difference is the gametes.

Unfortunately, my discussions on the subject are with other non-scientifically trained persons. I can only imagine me saying to some of them, "Men produce sperm and women produce eggs," and having them come back with something like, "What about people born without ovaries or testes? Or who've had an injury to those parts?"* It's not so much that they would be arguing (at this point in the discussion) for a third sex, only challenging the idea that this is how we tell males from females. Yes, this kind of discussion is very simplistic, but it's the kind I find myself in nowadays, and as a layman I don't always know the best comeback.

*Heck, I can imagine someone saying, "If producing eggs is fundamental to being a woman, are you saying that a woman stops being one when she passes menopause?" !!!

Thanks again for at least helping ME better understand this subject!

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