Richard Dawkins "stripped of humanist of the year" award.

[bigfield]

It's ironic though. His claim is that challenging the woke trans narrative leads to being vilified, leads to him being vilified, proving his point.

Well done American Humanist Organization playing right into the hands of truly transphobic and bigoted conservatives.

Dawkins is obviously not transphobic. This is so stupid. If he's not a hero of the humanist cause, nobody is.

He compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal. For one thing, it's pretty insulting to draw that comparison in the first place. But more significantly, Dawkins is ignoring the fact that psychologists and neuroscientists have been studying trans people for decades. Transsexuality is a established medical condition, not a lifestyle choice.

He may not be transphobic, but he did write something pretty fucking silly. Especially silly for a scientist who expounds the virtue of evidence-based reasoning.

Yes, exactly. He compared them. Is that wrong?

Yeah. Maybe I'd take a different view of this if we had decades of evidence of thousands of white people suffering racial dysphoria and trying to pass as black, but as far as I know we've only got Rachel Dolezal and that Canadian guy who sings Informer.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yes, exactly. He compared them. Is that wrong?

Yeah. Maybe I'd take a different view of this if we had decades of evidence of thousands of white people suffering racial dysphoria and trying to pass as black, but as far as I know we've only got Rachel Dolezal and that Canadian guy who sings Informer.

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria. A perfectly fine question to ask, especially for a scientist. And certainly for a biologist.

 

[fromderinside]

OK. OK. OK.

He's seventy nine, set in his ways, and conversant in selfish genes. I'm with him because in 1976 he came to the support of GC Williams focus on genes rather than Maynard-Smith's group selection notions. If one wants to tar someone get him into a coffee table discussion and pick tidbits that fit your perspective. Unfair, petty, and only useful in social media. Of course he isn't popular with the social gotcha rage and marching set here. Try defeating his actual statements in concrete terms and you'll find, I believe, you come ups short with your critiques. Don't like his style. To bad, he's confrontational and he doesn't take kindly to fools.

 

[bigfield]

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria.

Seems more like he's whinging that woke lefties have different standards for the way Dolezal was treated vs. the way trans people are treated, and he wants people to stop picking on him when he says that trans women are men and vice versa.

Personally I think the whole argument over "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" is just ridiculous. Both statements are true with some qualification.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria.

Seems more like he's whinging that woke lefties have different standards for the way Dolezal was treated vs. the way trans people are treated, and he wants people to stop picking on him when he says that trans women are men and vice versa.

I'm not going to speak for Dawkins now. But I can imagine a lecturer in biology is pretty sick of students, trans activists and friends of the trans cause trying to school him on biology. It shouldn't be controversial for a professor of biology and ethology to say that the human species is sexually dimorphic.

Personally I think the whole argument over "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" is just ridiculous. Both statements are true with some qualification.

Sure, and shifts depending on the context of the conversation. You'll have no argument from me. I agree fully. But I don't think Dawkins is commenting on that. He's a progressive liberal. Why would he?

 

[untermensche]

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria.

Seems more like he's whinging that woke lefties have different standards for the way Dolezal was treated vs. the way trans people are treated, and he wants people to stop picking on him when he says that trans women are men and vice versa.

Personally I think the whole argument over "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" is just ridiculous. Both statements are true with some qualification.

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

Not Dawkin's.

But I do think Dawkin's should be given a wide birth.

He may be wrong sometimes but he is not malicious.

 

[Trausti]

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria.

Seems more like he's whinging that woke lefties have different standards for the way Dolezal was treated vs. the way trans people are treated, and he wants people to stop picking on him when he says that trans women are men and vice versa.

Personally I think the whole argument over "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" is just ridiculous. Both statements are true with some qualification.

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

Not Dawkin's.

But I do think Dawkin's should be given a wide birth.

He may be wrong sometimes but he is not malicious.

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

 

[Politesse]

OK. OK. OK.

He's seventy nine, set in his ways, and conversant in selfish genes. I'm with him because in 1976 he came to the support of GC Williams focus on genes rather than Maynard-Smith's group selection notions. If one wants to tar someone get him into a coffee table discussion and pick tidbits that fit your perspective. Unfair, petty, and only useful in social media. Of course he isn't popular with the social gotcha rage and marching set here. Try defeating his actual statements in concrete terms and you'll find, I believe, you come ups short with your critiques. Don't like his style. To bad, he's confrontational and he doesn't take kindly to fools.

Well, that's fine. No one is calling for him to be jailed. He's just being stripped of a humanitarian award, which, if he opposes social justice activism as you say, makes perfect sense.

 

[Politesse]

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

Not Dawkin's.

But I do think Dawkin's should be given a wide birth.

He may be wrong sometimes but he is not malicious.

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

Why should Dawkins be "spared critique" then? That's all this is, critique. He hasn't lost house and home, nor any material compensation. Only respect and esteem.

 

[Trausti]

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

Not Dawkin's.

But I do think Dawkin's should be given a wide birth.

He may be wrong sometimes but he is not malicious.

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

Why should Dawkins be "spared critique" then? That's all this is, critique. He hasn't lost house and home, nor any material compensation. Only respect and esteem.

Critique all you want. But this is a so-called “Humanist” association. And the excommunication was obviously to punish him for free thought. Pointing out that the AHA is in fact not humanist and an enemy of free thought is a fair critique, too.

 

[Politesse]

Why should Dawkins be "spared critique" then? That's all this is, critique. He hasn't lost house and home, nor any material compensation. Only respect and esteem.

Critique all you want. But this is a so-called “Humanist” association. And the excommunication was obviously to punish him for free thought. Pointing out that the AHA is in fact not humanist and an enemy of free thought is a fair critique, too.

I don't think you understand Humanism. It's not about being given a free reign to persecute minorities, but rather liberating them from both religious authoritarianism and the cruelties and pseudoscience associated with it. Again, he is not being punished for his ideas, only having unearned honors revoked from him due to his conduct.

 

[untermensche]

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

If the transsexual's identification with a gender is in question then the very idea of gender identification is in question.

Gender identification is nothing we can see and study.

It is only what people say they have.

 

[Politesse]

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

If the transsexual's identification with a gender is in question then the very idea of gender identification is in question.

Gender identification is nothing we can see and study.

It is only what people say they have.

Why would we not be able to "see and study" what people say they have? Do you become magically blind and deaf whenever you encounter a social issue?

 

[Bomb#20]

Found the truscum.

Transexual is a transmedicalist term. Transmedicalism is transphobia.

Oh, stop it. No, it's not.

The explosion of offensive terms to be avoided by the kings and queens of woke IS exclusionary. It's a method by which to identity the ignorant unwashed peasants we (ie the good guys) should look down on and convert to the enlightened side.

Don't fall into their trap.

He didn't.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't think the comment was about racial dysphoria. The comment was about transexualism. The question he poses is, what is the difference between racial dysphoria and gender dysphoria.

Seems more like he's whinging that woke lefties have different standards for the way Dolezal was treated vs. the way trans people are treated,

Yes. Exactly. Woke lefties have double standards, and Dawkins called them out for their double standards. Here's what Dawkins actually wrote that brought down on him the wrath of the AHA:

"In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss."​

But because woke lefties have no substantive defense for their double standards, their go-to response to being called out on their double standards is to maliciously trump up false charges against the people who call them out -- to pretend that attacks on woke lefties are actually attacks on groups of people who have real problems.

and he wants people to stop picking on him when he says that trans women are men and vice versa.

Personally I think the whole argument over "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" is just ridiculous. Both statements are true with some qualification.

Oh, for the love of god. Here's the other thing Dawkins wrote about transwomen that the AHA appear to have been talking about when they said he "accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups":

"Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her "she" out of courtesy."​

His position on the "trans women are women" vs. "trans women are men" argument appears to be exactly the same as yours.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yes, exactly. He compared them. Is that wrong?

Yeah. Maybe I'd take a different view of this if we had decades of evidence of thousands of white people suffering racial dysphoria and trying to pass as black, but as far as I know we've only got Rachel Dolezal and that Canadian guy who sings Informer.

What's your point? Are common medical conditions medical-conditionier than rare medical conditions?

 

[untermensche]

That’s the point, right? Nothing should be so sacred that it is spared critique. Alas, the author of The God Delusion has been accused of blasphemy.

If the transsexual's identification with a gender is in question then the very idea of gender identification is in question.

Gender identification is nothing we can see and study.

It is only what people say they have.

Why would we not be able to "see and study" what people say they have? Do you become magically blind and deaf whenever you encounter a social issue?

How do YOU look at MY gender identity?

All you can know about it is what I tell you.

If you question the reports from one person then you question them from all people.

 

[Politesse]

All you can know about it is what I tell you.

Even if that were true, why would that be outside the domain of potential study? I can, in fact, interview and observe you, just as any other phenomenon in life. You exist as more than just a philosophical concept; you are an observable and measurable entity in the real world, same as anything else.

If you question the reports from one person then you question them from all people.

Well, that's just a good habit to have in the first place.

 

[Bomb#20]

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

A mind has thousands of measurable characteristics; some correlate with sex and others don't. Sometimes researchers select one of the traits that correlates with sex, measure it in cis and trans people, and find that transwomen average closer to the average for ciswomen than the average for cismen; this measurement, they label "a female mind". That is saying what it takes to make a female mind: it takes the one specific trait they measured. Whenever I hear about one of these studies, I always wonder about the thousands of other traits they didn't measure.

 

[untermensche]

The question is: What are we a body or a mind?

If we say we are a mind then a woman's mind is a woman's mind.

If the body does not match it is because biology is quirky.

Who can say what it takes to make a male or female mind?

A mind has thousands of measurable characteristics; some correlate with sex and others don't. Sometimes researchers select one of the traits that correlates with sex, measure it in cis and trans people, and find that transwomen average closer to the average for ciswomen than the average for cismen; this measurement, they label "a female mind". That is saying what it takes to make a female mind: it takes the one specific trait they measured. Whenever I hear about one of these studies, I always wonder about the thousands of other traits they didn't measure.

The mind cannot be observed in any way. Not even by the person with it.

People do have some nice imaginative stories about brain activity they observe though.