this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2024
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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Islamophobic/racist fraud is also homophobic? I'm shocked. \s

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 118 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Ridiculous.

I get the notion that biological sex is one thing, but gender is another thing entirely. They're still conflating the two.

And even in saying that, biological sex is not a binary because we know intersex individuals exist—people born with ambiguous sex organs, sex organs that don't match chromosomal makeup, or even chromosomal makeups beyond the typical XX/XY. For all of the claims of "scientific reality," the figures named in this article seem to do a very good job of cherry picking facts while ignoring the actual, less convenient reality of science.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 87 points 1 week ago (5 children)

"It's basic biology, XX or XY, man or woman!"

"OK, but have you ever looked into intermediate or advanced biology?"

Dawkins is such a disappointing person. He has all the knowledge required to not only understand but also advocate for trans people but instead is defending the Anglican church, "light pedophelia", and gender essentialism. He wrote a couple of books with some good parts but honestly, he is a sad old man and should be forgotten. Science moves forward one funeral at a time.

[–] lemmy_get_my_coat@lemmy.world 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Science moves forward one funeral at a time.

That is badass

[–] joostjakob@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

I knew it sounded familiar. It even has a name and a wikipedia article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 week ago

Long ago I saw him speak at a local gathering of humanists and even despite believing that atheism was a morally superior path and that religion was a harmful plague on humanity, still came away completely repulsed by him. He just seemed like an egotistical jerk with not very complex thoughts on society. I believe he was almost entirely focused on Islam rather than the more proximally harmful Christianity. It's not at all surprising to me that he ended up where he is.

[–] Deway@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

light pedophelia

"That can't be true!"

Looks it up : "Dear spaghetti monster, what did I just read".

[–] kaitco@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Science moves forward one funeral at a time.

Imma steal this, okay? Just letting you know now because this is absolute #facts.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

It is called Planck's principle, so we are stealing from Max Planck.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ...
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
— Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97

Cool phrasing from him, lots of people have enjoyed it since, and honestly from my exposure to the field it is accurate. The push back against plate technonics was hard, as was the clinging to steady state cosmology. Oh, and miasma as a model of disease. We really are just slightly smart monkeys.

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[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago (11 children)

Calling sex a true binary is strange for a talented biologist, intersex people definitely exist.

Transgenderism is a bit different though. Personally I think gender is a repressive, outdated social norm, and I disagree with transgenderism precisely because it reinforces this obsolete notion. Anyone should feel free to dress, act, and identify however they please, including but not limited to any body modifications they wish. But "switching" your identity to align with another set of stereotypical expressions only reinforces those stereotypes.

I can't even see the point in "fitting in", because those who care about how you express yourself aren't going to accept you as transgender anyway, and the people who are going to accept you aren't going to care if your expression matches the stereotypes they're used to.

I dunno if that's his objection because paywall, but I can certainly understand opposition to transgenderism that isn't actually intolerant of transgender people themselves.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 12 points 1 week ago

I can't even see the point in "fitting in", because those who care about how you express yourself aren't going to accept you as transgender anyway, and the people who are going to accept you aren't going to care if your expression matches the stereotypes they're used to.

This is so important to understand, innerstand, overstand and outerstand.

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 63 points 1 week ago

Something about doors and arses.

He lost all credibility and relevance when he piled into the bigotry clown car. Atheism doesn’t have saints.

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 54 points 1 week ago (25 children)

Richard Dawkins is his own religion.

Man thinks everything he says is infallible.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

And unfortunately (and ironically) for too long some of his followers have acted like he is god.

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[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 44 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Richard "Culturally Christian" Dawkins can go meme himself out of the meme pool.

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Dawkin's quote:

Prof Dawkins described publishing Grant’s “silly and unscientific” article as a “minor error of judgment”, but that the decision to remove Prof Coyne’s rebuttal was “an act of unseemly panic”.

He continued: “Moreover, to summarily take it down without even informing the author of your intention was an act of lamentable discourtesy to a member of your own advisory board. A board which I now leave with regret.”

He was/is upset about pulling an article and that's why he resigned.

And the person whose article was pulled also has a point:

That is a censorious behavior I cannot abide,” he wrote in an email. “I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that ‘distressing’ and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.”

“The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious, having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (‘a woman is whoever she says she is’), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.”

Both of their issues was the article elaborating Coyne's position was yanked.

This is a pedantic miscommunication issue, which is pretty much their point.

Instead of discussing the issue and coming to an understanding, discussion is immediately shut down.

That's why they're resigning and it's valid.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I would buy that if Dawkins didn't have a history of making bigoted statements about trans people.

He literally lost a Humanist of the Year award because of it a few years ago

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's valid to get mad at the article being removed and not discussed. But I have to say, that argument calling "gender ideology" a religion and its justification reads exactly as a right-wing anti-woke argument calling science a religion. Or the way I like to translate it, "everything I don't like is X" syndrome. Be it woke, religion, or anything else. It's a blatant display of rigid thinking. Just because someone didn't intent to hurt doesn't mean their actions can't hurt, and that's a big part of critical feminist theory (of which they might not entirely understand much about). Our actions and words have material and social consequences that extend beyond our intentions. Maybe try to understand why they were injurious instead of throwing a performative tantrum.

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[–] Skates@feddit.nl 39 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Since some people are getting a paywall I'll post the article text here:

Richard Dawkins has resigned from an atheism foundation over its “imposition” of a “new religion” of transgenderism.

Prof Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and atheist, stepped down from the board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) on Saturday after it censored an article supporting the belief that gender is biological.

Prof Dawkins accused the group of caving to the “hysterical squeals” of cancel culture after it deleted the article from its website, saying it was a “mistake” to have published it.

His resignation followed that of two other scientists, Jerry Coyne and Steven Pinker, who accused the foundation of imposing an ideology with the “dogma, blasphemy, and heretics” of a religion.

The scientists’ resignations come after FFRF’s Freethought Now! website published a piece last month by Kat Grant, entitled “What is a Woman?”, which argued that “any attempt to define womanhood on biological terms is inadequate” and that “a woman is whoever she says she is”.

In response to the piece, Prof Coyne, a fellow board member and biologist, wrote an article last week called “Biology is not Bigotry”, in which he defended “the biological definition of ‘woman’ based on gamete type” – or reproductive cells.

However, FFRF later pulled the article after a backlash and released a lengthy statement apologising for the “distress” it had caused.

“Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth,” co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote.

“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values and principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again.”

‘Quasi-religious’ ideology

Following the atheist foundation’s decision to unpublish his article, Prof Coyne accused the group of peddling a “quasi-religious” ideology.

“That is a censorious behavior I cannot abide,” he wrote in an email. “I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that ‘distressing’ and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.”

“The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious, having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (‘a woman is whoever she says she is’), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.”

Prof Pinker, the US-Canadian psychologist, announced his resignation from the board by lamenting that the FFRF was “no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics”.

Prof Dawkins described publishing Grant’s “silly and unscientific” article as a “minor error of judgment”, but that the decision to remove Prof Coyne’s rebuttal was “an act of unseemly panic”.

He continued: “Moreover, to summarily take it down without even informing the author of your intention was an act of lamentable discourtesy to a member of your own advisory board. A board which I now leave with regret.”

Grant is a non-binary author and fellow at the FFRF, focusing on state versus Church issues that specifically impact the LGBTQ-plus community.

In their November article, Grant argued a woman cannot be defined as someone with a vagina, uterus or the ability to conceive, as this would exclude intersex people, women who have hysterectomies and those who have gone through menopause.

Grant claimed using biology to define female identity is “inadequate” and alleged that the views of groups who have fought against gender ideology “disregard both medical science and lived experience”.

‘New definition of woman’

In his response to Grant’s article, Prof Coyne accused the author of attempting “to force ideology onto nature” in order to “concoct a new definition of ‘woman’”.

“Why should sex be changeable while other physical traits cannot? Feelings don’t create reality,” he wrote. “Instead, in biology ‘sex’ is traditionally defined by the size and mobility of reproductive cells.

“It is not ‘transphobic’ to accept the biological reality of binary sex and to reject concepts based on ideology. One should never have to choose between scientific reality and trans rights.”

Founded in 1976, the FFRF is a US non-profit that promotes the separation of church and state.

Ms Laurie Gaylor, the FFRF president, said: “We have had the greatest respect for Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, and are grateful that they sat on our honorary board for so many years. 

“We do not feel that support for LGBTQ rights against the religious backlash in the United States is mission creep. This growing difference of opinion probably made such a parting inevitable.”

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (14 children)

So he is complaining about the quasi religious zealotry that permeates the ideology as, he himself is anti religion, and resigned of the place because it is now peddling to what is basically a new religion

Makes total sense actually

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[–] JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Well, I guess the trash took itself out.

Whenever I see some educated individual trying to make some sort of 'credible' stance against trans rights I just see an overgrown child.

These are grown adults who are angry that the simplistic worldview that they were taught as children doesn't hold up to reality.

It was challenged by the mere existence of people who are different than themselves and they don't want to confront the possibility that they were wrong(the people they care about were also wrong), so they the blame trans people for evoking those emotions instead of doing some introspection.

[–] Zementid@feddit.nl 9 points 1 week ago

I first wanted to ask why the atheism foundation supports any religion at all... then I read the article, then I saw the ' '... what an asshat.

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (9 children)

“Why should sex be changeable while other physical traits cannot? Feelings don’t create reality,” he wrote. “Instead, in biology ‘sex’ is traditionally defined by the size and mobility of reproductive cells. “It is not ‘transphobic’ to accept the biological reality of binary sex and to reject concepts based on ideology. One should never have to choose between scientific reality and trans rights.”

As a fellow psychologist, I must regretfully state that this is the stupidest thing ever written by a psychologist. Our entire science is built upon the notion that feelings indeed create and modify (social) reality*. Sex is not gender, and he fumbled the most basic differentiation of concepts.

Heteronormative gender roles, on the other hand, are categorically a form of ideology and to defend them in place of basic human decency is a disgrace, good riddance to both asshats, I say. Specially with such a tenous biological argument that any good biologist can tell you is patently false. Gametes are not binary, there are hundred of thousands of intersex individuals for which this narrow definition doesn't apply.

Grant is absolutely right, but I don't expect the mentally weak asshole who invented the word "meme" to ever understand social sciences. His book is a pathetic pseudo scientific intrusion in a field he doesn't understand in the slightest.

*: some philosophers would even argue that there's no reality but social reality and both are one and the same.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dawkins isn't a psychologist afaict. I had to check.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

He isn't which is why I called him intrusist there at the end for writing a book about psychology and neurology which he doesn't understand. But the quote is from Coyne, another biologist who wrote the reply and was supported by Pinker, who is a psychologist and should've known better. None of these people know what they're talking about and are acting in this whole thing from passion instead of reason and evidence. Which is ironic, I believe.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week ago (16 children)

mentally weak asshole who invented the word “meme”

He coined the word to mean a thought or idea that spreads through a population. Internet memes are completely unrelated to his usage. It's not like he created the first insanity wolf meme or something.

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I am reminded of Willian Jennings Bryan, who in his old age advocated for the eight-hour work day, a minimum wage, the right of unions to strike, women's suffrage, and then Alcohol Prohibition and of course Anti-Evolution.

Even the most progressive will turn to "I am old and don't like new ideas!" as they age.

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[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Reading that article and this comment thread just makes me want to endlessly reiterate the point that if you don't intimately understand the difference between gender and sex then you aren't qualified to claim scientific opinion on either.

Defining terms is absolutely crucial to any kind of meaningful debate including science. Cultural anthropologists find the idea of social gender and biological sex being the same concept to be genuinely laughable. Whether or not you dogmatically think they ought to be the same or not, they are historically obviously not and if you mix and match which you are talking about in an argument then your argument will not be productive or make sense.

[–] kofe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Even according to Dawkins definition of sex, there are only two, which is scientifically inaccurate. He's a fucking esteemed biologist and should know the difference between binary and bimodal.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

Richard "cultural christian" Dawkins.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago
[–] clot27@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dawkins schtick was pretending he was not racist but hated Islam. Turns out the man is simply racist.

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[–] WhatSay@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

He's 83 and can't handle the changing world, he can go spend his last years alone like every old asshole does.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can we have a transgender religion though? Not to encompass the trans rights movement but to support it. Make memes religious art and Blåhaj a figure of worship. Girls'/boys' nights, enby sleepovers etc. could be classified as gender-affirming rituals. Use constitutional protection of religious expression to support free gender expression. Medication and procedures would of course be sacred too. Members would be required to maintain a support network for all trans folk (including non-members).

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[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Article requires sign up which Im not willing to do.

Also didn’t receive a GDPR compliant prompt.

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