[ExI] antiscience from both sides

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Monday, April 15, 2019, 05:41:06 PM PDT, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: 
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 2:55 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 13, 2019, at 2:24 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 3:52 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>   
>>>>      1. Rejection of genetics, neurology, and psychology as they pertain to sex and gender.
>>> ### No, really? Rejection of the science of gender is one of the most prominent features of modern leftist identity, not right-identity, at least among whites.
>> 
>> I’m curious what you mean here by rejecting of the science of gender. Do you [mean]
>> rejection of binary gender and of bioessentialism in gender? If so, it seems to me that
>> the science tends to support non-binary gender and also that gender is definitely
>> influenced by things aside from biology (in other words, there’s no uncomplicated
>> path from allosomes to hormones to genitals to gender). See the work of Cordelia
>> Fine, especially her _Delusions of Gender_, and Anne Fausto-Sterling on this. Both
>> of them rely on science to challenge binary gender and the simple model of
>> sex/gender that many adhere to.
> 
> ### Gender is of course a biological trait, with culturally modified manifestations.
> As any complex biological trait gender is not "binary", since thousands of moving parts
> don't neatly partition into two sets - there are always millions of ways for a mechanism
> to go wrong and produce all kinds of more or less bizarre versions.

Show Quoted Content
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 2:55 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 13, 2019, at 2:24 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 3:52 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>   
>>>>      1. Rejection of genetics, neurology, and psychology as they pertain to sex and gender.
>>> ### No, really? Rejection of the science of gender is one of the most prominent features of modern leftist identity, not right-identity, at least among whites.
>> 
>> I’m curious what you mean here by rejecting of the science of gender. Do you [mean]
>> rejection of binary gender and of bioessentialism in gender? If so, it seems to me that
>> the science tends to support non-binary gender and also that gender is definitely
>> influenced by things aside from biology (in other words, there’s no uncomplicated
>> path from allosomes to hormones to genitals to gender). See the work of Cordelia
>> Fine, especially her _Delusions of Gender_, and Anne Fausto-Sterling on this. Both
>> of them rely on science to challenge binary gender and the simple model of
>> sex/gender that many adhere to.
> 
> ### Gender is of course a biological trait, with culturally modified manifestations.
> As any complex biological trait gender is not "binary", since thousands of moving parts
> don't neatly partition into two sets - there are always millions of ways for a mechanism
> to go wrong and produce all kinds of more or less bizarre versions.

First off, I'm not these variations are signs of a 'mechanism' 'go[ne] wrong.' Gender might have a biological basis, but this is probably a little like language. Yes, language has a biological basis, and things can go wrong here, but people speaking different languages or dialects (or even ideolects) and accents isn't really an example of biological mechanisms going wrong. Instead, that someone speaks Estuary English as opposed to Boston English is probably nothing to do with different genes or stuff like that.

Now, to be sure, I don't mean to say gender is all learned or acquired, but I think much of it is. For instance, men wearing hose in Medieval times, though now that would considered womanly today. (Heck, the whole Medieval male attire (for a middle class or noble) would probably be considered, outside of re-enactments and film, cross-dressing today. To be sure, many films get it wrong, especially recent ones where men tend to dress in pants and look very 19th/20th century.) Now I doubt the change was because underlying biology (whether genes, hormones, gonads, or genitalia) swapped between males and females -- leaving aside the few whole are neither.

> What today's extreme leftists do is they deny the importance of the biological underpinnings
> of gender and they claim that a person's expressed preference to be included in some
> gender category is sufficient for inclusion, regardless of other measurables. They also
> deny the normative distinction between healthy, adaptive genders, of which there are
> two, and the diverse gradations of deviancy.

Show Quoted Content
> What today's extreme leftists do is they deny the importance of the biological underpinnings
> of gender and they claim that a person's expressed preference to be included in some
> gender category is sufficient for inclusion, regardless of other measurables. They also
> deny the normative distinction between healthy, adaptive genders, of which there are
> two, and the diverse gradations of deviancy.

I disagree with there being two 'healthy, adaptive genders.' That's sneaking in basically religious morality with, of course, a pseudo-biological rationale, into these categories. Again, I ask you look over the work of folks like Anne Fausto-Sterling and Cordelia Fine.

> So, they say that a psychologically disturbed man or a malingering man may claim
> himself to be a woman and we, normal people, are obliged to respect his claims.

Personally knowing and working with many people who identify as trans, I can attest that they aren't malingerers. I'm wondering where you get that from... Of course, if like, years ago, when homosexuality was considered deviant, it was easy to point to openly gay people living a deviant lifestyle -- probably because they were persecuted and marginalized. (The same thing has been done before to individuals for being women, not the right skin color, not the right ethnicity, and the like.)

To be sure, I don't want to say that there are no Leftists, extreme or otherwise, who get this stuff wrong or who embrace views going against science. But current gender/sex science seems to lean much more toward views conservatives (and alt-right, IDW folks) oppose. 

Regards,

Dan
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