[ExI] antiscience from both sides

Tue May 5 01:56:45 UTC 2020

I read a good definition for "left" and "right" that I think holds for both
the historical and modern cases.

The "left" trusts the government more than their neighbors, especially
their "right" neighbors.

The "right" trusts their neighbors, even their "left" neighbors, more than
the government.

On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 7:50 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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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