One solid comeback to progressives who say, for example, that science says a fetus isn’t a baby, is to ask how many genders there are, scientifically speaking.
Nature, the science journal, came out Monday in opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services proposal to establish a legal definition of whether someone is male or female based on the genitals they are born with, saying it has “no foundation in science.”
Editorial: The US Department of Health and Human Services proposes to establish a legal definition of whether someone is male or female based on the genitals they are born with. This proposal has no foundation in science and should be abandoned. https://t.co/GakJypiEED
— nature (@nature) November 20, 2018
The proposal — on which HHS officials have refused to comment — is a terrible idea that should be killed off. It has no foundation in science and would undo decades of progress on understanding sex — a classification based on internal and external bodily characteristics — and gender, a social construct related to biological differences but also rooted in culture, societal norms and individual behaviour. Worse, it would undermine efforts to reduce discrimination against transgender people and those who do not fall into the binary categories of male or female.
So gender is a social construct … that doesn’t sound like science.
To say "this proposal has no foundation in science" is nonsense.
The genitals one is born with show overwhelming correlation with one's self-assessed gender, as predicted by evolutionary theory.
If we grant Nature's claim, we condemn the study of complex phenomena to a dark age https://t.co/I3gPra3lYa
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) November 20, 2018
No foundation in science? Not even a little bit? It's oddly correlated for a phenomenon with no found. Maybe you forgot what science is?
— Jarful of Love (@Akev4262F) November 20, 2018
Actually has complete and solid foundation in science.
— Christina (@justagirl_75) November 21, 2018
Actually, it is derived 100% from science. Arguments for fluid or multiple genders is sociological and political, I mean unless the physical sciences were unable to pin it down even after mapping the genome and all
— Jeremy Palo (@scoobs2254) November 20, 2018
Is there a geneticist in the house? Someone please explain to the editors what a Y chromosome is and what its function is.
— Travis Fields (@calitrav) November 20, 2018
But what about intersex people, smart guy?
So when someone is born with both we will have a law invalidating them? Not happening, I’ll vote against any such archaic notions each and every time in this foul year of our lord, 2019.
— In My Name (@WaldorffLobster) November 20, 2018
Intersex conditions do not usually result in dual reproductive systems. Usually they will have one functioning system (primary), and one that looks like an less-well-formed version of the system (secondary). There are very few. Most trans activists aren't intersex.
— Swiftdasher (@swiftdasher) November 20, 2018
And by "most transactivists aren't intersex" I'd say almost 0 are. They continually use intersex people as pawns. And they often "other" them as a third sex when the vast, vast majority of intersex people are clearly male or female with a developmental abnormality. Needs to stop.
— Natural Top (@NaturalTop) November 20, 2018
It's correct for 99.6% of people though, so its scientific validity is pretty high. "No foundation in science" is a gross exaggeration, that seems to cater to the political instead of science.
— Joost (@jw_twitt) November 20, 2018
Its even higher than that. Genuine intersex people are 0.05% of the populace. The others are simply those with natural variation in reproductive organ size at birth.
— Swiftdasher (@swiftdasher) November 20, 2018
Your statement references biological sex (male and female) based on genitals is not based on science, but seem to conflate that biological state with gender expression.
Biological sex is male, female, and ~2% intersex, and it correlates w/genitals 98%+ of the time.— Please Don't Forget Asia Bibi & Dina Ali Lasloom (@ChuCheeFace) November 20, 2018
Its not 2% intersex. Its 0.05% or 1 in every 2000 (at best). 2% is more than the entire percentage of the population who identify as LBTQ.
— Swiftdasher (@swiftdasher) November 20, 2018
I am being extra generous for those that will try to increase the amount (some claim 2%)
Many intersex we will never see because there is no visible sign at all.
Either way, anomalies don't disprove that sex & genitals are correlated.
LGB is in this. The T is the gender outlier.— Please Don't Forget Asia Bibi & Dina Ali Lasloom (@ChuCheeFace) November 20, 2018
Yes, biological mutations can occasionally create ambiguity in sexual classification. But these are edge cases. For the overwhelming majority of the population, your assertion is demonstrably false. Such motivated reasoning in a science journal is disappointing.
— Simmo (@mirzsky) November 20, 2018
Abandon all pretense of science ye who enter the domain of the 0.2% anomaly as proof that 99.8% of occurrences have no foundation.
— Ivan Kaltman (@WiseDad_Games) November 20, 2018
When a dogmatic cult (theistic or non-theistic) takes over the institutions where scientific questions are studied, results that support the cult will be trumpeted, those that don't will be covered up, and any who stand in their way will be condemned as "anti-science"
— defoggr (@defoggr) November 20, 2018
I cancelled my Nature subscription some years ago. If I hadn't, I certainly would after this. If birth genitalia (observable) has 'no foundation in science', then science has no objective basis and might as well be abandoned.
— Sage Vals (@SageVals) November 20, 2018
It’s post modernist fantasy fiction.
— GordonFreeman (@BlackMesaResrch) November 20, 2018
This article is political opinion and has no place in a scientific magazine
— Defender of Truth (@billpu63) November 20, 2018
Yeah, I have no interest in the mental gymnastics that it would take to get on board with your weird ideology. Your attempt to make the exception the rule is clearly political.
— Frank (@frankegiardina) November 20, 2018
The fact that one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world is throwing away its credentials and credibility by dying on a hill as absurd as this is truly horrifying.
— Somillian Hiigara (@SomilliBurd) November 20, 2018
Science corrupted by zeitgeist. The subtle influence of herding pressures. No one or group is immune.
— Taylor Boyd (@boyd_tfairboyd) November 20, 2018
You should stop publishing immediately.
— Belles Lettres (@BLMagazine) November 20, 2018
The author of this article is a photographer. Please go back to taking the beautiful, silent stills which show your true talents. You have no foundation in science!
— Amber McKenzie (@amckenziern) November 21, 2018
Related:
‘Whoa, a WOW story’: Trump administration to render 1.4 million transgendered people nonexistent https://t.co/zkENTJZqGS
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 23, 2018
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