Kudos to Coyne
An extremely rare violation of fashion standards by a fashionable "scientist".

Jerry Coyne is a hardass fashionista, holding ALL orthodox views on ALL subjects. When he advises fellow trendies to GET BACK TO SCIENCE, it's salient. He starts with a perfectly anti-scientific preface on "climate change", which might make it easier for trendies to hear him.

After the normal stuff, here's the salient departure, which is especially strong because TRUMPHITLERKKK:

A while back I was President of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), and, as such, thought that the SSE shouldn’t take stands that didn’t have anything to do with evolution.

But now it has, opposing the Trump administration’s proposed policy that gender must be defined as a binary, based on the appearance of an individual’s genitals and as recognized on that individual’s birth certificate. I disagree with this policy because gender, which to me means the sexual identity claimed by an individual (including transsexuals, those whose identity doesn’t correspond to their biological sex, transgendered people, polysexual people, and so on) doesn’t correspond to biological sex in many cases, and there’s no reason not to respect an individual’s self-definition (except, perhaps, in sports).

My view, which I’ve explained before, is that while gender may form more or less a continuum, although there are still self-identity modes at “male” and “female”, it forms more of a continuum than does biological sex, which is almost completely binary (again, male and female), but is also strongly bimodal, with just 1 or 2% of individuals falling between the male and female spikes.

The SSE, however, has issued a statement — almost certainly motivated by liberal political views —that claims to show that the Trump administration’s policy is not supported by science. In so doing, it conflates gender and sex, and winds up making the specious claim that “sex should be viewed as a continuum.”

Bravo. Sharp clarity of definition, and an extremely rare defense of real science by a paid Big Science-ist.

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In symmetrical response, here's a partial defense of the SJW side, equally salient from my anti-fashion viewpoint.

Coyne misses the essential separation of politics and science. Scientific details are NOT a relevant input in political decisions. Science is not the DUTY of government. Civilization is the DUTY. If civilization is preserved and improved by skipping the facts of science, then we should skip. If the details of science happen to agree with a civilization-advancing policy, then fine, but incidental.

Where is the line between science and politics on gender preference? It's NOT in the definitions themselves. If public policy wants to eliminate all verbal distinctions between male and female in government documents and government actions, nobody is harmed.

The harm arises when normal civilized people are FORCED to use the non-binary version of reality in their own language and decisions. We're already there.

In the military, as I've noted before, there can be a good reason for using the deceptive talents of trannies in spying and camouflage work. There is NO good reason to force combat units to mix the sexes or genders. Combat units function best with strict segregation. Thus the military shouldn't be forced in either direction. Let it make its own decisions for its own purposes.

In education (which is Coyne's main point) the precise definitions are CRUCIAL. Forcing a biology teacher to LIE about the FACTS of biology is a crime. We're already committing the crime, and it's too late to turn back. The blackrobed demons will instantly EXTERMINATE any attempt to recover FACTS.

Labels: Answered better than asked, Carbon Cult, From rights to duties

  ¶ 8:45 AM