Comment on Metal Exclusionary Radical Astronomy

• powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That’s an opinion piece from an anthropologist that doesn’t cite any sources. A priori, if you’re unsure, listen to the well-respected biologist talking about his field over a gender studies professor writing an opinion outside of her expertise.

  But credentials aren’t everything, so let’s examine on its own merits. First off, it’s largely based on the work of Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is deeply unserious and has admitted to publishing bullshit and backtracking by calling it tongue-in-cheek and ironic:

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  It’s mostly about higher-level things like how sex is relevant to sports, though it’s kind of a confused mishmash overall. It doesn’t cite any sources, and doesn’t really say anything, but here’s a few relevant quotes:

  If gonads were understood as the essence of sex, women who were phenotypically female but who had testes were men. This seemed illogical, so scientists proposed yet other traits

  She doesn’t cite anything for this, but she’s incorrect. If you’re phenotypically female but produce sperm, then you’re male. There’s nothing illogical about it. People with CAIS are male. Scientists aren’t proposing anything of the sort.

  Science does not drive these policies; the desire to exclude does. This intentional gerrymandering of sex opportunistically uses the idea of “biological sex”—which lends a veneer of science and thus rationality to any definition—to remove certain individuals from a category based on intolerance.

  This is her gender studies woo showing through. She’s starting with a narrative and working backwards to shove reality into it, no matter how hard she has to twist it.

  If reproduction is the interest, what matters is whether one produces sperm or eggs, whether one has a uterus, a vaginal opening, and so on.

  In the end she acknowledges the binary, though she won’t outright say it.

  To sum up, it’s just bluster about the social aspects of sex. If there’s something specific you want to talk about that you think is actually stating a viewpoint at odds with actual biologists, quotes would be helpful.

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  • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You posted two blog as evidence because the authors are really smart. The anthropologist is at the top of her field, and this is her area of expertise.

    But, please, keep lecturing about the quality of sources.

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    • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mentioned why credentials are relevant, but also directly addressed the meat of that opinion piece. Why are you ignoring that?

      Also, it’s not just that they’re really smart lol. They have PhDs in biology and evolutionary biology. One is professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. They can be wrong, but looking at an opinion piece from an anthropologist is the same as “let’s hear what RFK has to say about vaccines” lol. Just because RFK has some wackadoodle opinion doesn’t mean the science isn’t settled

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      • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        OK, I’ll spell it out, then. You don’t come off as someone who knows much of anything. You are using blog posts and bullshit argument papers as actual sources beyond “trust me bro.” There is a reason you are spinning your wheels on this post endlessly without actually resolving anything. You have no authority. Being a emeritus is honestly pretty meaningless–that shit gets given out all the time. Having a PhD has nothing to do with it. Lots of people have those. It isn’t as difficult as you make it sound.

        When it comes to the trade of ideas, you are just coming off as a conservative troll. If the definitions were that settled, no on would be publishing them in peer reviewed environments for the common folk, or whatever. If I wanted to defend the notion of primality, I would pull up a definition. It really is that simple.

        They have PhDs in biology and evolutionary biology.

        Lots of people do.

        The truth is you haven’t made a single convincing argument, and I’m still waiting for a source that isn’t on wordpress.

        My PhD is not in biology, but your arguments and sources are flaccid at best.

        Just because RFK has some wackadoodle opinion doesn’t mean the science isn’t settled

        What the fuck does RFK have to do with anything? And this is probably the stupidest claim. Science doesn’t get settled, it gets consensus and that changes. If you want to do something more powerful than consensus, try some math or something.

        This is the thing–you have ad homonyms, wordpress, and heaps of “this is a very smart guy’s blog.” From all of the posts that is literally all that I see that you have.

        I can’t say you are definitively wrong, despite the mass of articles I found without effort that say otherwise, but you have zero ability to back up your own bullshit.

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