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CW: mention of transphobia, misogyny, racism, discrimination.Â
âIs trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.â Richard Dawkinsâ great courteousness in 2015 could be matched only by his greater courteousness in 2021, when he wrote that âRachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.â These statements, as part of a âhistory of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups,â recently saw Dawkins being stripped of his 1996 âHumanist of the Yearâ award by the American Humanist Association, for implying that the âidentities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenientâ.
The sincerity of Dawkinsâ apology to the trans community in a tweet on the 12th of April in which he stated, âI do not intend to disparage trans people,â was brought into question by his April 19th âtransgender warsâ tweet. The article Dawkins linked uses no scientific evidence but instead one single cartoon and one stock photo of someone staring into a mirror with âwho am I?â written on it, to suggest that young people are transitioning in a time when we are apparently seeing a lot of âself-induced simulacrum.â The article goes on to suggest that many young people are transitioning because of a desire for attention or find out too late that theyâve made a mistake.
Dawkinsâ tweets, and his endorsement of this brutal, bizarre article (delivered 40 minutes after another tweet describing himself as âan ally to the oppressedâ) is dangerous, using his reputation for scientific integrity to falsely attack transgender people, dismissing the pain of dysphoria as merely teenage angst, and thus invalidating the experiences and identities of thousands. Charges levelled at transgender people have, for years, used a poorly researched and inaccurate veil of âscienceâ to back up their arguments as part of a process which makes science a bat with which to beat transgender people.
Charges levelled at transgender people have, for years, used a poorly-researched and inaccurate veil of âscienceâ to back up their arguments.
Transgender people are not the only group subject to aggression under the guise of science. In 2017 Sam Harris, one of the founders of âNew Atheismâ alongside Dawkins, platformed Charles Murray in his Waking Up podcast, at the time the fifth most-downloaded podcast in iTunesâ Science and Medicine category. Charles Murray is the co-author of The Bell Curve, a book which examined intelligence in people of different races and argued that “it seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences.â
Harris, obviously aware of the racist implications of these speculations, attempted to defend the findings with patronising comparisons to height, saying: âit remains a fact that if a person doesnât have the genes to be 7 feet tall, he wonât be. It is also utterly uncontroversial to say that while there are many ways to prevent a person from reaching his full intellectual height, if he doesnât have the genes to be the next Alan Turing, he wonât be that either.â It was, of course, a black man who invented the worldâs fastest computer – Nigerian inventor Philip Emeagwali in 1989.
Harris openly uses his scientific reputation to defend a thesis which suggests that the IQ of African American people tests lower because of, at least in part, genetics: â[Murray] doesnât know how much of interracial IQ difference is genetic and how much is environmental, and he suspects that both are involved. His strongest claim is that given the data, itâs very hard to believe that itâs 100 percent environmental. This could be said about almost any human trait. Would you want to bet that anything significant about you is 100 percent environmental? I would take the other side of that bet any day, as would any other honest scientist.â
And just in case you wanted to hear more âhonestyâ from this scientist, Harris has also been quoted as saying that his brand of critical atheism is âintrinsically male,â and âdoesnât obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.â Dawkins has also landed himself in trouble for defending misogyny in the scientific community, describing the âbaying witch-hunt…unleashed among our academic thought police,â after Tim Hunt said of women in the lab: âwhen you criticise them, they cry.â We might readily believe Hunt, however the framing of people calling out misogyny as an âacademic thought policeâ suggests that there is something intrinsic or balanced in the assertion that women are overly emotional as scientists.
Science explains and challenges […] but it should not be used to inaccurately justify prejudices.
I do not want to downplay the very real contributions that Dawkins has made to science, but when he and his colleagues use their reputations for scientific integrity to make claims which are not only offensive and alienating to the groups they target, but often do not meet the standard of accuracy they purport, he is not being consistent. Science explains and challenges, certainly, but it should not be used to inaccurately justify prejudices which are unnatural.
Image Credit: Souvik Banerjee on UnsplashÂ
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Dawkins and the scientific guise
Image Description: a screen with the twitter app on an app store.
CW: mention of transphobia, misogyny, racism, discrimination.Â
âIs trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.â Richard Dawkinsâ great courteousness in 2015 could be matched only by his greater courteousness in 2021, when he wrote that âRachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.â These statements, as part of a âhistory of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups,â recently saw Dawkins being stripped of his 1996 âHumanist of the Yearâ award by the American Humanist Association, for implying that the âidentities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenientâ.
The sincerity of Dawkinsâ apology to the trans community in a tweet on the 12th of April in which he stated, âI do not intend to disparage trans people,â was brought into question by his April 19th âtransgender warsâ tweet. The article Dawkins linked uses no scientific evidence but instead one single cartoon and one stock photo of someone staring into a mirror with âwho am I?â written on it, to suggest that young people are transitioning in a time when we are apparently seeing a lot of âself-induced simulacrum.â The article goes on to suggest that many young people are transitioning because of a desire for attention or find out too late that theyâve made a mistake.
Dawkinsâ tweets, and his endorsement of this brutal, bizarre article (delivered 40 minutes after another tweet describing himself as âan ally to the oppressedâ) is dangerous, using his reputation for scientific integrity to falsely attack transgender people, dismissing the pain of dysphoria as merely teenage angst, and thus invalidating the experiences and identities of thousands. Charges levelled at transgender people have, for years, used a poorly researched and inaccurate veil of âscienceâ to back up their arguments as part of a process which makes science a bat with which to beat transgender people.
Transgender people are not the only group subject to aggression under the guise of science. In 2017 Sam Harris, one of the founders of âNew Atheismâ alongside Dawkins, platformed Charles Murray in his Waking Up podcast, at the time the fifth most-downloaded podcast in iTunesâ Science and Medicine category. Charles Murray is the co-author of The Bell Curve, a book which examined intelligence in people of different races and argued that “it seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences.â
Harris, obviously aware of the racist implications of these speculations, attempted to defend the findings with patronising comparisons to height, saying: âit remains a fact that if a person doesnât have the genes to be 7 feet tall, he wonât be. It is also utterly uncontroversial to say that while there are many ways to prevent a person from reaching his full intellectual height, if he doesnât have the genes to be the next Alan Turing, he wonât be that either.â It was, of course, a black man who invented the worldâs fastest computer – Nigerian inventor Philip Emeagwali in 1989.
Harris openly uses his scientific reputation to defend a thesis which suggests that the IQ of African American people tests lower because of, at least in part, genetics: â[Murray] doesnât know how much of interracial IQ difference is genetic and how much is environmental, and he suspects that both are involved. His strongest claim is that given the data, itâs very hard to believe that itâs 100 percent environmental. This could be said about almost any human trait. Would you want to bet that anything significant about you is 100 percent environmental? I would take the other side of that bet any day, as would any other honest scientist.â
And just in case you wanted to hear more âhonestyâ from this scientist, Harris has also been quoted as saying that his brand of critical atheism is âintrinsically male,â and âdoesnât obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.â Dawkins has also landed himself in trouble for defending misogyny in the scientific community, describing the âbaying witch-hunt…unleashed among our academic thought police,â after Tim Hunt said of women in the lab: âwhen you criticise them, they cry.â We might readily believe Hunt, however the framing of people calling out misogyny as an âacademic thought policeâ suggests that there is something intrinsic or balanced in the assertion that women are overly emotional as scientists.
I do not want to downplay the very real contributions that Dawkins has made to science, but when he and his colleagues use their reputations for scientific integrity to make claims which are not only offensive and alienating to the groups they target, but often do not meet the standard of accuracy they purport, he is not being consistent. Science explains and challenges, certainly, but it should not be used to inaccurately justify prejudices which are unnatural.
Image Credit: Souvik Banerjee on UnsplashÂ
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