The Science Wars

[ScreamingDoom]

For anyone interested in seeing how the radical left have been systematically ravaging science over the last few decades, I came across an interesting series that explains and exposes it quite well. The series has only just begun at the moment, but it's already very informative, pointing out the jaw-dropping lack of scientific rigour -- or even basic fact checking -- in a fairly famous Feminist academic's work.

This video underlines what caused Crocoduck to start the series.

And here is the introduction to the series, which talks about the general positions of the two science groups, his own biases, and then the critique of the Feminist academic's work

For something similar to the above, I recommend checking out Aydin Paladin, who is also a scientist (albeit a social one) and uses a lot of documented research in her videos. Hers are a lot more loose (she curses like a sailor), but are quite entertaining and informative nonetheless. In regards to science specifically, the video Bill Nye the Bachelor's Degree Guy & Science Fetishization is particularly salient.

[Darth Wedgius]

I'll second the recommendation for Aydin Paladin. She's smart and thorough, as least as far as I can tell by her videos.

[Arkle]

For anyone interested in seeing how the radical left have been systematically ravaging science over the last few decades,

Right, sure. Because it's the Left that denies climate change, denies evolution, denies the failures of abstinence only education programs, denies the existence of transgender and intersex people, claims there's a link between abortion and breast cancer, claims hurricanes are God's punishment for gay people, thinks wind farms will slow the Earth's rotation...

*eyeroll*

Edited for tone. Simple mockery is adequate.

[GandALF]

The Bill Nye-style pop science seems to blur the definition of science and tends inadvertently push scientism quite often. I vaguely recall Neil deGrasse Tyson proposing the hypothetical "Rationallia", a country with a constitution based on evidence or something. Which would inevitably be undemocratic because there's no scientific evidence for people being equal. It kind of lends credence to postmodernist left idea that holding onto any kind of truth (scientific or otherwise) would lead to totalitarianism.

[Antiboyscout]

The Lysenkoism of yesterday is the post-modern constructivism of today. Thankfully 40 million people won't have to starve to death to prove this crap is fake. All you have to do is is look at the dichotomy of sexual preferences and homosexuality. Sexual preferences are a social construct as are the sexes but homosexuality is not and any suggestion that gays can become not gay is met with the assertion that it is not a choice. If it is not a choice then what is it? The next dichotomy comes from trans thought. If the sexes are a social construct what are trans people? That and all arguments that support trans sexuality also support trans racialism. Despite the lack of support for trans racialism the idea of race also being a social construct is pervasive. The more they argue that things are inherent to people the more they open the can-of-worms that is Biological Determinism. They cannot open that can. If they do they will win ground on trans and gay fronts, but all of there other arguments, like women being no different than men and any differences are caused by social pressure, will fall apart.

[Darth Wedgius]

Right, sure. Because it's the Left that denies climate change, denies evolution, denies the failures of abstinence only education programs, denies the existence of transgender and intersex people, claims there's a link between abortion and breast cancer, claims hurricanes are God's punishment for gay people, thinks wind farms will slow the Earth's rotation...

*eyeroll*

Edited for tone. Simple mockery is adequate. (emphasis not in original)

The right does often deny many of those things you mention, though I have not heard of any denying the existence of intersex people or the wind farm thing. Might be nice, if they just did it on the weekends.

On the subject of transgender people, whether someone who decides they are female that day really are female seems to me a hopeless battle of semantics more than science. Yes, there are brain studies that suggests some commonalities between cis-brains and trans-brains of the sex the trans-whatever identifies as -- more on that later. I have not heard anyone on the right who says that there are no people calling themselves transgendered.

Other than the climate change topic, on which I'm completely in agreement with you on, it is my impression that those beliefs are the beliefs of a small fringe on the right. I won't paint the entire left with the belief that all men are in a secret conspiracy to suppress all women, because that would be, you know, stupid.

I would not attack all on the left as anti-science, but I think that that much in academia is tainted by a left-ish belief that feelings will trump (sorry) facts, or that some things are just a given that aren't. From "Toward a Feminist Algebra":

"Numbers are female, and the mathematician’s gaze male. He looks at numbers, at 0’s and 9’s and 6’s, sees orifices and desires to fill them. Even the phallic 1 is feminized: a thin, girlish schoolboy with huge eyelashes, taunted by chums who bugger him in the loo."

Also, those claiming a scientific support for transgenderism seem to me to be often, somehow, the people who insist that any gender differences are social.

Those claiming that all statistical differences between groups must be the result of systematic discrimination don't, it seems to me, usually have the evidence to really exclude all other variables.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe things like this are laughed at in broad academia and I just missed it. I'm not being flippant -- I'm not really in academia, and I'm certainly not much of academia. I recognize that my opinion is not an expert one.

Not edited for tone. I think "simple mockery" does little good to honest discussion.

[Arkle]

On the subject of transgender people, whether someone who decides they are female that day really are female seems to me a hopeless battle of semantics more than science. Yes, there are brain studies that suggests some commonalities between cis-brains and trans-brains of the sex the trans-whatever identifies as -- more on that later. I have not heard anyone on the right who says that there are no people calling themselves transgendered.

Nor have I, I was referring to the Right Wingers and their TERF allies who insist that trans people aren't the gender they say are and are either "mentally ill" or "rapists in sheep's clothing."

Other than the climate change topic, on which I'm completely in agreement with you on, it is my impression that those beliefs are the beliefs of a small fringe on the right.

A fringe that has people on key committees in Congress and according to research polling the overwhelming majority of registered Republicans? That's one hell of a fringe. Or do you come from a country where "fringe" means "Vast majority with a lot of power"?

[Antiboyscout]

Other than the climate change topic, on which I'm completely in agreement with you on, it is my impression that those beliefs are the beliefs of a small fringe on the right.

A fringe that has people on key committees in Congress and according to research polling the overwhelming majority of registered Republicans? That's one hell of a fringe. Or do you come from a country where "fringe" means "Vast majority with a lot of power"?

You didn't read that correctly. He is agreeing that climate change is the one that they don't believe him as a majority. It is the others that he thinks are only held by fringe minorities.

[Darth Wedgius]

I was referring to the Right Wingers and their TERF allies who insist that trans people aren't the gender they say are and are either "mentally ill" or "rapists in sheep's clothing."

Again, whether someone with a Y chromosome and a penis who is claiming to be a woman is really a woman or not is not a matter of science. There is no objective answer. They can insist. They can really feel it to their depths. That doesn't matter.

A fringe that has people on key committees in Congress and according to research polling the overwhelming majority of registered Republicans? That's one hell of a fringe. Or do you come from a country where "fringe" means "Vast majority with a lot of power"?

You apparently misread what I wrote here. Or that was just "mockery," but I'd like to believe the former.

[Arkle]

Again, whether someone with a Y chromosome and a penis who is claiming to be a woman is really a woman or not is not a matter of science. There is no objective answer. They can insist. They can really feel it to their depths. That doesn't matter.

Oh, you're one of those biological essentiallists, huh? Yeah, biologists themselves don't agree with you, but why let a little science get in the way of transphobia?

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magaz ... -identity/

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/ ... -identity/

Sorry to burst your bubble there pally, but there's more to biology than what you learned in 6th grade.