Acclaimed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has tweeted his support for Kathleen Stock, philosophy professor and author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, saying:
Several are criticising RD for not speaking up earlier, and I do see that as an issue - I also wish he had. But one way to look at this is that he may have been quite smart at using these delayed 'stealth' tactics and entering the fray. A Tweet - then nothing for a while, then repeat. One of his earlier 'stealthy' messages of support was him commenting on Twitter that he was reading some of JKRs books (perhaps 'reading' on audio actually) and he said how well written and constructed they were. The subjects of JKRs books wouldn't seem 'appropriate' for his tastes from what I know, so I wondered at the time whether it was a small did at the haters, and a message for 'our side' so to speak. Perhaps..
Having read most of his books, I never doubted which side of the toxic divide he would land, but yes, I do wish he had spoken up earlier and more strongly. But here we are with a powerful voice of reason on our side. That can only be good.
Another thing to consider is the one several people have made, which is that Dawkins' behaviour has not been exactly stellar when it comes to women and women's rights. Some of his words and actions have left a nasty taste in my mouth and I know I'm not alone.
I'm not going to defend him, although I admire him tremendously in many ways and count The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype as being absolute foundations of the person I eventually became. I feel privileged to have met him and really enjoyed speaking to him, even though I've been angry and disappointed at him on several occasions since.
But there are many gender critical people who are less than pleased to have Dawkins on their side and I don't blame them. But to them I say this:
If RICHARD DAWKINS is on the side of women in any debate, then you know with absolute perfect sparkling clarity that the other side is *batshit*.
Although he has often called himself a feminist, he has a fairly consistently sided with the dudes unless the dudes are being seriously proper mental.
And I am not defending him for certain issues, admittedly partially because I am only vaguely aware of the details, although i do know to what you at least partially refer.
So I cannot disagree with you on any of this!
As an aside, I expect him to receive hate mail like never before, and I would love another instalment of his 'Richard Dawkins reads his hate mail by the fireside'! I am sure you have seen the two original films about this, they are a real treat!
But this TRA lot in opposition are in a different league in my view to the idiot creationists that sent him the original stuff.... So it could be interesting indeed.
Of course! I didn't mean to suggest that you were defending Dawkins or otherwise. Personally, I'm glad he's stepped up and I think you're right that his doing it gradually is either good strategy or nicely serendipitous.
I'm sure if someone pointed out my many defects, nobody would want me on their side either. These judgements have to be personal and thankfully we don't all have to agree.
You're right about the hate mail readings, that would be *magnificent*, even though his hate mail won't be anything like as awful as that of prominent GC women.
Of course, now Graham needs to get him on The Mess to do just that...
Dawkins is quite an old man at this point and he's had a least one mild stroke in the last few years so I wasn't expecting him to join on either side really. Hopefully in this he'll do more good than harm...
I cannot comment on the macho thing - I don't see that in RD to be honest. But to be fair to me, as a male I wouldn't necessarily have spotted that. I thought that epithet applied to Hitchens much more though, I may say so - and while that is probably true, my mind and my life would have been much poorer without either - faults and all. SO I will take this intervention - RD's faults and errors nothwithstanding - as a very good thing, late or not.
I kind of found it irritating that in his dealings with religious people, he often told them what they believed - even when they said they didn’t believe that - and attacked their beliefs on that basis.
For instance, very few Christians believe the earth is under 10,000 years old, but he attacked them on the basis they all do.
But these are minor niggles. And if Boris Johnson told me today is Tuesday I’d have to agree it is (though I’d wonder what he was up to).
What annoyed me about these dudes is that they became fundamentalist atheists! Which strikes me as totally absurd. They were as rigid in their beliefs as any Krazy Krischun.
One of the biggest shocks to me is how the Athiest and skeptical community, such as it is, has swallowed this nonsense hook line and sinker. I've met Matt Dillahunty, and he's a nice guy, but you'd think that he would see through it all, but no, the ACA is completely and utterly ideologically captured. Here's his response to Richard's tweet:
"I won't be signing. It's just a way for anti-trans bigots to pretend like they're doing something good when they are doing the opposite.
You continue to cave to transphobic fear-mongering, while the rest of us actually educate and improve the world with humanist values. Sad"
Not a fool. An active collaborator with an aggressive pseudo-secular religion seeking to forcefully convert everyone else. Those are the words of a Quisling, not of a humanist. As an atheist I call Matt Dillahunty a disgrace to the secular movement.
I was a dedicated listener/watcher of ACA content for many years. Their descent into madness is extraordinary. I don't follow him or the ACA anymore, but I understand that Matt invites calls from "transphobes" as well as theists now.
I remember Matt being more on the softer side of the Atheist/Skeptic movement. What gets me is how many of the more caustic activists, the one's who didn't believe in sugar coating their distaste for religion and pseudoscience, have suddenly decided that people treating transgenderism the same way are BAD!!!
Matt just blocked me for asking him why he called Nyah Putzo a bigot. Then he issued A Statement implying I'm a bigot, too. I'm imagining him sitting sadly at home, occasionally beeping his red nose to cheer himself up.
Goodness, I've just looked at the responses to his tweet, and in turn his responses.
He doesn't want any kind of reasoned discussion on this, does he? Just block, block, block. Stick his fingers in his ears and go la la la. This is the antithesis of the old Matt. He debates with theists and is so used to being in the right he's got very sloppy. Someone like Dr. Jane Clare Jones would eviscerate him at a debate on gender ideology.
Does Matt seriously think he would win a face-to-face debate with Ceri? It would be utter humiliation. He's now as delusional as the people who called him up on the show and say that the earth is 6000 years old.
I'm imagining a show where the host invites people to phone in so he can tell them why their religion is nonsense and that the pyramids where build by aliens from Zeta Reticuli and the US government in controlled by lizard people...
You're right about the skeptic/atheism community being.... deeply unskeptical on this one issue. There are a few notable exceptions, but so much embarrassing and upsetting capture. Some just can't possibly believe the things they're saying on a daily basis. Some of the formerly big names are surely trying to hang on to the shreds of their previous popularity, not caring whose lives are destroyed in the meantime. Ironically, some of those names were behind the move by some to a kinder, more socially progressive atheist movement which caused such damaging rifts. They were the good guys, the ones devoted to kindness and justice.
They seem to have abandoned those ideals along with their skepticism.
Hehehe, pretty sure I know exactly what events you're referring to. After some of the things Dawkins has said over the years regarding women's issues I never thought I'd be happy to see him stick his nose into the topic ever again. At least on the issue of telling the difference between males and females he should be on pretty solid ground. We're in a bizarre situation where the Skeptics who championed womens rights between say 2011 to 2016 jumped to trans rights and the ones who were dismissive are just sitting there going 'you don't seriously think men can become women, do you?'
Yeah, Dear Muslima, for instance, was not Dawkins' finest hour. But now Rebecca Watson is fully captured and Dawkins seems to slowly be emerging on the right side of things like a snail from its shell.
I wish I could say I predicted that, I'd look like an absolute genius.
I have a hard time believing that the woman who tried to persuade guys that following strangers into elevators at 4am to ask them back to your room for a coffee wasn't a good way to get to know women can't grasp why other women are uncomfortable with the idea of males in female spaces...
In the end, Richard Dawkins has changed his views. He's not so high and mighty that he can't think that sometimes he ought to look at what he's saying.
OK I deleted my previous brief reply for this longer one: oops, I kind of repeated the essence of your comment later on in the thread. It really is weird, though, isn't it? And yet, I can kind of see where it's coming from. I think it's the old conservative/liberal divide again. The conservative (small c) people who were slow to move on women's rights (shall we say), didn't see a problem ("but a woman can do whatever she wants. I don't think society is really sexist anymore, apart from those backward countries in the third world..."). And because they're conservative, they're naturally less inclined to shift on the transgender thing. They demand more evidence to be convinced - and they're not getting anything that is convincing them. The liberal mindset people who were more "yikes women are so oppressed we need to CHANGE things" previously have naturally assumed it's just more of the same oppression and more liberation/liberalisation is the answer. (I realise this is a gross oversimplification; hopefully you can see where I'm coming from). I would have characterised myself previously as super socially liberal, and was even "yeh trans rights sure" until fairly recently - and that was because I just uncritically accepted it as the obvious liberal position and didn't check. My bad. But my honed feminist sensibilities started getting alarm bells ringing over various things, and then I decided to look into it in more detail, realised that I would have been classified as "non-binary" and was like "but that's a nonsense!" So I think it's very easy to go along with that kind of lazy "kindness doesn't hurt" approach. I see a lot more value in conservativism, in the sense of respecting traditions that are good, and not changing things for the sake of them, or at least before evaluating if they really count as "progress", than I used to - there needs to be a balance, I think.
Oddly, and here's that European perspective again, I always considered atheism an integral part of a socially progressive movement and never a cause in and of itself. Well, I am a dark red Leftie and maybe it is this philosophical background that kept me from falling for the latest religious craze. Not saying this goes for everyone, but on the Left the one thing that seems to keep people immune against the craze is some solid footing in some form of materialist theory, Marxist or otherwise. Which may be why so many social liberals have fallen for it. They often share the same sentiments but lack thorough theoretical grounding even more than most of the Left does. But again, opposing insanity has many motives, so I am certainly not trying to appropriate or proselytize any of you great and dedicated people here.
And here's a shock for you. I have considered myself a radical leftist and I'm religious! But then I wasn't raised to believe that god is some old dude in the sky with a bad temper!
Apparently his 'girl'friend is a trans-identifying male. He needs to believe that he is a woman otherwise he'd have to admit to himself that he is a man who likes having sex with men. You can take the atheist out of the Southern Baptists, but you can't take the Southern Baptist out of the atheist.
I'm not totally surprised. I followed some of the atheist community for a while (but never got involved) and there was always a hardcore element that were really misogynistic. I remember huge rows over "gamergate" with some seeing the woman hatred in it and some vehemently coming down on the side of the dudebros. PZ Myers, whom I followed for a while because he was in my field of developmental biology, seems also to have come down on firmly on the side of the TRAs, which is interesting, given that previously he seemed quite supportive of women's rights (this is with the firm caveat that I dropped out reading his blog years ago). Suspect conversely, unlike the outright misogynists, he, and others like him, are of the uncritical "I'm super liberal and inclusive" brigade. Plus the problem with skeptics is that sometimes they think because they've debunked one thing (e.g. creationism) then they're not going to be fooled by anything - but actually they can be just as swayed by their biases and suspectible to bullshit as anyone else.
What's odd is that it's the side that rejected the dudebros that jumped on the TRA bandwagon the hardest. I guess overt misogynists at least know what a woman is :(
PZ, for better or worse, understands that you can't include some people without excluding others. If you want to create an environment where gay people feel comfortable you'll probably have to make the homophobes feel uncomfortable. He's never really been an inclusion for the sake of inclusion kinda guy.
That last point able Skeptics often being blind to their own biases is true but imo transgenderism is like a sub creationism level belief, you can disprove it just by leaving your house and meeting some human beings...
Maybe leaving the house and meeting some human beings is the problem! ;) Or the old not being able to see what is completely obvious. And overt misogynists definitely do know what a woman is, just ask the Taliban :(
This is one of the problems I have with humans. They'll be skeptical about Brand A, but then be completely propagandized by Brand B. To me, if one wants to follow the Path of Skepticism, one needs to apply one's questioning to everything under the sun.
Did you mean this or that are NOT the only options? I totally agree with that. People put on blinders and can only see this or that and not the myriad of other options available. A woman I worked with told me that the U.S. was between a rock and a hard place before we invaded Iraq -- huh? All we had to do was not invade, duh.
OK. Sorry you made the experience. Well, US atheists are another bunch altogether compared to say Austrian organized atheists. (I'm from Vienna.) Different culture, different axes to grind. Although, when I was organized way back when we did have a lack of women in membership and particularly on the board. Overt misogyny was not the problem, btw, more that the org was small and while it had a grand tradition, the membership was fairly old in average and more reflected gender distribution of political activists in the 70's and 80's, when most had joined and where women were underrepresented in many orgs. Well, they still are, but not that degree. That being said: It does scare me that previously dedicated and outspoken skeptics as PZ Myers get fooled so easily. Somehow, they buy the continuation-of-emancipation-narrative. This is the both neocon and neoliberal "The End of History" trope played together with emotional blackmail. Nevermind that Francis Fukuyama has long retracted his thesis. Lots to say about this, but elaborating on that would take way too long. To cut it short, I think transactivism is social liberalism devouring itself over trying to find a legitimatisation for its own further existence. And in that it devours all the good it has created.
Great to see he's getting vocal and helpful and it was lovely to see he got a 'thank you' from Kathleen Stock.
I'm so glad he's shared the UN Declaration page as this should garner far more signatures. I'm pretty sure I signed one before but did it again anyway and shared on my FB.
If anyone fancies a smile, there's a great interview with Julie Burchill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQktUT_avj4&ab_channel=TheNewCultureForum - I don't always agree with her but she does have a great way with words. She mentions Lynne Featherstone who threw a wobbly at the Observer for publishing Julie's transphobe column (actually a column written in defence of Suzanne Moore).
Lynne Featherstone was later disciplined for nicking tons of stationery. Says Julie: Maybe she identifies as WH Smith.
I like that YouTube channel - they have lots of very smart people and discuss things in a reasonable fashion. I hear they are considered conservative/right-wing, but they seem moderate compared to a lot of other outlets I pay attention to.
I note that whilst Dawkins is getting a lot of predictable, nonsensical pushback for doing this, the tone is somewhat less violent than that aimed at JKR, Rosie etc. Can't think why... 🤔
The man is a jackass. He has made outrageous comments about muslims, women, and minorities. If it were me, I wouldn’t want the bigoted dick on my side.
I don't agree with him on everything he ever said and he certainly won't win a diplomacy award. Nevertheless, I am glad he is on board and he will be a great ally.
I couldn't comment on this last night for some sort of technical reason and looks like I missed all the "fun" with Tezzy being banned!
Really happy Dawkins has added his weight to this. He does hold some views that I don't agree with but as a feminist and athiest I am glad to see him sign the declaration and publicly stand with Kathleen Stock. Of course by standing with her, he stands with all other GC folk too. About time we had some more voices with some real public volume take a stand against this damaging cult.
Well, it's hard to say. I don't have a single answer to how the capture happened.
There are people like PZ Myers, who I think began with a genuine intent to be kind... but has now dug himself in such a deep hole there's no way out of it. I don't think he believes some of the things he says, but he isn't prepared to pay the price of backing down. It's affected his thinking, though: he was firing off misogynistic slurs the other day. And he sided against Marion Millar with..... Not Cursed E!
Then there are people like Rebecca Watson who, I think, just doesn't want to examine the subject more closely than TWAW because it would open a can of worms she's not willing to deal with.
Then there are people like Hemant Mehta, who was practically *born* to be a TRA.
These are only guesses at their motivations, of course, but I think PZ is a good general model for what happened; wanting to be kind coupled with being to much of a coward to be unpopular.
I'm sure there are as many opinions on this as there are former movement skeptics/atheists, though.
This is interesting to hear, having dropped out of the thing a while back (I only read freethought blogs). I had a bit of disquiet over how Ophelia Benson was treated (trying to think back and not remembering much). There was always such a huge amount of infighting though.
I'm really worried one day I'll like lose my critical thinking capacity and jump on the latest nutty bandwagon and full on ride to crazy town, trampling on someone's rights as I do so. It seems to happen to so many people! :/
Ophelia's treatment exacerbated my disquiet over my lack of understanding (at the time) of what the "are" meant in "trans women are women".
Ophelia asked, in essence, that same question.
You'd think everyone would have been glad to get this sorted out once and for all right from the start, but instead EVERYONE LOST THEIR MINDS.
It was ugly and this convinced me more than anything else that I was right to question the things being claimed by what came to be known as TRAs.
The fact that you're worried about losing your critical thinking ability means that you're questioning that ability. You're constantly making sure that you're not just making stuff up or jumping to unsafe conclusions. That's a good indicator that your fear is ungrounded.
I ask myself every day, in one way or another, whether I'm right about gender. I think we have to. So far, every day I've found the answer to be YES.
Ophelia left Freethought Blogs because the bloggers there made it intolerable for her to continue, for the crime of thinking freely. But she still blogs at her old site, Butterflies and Wheels, and everyone should definitely have a look if you haven't already.
Thank you for replying (and for your reassurance!) It's interesting to get the perspective on what happened shortly after I stopped following everything. And you're absolutely right - you always have to stop and question yourself every now and then about what you believe, in case it becomes completely unmoored from reality. Thanks for the tip, I will look up Butterflies and Wheels again.
PZ's never been one for kid gloves though, the man drove a nail into a communion wafer then tossed it into the trash just to prove the point that he was free to disrespect the beliefs of Catholics if he wanted to.
Part of what made Dear Muslima so infuriating was that Dawkins build a lot of his anti religious cred on criticising the relatively mild influence of Christianity in the western world (which I was totally behind), which lead to suggestions that he should pipe down because atheists elsewhere had it worse, but when confronted with a woman complaining about creepy male behaviour in a Dublin hotel instantly jumped to pointing out that women elsewhere had it worse.
PZ ended up in the same boat where he build his rep by being honest in his distaste for religion and pseudoscience and not trying to be everyones friend like Mehta, but he can't handle others treating the beliefs of trans people with the same distaste and caustic criticism he turns to every belief he disagrees with.
Could be. Dawkins burned his fingers a couple of years ago and has since been a bit of a recluse. I guess he realized he'd come a bit too close to the New Right on a couple of issues and being disowned by former admirers wasn't sooo nice either. That he comes out of retirement for this is huge news.
I always thought RD wasted his talents tilting at the religion windmill - given all the energy he expended I was surprised that he didn't pick up right away that transology is another religion. Better late than never, of course.
JK Rowling liked his tweet about the Declaration.
Several are criticising RD for not speaking up earlier, and I do see that as an issue - I also wish he had. But one way to look at this is that he may have been quite smart at using these delayed 'stealth' tactics and entering the fray. A Tweet - then nothing for a while, then repeat. One of his earlier 'stealthy' messages of support was him commenting on Twitter that he was reading some of JKRs books (perhaps 'reading' on audio actually) and he said how well written and constructed they were. The subjects of JKRs books wouldn't seem 'appropriate' for his tastes from what I know, so I wondered at the time whether it was a small did at the haters, and a message for 'our side' so to speak. Perhaps..
Having read most of his books, I never doubted which side of the toxic divide he would land, but yes, I do wish he had spoken up earlier and more strongly. But here we are with a powerful voice of reason on our side. That can only be good.
Better later, than never 😊
Yes, sorry, I rambled there. You put it as I should have! 😊
Not at all, you made a valid point 😊
I did? Well.. there's a first time for everything I guess!
I am sure that won't happen again... 😊
I’m quite sure you’ll surprise yourself
😉
Good point, moley.
Another thing to consider is the one several people have made, which is that Dawkins' behaviour has not been exactly stellar when it comes to women and women's rights. Some of his words and actions have left a nasty taste in my mouth and I know I'm not alone.
I'm not going to defend him, although I admire him tremendously in many ways and count The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype as being absolute foundations of the person I eventually became. I feel privileged to have met him and really enjoyed speaking to him, even though I've been angry and disappointed at him on several occasions since.
But there are many gender critical people who are less than pleased to have Dawkins on their side and I don't blame them. But to them I say this:
If RICHARD DAWKINS is on the side of women in any debate, then you know with absolute perfect sparkling clarity that the other side is *batshit*.
Although he has often called himself a feminist, he has a fairly consistently sided with the dudes unless the dudes are being seriously proper mental.
So there's that.
And I am not defending him for certain issues, admittedly partially because I am only vaguely aware of the details, although i do know to what you at least partially refer.
So I cannot disagree with you on any of this!
As an aside, I expect him to receive hate mail like never before, and I would love another instalment of his 'Richard Dawkins reads his hate mail by the fireside'! I am sure you have seen the two original films about this, they are a real treat!
But this TRA lot in opposition are in a different league in my view to the idiot creationists that sent him the original stuff.... So it could be interesting indeed.
Of course! I didn't mean to suggest that you were defending Dawkins or otherwise. Personally, I'm glad he's stepped up and I think you're right that his doing it gradually is either good strategy or nicely serendipitous.
I'm sure if someone pointed out my many defects, nobody would want me on their side either. These judgements have to be personal and thankfully we don't all have to agree.
You're right about the hate mail readings, that would be *magnificent*, even though his hate mail won't be anything like as awful as that of prominent GC women.
Of course, now Graham needs to get him on The Mess to do just that...
Yes, please not let us list or faults and defects... Mine would be a long list!
Dawkins is quite an old man at this point and he's had a least one mild stroke in the last few years so I wasn't expecting him to join on either side really. Hopefully in this he'll do more good than harm...
Some day I shall tell my Dawkins story.
I like his books & his run-ins with creationists, but I always thought he was also a bit annoyingly macho. A Jehovah’s “I never saw nuffin”.
Well: he may have been all that. But he was right about creationism, he’s right about this & his intervention is very welcome indeed.
I cannot comment on the macho thing - I don't see that in RD to be honest. But to be fair to me, as a male I wouldn't necessarily have spotted that. I thought that epithet applied to Hitchens much more though, I may say so - and while that is probably true, my mind and my life would have been much poorer without either - faults and all. SO I will take this intervention - RD's faults and errors nothwithstanding - as a very good thing, late or not.
I kind of found it irritating that in his dealings with religious people, he often told them what they believed - even when they said they didn’t believe that - and attacked their beliefs on that basis.
For instance, very few Christians believe the earth is under 10,000 years old, but he attacked them on the basis they all do.
But these are minor niggles. And if Boris Johnson told me today is Tuesday I’d have to agree it is (though I’d wonder what he was up to).
What annoyed me about these dudes is that they became fundamentalist atheists! Which strikes me as totally absurd. They were as rigid in their beliefs as any Krazy Krischun.
I liked Stephen Jay Gould...
TELL THE DAWKINS STORY!
His last major original book was called 'The Greatest Show On Earth'.
I now see he wasn't referring to evolution.
Wow, you saw where he shared his selfish genes! Was it a shag rug? :-)
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Great story.)
You need to ask The Blind Rugmaker...
Ha!
Do you know, I think it was!
It....would be hard not to have one's view coloured by that!
There is also a gag here about 'Climbing Mount Improbable' - But I won't be the one that tells it....
Ai! Moley!
It turns out that Monty might have been responsible for Dawkins' finding the declaration in the first place....
https://twitter.com/HumanGayMale/status/1465350373951119361
If only the so-called professor Richard Dawkins was as great an intellect as this wonderful social commenter and... and....
- wait what does Monty actually do?
He's a full time female impersonator.
Used to play a guitar.
Sweet!
One of the biggest shocks to me is how the Athiest and skeptical community, such as it is, has swallowed this nonsense hook line and sinker. I've met Matt Dillahunty, and he's a nice guy, but you'd think that he would see through it all, but no, the ACA is completely and utterly ideologically captured. Here's his response to Richard's tweet:
"I won't be signing. It's just a way for anti-trans bigots to pretend like they're doing something good when they are doing the opposite.
You continue to cave to transphobic fear-mongering, while the rest of us actually educate and improve the world with humanist values. Sad"
https://twitter.com/Matt_Dillahunty/status/1465419190513266693
What a fool.
Not a fool. An active collaborator with an aggressive pseudo-secular religion seeking to forcefully convert everyone else. Those are the words of a Quisling, not of a humanist. As an atheist I call Matt Dillahunty a disgrace to the secular movement.
I was a dedicated listener/watcher of ACA content for many years. Their descent into madness is extraordinary. I don't follow him or the ACA anymore, but I understand that Matt invites calls from "transphobes" as well as theists now.
As was I. He co-presented one episode with a certain Katy M, if memory serves.
He announced, 'Tonight we will be taking calls about god and trans issues'.
Yeah... 'Atheist Experience' - My arse.
I remember Matt being more on the softer side of the Atheist/Skeptic movement. What gets me is how many of the more caustic activists, the one's who didn't believe in sugar coating their distaste for religion and pseudoscience, have suddenly decided that people treating transgenderism the same way are BAD!!!
Matt just blocked me for asking him why he called Nyah Putzo a bigot. Then he issued A Statement implying I'm a bigot, too. I'm imagining him sitting sadly at home, occasionally beeping his red nose to cheer himself up.
Goodness, I've just looked at the responses to his tweet, and in turn his responses.
He doesn't want any kind of reasoned discussion on this, does he? Just block, block, block. Stick his fingers in his ears and go la la la. This is the antithesis of the old Matt. He debates with theists and is so used to being in the right he's got very sloppy. Someone like Dr. Jane Clare Jones would eviscerate him at a debate on gender ideology.
yep.... WAY past the "reasoned" stage.... full blown cult member now.
Does Matt seriously think he would win a face-to-face debate with Ceri? It would be utter humiliation. He's now as delusional as the people who called him up on the show and say that the earth is 6000 years old.
I'm imagining a show where the host invites people to phone in so he can tell them why their religion is nonsense and that the pyramids where build by aliens from Zeta Reticuli and the US government in controlled by lizard people...
So would Ceri Black, which is presumably why he blocked her.
Shock! Dismay! Do you mean literally eviscerate? [sarcasm]
He might do it to himself after JCJ was finished with him ;)
I'm sure she's well qualified to perform all the meanings of the word! :D
You're right about the skeptic/atheism community being.... deeply unskeptical on this one issue. There are a few notable exceptions, but so much embarrassing and upsetting capture. Some just can't possibly believe the things they're saying on a daily basis. Some of the formerly big names are surely trying to hang on to the shreds of their previous popularity, not caring whose lives are destroyed in the meantime. Ironically, some of those names were behind the move by some to a kinder, more socially progressive atheist movement which caused such damaging rifts. They were the good guys, the ones devoted to kindness and justice.
They seem to have abandoned those ideals along with their skepticism.
Hehehe, pretty sure I know exactly what events you're referring to. After some of the things Dawkins has said over the years regarding women's issues I never thought I'd be happy to see him stick his nose into the topic ever again. At least on the issue of telling the difference between males and females he should be on pretty solid ground. We're in a bizarre situation where the Skeptics who championed womens rights between say 2011 to 2016 jumped to trans rights and the ones who were dismissive are just sitting there going 'you don't seriously think men can become women, do you?'
Yeah, Dear Muslima, for instance, was not Dawkins' finest hour. But now Rebecca Watson is fully captured and Dawkins seems to slowly be emerging on the right side of things like a snail from its shell.
I wish I could say I predicted that, I'd look like an absolute genius.
I have a hard time believing that the woman who tried to persuade guys that following strangers into elevators at 4am to ask them back to your room for a coffee wasn't a good way to get to know women can't grasp why other women are uncomfortable with the idea of males in female spaces...
I know! It's unreal.
As a Skeptic, an Atheist, and a Leftist I'm going to be apologising for this shit for the rest of my life...
I know, it pissed me off to but right now, thank GOD Richard is on our side :-)
In the end, Richard Dawkins has changed his views. He's not so high and mighty that he can't think that sometimes he ought to look at what he's saying.
OK I deleted my previous brief reply for this longer one: oops, I kind of repeated the essence of your comment later on in the thread. It really is weird, though, isn't it? And yet, I can kind of see where it's coming from. I think it's the old conservative/liberal divide again. The conservative (small c) people who were slow to move on women's rights (shall we say), didn't see a problem ("but a woman can do whatever she wants. I don't think society is really sexist anymore, apart from those backward countries in the third world..."). And because they're conservative, they're naturally less inclined to shift on the transgender thing. They demand more evidence to be convinced - and they're not getting anything that is convincing them. The liberal mindset people who were more "yikes women are so oppressed we need to CHANGE things" previously have naturally assumed it's just more of the same oppression and more liberation/liberalisation is the answer. (I realise this is a gross oversimplification; hopefully you can see where I'm coming from). I would have characterised myself previously as super socially liberal, and was even "yeh trans rights sure" until fairly recently - and that was because I just uncritically accepted it as the obvious liberal position and didn't check. My bad. But my honed feminist sensibilities started getting alarm bells ringing over various things, and then I decided to look into it in more detail, realised that I would have been classified as "non-binary" and was like "but that's a nonsense!" So I think it's very easy to go along with that kind of lazy "kindness doesn't hurt" approach. I see a lot more value in conservativism, in the sense of respecting traditions that are good, and not changing things for the sake of them, or at least before evaluating if they really count as "progress", than I used to - there needs to be a balance, I think.
Oddly, and here's that European perspective again, I always considered atheism an integral part of a socially progressive movement and never a cause in and of itself. Well, I am a dark red Leftie and maybe it is this philosophical background that kept me from falling for the latest religious craze. Not saying this goes for everyone, but on the Left the one thing that seems to keep people immune against the craze is some solid footing in some form of materialist theory, Marxist or otherwise. Which may be why so many social liberals have fallen for it. They often share the same sentiments but lack thorough theoretical grounding even more than most of the Left does. But again, opposing insanity has many motives, so I am certainly not trying to appropriate or proselytize any of you great and dedicated people here.
And here's a shock for you. I have considered myself a radical leftist and I'm religious! But then I wasn't raised to believe that god is some old dude in the sky with a bad temper!
I am less shocked than you might think.
Apparently his 'girl'friend is a trans-identifying male. He needs to believe that he is a woman otherwise he'd have to admit to himself that he is a man who likes having sex with men. You can take the atheist out of the Southern Baptists, but you can't take the Southern Baptist out of the atheist.
You are good! And why are seemingly all atheists people raised in authoritarian religions?
I'm not totally surprised. I followed some of the atheist community for a while (but never got involved) and there was always a hardcore element that were really misogynistic. I remember huge rows over "gamergate" with some seeing the woman hatred in it and some vehemently coming down on the side of the dudebros. PZ Myers, whom I followed for a while because he was in my field of developmental biology, seems also to have come down on firmly on the side of the TRAs, which is interesting, given that previously he seemed quite supportive of women's rights (this is with the firm caveat that I dropped out reading his blog years ago). Suspect conversely, unlike the outright misogynists, he, and others like him, are of the uncritical "I'm super liberal and inclusive" brigade. Plus the problem with skeptics is that sometimes they think because they've debunked one thing (e.g. creationism) then they're not going to be fooled by anything - but actually they can be just as swayed by their biases and suspectible to bullshit as anyone else.
What's odd is that it's the side that rejected the dudebros that jumped on the TRA bandwagon the hardest. I guess overt misogynists at least know what a woman is :(
PZ, for better or worse, understands that you can't include some people without excluding others. If you want to create an environment where gay people feel comfortable you'll probably have to make the homophobes feel uncomfortable. He's never really been an inclusion for the sake of inclusion kinda guy.
That last point able Skeptics often being blind to their own biases is true but imo transgenderism is like a sub creationism level belief, you can disprove it just by leaving your house and meeting some human beings...
Maybe leaving the house and meeting some human beings is the problem! ;) Or the old not being able to see what is completely obvious. And overt misogynists definitely do know what a woman is, just ask the Taliban :(
This is one of the problems I have with humans. They'll be skeptical about Brand A, but then be completely propagandized by Brand B. To me, if one wants to follow the Path of Skepticism, one needs to apply one's questioning to everything under the sun.
That’s a good point. It’s binary thinking, isn’t it? if it’s not this it must be that. But this or that are the only options.
Did you mean this or that are NOT the only options? I totally agree with that. People put on blinders and can only see this or that and not the myriad of other options available. A woman I worked with told me that the U.S. was between a rock and a hard place before we invaded Iraq -- huh? All we had to do was not invade, duh.
I’m ventriloquising a binary thinker. Of course there are other options!
OK. Sorry you made the experience. Well, US atheists are another bunch altogether compared to say Austrian organized atheists. (I'm from Vienna.) Different culture, different axes to grind. Although, when I was organized way back when we did have a lack of women in membership and particularly on the board. Overt misogyny was not the problem, btw, more that the org was small and while it had a grand tradition, the membership was fairly old in average and more reflected gender distribution of political activists in the 70's and 80's, when most had joined and where women were underrepresented in many orgs. Well, they still are, but not that degree. That being said: It does scare me that previously dedicated and outspoken skeptics as PZ Myers get fooled so easily. Somehow, they buy the continuation-of-emancipation-narrative. This is the both neocon and neoliberal "The End of History" trope played together with emotional blackmail. Nevermind that Francis Fukuyama has long retracted his thesis. Lots to say about this, but elaborating on that would take way too long. To cut it short, I think transactivism is social liberalism devouring itself over trying to find a legitimatisation for its own further existence. And in that it devours all the good it has created.
He blocked Ceri Black as well! She wrote a well-reasoned thread (https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1465482476638326797) and he blocked her with a sneering, dismissive message.
'He' being Matt Dillahunty.
He made himself look like an immature buffoon there. He apparently debates for a living. 😐
The more we see and hear from them, the more the #nodebate makes sense. The nonsense doesn't bear any scrutiny.
Yes ,absolute idiot !!
Money, money, money. I asked the American Humanist Association how much money George Soros gave them to throw free thinking into the sewer.
Great to see he's getting vocal and helpful and it was lovely to see he got a 'thank you' from Kathleen Stock.
I'm so glad he's shared the UN Declaration page as this should garner far more signatures. I'm pretty sure I signed one before but did it again anyway and shared on my FB.
He also endorsed TRANS by Helen Joyce. https://twitter.com/hjoycegender/status/1381888763006160898
If anyone fancies a smile, there's a great interview with Julie Burchill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQktUT_avj4&ab_channel=TheNewCultureForum - I don't always agree with her but she does have a great way with words. She mentions Lynne Featherstone who threw a wobbly at the Observer for publishing Julie's transphobe column (actually a column written in defence of Suzanne Moore).
Lynne Featherstone was later disciplined for nicking tons of stationery. Says Julie: Maybe she identifies as WH Smith.
I like that YouTube channel - they have lots of very smart people and discuss things in a reasonable fashion. I hear they are considered conservative/right-wing, but they seem moderate compared to a lot of other outlets I pay attention to.
That’s a great ‘Julieism’ 😂
I note that whilst Dawkins is getting a lot of predictable, nonsensical pushback for doing this, the tone is somewhat less violent than that aimed at JKR, Rosie etc. Can't think why... 🤔
Well done to Richard Dawkins. Great to see some academics on the side of truth . Great 👍👍👍
The man is a jackass. He has made outrageous comments about muslims, women, and minorities. If it were me, I wouldn’t want the bigoted dick on my side.
I don't agree with him on everything he ever said and he certainly won't win a diplomacy award. Nevertheless, I am glad he is on board and he will be a great ally.
The fight back continues…more and more are joining us, now they see what’s going on.
Guid tae see that Dawkins has further declared his support by signing the Declaration on Women's Sex Based Rights.
He's aye been ma favourite go tae biologist....😁
I couldn't comment on this last night for some sort of technical reason and looks like I missed all the "fun" with Tezzy being banned!
Really happy Dawkins has added his weight to this. He does hold some views that I don't agree with but as a feminist and athiest I am glad to see him sign the declaration and publicly stand with Kathleen Stock. Of course by standing with her, he stands with all other GC folk too. About time we had some more voices with some real public volume take a stand against this damaging cult.
It’s plain to see the more polite ragging that is fired back at men, poking at the trans twattery.
They usually get the psycho babble, filling tweet after tweet, but naturally, the lady terfs gets the threats and sneers.
Only a man could tell a woman, that HE is more of a woman, than she would ever be ….
It’s time we stopped using the snooze button, and let the alarm ring longer and louder !
Not a huge Dawkins fan, though I’ve enjoyed some of his books.
But he’s right about this.
And it is MASSIVE.
I have, however, seen a TRA telling him he “didn’t understand biology” before now, so I guess some will be as impervious as they are able.
I’d like to know what went on with the Skeptics... what the hell happened?
ABSOLUTELY massive.... very, very impactful. We are going to start seeing more and more of this. Fingers crossed.
"What the hell happened"
God, where to even start :(
Do you mean "what was the sequence of events?" or "how did this INSANITY occur?"
Under the circumstances, is there a difference?
Well, it's hard to say. I don't have a single answer to how the capture happened.
There are people like PZ Myers, who I think began with a genuine intent to be kind... but has now dug himself in such a deep hole there's no way out of it. I don't think he believes some of the things he says, but he isn't prepared to pay the price of backing down. It's affected his thinking, though: he was firing off misogynistic slurs the other day. And he sided against Marion Millar with..... Not Cursed E!
Then there are people like Rebecca Watson who, I think, just doesn't want to examine the subject more closely than TWAW because it would open a can of worms she's not willing to deal with.
Then there are people like Hemant Mehta, who was practically *born* to be a TRA.
These are only guesses at their motivations, of course, but I think PZ is a good general model for what happened; wanting to be kind coupled with being to much of a coward to be unpopular.
I'm sure there are as many opinions on this as there are former movement skeptics/atheists, though.
This is interesting to hear, having dropped out of the thing a while back (I only read freethought blogs). I had a bit of disquiet over how Ophelia Benson was treated (trying to think back and not remembering much). There was always such a huge amount of infighting though.
I'm really worried one day I'll like lose my critical thinking capacity and jump on the latest nutty bandwagon and full on ride to crazy town, trampling on someone's rights as I do so. It seems to happen to so many people! :/
Ophelia's treatment exacerbated my disquiet over my lack of understanding (at the time) of what the "are" meant in "trans women are women".
Ophelia asked, in essence, that same question.
You'd think everyone would have been glad to get this sorted out once and for all right from the start, but instead EVERYONE LOST THEIR MINDS.
It was ugly and this convinced me more than anything else that I was right to question the things being claimed by what came to be known as TRAs.
The fact that you're worried about losing your critical thinking ability means that you're questioning that ability. You're constantly making sure that you're not just making stuff up or jumping to unsafe conclusions. That's a good indicator that your fear is ungrounded.
I ask myself every day, in one way or another, whether I'm right about gender. I think we have to. So far, every day I've found the answer to be YES.
Ophelia left Freethought Blogs because the bloggers there made it intolerable for her to continue, for the crime of thinking freely. But she still blogs at her old site, Butterflies and Wheels, and everyone should definitely have a look if you haven't already.
Thank you for replying (and for your reassurance!) It's interesting to get the perspective on what happened shortly after I stopped following everything. And you're absolutely right - you always have to stop and question yourself every now and then about what you believe, in case it becomes completely unmoored from reality. Thanks for the tip, I will look up Butterflies and Wheels again.
PZ's never been one for kid gloves though, the man drove a nail into a communion wafer then tossed it into the trash just to prove the point that he was free to disrespect the beliefs of Catholics if he wanted to.
Part of what made Dear Muslima so infuriating was that Dawkins build a lot of his anti religious cred on criticising the relatively mild influence of Christianity in the western world (which I was totally behind), which lead to suggestions that he should pipe down because atheists elsewhere had it worse, but when confronted with a woman complaining about creepy male behaviour in a Dublin hotel instantly jumped to pointing out that women elsewhere had it worse.
PZ ended up in the same boat where he build his rep by being honest in his distaste for religion and pseudoscience and not trying to be everyones friend like Mehta, but he can't handle others treating the beliefs of trans people with the same distaste and caustic criticism he turns to every belief he disagrees with.
There’s a chap called Matt Dellahunty? He’s making a right arse of himself on Dawkins’ twitter feed.
He’s just claimed gender identity is not a soul but a psyche.
Like how Christianity isn't a religion but a relationship with God.
Someone had him a Greek dictionary. I'm willing to chip in.
This is BIG. Really BIG ! Dare we hope? Tide is turning?
Could be. Dawkins burned his fingers a couple of years ago and has since been a bit of a recluse. I guess he realized he'd come a bit too close to the New Right on a couple of issues and being disowned by former admirers wasn't sooo nice either. That he comes out of retirement for this is huge news.
I always thought RD wasted his talents tilting at the religion windmill - given all the energy he expended I was surprised that he didn't pick up right away that transology is another religion. Better late than never, of course.
Isn't it amazing how the by-product of this transgender madness is the placing of honest science and sensible religion on the same side of the fence?