• dustyData@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    9 days ago

    “Why should sex be changeable while other physical traits cannot? Feelings don’t create reality,” he wrote. “Instead, in biology ‘sex’ is traditionally defined by the size and mobility of reproductive cells. “It is not ‘transphobic’ to accept the biological reality of binary sex and to reject concepts based on ideology. One should never have to choose between scientific reality and trans rights.”

    As a fellow psychologist, I must regretfully state that this is the stupidest thing ever written by a psychologist. Our entire science is built upon the notion that feelings indeed create and modify (social) reality*. Sex is not gender, and he fumbled the most basic differentiation of concepts.

    Heteronormative gender roles, on the other hand, are categorically a form of ideology and to defend them in place of basic human decency is a disgrace, good riddance to both asshats, I say. Specially with such a tenous biological argument that any good biologist can tell you is patently false. Gametes are not binary, there are hundred of thousands of intersex individuals for which this narrow definition doesn’t apply.

    Grant is absolutely right, but I don’t expect the mentally weak asshole who invented the word “meme” to ever understand social sciences. His book is a pathetic pseudo scientific intrusion in a field he doesn’t understand in the slightest.

    *: some philosophers would even argue that there’s no reality but social reality and both are one and the same.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      9 days ago

      mentally weak asshole who invented the word “meme”

      He coined the word to mean a thought or idea that spreads through a population. Internet memes are completely unrelated to his usage. It’s not like he created the first insanity wolf meme or something.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        9 days ago

        Yes, and it is the most useless concept ever committed to text. It’s ironic it was coopted by internet culture and then ridiculed and reduced to absurdity.

        He just tried to poorly rebrand the concepts of cultural imagery, and social constructs but with less evidence. It’s akin to me going “I propose the term garggle, it is water that flows down by gravity following the contours of the solid ground”. It’s like, yeah, we call it water and when it does that we call it a river, you would know if you opened a book about it anytime in the past century. You could summarize that book as “better read a book on sociology, it’s more useful”.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        9 days ago

        He isn’t which is why I called him intrusist there at the end for writing a book about psychology and neurology which he doesn’t understand. But the quote is from Coyne, another biologist who wrote the reply and was supported by Pinker, who is a psychologist and should’ve known better. None of these people know what they’re talking about and are acting in this whole thing from passion instead of reason and evidence. Which is ironic, I believe.

    • Grail (capitalised)@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 days ago

      some philosophers would even argue that there’s no reality but social reality and both are one and the same.

      Some politicians would argue that social reality is oppressive and must be replaced with social unreality - http://soulism.net/