6 ms·

If quillette isnt valueless because people subscribe to it, anti-vax rags also have some value. Science is an authority. It authoritatively endorses the view

If quillette isnt valueless because people subscribe to it, anti-vax rags also have some value. Science is an authority. It authoritatively endorses the view that climate change is happening, and that gender isn't as simple as just the binary. If you view that as fallacious, you're anti-science.

leereeves 8y ago
Invocations of "science" in a political debate are almost always arguments from authority. Few participants or listeners will ever examine the evidence for themselves. And by subtly (and often not-so-subtly) blocking the careers of scientists who express a different view, politicians try to ensure that authority supports their agenda. It's a mechanism of social control that's been used by authoritarian regimes for a hundred years. And if you think that view makes me "anti-science", you should know that I'm currently a graduate student studying science. I'm very much in favor of fair and painstaking examination of empirical evidence. I'm against "science" as a political cudgel. I'm against supporting or rejecting theories based on ideology rather than evidence. I'm against politicians and political activists meddling in science or using selective quoting of unsettled science for political ends.
- tomlock 8y ago
  > you should know that I'm currently a graduate student studying science. Considering you just invoked appeal to authority, does this seem the slightest bit ironic to you? > I'm against "science" as a political cudgel. I'm against supporting or rejecting theories based on ideology rather than evidence. I'm against politicians and political activists meddling in science or using selective quoting of unsettled science for political ends. Awesome. Considering the overwhelming evidence that gender isn't determined in a simple binary fashion, I'm sensing a contradiction here. Have you considered that perhaps you may be wielding a political cudgel of your own?
  - leereeves 8y ago
    There's no contradiction because I never said and do not believe that gender is binary. That's a strawman anyway, no one claims that even sex is binary (no one who knows that hermaphrodites exist, at least). And there's no irony because pointing out that I'm studying science wasn't an appeal to authority, but an obvious disproof of your suggestion that anyone who disagrees with you is anti-science. BTW, both "binary gender" and "climate change" are off-topic in this discussion about neurobiological differences between the sexes. You have no reason to bring them up here other than to suggest that disagreeing with you is somehow equivalent to denying climate change. I'd find you much more convincing if you contributed some empirical evidence to the discussion instead of invoking "science" as a magic word.
    - tomlock 8y ago
      Oh? So you don't think sex is binary but want to discuss neurobiological differences "between the sexes"? Which ones do you want to discuss the differences, between?
      - leereeves 8y ago
        Another strawman. The existence of biological sexes other than the two most common (male and female) doesn't negate the existence of male and female. Biological sex isn't actually a spectrum (it's not one-dimensional), but using that analogy, it's bimodal, not binary.
        tomlock 8y ago
        Actually, it does negate the existence of two discrete categories of people that you can ascribe intrinsic biological differences to. You'll always have to delineate the categories at some arbitrary point, and since the delineation is arbitrary, you'll therefore never be sure if your categories are correct.
        leereeves 8y ago
        The usual delineation of male and female isn't arbitrary, it's based on biological mechanisms of reproduction. Only how (or if) one chooses to include those few who don't fit these categories is fluid. In other words, there's some uncertainty at the margins, but in the vast majority of cases, biological sex is clear.

leereeves 8y ago

Invocations of "science" in a political debate are almost always arguments from authority. Few participants or listeners will ever examine the evidence for themselves. And by subtly (and often not-so-subtly) blocking the careers of scientists who express a different view, politicians try to ensure that authority supports their agenda. It's a mechanism of social control that's been used by authoritarian regimes for a hundred years. And if you think that view makes me "anti-science", you should know that I'm currently a graduate student studying science. I'm very much in favor of fair and painstaking examination of empirical evidence. I'm against "science" as a political cudgel. I'm against supporting or rejecting theories based on ideology rather than evidence. I'm against politicians and political activists meddling in science or using selective quoting of unsettled science for political ends.

tomlock 8y ago
> you should know that I'm currently a graduate student studying science. Considering you just invoked appeal to authority, does this seem the slightest bit ironic to you? > I'm against "science" as a political cudgel. I'm against supporting or rejecting theories based on ideology rather than evidence. I'm against politicians and political activists meddling in science or using selective quoting of unsettled science for political ends. Awesome. Considering the overwhelming evidence that gender isn't determined in a simple binary fashion, I'm sensing a contradiction here. Have you considered that perhaps you may be wielding a political cudgel of your own?
- leereeves 8y ago
  There's no contradiction because I never said and do not believe that gender is binary. That's a strawman anyway, no one claims that even sex is binary (no one who knows that hermaphrodites exist, at least). And there's no irony because pointing out that I'm studying science wasn't an appeal to authority, but an obvious disproof of your suggestion that anyone who disagrees with you is anti-science. BTW, both "binary gender" and "climate change" are off-topic in this discussion about neurobiological differences between the sexes. You have no reason to bring them up here other than to suggest that disagreeing with you is somehow equivalent to denying climate change. I'd find you much more convincing if you contributed some empirical evidence to the discussion instead of invoking "science" as a magic word.
  - tomlock 8y ago
    Oh? So you don't think sex is binary but want to discuss neurobiological differences "between the sexes"? Which ones do you want to discuss the differences, between?
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Another strawman. The existence of biological sexes other than the two most common (male and female) doesn't negate the existence of male and female. Biological sex isn't actually a spectrum (it's not one-dimensional), but using that analogy, it's bimodal, not binary.
      - tomlock 8y ago
        Actually, it does negate the existence of two discrete categories of people that you can ascribe intrinsic biological differences to. You'll always have to delineate the categories at some arbitrary point, and since the delineation is arbitrary, you'll therefore never be sure if your categories are correct.
        leereeves 8y ago
        The usual delineation of male and female isn't arbitrary, it's based on biological mechanisms of reproduction. Only how (or if) one chooses to include those few who don't fit these categories is fluid. In other words, there's some uncertainty at the margins, but in the vast majority of cases, biological sex is clear.