Well, that makes three of us. Steve Pinker, I, and now Richard Dawkins, have all decided independently to resign from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The organization’s ideological capture, as instantiated in throwing in their lot with extreme gender activism and censoring any objection to their views—as well as in the increasing tendency of the FFRF to add Critical Social Justice to their mission alongside their original and admirable goal of keeping church and state separate, has motivated us in different degrees to part ways with the group. I emphasize again that the FFRF did and still does engage in important work on keeping religion from creeping into governmental activity.
Richard explains his decision in the email below, sent not long ago to the heads of the FFRF. I, for one, hope that these resignations might make the FFRF rethink its direction.
I reproduce Richard’s very civil resignation with his permission:
Dear Annie Laurie and Dan
It is with real sadness, because of my personal regard for you both, that I feel obliged to resign from the Honorary Board of FFRF. Publishing the silly and unscientific “What is a Woman” article by Kat Grant was a minor error of judgment, redeemed by the decision to publish a rebuttal by a distinguished scientist from the relevant field, namely Biology, Jerry Coyne. But alas, the sequel was an act of unseemly panic when you caved in to hysterical squeals from predictable quarters and retrospectively censored that excellent rebuttal. Moreover, to summarily take it down without even informing the author of your intention was an act of lamentable discourtesy to a member of your own Honorary Board. A Board which I now leave with regret.
Although I formally resign, I would like to remain on friendly terms with you, and I look forward to cooperating in the future. And to delightful musical evenings if the opportunity arises.
Yours sincerely,
Richard
YES. I’m very glad to see it.
Another example of an otherwise laudable organization losing its way because of the dogma of identity politics:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210420144858/https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/the-ahas-betrayal-of-humanist-values/
I agree. The gender nonsense is yet another religious cult;and for this organisation to fall for it is ridiculous. Humans cannot change their sex. It’s a belief not a reality. People are being punished for understanding biology and reality. The Gender fanatics are getting like the Taliban.
Agree as well.
And the higher-level issue is that if you’re fighting to reduce the power of religion in government, censoring science seems like treason.
The American Humanist Association never did explain why they never rescinded Alice Walker’s “Humanist of the Year” award, despite her promotion of David Icke conspiracy theories, or her antisemitism.
But, we all know why….
Even better!
Would I be right if I conjectured that somewhere in the younger generation of the family of Anne Gaylor and Dan Barker there is a trans-identifying teen?
Ah.
I don’t think they have kids. But I don’t know for sure.
Yes, they have kids
Thanks for pointing that out.
I suspect that someone close to them does. It’s otherwise difficult to explain such an emotional and irrational response.
More to come. The FFRF is dead.
Based on some of the commentary there and elsewhere, I suspect those remaining behind will continue on, but with even more fervent self-righteousness, having purged the organization of the ideologically impure.
I doubt it.
I hope you’re right.
Long live the FFFFRF!
(Freedom From FFRF).
Good for Dawkins. I hope it makes them think.
A sad development, because religion still thrives, and so does a need for defense of capital-F Freedom from religion.
Religion will thrive at least as long as the major ideological movements opposing it have crazier claims than it.
Gender ideology has all the requisite hallmarks of other religions and cults and, as such, should not be promulgated by an organization whose supposed purpose (in their own words) is to work “as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.”
Then again… Gender ideology is in itself, religion.
The trouble is, many of these organizations have been captured by a political religion based around the politics of identity (and extending far beyond just gender ideology). I don’t consider it a literal religion, because I have a fairly “thick” conception of what a religion is – and I’ve published a fair bit about this if anyone is interested and can be bothered looking it up. But these political religions are also a familiar category.
For many people in the West in the twentieth century, Marxism became a comprehensive political religion, playing a similar role in their lives to that played by the historical religions such as Christianity. In recent decades, we’ve seen the rise of a new successor quasi-religion, and it’s turned out to be an authoritarian and intolerant one.
Well said. A vacuum will always be filled and people are programmed to worship, albeit with free will. Whatever we can’t resist becomes a god, followed religiously, like football.
True religion is found in James 1 : 27
Agree above ^^^ thank you.
I recommend reading about Gnosticism and Hermeticism, alchemy and dialectic – turns out I find it fascinating – but it helped to demystify – though it is a vast literature.
This might be more accessible and salient :
Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
Eric Voegelin
1968, 1997
Regenery Press, Chicago;
Washington D.C.
Without wanting to hijack the thread with this, Voegelin coined (or at least popularized) the useful term “political religion” in the 1930s and 1940s. He used it for a somewhat different agenda from mine (for example), because he looked on full-blooded, supernaturalist religions with more favour. But the term itself is handy for phenomena like this – when political ideologies start taking on the trappings and traditional roles of religions.
+1 ->^^^
Also :
Theosophy, as opposed to theology.
Deeply saddened by the recent events. I have been a member of the FFRF for approximately 20 years. I am disheartened by the pulling of PCCe’s rebuttal. We must be able to have conversations and discussions about tough topics such as this. The changes within other groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU who were so important to me as a young man sadden me as well. PCCe’s post some months back about Doctors Without Borders come to mind today as well. It leads me to question what freethinkers and people such as me who seem to be losing confidence in our championing organizations are to do. The most important things to me are free inquiry and open conversation. It isn’t important to me what you think, what really matters is why you think it. I would like to know other people’s opinions what the path forward should be. Will it be new groups championing these causes or will it be reform of existing organizations from within?
The Center for Inquiry remains uncorrupted!
I suspect that is because they have avoided the subject. Or have I missed something?
Nope; the head, Robyn Blumner, has made it clear that they are not doing CSJ, and she is writing op-eds that are rational and not performative.
No. CFI was corrupted a few years back. They’ve cleaned up their act since, but it’s inaccurate to portray it as they having “remained uncorrupted”.
If anyone has been there for over 10 years, the name Melody Hensley will bring back nasty memories. Anyone with over 5 years there will have the same reaction to the name Kavin Senapathy.
All that’s been documented: https://skepticink.com/avant-garde/2020/04/cfi/
CFI stands with Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Steven Pinker, and science. There are only two biological sexes. We care about trans people and support respect for them. But we will not make claims antithetical to biological science.
Whew
[ wipes brow ]
Thank you Robyn! I made a last minute of 2024 donation!
Not really. I went to their Vegas event in 2014 I think it was and there was a ridiculous talk about fish and 7 sexes or something. It was so embarrassing that I never went to another conference. It may have been on the brink of being captured but someone may have stopped it on time.
The significant point is that CFI allows the expression of multiple viewpoints and subsequent rebuttals or discussions.
This I think is really the main issue with FRRF – not that many in the organization have fallen for gender pseudoscience, but that those in charge have also accepted the critical social justice framework which considers it harmful to argue otherwise. Debate is squashed because it supposedly goes against human rights or denies people existence and we must presume that this is obvious.
Kudos to Professor Dawkins.
Alas, CFI Canada appears to be steeped in gender religion.
FIRE–Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression–also uncorrupted!
CFI remains uncorrupted? Are you kidding me??
CFI has been captured from the beginning. Sylvia Benner was responsible for bringing CFI to Portland and for its success as the fastest growing branch in CFI’s history. The straw the broke her to resign was CFI’s slander of James Damore, which was before we even got to the trans issue that got me canceled from CFI.
I had volunteered on the Portland advisory board for 11 years as Communication Chair, managing our social media. I sent a letter to the board, which included Dawkins, that CFI was veering off course. I was chastised for going over Robyn’s head.
Then in 2018, as Portland’s branch manager, I posted a support group for detransitioners—a group created by four young women (three of whom figured out they were simply lesbians)—on the CFI Portland Facebook page, and questioned the dramatic rise in teen girls transitioning with Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (a social contagion). Someone at CFI tipped off the Trans Mafia (yes, they have a Facebook page) and these deranged mentally ill men, and their allies, coordinated a social media mob that demanded I be fired. As far as they knew, they were taking away my livelihood. I changed my name back to my maiden name on social media to protect my paying job.
I literally thought I was safe from censure because of CFI’s commitment to “science, reason, freedom of inquiry” and “humanist values”, but CFI has forgotten or betrayed its mission. I will never forget Robyn’s exact words when she called me to demand I post a public apology, because they were so appalling, “These girls are not our problem”. I refused so she fired me, banned me from the CFI Portland Facebook page, and posted her own apology on my behalf, as if I was the monster.
CFI members are atheists because they are skeptics, not the other way around, but the only thing Robyn expressed concern for was the amount of funding the Religious Right had raised. Meanwhile, the Religious Right doesn’t have near the amount of funding and institutional support that trans activists have while pushing the monstrous medical experimentation of our children.
I deserve an apology from Robyn. These bullied detransitioners deserve an apology from her. Our children deserve an apology from her.
Hi Dani, it’s nice to hear from you. We last spoke in 2019, I believe. I hope you are doing well. I sincerely do.
A lot has happened since we were last in touch, especially with regard to the transgender community and the issues at its fore.
In 2019, under the then-Trump administration, trans people were being targeted and their basic civil rights to be free from discrimination were under assault. Also, then, the medical science of gender-affirming care in the United States and many countries in Europe was pointing in one direction and that was to compassionately treat people with gender dysphoria by accepting their stated identities.
The Center for Inquiry was involved at the time in some of the civil rights issues, promoting the right to fair and equitable treatment for trans people under the law. During Donald Trump’s first term we were busy fighting the administration’s Religious Right agenda and the rise of religious privilege in law, and we stood up for reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights because opposition to those rights was grounded in religious dogma.
We continue to fight on all those fronts. But since then, a number of complexities have arisen with regard to trans rights. The most pronounced of these relate to medical interventions for minors who claim to have gender dysphoria, the idea that trans women are no different from natal women and therefore should be free to compete in women’s sports, and the insistence by many trans activists that biological sex is a spectrum and not a binary in humans.
All three of these issues involve to one degree or another biological science and CFI has been drawn into that debate as a result of our promotion of scientific truth. CFI publications now routinely raise concerns about these issues, particularly since the release of the Cass Review that suggests medical interventions for gender dysphoria should wait until the age of majority.
I know you feel that CFI came to these views five years too late, but at the time when you were posting definitive claims that most girls who experience Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria will de-transition, the reported medical science was pointing in the other direction.
And, the trans community of 2019 was a much beleaguered group in the cross-hairs of the Trump administration that didn’t need CFI piling on. We had larger ox to gore trying to counter the rising power of the Religious Right and Christian Nationalism.
So, upon reflection of that fraught time, I do not apologize for trying to lower the temperature and the hostile back-and-forth online conversations that were happening, or for trying to redirect the attention and energy of CFI Portland toward the broader range of issues that CFI deals with. I remember that we discussed taking on the giant school of naturopathy in Portland and the aggressive anti-vax movement there — but that was not interesting to you. However, I am sorry that we lost you as a longtime volunteer and community leader.
Sincerely,
Robyn
What rights were trans-claiming people in danger of losing in 2019? Or now? Were they going to be enslaved or used in coerced medical experiments? Imprisoned without due process? Have their homes searched without warrant? Be mis-gendered without recourse?
What is your response to Dani’s specific complaint that you were willing to throw damaged adolescents and young women under the bus to fight the Christian Right?
(You do realize that “ox to gore” is a malapropism the way you used it, I hope.)
“the medical science[sic] of gender-affirming care in the United States and many countries in Europe was pointing in one direction and that was to compassionately treat people with gender dysphoria by accepting their stated identities.”
Why didn’t CFI treat this with the skepticism it always deserved? That is your core mission, the reason CSICOP was founded in the first place. Fighting religious and political battles is not(*). Over the years CFI has run many articles on medical quackery. Everything about the “gender-affirming” attitude has been implausible from the start, clearly based on ideology, and without evidence. CFI was the one organization that was in the best position to put a damper on the whole ball of pseudoscience.
(*) For many years, Skeptical Inquirer refused to investigate religious claims. The change in that policy was very controversial.
I agree with Leslie and Gordon: the claim to be born in the wrong body or to avoid the wrong puberty was always ontologically and medically obvious nonsense. CFI should have treated such claims with the appropriate skepticism long ago.
“…trans people were being targeted and their basic civil rights to be free from discrimination were under assault.” / “…the trans community of 2019 was a much beleaguered group…”
How so?
Robyn, it was 2018 (I have receipts) and we haven’t spoken since. You squashed scientific debate by deleting a peer-reviewed study I posted (I have receipts) and silenced courageous voices, just like our captured universities. You can’t blame Trump for that.
You took an educational nonprofit organization—a skeptic community with a mission statement “to promote a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry and secular humanist values”—and turned it into a political organization that was most concerned about Trump and evangelical Christians.
Read Ronald Lindsay’s book “Against the New Politics of Identity: How the Left’s Dogmas on Race and Equity Harm Liberal Democracy and Invigorate Christian Nationalism” to understand why Trump is back in office.
Thank you to Jerry Coyne for statement in support of CFI. Their magazine and message-board were “enlightening” and a big help to me.
Thank you for demonstrating your principles. I hope many more follow your lead. This nonsense has gone far enough.
It amazes me that a group that understands the vital importance of falsifiability to the scientific method is now so keen to agree to gender ideology.
If you think something ‘is’ because a person says it is, you are not respecting science, logic, or truth itself. You’re doing what the religious nuts do, by saying it’s ’their truth’, like material reality is open to interpretation. The FFRF should be embarrassed by the nonsense they’ve bowed down to.
I love the solidarity! That’s got to make FFRF examine their mission creep. If it doesn’t, they’re truly lost.
Lovely and gracious letter. Thanks to all you gentlemen!
Anyone who remains on that board now does so only out a sense of for personal gain/opportunity.
The reputation of the FFRF is forever tarnished.
None of us have discussed this with other members of the board. I think that would be unseemly. The three of us communicate fairly often, so that is different.
It would be surprising if Richard Dawkins stayed on given what is happening at FFRF. Glad he joined the exodus.
Oh, “Annie Laurie” is one person! I thought you’d all just forgotten how to use commas.
Anyway, good on Dawkins and Pinker.
I’ve been confused before by his tendency to leave out end parentheses.
That is to distinguish her from her mother, Ann Gaylor.
Her mother was Ann Gaylor. Annie Laurie’s birth name is Annie Laurie Gaylor. Annie Laurie is a first name and there is no middle name. My mother’s birth name was Annie Laurie Jorn — first name, last name, no middle name.
There’s a folk song called “Annie Laurie.”
What’s the difference between “Annie Laurie” as a first name and “Annie” as a first name and “Laurie” as a middle name?
If it is a first name it would normally be “Annie-Laurie”; hyphenated as are double-barrelled surnames.
I have never seen a double first name hyphenated. They are pretty common in Appalachia.
I think it was the National Lampoon Radio Hour that had the redneck talk show hosted by Bubba and Chuck Fred.
Imagine filling out a form with fields/spaces for first, middle and last name. In the first instance, it would be “Annie Laurie,” (blank), “Gaylor.” In the second, it would be “Annie,” “Laurie,” “Gaylor.” Now, imagine someone referencing people on that form by first name only. They would call the first person “Annie Laurie” and the second person just “Annie.”
Some people hyphenate double first names (“Mary-Ann”), some do not (“Mary Ann”). Some always include middle names, some only rarely, and some who were never given a last name to begin with later adopted an initial. Between regional practices (yes, Appalachia among them), ethnic and religious practices, marriage and business traditions, adoption, etc etc, there’s enormous variation in the use of first, middle and last names, hyphenated or not. My own family alone has more examples of every combination than I can count.
It’s a sad situation when science no longer welcomes free inquiry. I canceled my SciAm subscription for similar reasons. Articles no longer discussed ongoing research but rather cherry picked data to support an ideological position.
I, too, fully support gender rights as a personal position but understand that others have rights as well. Science is the wrong tool to determine the best balance. FFRF has apparently become a faith based organization.
FFRF has not yet updated the board member listings. It will be telling for the future of the organization how the rest of them respond.
I applaud the FFRF for standing up for women’s rights and LGBTQ+ as well. Most, but not all, of the sentiment against these groups is from religious extremists who use the bible or other texts to justify their views. I think it makes complete sense for the FFRF to go this route because A) they are showing examples of some of the damage done by religion to these groups in our society, and B) they are showing that Atheism can be more good and just than religion. Women’s, LGBTQ+, and many other human rights are closely tied to the idea of freedom from religion.
I think you’re confusing religion piggybacking onto a secular issue with religion imposing a religious view on the secular. A fundamentalist may argue that astrology is wrong because it’s satanic and shouldn’t be taught in schools because that contradicts their religion. That wouldn’t make support for astrology an obvious position for the FFRF.
I think this is different than your astrology example, because women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights are human rights. I think the main point of the FFRF is to stop religions from interfering in the lives of the nonreligious (giving people freedom from other people’s religions). And there are no better examples of this interference than religious groups persecuting these communities. When you look at it from this point of view, this is EXACTLY what the FFRF should be spending its resources on.
Some other Atheist groups may have different goals, such as supporting Atheists and Atheism. And while the FFRF has these goals as well, I think it’s primarily an organization which protects people from being bullied by other religions. Perhaps this is why these people left the FFRF’s board; they may have different priorities. And that’s perfectly fine. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the FFRF’s priorities. There are plenty of people who are persecuted by religious groups and need protection.
Are any ‘trans rights’ not dependent on the claim that an inborn gender identity makes them a man or woman and requires that they be treated as such?
Certainly – the human rights that apply to all humans, including men and women who don’t follow the norms of masculinity or femininity. Refusing service to a transvestite, firing a woman for being a lesbian, or not allowing someone who identifies as transgender to work in a government building are all human rights violations.
Passing a bill that says single-sex services and spaces are to be divided by sex, not gender, is NOT a violation of human rights … even if the congressmen who pass it reference the Bible. There are cogent secular arguments which support the same outcome.
To the extent Trans Rights are based on forcing other people to accept and accommodate the truth of their personal identities and beliefs about gender trumping sex, they’re not dealing with civil rights, but making a fact claim. This is outside the legitimate purview of FFRF. It’s not religious oppression.
I don’t understand the problem. If a person believes they are a woman even though they were born a male, maybe it’s not scientific, but this person has a certain preference for the way they want to be treated; why can’t we just honor that without asking questions? If someone was born Christian and converts to Buddhism or Islam, there’s nothing scientific about that either. But if they want to be Buddhist, let them be Buddhist. This could also be considered “making a fact claim”. They are claiming that the mythical teachings of Christianity are incorrect, and that the mythical teachings of Buddhism are correct. I’m not a fan of religion, but I certainly don’t want to pass laws that restrict someone from claiming the religion of their choice. Why would it therefore be okay to pass “a bill that says single-sex services and spaces are to be divided by sex, not gender”? Isn’t it violating that same human right to let people live their lives the way they want to? Even if you don’t understand their choice. Even if there’s no science to back it up. The only exception is if it is hurting other people. And I know, there are people who get up in arms about sports and worry that a woman who was once a man might compete in a women’s competition and have an advantage. But I don’t care about sports, don’t think they are particularly important, and I certainly don’t think they are worth passing laws for which restrict people’s rights to live and be however they want. And sorry, I don’t think a woman coming in second in some sport because of this issue meets the standard of “hurting other people”.
There are a LOT of people who recognize the clash of rights between different groups, as instantiated in sports participation. You say you don’t care about it, but so what? A LOT of people do, including sports organizations, who are busy making rules about this. Your problem is that you don’t grasp what people are discussing but merely think that your own pronouncements are right, and adhering to them will make eveeryt
In point of fact, Sastra, refusing service to a trans-identified person in the settings you describe is not a human/civil rights violation unless the jurisdiction has legislated that gender identity or expression is a prohibited criterion for discrimination. If the jurisdiction bans only the use of race, sex, and creed as grounds for refusing service (as is the case in, for example, Alabama*), then a business that refuses service to a man in a dress and makeup commits no offence. (That is, unless federal law against sex discrimination is interpreted as prohibiting discrimination by gender identity.) An employer could fire a man who moonlights at drag-queen story hour even if the man doesn’t wear drag attire at work.
Service providers may refuse service to any person, and employers may fire or refuse to hire any person for any reason (or for no reason at all) as long as the reason is not one of the prohibited grounds. If the proprietor or employer thinks trans people will be bad for business or corrupt the town’s children he can turn them down and even say why, without fear of being sued. He can decline to serve men less than 5’9” tall, women with small breasts, women who won’t wear low-cut dresses or any other requirement of the dress code, left-handers of either sex, people who are too fat or too thin or too smart or too dumb, any criterion that the law doesn’t prohibit, the employer or proprietor can use as an exclusion criterion.
Discrimination against trans-identified people (or homosexuals for that matter) at work or in public accommodation is a human-rights violation only if the law specifically says it is.
(* I don’t mean to pick on Alabama. I just looked up their state human rights law in connection with their ban on gender-motivated mutilation of minors.)
I am agreeable in a qualified way. I also think that it is legitimate for the FFRF to work against oppression of LGBTQ from both religious and political quarters (as the latter works closely with the former, I don’t see how to separate them). Doing so is consistent with the central mission of the FFRF. But let’s be clear that peddling anti-biology talking points is a bridge too far. What’s more, the sheer ridiculousness of that view literally hands the religious far right powerful talking points for ‘othering’ the very people that FRFF is trying to protect.
Laws and policies that keep males out of female sports and showers are NOT anti-LGBTQ. The first letter stands for Lesbians, females attracted to other females. Keeping male people out of female spaces is not oppressive, it’s pro-lesbian. Especially with female sports as many lesbians are drawn to athletics.
Please separate the LGB from the TQ+ when you discuss these issues. Most of the problems we now face stem from trans activists riding on the coattails of the LGB equality movement. Transgender-identified people are nothing like us. Homosexuals are a natural, normal part of human sexual and social behavior. We evolved to promote the success of our own and our relatives’ genetic material. Trans people aren’t a concise entity like homosexuals. You can identify homosexuals but there’s no test for transgender. It’s simply a label that indicates a desire to be the opposite sex. They are just people who hate themselves or are uncomfortable with the sex that they are.
When FFRF or any other organization “works against oppression of lgbTQ people,” it’s obvious they’re not helping lesbians. They’re promoting the interests of males over females.
What about woman in sports who lose contests to men?
Why should an organization like La Leche League, for nursing mothers, permit men to join? Women bring their babies to meetings and nurse them. It’s not suitable for men to be present.
I really can’t see how an organisation can stand for ‘women’s rights’ and for trans ideology when the latter is instrumental in helping to destroy the former.
Anyone familiar with the Tickle -v- Giggle court case in Australia where a man who had joined a women-only group online (set up to help women find safe accommodation, rape crisis centres, lesbian contacts, etc.), sued Giggle when the founder realised he was a man who claimed to be a woman and cancelled his membership?
The awful outcome: the Tickle bloke won and the judge believes humans can change sex.
Another blow to women’s rights.
Now we await the ruling in Women For Scotland -v- Scottish Ministers. A case in which the ruling will have a big impact on lesbians’ rights in the UK and set a precedent in other countries.
Women’s rights can be adversely affected by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, use women’s dressing rooms etc.
PZ Meyers has an article titled “I reaffirm my support for the Freedom From Religion Foundation”.
The fact that an odious, anti-science, antisemitic, accused rapist is now pledging his support for them, should really give FFRF pause for thought.
But it won’t.
PS – One creeper over there in the comments is hoping Meyers and Hemant Mehta are invited on to the board of FFRF!
In the interest of the civility roolz, I edited this longer comment down to a single point, which I make as no friend of PZ Myers’s:
“accused rapist”: I happen to remember the incident to which you must be referring and I think it’s an unfair and despicable piece of rhetoric on your part. That sort of disingenuous snideness belongs back in the slymepit.
In the interests of accuracy, PZ admitted it.
Check Michael Nugent’s articles on the whole sordid affair.
I agree. There is no evidence that PZ raped anybody so you really should retract that accusation.
Erm, so PZ Meyers admitted he was “threatened with an accusation of rape”… and we only have his side of events to go on.
https://www.michaelnugent.com/2014/11/24/pz-myers-updates-story-threatened-false-rape-allegation/
This is before we get on to the topic of ‘Oggvorbis’…
Come on. Myers (note sp.) ‘admitted’ being accused of something he also explained–in some narrative detail–that he didn’t do. So he’s an “accused rapist”?
Dude, your unhealthy obsessions are showing. Why do you care so deeply about Myers and Rebecca Watson anyway? Are you Elevator Guy, or something?
There, from now on you can be known as “Accused Elevator Guy Rich Sanderson’. (See? That’s the kind of unfair rhetoric I’m talking about.)
Let us drop this topic now and stop associating PZM with rape.
I don’t believe the rape accusation. It should not be dug up.
Defamatory comments should be deleted.
That would be an odd choice. Mehta and his co-host are frequently quite racist on his podcast, the deceptively titled “The Friendly Atheist.” Of course their racism is directed solely at white people (whatever those are) so it is okay I guess.
The manner in which the three of you tendered your resignations—with clarity, elegance, and on principle—is a sharp contract to the manner in which you were treated. The entire membership deserves a public apology.
Absolutely this!
I posted the following on the FFRF website under their post removing Jerry’s essay:
“As a lifetime member of the FFRF I am shocked to see this blatant acceptance of the dogma of transgenderism. But more importantly that you have disrespected one of your honorary board members and gone off the rails of your original mission: guarding the separation of church and state. Please,PLEASE get back on track. You are publically diminishing the respect you once held by censoring thoughtful discussion of an important subject and denying science. Who now is the emperor wearing no clothes?”
I am happy to see Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins have joined Jerry in resigning from FFRF. All did so in a very kind and respectful manner. I hope Ron Regan and other members of the board join in resigning. Maybe that would get their attention. It is not too late for the FFRF to get back on track.
I hadn’t read the full original essay yet, and going to the website now, I see your comment is not there–and they’ve quietly shut down comments by simply taking away the comment box.
Thanks very much for telling me that. This saddens me even more. Perhaps my last sentence is incorrect. Perhaps it is too late for the FFRF. As a life member of the FFRF, I feel betrayed. I feel I must now shift my support to CFI and FIRE. Thanks again for the comment.
I do wonder what would possess the other 10-12 board members to stick around. There are several scientists on the board – aren’t they embarrassed, too?
If they have any integrity, they need to send in their resignations.
None of them probably even know about this kerfuffle. I certainly havent told them (sorry, my apostrophe key is stuck)
Jimmy Carter just died
Oh no!
Richard, Jerry, and Steve are all >70. Gen X (my generation) does not have a group of thinkers with the same class, wit, humanism, and delightfulness as you. (Don’t discount the latter. Without intellectual play, we end up with curmudgeons like PZ Myers.)
(Maybe my generation regressed to the mean in terms of top intellects. Meh. I have no idea what that statement means in relation to Millennials and Gen Z, who seem to be worse than Gen X on most matters.)
We need something that honors your legacy, carries it forward, and continues the mission of a more reasonable society.
Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles on X / Twitter) is one of many younger scientists carrying the torch. Our host’s occasional co-authors Luana Maroja and Anna Krylov are others.
Emma Hilton is very good. I would add Colin Wright and Diana Fleischman. Of course, a more knowledgeable person would add a lot more names.
You’re giving curmudgeons a bad name! I looked for the first time in years at the
“Friendly Atheist” and was overwhelmed by the puerile bitchiness, especially, but not only, amongst the comments. It reminded me of why I stopped reading Pharyngula, compared to which the slymepit (RIP Lsuoma) was a haven of good manners.
Sad to hear about Lsuoma. RIP
I am a long time member and supporter of FFRF.
I have written them a letter expressing my support for the responses of Jerry, Richard, and Steven.
I expressed my disappointment and hoped they would reconsider their actions and not abandon their long time support of science and reason.
Dr. Coyne,
I greatly respect you, Dr. Dawkins, and Dr. Pinker. I remain a member of the FFRF. I agree for the most part with your concerns about some of the extremes of whatever wokeness is. I suppose we all have to draw a line somewhere on this topic. As a clinical neurologist I deal with patients who claim various gender identities. I attempt to refer to them by whatever pronoun they prefer and only once have I been reprimanded for using the wrong term. Most often I am simply gently re-informed about the person’s preference. I have seen the struggles of these people who feel this sense of a certain gender very deeply, to the degree that anyone else can grasp the struggles of another person in a 45 to 60 minute discussion. I see no harm nor real confusion in adopting something like the WHO definition and approach (https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1). Along the same lines, I will bow my head in prayer with a patient or family member when requested. I will summon a pastor or a priest or a rabbi to the bedside of a patient seeking comfort. I will not lie to a patient if they ask my own belief. I admit that this is in the context of providing healthcare. I feel that there are simply more important issues. I acknowledge that an organization like the FFRF should not have taken down your rebuttal to the “What is a Woman” opinion article. I just think this is getting out of hand, compared to the major issues facing the world. Over-wokeness is not in my top 100 concerns. The FFRF has done such good that it would have to do much worse than this to lose my support. Beyond this, the world is struggling with so many threats from the right (global warming denial, wanton commercial deregulation, loss of reproductive freedom, threats of overt theocracy, and many others). Actually, if we want to argue about labels, the whole right-left, conservative-liberal-progressive labelling system is rapidly becoming meaningless. Anyway, it seems a matter of priorities. Thanks for giving me a space to comment.
I did not ask anybody to stop supporting the FFRF. Nor do I refuse to accept whatever people want to be called. So why are you implying I do or did, or are you just telling us how wonderful you are compared to others?
But I do object to you telling me what I should consider important enough to write about. Read the posting rules on the left-hand sidebar.
Would you prefer that I write about what YOU consider important rather than what interests me? Well, sorry, I am not going to do that.
Re-read this post carefully. It sounds like bullshit that doesn’t deserve a response.
I think someone could make a similar argument against the FFRF, that the world is struggling with so many (more important) threats that separation of church and state is really a minor issue in the big scheme of things. Priorities.
Part of the problem is that there are greater issues. That’s why the Democrats lost the election. The logic was essentially “Trump is so bad that we’ll win the election anyway, so we can implement all of this woke stuff and get away with it, even though most of our voters don’t agree with it, because the alternative of Trump winning is even worse”. Some people draw the line at castrating children an d thus can no longer support the Democrats. While some of those voted for Trump, most (and the numbers support this—Trump didn’t win because more people voted for him, but because fewer people voted for Harris) didn’t vote at all, which in a two-party system effectively amounts to the same thing.
But why the woke agenda with he Democrats in the first place?
One of the reasons the woke stuff has taken over is that it has so much support. It’s not just the mentally ill people who genuinely think that they’ve been born in the wrong body. It’s also the blue-haired queers-for-Palestine crowd who think that it’s trendy, progressives who haven’t really looked into it but support it because in the past they’d (rightly) supported groups who (said that they) were oppressed (that’s the key; historically, most groups who claimed to be oppressed really were oppressed). I think a fourth group is graining ground, the false-dichotomy crowd, the the-enemy-of-my-enemy-must-be-my-friend crowd who support any and everything Trump thinks is wrong. There is a professor of philosophy on Twitter/X who, in reply to a question about how he makes up his mind, said that he checks what evangelical Christians believe and then chooses the opposite. At first I thought that it was a parody account. The FFRF might be (at least) in that last group.
The sorts of things we’re talking about have real world effects being downstream of these philosophically related points. Namely developmentally normal males in women’s sports, shelters, and prisons with the main differentiator being self ID which is of course, insane. One wonders what other evils you will look the other way on because it is rare – and how rare does it have to be before you are an apologist for it?
Thank you Jerry (and Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker) for standing up for science.
It is shameful what has become of the atheist movement, but I fear it was inevitable. They lost their courage a long time ago, and common sense followed.
It’s getting beyond ridiculous into total insanity. Already feel politically homeless because of wokeness and anti-western and anti-Enlightenment thinking having totally captured organisations I once was active in such as Amnesty International and the Australian Labor Party. But atheist organisations and scientific journals have also now caught the virus. Not to mention literary organisations.
It’s very discouraging. I keep thinking it may have peaked, but events keep showing it hasn’t.
I think it has peaked, but hardly gone away
Plateaued maybe.
2024 has not been a good year for trans activists. I’m not on X but this thread is encouraging.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873740787650883762.html
He finishes with:
“It looks like 2025 will be a tumultuous year. The gender wars are not over. Transgender activists are well funded and well entrenched in schools, universities, professions and the media but they will never again control the public agenda as they have for the last decade.”
Good stuff. Roll back the worst excesses.
I was expecting him to do so, and I am very, very pleased with the direct, uncompromising and absolutely accurate wording of his message. I applaud his decision and message.
I repeat the comment I put on an earlier thread:
If ever you wonder why otherwise sensible people seem to be falling for the “sex is not binary” religion, I propose as follows: Cherchez les enfants. Chances are they’re trying to curry favour with their own children. Either that or with junior staff of their own organisation. More than one experienced publisher has made this second suggestion to me with respect to their own company. As for my first suggestion, I won’t mention names for fear of wounding respected friends.
I think that is insightful.
And as a Gen Xer who dearly appreciates you, Pinker, and Jerry, what am I to my cherished organizations? Chopped liver? I think so!
(And it’s telling about my own psychology in terms of caring more about what those who have taught me think than anyone else. I’ve also never had kids of my own and have not sought the approval of juniors to me in science. In fact, I’m afraid of them because I’m not senior enough to say something to them about their mistakes. But I have not gone so far as to curry favor with them.)
Ah! One of those childless women with cats, eh? I’m totally kidding. Hope you won’t mind.
Hehe 🙂 Don’t mind.
One of my intellectual heroes once told me nobody cares about my kitties. He’s wrong.
And another, Elon Musk, though he teases, would love me if he knew me.
I’ve trained my kitties. One comes to my lap when I call him. The other jumps on my back, several times a day.
They keep me company as I code.
Cats reign supreme. This from someone living in a house with no cats. I’ve clearly lost my way
It is a very difficult path to walk and I do empathize. My own daughter cut off contact for 8 months. We have a relationship now and I’m fairly certain she’s not going to harm herself.
I’m 60 and raised religious. I never understood the parable of the prodigal son. That is until I was separated from my own child. I slaughtered a goat when she came home. It’s really difficult to convey the emotion of that separation. I’m very lucky she’s unharmed and still talks to me but it could’ve gone a different way.
I had trouble when mine were teens. It was a nightmare. I completely understand how you must have felt.
Fortunately mine straightened out.
Having a “trans child” is I think similar in some respects to having a psychic child, a reincarnated child, or a child who’s been to Heaven and back. It’s very tempting to think that being emotionally close and directly able to judge the sincerity of their claims gives you an advantage over those who have no skin in the game. You’ve got more reliable evidence.
No, not really.
Yes!
This seems to be spot on. Some have suggested that perhaps there is a family trans child in the mix somewhere, but if that were the case I’m not sure they would have published Professor Coyne’s essay in the first place.
Personally, I’d wager that they were threatened with a shutdown walkout by their Gen Y/Z staff. The FFRF has been taken hostage. But it seems there will be no negotiations, and the hostage will become a pale imitation of its former self.
Don’t think for a moment that these 3 resignations will make any good impression on the architects of this moment. To their mindset, being on the opposite side of Jerry, Steven, and Richard is proof enough that they are Doing The Right Thing. That they might be wrong will not occur to them.
Now the many other members seeking to cancel their membership might be a financial worry, though. Reluctantly, I hope so.
You’re probably right.
Sadly, that seems to be the case.
All have been branded transphobes, and been casually dismissed by the usual suspects.
I’ve been watching this drama unfold while watching an HBO drama called “True Detective” and they told the funniest joke that made me think of this thread…
Q: What do you call a Trans woman who flies an airplane?
A: A PILOT you trans-phobic asshole!
No matter what your reply, you’re always wrong.
We’ve seen the disappointing shift to dangerous, unsupportable, anti-science rhetoric for years as people and organizations have lined up behind the gender industry and the irrational medical model and mindset. Public push-back from the medical community is growing but small and is thoroughly ignored by the major med associations (and the media). The major social justice orgs are lost. Skeptics and atheist orgs have either fallen or are staying silent.
A few years ago Science V epitomized this fall (https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-vs-cited-seven-studies-to) and we certainly see it widespread in our populace due to misinformation in mainstream media. At this point, providing evidence is ineffective, as every thoughtful rebuttal is met with claims of “right-wing capture” and bigotry.
It’ll be sad but unsurprising if FFRF doesn’t reconsider its position — not just on open discourse, but on promoting, and seemingly aligning, with an anti-science viewpoint. We at Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender are thankful for the powerful public voices willing to take a stand against rampant and cowardly mob mentality in the name of reason.
Apologies, I posted on the first of the FRF resignation threads that they’re probably pleased you three have left. I’ve reflected and think it’s actually very damning and damaging. Dawkins in particular (as one of the original four speaking out against religion and its overreach).
I’m sure the majority of donators and subscribers will have noted what’s happened.
Kat Grant is the new high priestess of FFRF, who can do no wrong:
“Some people define a “woman” as someone with a vagina. This presents problems, as transgender women who receive bottom surgery have vaginas”
That’s right, an artificial surgically created man-pouch is now a vagina. To question this is heresy. And that makes it dogma. Which pretty much makes it a religion, cuz:
'religion gives answers that dare not be questioned, science asks
questions that may never be answered'
Bye-bye ffrf.
I’m baffled that Kat thinks that is a problem. What transwomen have is not anything like a vagina. If having a vagina is part of the definition of woman, and transwomen don’t have a vagina (regardless of surgical intervention), well then, we have two ready made categories for such people don’t we? Woman, and transwoman. How does this “present problems?”
The resignations were reported on Butterflies and Wheels. (Interestingly, I mostly agree with the stuff there, but sometimes strongly disagree. Many people with the us-and-them mentality can’t understand that, nor that people can be right about some things and wrong about others.). There was a link to the original article. Wow! It sounds like someone wrote it using ChatGPT with the prompt “Write a parody of woke beliefs on gender which is so over-the-top that everyone will think that it is exaggerated satire”. It checks all the boxes: red-herring of intersex people, stupid comparisons (post-menopausal women), sex binary invented by white colonists, and so on. It also explicitly mentions opposing evangelical Christians as a reason to support wokeness.
How sad that they’ve traded one religion for another…
Kat Grant on puberty blockers:
https://www.tiktok.com/@ffrf_official/video/7387142636559256874
A “harmless pause button” she states
This level of dumb should be avoidable with the advent of AI.
Puberty blockers are NO “harmless pause button”!
The CASS review made this utterly clear so that both the Tory and Labor governments in England have banned its further use on children and young people under the age of 18 (with the exception of existing patients or those in a clinical trial).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Review
All right, now what do we do, what can we do to overcome this tragedy?
In light of JC, RD, SS I can no longer support ffrf, minimal though were my contributions.
Absurdly revealing and so sad. Damn.
Porkut
JUDITH: I do feel, Reg, that any Anti-Imperialist group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base.
REG: Agreed. Francis?
FRANCIS: Yeah. I think Judith’s point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man–
STAN: Or woman.
FRANCIS: Or woman… to rid himself–
STAN: Or herself.
FRANCIS: Or herself.
REG: Agreed.
FRANCIS: Thank you, brother.
STAN: Or sister.
FRANCIS: Or sister. Where was I?
REG: I think you’d finished.
FRANCIS: Oh. Right.
REG: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man–
STAN: Or woman.
REG: Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan. You’re putting us off.
STAN: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But… you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I– I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
“Monty Python’s Life of Brian”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian#Dialogue
+1
Funniest movie, ever!
Amusingly, PZ Meyers has a post up about the US has an ugly history of “involuntary sterilization”.
The same PZ Meyers that supports and defends the sterilization and mutilation of children in 2024.
Somebody please make it make sense!
Hi everyone, plasticpony256 here.
Wow, after a five-year break from the Salty Goats Club, I’m back, and it seems we’re once again letting SJWs dictate the narrative of one of our communities.
Wasn’t Atheism+ enough of a lesson?
We all know that science doesn’t care about our feelings. Scientific discussions should focus on the science itself—not become a space where feelings and speculation create discord, anger, and frustration.
Mods, please do your due diligence by creating separate spaces for those who want to discuss their feelings and emotions regarding certain scientific topics.
But the two should never be mixed.
Anyway, I need to get back to converting atheists into metaphysical naturalists over on Reddit. Hopefully, you’ll get this sorted out so I don’t have to drop in again to scold you for childish behavior.
Bye
Who exactly are you scolding here?
The rising level of toxicity on both sides here is depressing…as if there isn’t enough depressing attitudes in the world already. In my experience people who want to be “free from religion” can be just as. or more abrasive than any fundamentalist loon. They make their non-religion a religion of it’s own. I’m not religious. I don’t believe in magical deities. I wish other people wouldn’t, but I’m not going to war over it. I can live and let live. Humanity will likely never be free from religion, it’s a defect burned into our DNA, like the appendix. Human imagination will always invent narratives to explain what it can’t understand. Human cultural tradition will always reject that which challenges the established order. The eagerness of so many on the “science” side of things to attack any social acceptance or recognition of gender dysphoria is as disturbing to me as those who would advocate for massively invasive and irreversible surgeries on minor children. It’s almost as if no one is willing to admit maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. People suffering gender dysphoria are already targets of persecution, mockery, brutality, and ostracization. Telling them to shut up and pretend they’re something they’re not or denying that they even exist is not “science”. It’s just your cultural prejudice using raw biology as an excuse to dismiss people that perhaps make you uncomfortable. If this is “science” then science should do better. Science that dismisses a core aspect of someone’s humanity because it doesn’t fit into a neat mold is as bad as any religion that dismisses someone’s humanity because it doesn’t fit some arbitrary mythological commandment.
Nobody here told people with gender dysphoria to shut up or pretend they don’t exist, and nobody is using biology to say that. I am merely offering a biological take on sex that says it is bimodal. That does not dismiss or demean trans people. You clearly haven’t read what I’ve written.
This is an appallingly bad understanding of what this debacle is all about. There is no need to go through this drek and point out where it’s all wrong.
I believe Dean here is deliberately misconstruing the debate, because the only other explanation is that he has not read ANY of the writing on this subject by Dr PCC(e), Pinker, Dawkins or any one else who has discussed biological reality. That would make Dean intellectually dishonest. But my guess it is merely a deliberate slander.
This is not a discussion about persecution, mockery, brutality, or ostracization. It’s about reality and reason, and what it means to live in a post-truth world. No one—least of all the youth convinced by peers, influencers, and adults who should know better, of their bodily “misalignment” with their concept of life as the opposite sex—benefits from a lie, even one told out of misguided kindness. What does it mean to “live as” the opposite sex if it’s not all about regressive stereotypes? And why the illiberal support for shutting down valid, necessary opposing opinions? The decline in critical thinking and both the understanding of, and respect for, scientific evidence leads us only to a society that is less just, less knowledgeable, less equitable. You’ve come to believe absolute nonsense that is dangerous, both from a cultural standpoint and for those unfortunate enough to be lead down a medical pathway that introduces illness into otherwise healthy bodies and increases the risks for serious health impacts like stroke and pulmonary embolism. Add to this that there is no credible data showing long-term mental health benefit—no surprise when an entire existence is dependent on external validation of a deception. The adolescents and young adults adopting these identities have no concept of the consequences of the interventions—what it means to be a sterile adult, to lose sexual function, to become incontinent, to lose the ability to breastfeed a child, etc. This is a barbaric medical scandal dressed up as a social justice cause. As the activists used to say (until it resulted in people actually seeing this incoherent ideology for what it is), “Educate yourself.”
“What does it mean to “live as” the opposite sex if it’s not all about regressive stereotypes?”
This seems to be the most fundamental question, and one that seldom gets addressed. The entire trans concept seems to be based on the idea that certain (non-reproduction oriented) feelings or thoughts or behaviors are uniquely male or female. When a bio-man decides he wants to dress or behave or think a particular way, who is he to say that isn’t a normal (albeit uncommon) expression of male behavior? It seems laughable for the cultural fringe that created the word “mansplaining” to passively accept the notion that a biologic man has any idea how a woman might think. There just seems to be a conceptual gap here that is fed by an over-dependence on outward physical trappings or mannerisms (and honestly I think, sexual kinks) that, for the most part, are very culturally specific. If we were cavorting on the Savanna in loincloths, what would it mean to be trans?
The only consistent through line that seems evident to me in the public face of trans activism, is an overweening desire to control the speech of others.
I haven’t seen anyone on this site deny the existence of people who identify as other sexes.
I feel a deep connection to Jewish culture, but I’m neither religiously nor biologically Jewish. I exist in this in-between space, where my sense of identity feels culturally Jewish, even if it doesn’t align with the traditional definitions. Sometimes, well-meaning Jewish friends remind me that I’m not Jewish, hoping it’ll inspire me to fully convert. That stings a bit—it’s a pang I imagine is not unlike what some trans individuals feel when others say they aren’t the sex they identify as.
But here’s the thing: no one telling me I’m not Jewish erases my admiration for Israel, or my respect for the resilience and brilliance of the Jewish people. My feelings are mine, even if they don’t rewrite biological or religious realities. Similarly, people who identify as trans exist, and their feelings are valid. But those feelings don’t rewrite the laws of nature or oblige everyone to affirm something they don’t believe.
I don’t demand that my Jewish friends call me Jewish. Why? Because respect isn’t about forcing others to deny reality. Trans individuals in the U.S. have rights. But equality doesn’t mean compelling others to lie. It’s time for those demanding their feelings replace reality grow up.
FFRF has now disabled commenting on their LGBetc. post, and also disappeared a large number of comments that were posted there yesterday.
I’m very late to this party, but I want to thank PCCE, Pinker, and Dawkins for resigning. I was one of the commenters who urged PCCE to do so. I’m very sad to say that all three of your resignations were completely necessary.
FFRF will never back down. The woke never do. Instead they double down. Even as their organization collapses around them because wokeness always divides, but never unites, FFRF will insists that they were correct all along.
I hope everyone who was or is still an FFRF member will stop all monetary donations and bequests. I have already removed them from my estate plans. Maybe money talks — this is the USA, after all — and once donors and benefactors leave FFRF will realize that they chose poorly.
To Robyn Blumner, if you’re still following comments on this post, you absolutely need to apologize to Dani Tofte, but you won’t. Your excuses about CFI’s conduct are pathetic.
(The woke never apologize.)
BTW, I am a subscriber to CFI’s Healthfraud email list. My posts there critical of gender ideology and trantifa have all been deleted by the moderators.
If CFI has not been captured, why have have my Cass Report and other reality-based posts been banned? You should know that other list members have experienced the same thing.
Interesting. It’s a fine thing for an organization to include people on both sides of a debate. Disappearing posts down a memory hole isn’t what that looks like, though.
Healthfraud. Shades of Science Based Medicine.
Yep!
The CFI Healthfraud email list is extremely boring. The posts are about the same old stuffs — chiropractic, homeopathy, reiki, supplements — while ignoring the greatest health fraud of our time.
I don’t know if Healthfraud has any relationship to Science-Based [SIC!] Medicine or anyone associated with them.
Ginger,
Yikes! I’m sad to see this but glad you’ve raised it.
Pinker’s wife is listed as an honorary board member of CFI. So it is not surprising that when crossing Pinker CFI would stand with Pinker, Dawkins, and our host.
This doesn’t mean CFI is uncaptured. It is sad that they have censored articles and posts from those who don’t have as much clout as Pinker, Dawkins, and Jerry. I went and donated to them after seeing Pinker’s tweet saying they were uncaptured, but now I’m questioning that decision. I’m glad they have shown some principles on this current kerfuffle, but Blumner’s response to Tofte above greatly diminished my enthusiasm for them.
I agree, Roz.