Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
There’s a good article in Quillette showing how one person, the notorious but (to me) highly admirable J. K. Rowling singlehandedly undercut Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act that came into effect on April 1. I explained this law on March 27, also showing how the Scottish Police published as an example a … Continue reading J. K. Rowling scuppers Scotland’s new “Hate Crime and Public Order Act”
I don’t want to write much more about this issue, but since we’ve been discussing the binary nature of human sex (or non-binary, if you oppose that view), I thought I’d call to your attention two items. The first is a piece by a strong defender of the sex binary, Colin Wright, in which he … Continue reading Once again, the binary nature of biological sex: Colin Wright and Sean Carroll
The article in Quillette shown below (click on screenshot) is odd because the author is listed as “Quillette Magazine”, with no indication who did the research and writing. Claire Lehmann? Other people? If it’s a consortium of editors, they should really say so. Nothing is gained by completely anonymous publication. Nevertheless, it’s an informative and … Continue reading Once again, the question of transgender women competing in women’s sports
I’ve never been a huge fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, but at least he was good at conveying the wonders of physics and cosmology. My one problem with him as a science communicator was that he tried too hard to cater to his audience, as if making them like him was one of his main … Continue reading Neil deGrasse Tyson goes after women’s-only spaces
We all know Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest woman tennis players of history. Although she isn’t a “transphobe”, she’s opposed to transwomen competing in women’s sports, and hasn’t been afraid to say so. For that, of course, she’s been demonized and called a transphobe. She’s tried to decide about this issue based on science … Continue reading Coleman and Navratilova on transwomen in sports: The International Olympic Committee has failed its mission
Why are men better than women at chess? This is the question that Carole Hooven, author of the excellent book Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, takes up in a new article in Quillette. What I like about the article is that it appears to consider every available hypothesis, and uses … Continue reading Why are men dominant in chess?
I want to begin by saying that the article we’ll discuss appeared in Quillette, and some have started dismissing everything published on that site as right-wing nonsense. That’s a bad attitude. While I disagree with some of the things I read there, I agree with others, and that’s what should be the case for a … Continue reading Does suppression of testosterone reduce the athletic advantage of transwomen over biological women?
I was amazed to read, in the Qullette article below, this sentence: Between 2016 and 2017, the number of females seeking gender surgery quadrupled in the United States. But the reference cited did indeed show this (the actual increase was 3.88-fold), while the number of males seeking gender reassignment surgery was not only absolutely lower, but increased … Continue reading The erasure of a book that describes problems with adolescent and teenage girls transitioning to males
