Category: Uncategorized

Saturday: Hili dialogue

April 5, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to shabbos for Jewish cats. It is CaturSaturday, April 5, 2025, and National Deep Dish Pizza Day, celebrating one of the culinary glories of Chicago, and certainly the best species of pizza in America (do not bother to question this). Here is a short video showing you Chicago’s highlights:

It’s also National Dandelion Day, National Raisin and Spice Bar Day, National Caramel Day, and National Flash Drive Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 5 Wikipedia page.

The Biological Sciences Division is hosting a free field trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie today, and I’m going (there’s also a free lunch catered by Kaurman’s a Jewish deli), so posting will be light. Bear with me; I do my best!

Da Nooz:

*Don’t worry!: even though the stock market tanked yesterday, with the Dow down 2200 points (about 5.5%%)—the second huge drop in a row caused by Trump’s idiotic tariff imposition—things will be okay. Or so Trump tells us, as he says the markets will come roaring back and America will be prosperous again.  Does he really believe what he’s saying, or is he simply lying? It’s hard to tell with this man.

A sharp rise in trade-war intensity sent Wall Street spiraling Friday, pushing the Nasdaq into a bear market denoting a 20% decline from its peak.

China’s decision to apply a 34% levy to all imported goods from the U.S. next Thursday, after President Trump’s tariffs go into effect, rattled markets in part because it further deflated hopes that a global settlement could be reached soon.

Further hitting sentiment, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy was more likely to face a period of higher prices and weaker growth than seemed possible a few weeks ago because of larger-than-anticipated tariff hikes.

The S&P 500 dropped 6%, the Nasdaq slid 5.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2231 points. The carnage was widespread, with 14 S&P 500 stocks rising for the day and 28 dropping 10% or more. The marketwide toll from the two-day tariff rout surged to a record $6.6 trillion.

The torrent of selling late this week shows investors coming to grips with the grim implications of the standoff. The levies announced late Wednesday were deeper and more aggressive than the business world expected. Retaliation stands to intensify the economic effects of the policies, which could reduce consumer income and slow economic growth.

Now investors are bracing for further conflict—none of which is likely to improve the outlook for the global economy or corporate profits, the strongest driver of stock prices.

Even as Trump left the door open to making deals, he vowed new tariffs on drugs and microchips. Investors took little comfort from Trump’s stated willingness to negotiate.

JPMorgan analysts on Thursday boosted their odds on a global recession to 60%.

Trump remained unbowed, saying that now is a great time to get rich and that “China played it wrong, they panicked.”

We may well fall into a recession (from now on, the “r-word”), and it doesn’t make me feel any better than Trump’s stupid decision may make people think twice who voted for him. After all, he’s not going to lose his 401k savings or have to tighten his belt because of rising prices at the grocery store or used-car lot. The decision to raise tariffs across the board is one of the craziest things he’s done, and that’s among a lot of crazy things. I am sure that this will be the lead story on the evening news, and also that he will find a way to construe this as a good thing.

*I guess today is Tariff Day, as the NYT has an article contradicting what I said above, declaring that Trump’s aides insist the tariffs are a good thing.  But perhaps they’re just lying to keep their jobs (article is archived here).

In the weeks leading up to his expansive global tariffs, President Trump and his top aides tried to prime the public for economic pain. They warned that while there would be fallout from their aggressive trade strategy, it would prove short-lived and benefit the economy in the long run.

Investors, businesses and others made clear on Thursday that the U.S. economy was not ready to accept that approach. Global markets tumbled, economists warned of a possible recession and consumers braced for price increases on cars, food, clothing and more.

The early tumult underscored the high stakes of Mr. Trump’s agenda, which the president has framed as a painful medical procedure to rescue an economy he likened to a “sick patient.” In the eyes of Mr. Trump, the United States is going to “boom” once his tariffs have had time to reset the nation’s trade relationships, raise revenue and boost domestic production.

But those tariffs are expected to send prices skyrocketing in the interim, an unwelcome development for Americans already struggling with years of elevated prices. Several economists have increased the odds of a recession in their forecasts as they projected a slowdown in consumer spending, business investment and economic growth.

A new analysis from the Yale Budget Lab found that Mr. Trump’s overall tariffs could cause price levels to rise 2.3 percent in the short term. That would translate into an average loss of $3,800 in purchasing power per household based on 2024 dollars.

In an interview on Thursday, Stephen Miran, who leads the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged that the economy could be “bumpy” for an unspecified period as the administration pursued its agenda, which includes tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation.

“It shouldn’t be surprising, given the historic scope and speed of the president’s actions, that there are some reactions around financial markets, like what you’re seeing,” he said.

But Mr. Miran maintained that the true cost of the president’s trade policies would ultimately be borne by other countries, adding: “I don’t agree with the argument Americans are ultimately going to be paying for these tariffs.”

That is a lie, and Miran knows it.

The White House assurances offered a stark contrast with the view broadly adopted by economists, who believe Mr. Trump’s tariffs threaten to exacerbate inflation, possibly undermining the recent work of the Federal Reserve to try to bring prices under control.

And I’ll end here, as I’m being overcome by the strong odor of mendacity.

*Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, has a NYT op-ed called, “Your life will never be the same after these tariffs.”  Never? Oy vey!

Small tariffs create small problems. Big tariffs create huge ones. Take Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariff on vehicles, which is expected to raise their prices by roughly $4,000. Many families, like mine, will probably decide not to buy a second car. That creates far bigger problems than an aging washer. Now, we’re constantly juggling how to get our kids to all their activities, and ourselves to work, with only one set of wheels.

And it’s not just cars. These are across-the-board tariffs, so they will distort virtually every purchase you make. In each case you’ll have to stop your baked-in calculations, recalibrate and find a way to make do — perhaps substituting frozen vegetables for fresh vegetables, a less effective medication for a higher-priced import, or corn syrup for sugar. And in each case, you’re worse off.

. . . . By the way, tariffs don’t distort just your buying decisions, they also distort what businesses make. Just as tariffs lead you to buy less desirable alternatives, they lead businesses to channel labor and capital into less desirable — that is, less productive — activities.

The tariffs announced on Wednesday are roughly 10 times as high as most other industrialized countries, and higher than the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs (of Great Depression fame).

Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs will lead folks to rethink not only whether to replace their washing machine — as they did in 2018 — but also their dryers, refrigerators, stoves, groceries, clothes, cars and even everyday essentials.

Many of the substitutions we’ll make will be quite painful. If a 1 percent tariff leads you to switch from real guacamole to a pea-based alternative, then you really didn’t care about guac all that much. But if it takes a 20 percent tariff to get you to switch, that’s a sure sign that going without the real thing is a serious hardship. And this is why higher tariffs generate a far greater amount of pain. These forces aren’t independent of each other. They interact. Or in math, they multiply, which means their costs rise in the square of the tariff rate. That leads to some pretty painful arithmetic.

. . . Perhaps voters pulled the lever for Mr. Trump with warm memories of the good economic times. But the reality of his first term is that there was a lot more tariff talk than action. They were barely more than a bump in the road. This time, they’re a mountain. And so the impact will be more like a crash than last time’s comfortable jolt.

Maybe Trump, whose economic advisors certainly told him not to do what he did, will come to his senses and cut the tariffs back. And maybe the Moon will turn to cheese.

*As always on Friday, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-humor column, called this week, “TGIF: Our beef is beautiful.”

→ UATX merit-first admissions: My wife’s fake university, the University of Austin at Texas (I think), is making a lot of “university” noises lately. UATX recently announced their merit-based admissions policy: automatic admission for students who score 1460+ on the SAT (didn’t realize it was a school for the educationally challenged), 33+ on the ACT (could get that in my sleep), or 105+ on the CLT. What, you may ask, is the CLT? If you don’t know, you’re clearly not cut out for the meritocratic bloodbath that would be your freshman year. Me, I got a 108.

UATX also said that admission depends on students meeting “basic eligibility” and an “integrity check.” “Basic eligibility” is such a broad category that I’m a little alarmed at what it could include. But I love this. I do. Merit is so in. Until my kids have to apply to college—then what matters is soul and grit and whether Yale wants a water polo–compliant pool next to the dorm or not. What troubles me is that UATX seems very real. Which means, of course, that I’d like to reiterate that I was always for it, always a vocal UATX champion, and actually, I founded it, despite the complaints of my wife, who didn’t believe in me. You’re welcome, America.

→ Are you hiding DEI in your attic? After the University of Michigan announced that it planned to close its DEI office and discontinue its DEI strategic plan, the dean of their art and design school announced that he intended to maintain DEI, saying: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) will continue at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design because our academic program and DEI initiatives are legally compliant, in alignment with our university values, and an extension of the mission of our school.” It’s been a little strange to see how fast everyone has rolled over for Trump’s cultural revolution, and my only explanation is that most people—especially in corporate America—hated this stuff and wanted any excuse to be done with it. But not the University of Michigan art school. They’re putting up a fight. They’re #Resisting. They must continue to discriminate against men, and I can’t even blame them. Men should not paint. So, all in all, I support them. As I tell Suzy when she’s asking for dating advice (i.e., sitting nearby), men should not be artists. If it takes a DEI bureaucrat to explain that to them, so be it.

I didn’t believe this one, but look at the link. The quotes are real—including Katy Perry’s!

→ Blue Origin women’s crew: Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, is sending an all-female crew to space—insane, I agree, since what exactly is the plan when one of the valves break and there’s no husband to call?—and they sat down with Elle. Gayle King, who, along with Katy Perry, was chosen to take part in the flight, said, “I can honestly say it has never been a dream of mine. I was having a conversation with Katy, and she said, ‘Well, maybe you need to get different dreams.’ And I just thought, Wow.”

Then Katy Perry said, “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut,” which I do love. I’ve never been more interested in a space journey. Their plan is to bring lipstick and lash extensions to space, which they claim to be a first, but you really never know. People have interests. I don’t judge.

→ Wow, the entire Hamas narrative was a lie? Hamas recently revised its casualty figures, dropping the names of thousands of previously reported deaths in the Israel-Hamsa war. And it looks like they vastly overcounted the number of women and children. The Jerusalem Post reports that 72 percent of all deaths are men between the ages of 13 and 55. It suggests a very different story from their previous claim that 70 percent of casualties were. . . women and children. We anxiously await the splashy corrections. The groveling mea culpas. When my lovely hummus lady at the local farmers market in Los Angeles found out I was Jewish, she said it was totally cool as long as I didn’t “want to kill babies.” So I can’t wait for this important correction to trickle down her way as the American mainstream media engages in a broad reflection that I am sure is coming right. . . about. . . now?

*I want to end this dire week with some good news, and there is some. Ophelia, one of the escaped otters from a Wisconsin Zoo, has been recaptured, but her mate Louie is still on the loose. A huge leatherback sea turtle (400 lb.; this is the largest species of sea turtle), who was entangled in ropes in Cape Cod Bay, has been freed by rescuers. As the website notes:

The turtle was disentangled, given a health assessment including bloodwork, and tagged with satellite and acoustic tags for post-release monitoring. The tags applied include an acoustic transmitter, which operates like an EZ Pass transponder, allowing the turtle to be detected for up to ten years by a vast array of underwater receivers that stretch from Canada to Florida. The turtle also received a “survivorship” tag to determine short-term (30-day) outcome, and a traditional satellite tag that will monitor the turtle’s movements and dive behavior in near real-time for up to a year. The turtle, nicknamed ‘Phinney’ by Barnstable Harbormaster responders, can be followed on the New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Tracker.

At Botany Pond, Mordecai and Esther are still schmoozing, but the hen hasn’t yet started nesting. We’re told that next week they’ll be putting the final touches on the pond. Stay tuned; I think that nesting is imminent as soon as the weather warms up.

Finally NBC’s “Today” show site has “150 Dark Humor Jokes” (I know ones a lot darkers!), and I’ll try to put a few amusing ones here. Several of  these are groaners.

  • A man goes to a therapist and says, “Doctor, why do people keep ignoring me?” The therapist replies, “Next!”
  • When ordering food at a restaurant, I asked the waiter how they prepare their chicken. “Nothing special,” he explained. “We just tell them they’re going to die.”
  • Don’t challenge Death to a pillow fight. Unless you’re prepared for the reaper cushions.
  • Today, I asked my phone “Siri, why am I still single?” and it activated the front camera.
  • I’d like to have kids one day. I don’t think I could stand them any longer than that, though.
  • At home, they treat me like God. I’m generally ignored until someone wants something.
  • Why did the lion go to therapy? He found out his wife was a cheetah.

Tha-tha-that’s all, folks! I’ll be here all year!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a chonky Hili makes it up a tree:

Andrzej: It’s been a long time since you climbed on the tree.
Hili: There is an alien dog running around so it’s safer here.
In Polish:
Ja: Dawno nie wdrapywałaś się na drzewa.
Hili: Obcy pies tu biegnie, więc tu jest bezpieczniej.

And a picture of Szaron. Polish caption: Po tej trawie coś chodzi.   Translation: ““Something is walking on the grass.”

*******************

From Dave, who took this photo. Is the one on the right superfluous?

From Now That’s Wild:

From The Dodo Pet:

Masih is quiet, but Titania is tweeting again. If you see “Community notes” under the tweet, be sure to read them!

From Barry, who said, “He doesn’t look pleased.”

I told him about tariffs.

— Comfortably Numb (@numb.comfortab.ly) 2025-04-03T10:43:07.031Z

The woman is Stephanie Turner, her act was not “hate speech,” but bravery (she was expelled from the tournament), and USA Fencing is reprehensible.  Note that USA Fencing’s motivation for this dumb policy is to create “inclusive safe spaces”.  But the male fencer could have competed against other males, and fencing even has “mixed tournaments.”

Here’s an interview with Turner in which she describes her actions:

And of course ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio weighs in. His ignorance is the hill he will die on:

From Luana; I didn’t know that Muhammad discouraged public acts of prayer:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Belgian Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. Has she lived, she'd be 92 years old today.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-05T10:08:58.051Z

Two posts from Doctor Cobb.  First, things with faces:

I googled "houses that look surprised" and I'm glad I did.

— Kalvin the Reindeer (@kalvinmacleod.bsky.social) 2025-04-04T14:33:36.639Z

The not-so-good old days! A lot of the guys are wearing striped pajamas, too.

Our throwback from the University Archive this week celebrates World Party Day! It shows students dancing at a Valentine's pyjama hop in February 1959. 📷 EUL UA/P/3h #WorldPartyDay #ThrowbackThursday #UniOfExeterArchive #Archives

— University of Exeter Special Collections (@exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social) 2025-04-03T08:53:15.297Z

Judith Butler on Trump’s EOs, with an emphasis on sex and gender

April 1, 2025 • 11:30 am

The latest issue of the London Review of Books contains a long essay by Judith Butler attacking Trump’s Executive Orders, particularly 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”  You can read her piece by clicking on the title below:

 

The piece constitutes good news, bad news, and mixed news.  The good news is that Butler’s prose is, for once, comprehensible (usually she writes in such dense academic jargon that you can barely work out her meaning). The mixed news is that she does say some stuff I agree with: stuff about the rights of those who are gender nonconformists. And she also calls out Trump for allowing the snatching up of visa- and green-card holders who get deported simply for saying things (mostly pro-Palestinian) that the government doesn’t like. I oppose that. No deportations without through legal investigation and, I think, a court hearing!

The bad news is that Butler falls prey to common misconceptions about sex. One is her opposition to the biological definition of sex using gametes, a definition to which I adhere. This, says, Butler, is wrong, and that definition was promulgated by Trump simply as a way to erase trans and nonbinary people. She justifies her opposition by referring to the “tri-societies” letter published on the Society for the Study of Evolution‘s webpage, a letter that many of us criticized heavily for denying the binary nature of sex and asserting that sex was nonbinary in all species. Here’s how she characterizes that letter:

There are two significant problems with using gametes to define sex. First, no one checks gametes at the moment of sex assignment, let alone at conception (when they don’t yet exist). They are not observable. To base sex assignment on gametes is therefore to rely on an imperceptible dimension of sex when observation remains the principal way sex is assigned. Second, most biologists agree that neither biological determinism nor biological reductionism provides an adequate account of sex determination and development. As the Society for the Study of Evolution explains in a letter published on 5 February, the ‘scientific consensus’ defines sex in humans as a ‘biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. There is variation in all these biological attributes that make up sex.’

Let’s first get out of the way the canard that the sex of babies is not determined by using gametes, so gametes are irrelevant to defining sex. Here she conflates “determination” with “definition”, a bad move for someone as smart as Butler. (But of course she has an agenda.) Yes, babies’ sex is written down at birth nearly always by looking at their genitals, but genitals are imperfectly correlated with the reproductive apparatus that is used to define sex: whether one has the apparatus to make sperm or eggs. One may well find out later that genitals, particularly if they’re abnormal, are not an indicator of one’s biological sex.

Worse, though is that Butler is seemingly unaware of the controversy engendered by the tri-societies announcement. No, we do not know that the definition above is the “consensus” definition of sex, for none of the three Societies canvassed its members. And of course the Societies got themselves into the weeds by arguing that sex in humans is “a biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics.” Is that so? Then how do we determine what sex any animal or plant is, given that in some cases chromosomes are irrelevant to determining biological sex, and “hormonal balance” doesn’t work so well in plants?

Seriously, the three societies should either take down that letter, which was never sent, or revise it. And if they’re claiming that it represents a consensus of the members of the societies, then they should poll their members. They did tell us that their letter is moot and needs to be rewritten. In fact, the ASN President admitted that the letter was problematic, hadn’t been sent, and needed revision.  Butler says none of this. Again, she distorts data that could easily have been found had she looked. But again, she has an agenda.Three societies: take down that letter!

Further, Butler buys into the discredited claims of Anne Fausto-Sterling that 1.7% of the American population is intersex and that there were actually five sexes. Fausto-Sterling later admitted that she was writing this “tongue in cheek,” and she and a colleague later revised that figure down to 0.4%. But even later work shows that, using the biological definition of sex and how clinicians themselves define intersex, the true figure is probably between 0.018% and 0.005%.

Now the proportion of intersex people in the population says nothing about how they should be treated, or justifies ignoring them as people. Rather, this shows that Butler is playing fast and loose with the data, and uses the data that supports her own views. That is intellectually dishonest.

Now it is entirely possible—I think likely—that the agenda of Trump’s EO involved more than just clarifying the biological definition of sex and saying sex is binary. His agenda likely involves the Republican distaste for gender-nonconforming people.  I don’t share that distaste, but I do agree with the EO’s definition of sex, which I hear was made with the input of biologists.  And the biological definition of sex, as I’ve said repeatedly, does not target trans or gender-nonconforming people with the intend of erasing them or, as Butler says, “effacing the reality of another group.”

Finally, Butler fails to realize that defining biological sex does have implications for people’s rights, which we can see very clearly when the “rights” of two groups clash, as in sports participation, incarceration, or allowing women to rely on biological women as rape counselors if they request it.  Among all the rights that we enjoy or are supposed to have, the clashed don’t involve many of them. But those clashes are still meaningful, and resolving, say, the sports issue by prohibiting biological men who identify as women to compete in women’s sports in no way “erases” trans-identifying men.  To me does not appear to deprive them of dignity; rather, failing to adhere to this restriction deprives biological women of opportunity. Butler seems impervious to the issue of clashing rights around the definition of sex. The part in bold below (my bolding) is correct–so long as there is no clash of rights between groups:

Although the order here opposes those who would ‘eradicate the biological reality of sex’, it also defines what women’s interests are, what trust in government requires and what is at stake for ‘the entire American system’. Thus, the regulation of sex assignment and the eradication of trans, intersex and non-binary legal existence is a matter of national concern: the ‘entire American system’ is at stake. Of course, the dignity, safety and well-being of women should be secured, but if we value these principles, then it makes no sense to secure one group’s dignity, safety and well-being by depriving another group of dignity, safety and well-being. Indeed, the order effectively consigns trans people to radical indignity and unsafety, if not non-existence. Women – including trans women – and trans, intersexed and non-binary people all deserve to be free of attacks on their dignity, safety and well-being, not only because the principle applies to all of them, but because these categories of person overlap. These are not always distinct populations.

The issues of sports participation, incarceration, and so on, must be adjudicated, and they are being so now. But no resolution deprives gender-nonconforming people of “dignity, safety, and well-being”  (Safety issues do arise, for example, when trans-identified males are put in women’s prisons.)  But of these few instances in which rights clash, there are solutions: “open” sports leagues, for example, or giving women who have been raped a choice between having a biological male or biological female rape counselor.

I don’t want to run on, but I have to say that there are places where I do agree with what Butler says, for instance striving to treat trans or gender-nonconforming people in a way that preserves their dignity, or, with respect to deporting people for free speech, this:

On 8 March, Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the US with a green card who participated last year in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Trump posted online that ‘this is the first arrest of many to come.’ It may seem that the targeting of people protesting in support of Palestinian freedom has nothing to do with objections to ‘gender ideology’ and the government’s efforts to strip rights from trans people. The link appears, however, when we consider who, or what, is being figured as a threat to American society. Educational institutions and non-profit organisations, especially progressive ones, are at risk of losing their federal tax breaks if they collaborate on projects concerned with Palestine or fail to expel students who engage in spontaneous or ‘unauthorised’ protest. If the Heritage Foundation’s plans become official policy, institutions or organisations that fund work critical of the state of Israel – or, more precisely, work that could be construed as critical – will be deemed antisemitic and supportive of terrorism. If they fund work on race and gender, they will not merely be guilty of ‘wokism’ but regarded as antagonistic to the social order that now defines the United States – in other words, a threat to the nation.

Although I don’t agree with Butler about the close connection with trans rights and deporting dissenters, I do agree that criticism of the government should not be punished with deportation, and that such behavior is indeed a “threat to the nation.”

But there’s a lot more in the article, and you can read it for free by clicking on the link above. In the meantime, though, Butler should have done her homework.

The Society for the Study of Evolution quits Twitter, implying that the site is “unethical”, irresponsible, and “not inclusive”. What they mean is “we don’t like Musk.”

March 23, 2025 • 9:40 am

Two days ago I was perusing the website of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), which, along with the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), wrote a statement to President Trump and Congress in early February asserting that sex forms a “continuum” in all species (see our rebuttal here).  Although the SSE’s statement is both biologically wrong and embarrassing, published just to conform to gender-activist ideology, it remains online (archived here), though the three Presidents who signed it haven’t yet seen fit to send it to the recipients, nor will they give us permission to post their response to our critique—a response sent to 125 signers of our letter.

That’s just for background.  While it’s within the ambit of the SSE, ASN, and SSB to try correcting governmental misstatements about science, in this case the government’s executive order on biological sex gave the correct definition (and a note that it’s binary), while the statement of the three societies was flatly wrong.  It’s not okay to distort biology in the name of politics.  People will perceive this as a sign that the SSE is becoming “progressive” or “woke”, and that leads, as we know, to public mistrust of science and scientists.

But on Friday I found another sign that the SSE is getting politicized, and it’s a more blatant statement. This statement (below) shows that the SSE has been fully ideologically captured and has no truck with Republicans.  That is fine for individuals, but when an entire scientific society tells us that Republicans—in this case Elon Musk—are unethical, that’s not good for the society, for its members, or for science in general.

Scientific organizations and journals should not take ideological sides (save when science itself is at issue), as we know from when the journal Nature broke precedent in 2024 and endorsed Biden for President in 2020. A paper on the outcome was published in Nature Human Behavior, of all places, and the results don’t speak well for journals taking sides. Here’s its abstract (bolding is mine):

High-profile political endorsements by scientific publications have become common in recent years, raising concerns about backlash against the endorsing organizations and scientific expertise. In a preregistered large-sample controlled experiment, I randomly assigned participants to receive information about the endorsement of Joe Biden by the scientific journal Nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community.

That implies that journals and scientific societies should just shut up about ideological, moral, or political issues save when the issues deal with the mission of the organization. (This is the same kind of “ideological neutrality” adopted by several dozen universities, including mine.)

But the SSE can’t help itself. It galls me that a Society of which I was once President has become the Teen Vogue of evolutionary biology.  Now I don’t like Elon Musk’s political behavior, for he’s breaking our government like a bull in a china shop (his work as an “engineering leader,” however, is admirable).  But Twitter has its uses, and I remain on it, calling attention to all my pieces here.  And when I post there I don’t feel that I’m telling people, “I love Elon Musk!”

But the SSE can’t survive without going after Musk, and so they’ve announced their withdrawal from Twitter, which you can see here. I reproduce their announcement below (indented):

SSE on Social Media

Contributed by kjm34 on Mar 14, 2025 – 04:33 PM

SSE Council recently voted to cease activity on the SSE account (@sse_evolution) on X/Twitter after April 15. This motion was raised due to the platform’s ethical misalignment with SSE’s mission and vision, particularly around equity, inclusiveness, and responsible communication of science. We encourage our members to follow us on other social media platforms in order to stay up to date with the latest SSE news.

Find SSE on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Facebook. 

Announcements are also sent to all SSE members via email in our monthly newsletter. Make sure your email address is up to date by logging in here.

The Evolution and Evolution Letters journals will also stop posting to Twitter – follow Evolution on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Facebook and Evolution Letters on Bluesky and Mastodon.

You can still find the SSE Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) on Bluesky and Twitter, and Evolution Meetings on Bluesky and Twitter.

Why did they do this? It’s no mystery: the Society is announcing its dislike of Elon Musk, who owns “X” (Twitter). And because the SSE sees Twitter as being in “ethical misalignment with SSE’s mission and vision, particularly around equity, inclusiveness, and responsible communication of science,” they must sever most ties with that social-media platform. (Note that they don’t explain this “ethical misalignment”, but I guess it consists of simply this: “We don’t like Elon Musk and won’t post on his site.)

Except that they still do keep ties with the site!  As you see above, the SSE will continue to post announcements from the Grad Student Advisory Committee and announcements about the annual SSE meetings on Twitter. What is that about? If it’s unethical for the SSE to align with Twitter, then it must be unethical for its grad students, too, and especially unethical to use Musk’s site to harbor stuff about the annual meeting.

What about those other two societies? Well, I guess they haven’t yet gotten the message that their posting on Twitter constitutes unethical behavior. The American Society of Naturalists remains on Twitter (“X”), as does The Society of Systematic Biologists. Nor can I find any announcement of misalignment at the ASN’s own site or the SSB’s own site.

It mystifies me how among these three societies, which are closely aligned, only one has quit Twitter because it sees posting there as unethical. Come on, ASN and SSB, get on the progressive bandwagon!

Gavin Newsom breaks with “progressive” Democrats, proclaims that trans-identified men competing in women’s sports is “unfair”

March 6, 2025 • 12:34 pm

It’s not only unconscionable for “progressive” Democrats to cheer on trans-identified males (“transwomen”) who compete in women’s sports, but that behavior certainly hurt the Democrats, especially because most Americans, including Democrats, think that this kind of participation should be forbidden:

A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports.

“Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?” the survey asked.

Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.

Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.

Among 1,022 Republicans, that number was 94%.

You can find the poll results here.

While at first it seems empathic to allow trans-identified males to compete against women, it’s really unfair to women, and to most of us the total fairness is increased by forbidding that competition. (I still think trans-identified males who want to do sports should compete somewhere, either in an “other” league, or perhaps in men’s sports.)  People recognize this, and Democrats who favor this cross-sex competition simply look clueless. (I am exempting any sports in which men and women perform about equally, though I’m not sure which ones.)

As the reader who sent me this new article from the NYT said, “Perhaps the fever has finally broken.” I think it has, for California governor Gavin Newsom, a diehard and largely “progressive” Democrat, is now going along with most Americans. Click below to read the article, or find it archived here.

An excerpt:

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, embarking on a personal post-mortem of the failures of his Democratic Party, suggested this week that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.”

The comments by Mr. Newsom, who has backed L.G.B.T.Q. causes for decades and was one of the first American elected officials to officiate same-sex weddings, represented a remarkable break from other top Democrats on the issue, and signaled a newly defensive position on transgender rights among many in his party.

Just as surprising as Mr. Newsom’s remarks was the person to whom he made them: Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing influencer best known for starting Turning Point USA, the pro-Trump organization that is active on college campuses.

Mr. Newsom invited Mr. Kirk, who has a long history of inflammatory and conspiratorial remarks, onto the debut episode of his new podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” for an 81-minute discussion because, the governor said, “people need to understand your success, your influence, what you’ve been up to.” Mr. Newsom spent much of the conversation reflecting on the myriad ways that former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign failed to reach key voters during the 2024 election, losing ground with young people, men and Hispanic voters.

Mr. Newsom is widely seen as having presidential ambitions in 2028 — something he joked about on the podcast — and until recent months, he had often sought to project an image as one of the leaders of the Democratic Party’s opposition to President Trump. In December, he cursed Mr. Trump’s name in an interview with The New York Times, but shortly after the president’s inauguration, Mr. Newsom traveled to Washington for a meeting with Mr. Trump to discuss funding for wildfire relief.

I hope, but not sure I exspect, other Democrats to follow his lead. Certainly lost causes like AOC will now follow.

And yes, this is not a huge issue compared to, say, Ukraine, but one’s stand on it is indicative of both one’s moral compass and of one’s sympathy to real feminism.  I’ll surely be called a transphobe for applauding Newsom, but so be it. I don’t of course think that most legal and moral rights of trans people should be abrogated, but there are a few cases where they do conflict with rights of other groups (jails, changing rooms, etc.), and one should adjudicate these things sensibly.  What one shouldn’t do is hurl slurs at people like Newsom who have a rational approach to the issue.

Our updated letter to the three ecology/evolution societies who claimed that sex was a spectrum

March 2, 2025 • 9:00 am

As I wrote on February 13, three important societies representing evolutionary biology, ecology, and systematics issued a grossly misleading statement aimed at the government. (It is dated February 5, but I don’t think it’s yet been sent):

As I reported recently, the Presidents of three organismal-biology societies, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) sent a declaration addressed to President Trump and all the members of Congress. (declaration archived here)  Implicitly claiming that its sentiments were endorsed by the 3500 members of the societies, the declaration also declared that there is a scientific consensus on the definition of sex, and the consensus is that sex is not binary but rather some unspecified but multivariate combination of different traits, a definition that makes sex a continuum or spectrum—and in all species! The bolding below is Jerry’s:

Scientific consensus defines sex in humans as a biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. There is variation in all these biological attributes that make up sex. Accordingly, sex (and gendered expression) is not a binary trait. While some aspects of sex are bimodal, variation along the continuum of male to female is well documented in humans through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genetic composition at conception does not define one’s identity. Rather, sex and gender result from the interplay of genetics and environment. Such diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans.

And as I write this today, I am still baffled how the different traits are supposed to be combined to determine one’s sex. I’d also like to ask the three societies exactly how many human sexes there are. As I’ve said before, I’m embarrassed to have been associated with the SSE since it’s now rejecting science in favor of currying favor with “progressive” ideology. It’s okay for societies to respond to situations that fall within their ambit, as this case does, but it’s not okay for them to purvey bogus science to buttress a political position.

Our original letter included 23 signers, most of whom are included in this second and final version of the letter.  The first letter never received a response (I find that rather rude), but we’re hoping for a response to this one.

The list of signers has now grown to 125, whose names are placed below the fold to keep this post shorter. If we’ve counted correctly, the signers come from nineteen countries. (We have omitted the names of five medical doctors and a nurse who also signed.) Every signer was willing to make their names public—a condition for signing the group letter. Others I know of have written privately to the Presidents of the Societies—and received a response, so the Societies clearly didn’t think they had to respond to our first letter.

The point of this letter is not to show that our view is a “consensus” (the Societies did not poll their members, either), but simply to affirm that a variety of people in biology or adjacent areas reject the Societies’ construal of sex as both a “construct” and a “spectrum”.  The letter below speaks for itself.

By the way, the driving force for writing the letter and collecting the signatures was Luana Maroja, Professor of Biology at Williams College, so kudos to her. And below this line is our letter, which was sent to the societies four minutes before this posting.

Dear presidents of the Tri-societies: ASN, SSB and SSE,

We, Tri-society members and/or biologists, are deeply disappointed by your recent letter “Letter to the US President and Congress on the Scientific Understanding of Sex and Gender” issued last Wednesday, Feb 5, 2025, in response to Trump’s executive order “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government”.

While we agree that Trump’s executive orders are misleading, we disagree with your statements about the sex binary and its definition. In animals and plants, binary sex is universally defined by gamete type, even though sexes vary in how they are developmentally determined and phenotypically identified across taxa. Thus, your letter misrepresents the scientific understanding of many members of the Tri-societies.

You state that: “Scientific consensus defines sex in humans as a biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia, and secondary sex characteristics.”

However, we do not see sex as a “construct” and we do not see other mentioned human-specific characteristics, such as “lived experiences” or “[phenotypic] variation along the continuum of male to female”, as having anything to do with the biological definition of sex. While we humans might be unique in having gender identities and certain types of sexual dimorphism, sex applies to us just as it applies to dragonflies, butterflies, or fish – there is no human exceptionalism.   Yes, there are developmental pathologies that cause sterility and there are variations in phenotypic traits related to sexual dimorphism. However, the existence of this variation does not make sex any less binary or more complex, because what defines sex is not a combination of chromosomes or hormonal balances or external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. The universal biological definition of sex is gamete size.

If you and the signers of this letter do not agree on these points, then the Tri-societies were wrong to speak in our names and claim that there is a scientific consensus without even conducting a survey of society members to see if such a consensus exists. Distorting reality to comply with ideology and using a misleading claim of consensus to give a veneer of scientific authority to your statement does more harm than just misrepresenting our views: it also weakens public trust in science, which has declined rapidly in the last few years. Because of this, scientific societies should stay away from politics as much as possible, except for political issues that directly affect the mission of the society.

Respectfully,

NAMES OF 125 SIGNERS ARE BELOW THE FOLD

[Click “continue reading” to see the names.]

Continue reading “Our updated letter to the three ecology/evolution societies who claimed that sex was a spectrum” →