Yes, Virginia. There are Only Two Sexes

In a new article at Quillette, evolutionary biologist Colin Wright explains how we know there are only two sexes. There are two sexes because there are two (and only two) types of gametes and two types of organs that produce those two types of gametes. It's the same for humans as it is for chimpanzees, giraffes, octopi and honey bees. If you go to the humane society asking for a female dog, they will know exactly what you mean. They will not need "assign" the sex of the dog for you as the social justice crowd claims that obstetricians must now do for human babies. Wright reiterates this grade school biology because more than a few university biology professors are getting nervous about stating this obvious fact that there are only two sexes. Here's an excerpt from Wright's article, titled "The New Evolution Deniers":

Despite there being zero evidence in favor of Blank Slate psychology, and a mountain of evidence to the contrary, this belief has entrenched itself within the walls of many university humanities departments where it is often taught as fact. Now, armed with what they perceive to be an indisputable truth questioned only by sexist bigots, they respond with well-practiced outrage to alternative views. This has resulted in a chilling effect that causes scientists to self-censor, lest these activists accuse them of bigotry and petition their departments for their dismissal. I’ve been privately contacted by close, like-minded colleagues warning me that my public feuds with social justice activists on social media could be occupational suicide, and that I should disengage and delete my comments immediately. My experience is anything but unique, and the problem is intensifying. Having successfully cultivated power over administrations and silenced faculty by inflicting reputational terrorism on their critics and weaponizing their own fragility and outrage, social justice activists now justifiably think there is no belief or claim too dubious that administrations won’t cater to it. Recently, this fear has been realized as social justice activists attempt to jump the epistemological shark by claiming that the very notion of biological sex, too, is a social construct.

As a biologist, it is hard to understand how anyone could believe something so outlandish. It’s a belief on a par with the belief in a flat Earth. I first saw this claim being made this year by anthropology graduate students on Facebook. At first I thought they mistyped and were simply referring to gender. But as I began to pay closer attention, it was clear that they were indeed talking about biological sex. Over the next several months it became apparent that this view was not isolated to this small friend circle, as it began cropping up all over the Internet. In support of this view, recent editorials from Scientific American—an ostensibly trustworthy, scientific, and apolitical online magazine—are often referenced. The titles read, “Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic,” and “Visualizing Sex as a Spectrum.” [More . . . ]

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A Peak into the Dystopian Pro-Censorship Mind of the Washington Post.

This hatchet job aimed at Saagar Enjeti (and Elon Musk) provides a peak into the dystopian pro-censorship mind of the Washington Post. And there are many layers of dysfunction. Saagar and Krystal of Breaking Points offer a detailed analysis.

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FIRE’s Advice to Elon Musk

I whole-heartedly agree with Greg Lukianoff's Advice to Elon Musk.

Dear Elon Musk,

My name is Greg Lukianoff. I’m the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit nonpartisan organization. Since 1999, we have helped thousands of students and faculty members fight back when their free speech rights were threatened and have helped millions more through lawsuits and policy reforms. I am also the co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind,” which investigates how a culture of safetyism and censorship harms individual mental health and American democracy. Since its early days, I have been excited about social media’s potential and concerned about its leaders’ efforts to mitigate its downsides by restricting free expression. I agree with Mark Zuckerberg’s 2020 statement that “Facebook,” or any other social media company, “shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth.” Yet leading technology and social media companies have begun to act in precisely this way. They implement vague content moderation policies, remove and censor accounts with little or no explanation, and arbitrarily attach warning labels to content.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With the right leadership operating from a foundation of intellectual humility, social media platforms can become models of the value of free expression, even helping generate knowledge that moves society forward. As Twitter’s owner, I hope you will encourage much-needed changes to the platform that will make it a positive force for free expression, interpersonal connection, and broader community understanding. And, in so doing, inspire leaders at other social media companies to do the same.

To that end, I hope you will consider the following:

-- Look to First Amendment law for guidance on implementing free speech-friendly policies. As a private company, Twitter is under no legal obligation to enforce First Amendment free speech standards. However, it makes great sense to voluntarily borrow their wisdom. First Amendment law is the longest-sustained meditation on how to protect free speech in the real world. This body of law, honed over the course of a century, can provide practical guidance and real-world precedents for managing the platform.

-- Eliminate viewpoint-discriminatory policies and practices. Viewpoint discrimination — singling out specific points of view for censorship while leaving others alone — is practically the definition of censorship. Banning or otherwise punishing speakers on the basis of their viewpoint not only chills speech but can intensify polarization. Twitter should craft policies that explicitly state that no one will be banned or otherwise penalized for merely expressing an opinion.

-- Use categories to clearly define sanctionable speech. American law takes a categorical approach to distinguishing protected and unprotected speech. The advantage of the categorical approach is that it limits the arbitrary censorship that can result from ad hoc balancing tests by limiting what can be banned to certain well-defined categories of unprotected speech. Categories of unprotected speech in the law include incitement to imminent lawless action, defamation, obscenity (essentially hard-core pornography), and true threats. Further, correcting a common misunderstanding, speech that is materially part of the commission of a crime is not protected. By reflecting categories of speech already existing in law, Twitter policies can be understood with clarity and enforced with consistency.

Knowing what people think — even if it’s troubling — is essential to understanding the world as it is and to deciding how to act within it. Unfortunately too many of today’s leaders — whether in education, at social media companies, or in the larger corporate and governmental world — preempt this process of understanding through censorship, believing they’re acting in the interest of either factual accuracy or emotional or psychological safety. Furthermore, they attempt to lead through confirmation, taking institutional positions on hotly contested issues, imposing a “correct” way to think.

Twitter can — and should — blaze a new trail, aspiring toward a positive vision of a freer and more constructive public conversation. It can do this by producing guidance and implementing structures that embrace institutional disconfirmation: an iterative process by which existing ideas, assumptions, and theories are revised through subtraction, eliminating what we decide is false to inch towards a “better approximation of the truth.” This process, which lies at the heart of the scientific revolution and underlies academic freedom today, encourages people to produce real knowledge that benefits us all.

I hope that you will use your influence at Twitter to preserve and prioritize humanity’s fundamental right to free expression, while guiding innovation in the direction of constructive and meaningful discussion.

Sincerely, Greg Lukianoff President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

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Matt Orfalea’s Military-Industrial Complex Non-Disclosure Mashup

Matt Taibbi, quoting Jeff Cohen of FAIR:

"If you’re listening to CNN, CBS, or PBS, and they introduce someone as a ‘former’ something, they’re lying to you,” he says. “What’s more relevant to the news consumer, that someone was an Undersecretary of Defense eight years ago, or that the same person is a highly paid lobbyist now? It’s obviously the second, but almost never revealed.”

And now, here is Matt Orfalea's Military-Industrial Complex Non-Disclosure Mashup:

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