It is unfortunate when people inject their political views into science and the interpretation of its findings. This is highlighted as people post ridiculous memes such as Trump vs. Science.
In 2017, James Damore posted a scientifically accurate memo regarding gender in the workplace and Google fired him for the effort. This is someone that wasn’t politically inclined but, being an engineer, wanted to be precise when fulfilling Googles request. Of course, accuracy isn’t something that leftist science appreciates; it must adhere to their ideology or it is considered blasphemy.
Science also dictates that there are two genders. This is excluding chromosomal disorders such as Jacob’s syndrome or Klinefelter syndrome. Depending on your chromosomal assignment, you are either born as a male or female.
Should you identify as the other, that is your right to address that as you please once you’re adult but a disturbingly large number of parents are having their kids take hormonal blockers that severely affect the child’s development. This takes away the choices that they’ll never have because those drugs, when taken as kids, have effects that are irreversible. Science would indicate that this treatment is abuse but left-wing politics demands that it be otherwise.
Science would also indicate that people born as males who transition into females have an unfair advantage in athletic competitions. Since this has somehow become acceptable with leftists, transgender females that compete against biological females not only have an advantage but can put the lives of biological females in danger when the sport is boxing or mixed martial arts. Allowing this is foolish and dangerous. Promoting this is evil.
Obviously, I wouldn’t go to Trump to get my scientific data since English is his second language after hyperbole. With that said, to indicate that it’s Trump vs. Science would be to express a false binary. Narratives such as what you would get from a meme in social media are boiled down and avoid the very necessary nuance to express the actual truth. In the same vein as the wall between a news organization’s marketing and reporters, politics have no business in science yet they’ve made their way into some of the disciplines. This including whatever you would call the excuse to give a child hormone blockers. Science should be raw and without feeling for the most part but it has become a sad state of affairs as we care so much about a child’s feelings that we sacrifice that child’s future.
Science would indicate that this treatment is abuse but left-wing politics demands that it be otherwise. Science would also indicate that people born as males who transition into females have an unfair advantage in athletic competitions. Since this has somehow become acceptable with leftists, transgender females that compete against biological females not only have an advantage but can put the lives of biological females in danger when the sport is boxing or mixed martial arts. Allowing this is foolish and dangerous. Promoting this is evil.
Obviously, I wouldn’t go to Trump to get my scientific data since English is his second language after hyperbole. With that said, to indicate that it’s Trump vs. Science would be to express a false binary. Narratives such as what you would get from a meme in social media are boiled down and avoid the very necessary nuance to express the actual truth.
In the same vein as the wall between a news organization’s marketing and reporters, politics have no business in science yet they’ve made their way into some of the disciplines. This including whatever you would call the excuse to give a child hormone blockers. Science should be raw and without feeling for the most part but it has become a sad state of affairs as we care so much about a child’s feelings that we sacrifice that child’s future.
Technology has contributed to a global rise in quality of living, easier access to important information, more mobility in existing (and access to new) industries, increased communications between disparate groups, and innumerable other positive changes. That said, there are hidden downsides that must be accounted for.
One of these (and perhaps the most pertinent) is that now more than ever, we are able to ‘confirm’ what we know. Though this access to information should ease the spread of ‘objective truth’, it has instead created an environment where anyone and everyone can use the available information to create a hypothesis, gather bulk data, and draw conclusions that ‘support’ their hypotheses from said data.
As a result, if you have a preconception about any given topic, you can find innumerable studies that support your feelings easier than you can dig to the truth of the matter. If you google “Kale good for you” you’ll no doubt find numerous articles espousing the positive qualities of Kale in your diet. That said, you can also google “Kale bad for you” and you’ll likely find a near-equal number of purported ‘studies’ that show the exact opposite.
If you go into a search for information with a preconception in mind and are not taking great pains to ensure your searches are as unbiased as possible (and sorting through conflicting viewpoints) it’s very easy to pigeonhole yourself into thinking that you’re right, and the evidence is on your side.
Alas, not all information is created equal. Not all studies are performed with the same set of rigorous standards in mind. That said, without being particularly discerning as you review these sources, you can easily miss glaring oversights in the controls used, variables selected, sample sizes, etc.
So, when applied to social matters that are tied closely to ‘feelings’ or ‘how things should be’ or ‘fairness’, you start entering into dangerous territory. If there are studies that show that Transgender individuals suffer from a mental illness that is treatable with therapy, and others that purport that this is discriminatory framing and that Trans individuals just need to be accepted as-is and be given as much leeway as they desire… well, you can guess which set of ‘studies’ most people would choose, especially in the modern West where we prize egalitarianism over pragmatism.
/2 cents
I completely agree.