Writes MIT philosophy professor Alex Byrne, in "I co-wrote the anonymous HHS report on pediatric gender medicine/The hostile reaction to our work shows why we needed to do it in the first place" (WaPo)(free-access link). Byrne is quick to assure readers that she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican, and opposes the "discrimination and prejudice" against trans people.
Critics have mostly settled on the allegation that the review’s endorsement of psychotherapeutic approaches — in line with best practice in the U.K, Finland, and Sweden — amounts to “conversion therapy” for gender identity. Once this activist phrasing is granted, the negative association with long-discredited gay conversion therapy does the rest....
There is much to admire about modern health care, but it has taken some gravely wrong turns, from lobotomies to the pathologization of homosexuality and the opioid epidemic. More wrong turns are inevitable. What we should do is promote a culture which makes it easier to turn back. Such a culture is animated by the scientific spirit....
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74 comments:
Thanks Ann!
I just sent it to the plaintiff’s lawyer who is suing UNMC over child mutilation. I used to work with the hospital’s lawyer.
“Dammit Jim - I’m a philosopher not a physician” - Some episode of Star Trek.
----- she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican
..... and definitely does believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, Sire.
Most "philosophers" i.e. anyone who claims to be a philosopher are bad at it. They do not have clear language nor do they seek to use it.
They are about as useful as psych majors.
What is called "truth" is science, and this includes medical science, is simply whatever the majority of scientists say is true. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence or education to realize that once "truth" is a matter of group majority opinion, it becomes a matter of social science, organizational behavior, and politics.
Science achieved its (formerly) good reputation from two sources: (a) the achievements made during the enlightenment, and (b) engineering.
As for (a): the scientific debates during the enlightenment were mostly between the rich landed gentry with time and money. These were mostly men with the time and interest to do experiments, think about the stuff, and debate the science in the academies. If the majority formed against you, and you disagreed, you were still rich and could still push forward your views and theories. That's not the case now. If you disagree with the majority now, you starve - you won't get any funding. This makes science highly coercive, which means it is no longer what we consider science to be. The consensus now is a product of intense pressure to conform. (See e.g. climate so-called science.)
As for (b): most advancements that people attribute to science are not derived from science at all. They are products of engineering, and there is a difference. When the English wanted to build bridges across their major rivers, they went to the scientists in the academies. The scientists told them to go to the cathedral builders. Modeling the forces of a stone arch was quite complex. But the cathedral builders knew which arches fell down and what didn't. They couldn't model them, but they had learned from trial and error (i.e. engineering.)
With the majority of funding for "science" coming from governments, the "truth" in science is highly polluted by politics. And the effect is more insidious now than it has ever been.
..."quick to assure readers that she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican, and opposes the "discrimination and prejudice" against..."
Hates one form of discrimination and prejudice in favor of his preferred and unimpeachable form of discrimination and prejudice, and feels strongly that he must broadcast this preemptively in case he alienates his kindred brethren.
But he's right about changing course. Following 'science' using the scientific method facilitates 'course change' as a matter of procedure. It's only when 'trust the science' puts an agenda ahead of the scientific method that we find it difficult to change course, for obvious reasons: It's not science that we're promoting.
How many times these days do we read some statement that basically can be translated: “I don’t like Trump or anything he stands for… but he’s doing everything exactly right.”?
(I hope everybody noticed how I switched Alex's gender mid-way through.)
Trans refers to a state or process of divergence. The transgender spectrum includes homosexuals, bisexuals, simulants, etc. #HateLovesAbortion
"Byrne is quick to assure readers that she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican, and opposes the "discrimination and prejudice" against trans people."
And has many black friends....
She’s hoping the “I don’t like Trump or anything he stands for” gets her some street cred. What a fool. You gotta toe the line from conception babydoll.
I believe Alex Byrne “is a man, baby!”
Critics have mostly settled on the allegation that the review’s endorsement of psychotherapeutic approaches — in line with best practice in the U.K, Finland, and Sweden — amounts to “conversion therapy” for gender identity. Once this activist phrasing is granted, the negative association with long-discredited gay conversion therapy does the rest...
As I’ve posited before, trans surgery is the ultimate “conversion therapy.”
But I'm progressive?! Critical Diversity Theory informs us that Alex is a bloc act.
Alex has been “misgendered.”
Trans activists hate his wife too. @Transmap: Alex Byrne is an American philosopher and anti-transgender activist. Trolling and attacking the trans community for money and attention is a family business; Byrne’s spouse Carole Hooven is an anti-transgender anthropologist.
No kinks or quibs, baby... fetus... fetish.
If liberals can ban conversion therapy for minors, and in some states for adults, I don’t want hear another g-damn word about “coming between a doctor and a patient” about banning abortion or trans butchering.
Next step. Stop allowing insurance coverage. Last step. Ban it for adults.
These are the rules the libs use so they can’t complain.
Gender refers to sex-correlated attributes.
I'm not an abortionist, but I aid and abet others to relieve their "burden".
well the prog invocation will not save you, they will burn you at the stake,
"What is called "truth" is science, and this includes medical science, is simply whatever the majority of scientists say is true."
Wow, what a statement. You believe that, huh.
Scientific "truth" is what can be shown to be true in repeatable experiments. Mathematics has truth, physics has truth, chemistry too and a few others. Medicine and biology have some truths, but does have to rely conscensus. And sometimes that turns out badly.
The transgender thing has turned out badly because consensus was imposed by political pressure.
Too bad MAGA can’t focus on the science. Instead they attack trans people as untruthful, dishonorable, undisciplined, and lacking integrity. What’s the science behind such moral judgements?
as paul mchugh of john hopkins noted, this isn't a thing, except a mental disorder,
@jim at 8:54 (not jim5301)
I think that’s a typo, and Quayle meant to write “in” not “is”. Otherwise it’s a well written, thoughtful comment.
“Science achieved its (formerly) good reputation from two sources: (a) the achievements made during the enlightenment, and (b) engineering.”
As a retired engineer, Amen to (b).
"Science is the belief in the fallibility of experts."
(Some putz named R. Feynman)
Can we just accept that credentials prove nothing other than you did exactly what you were told to for a few years and paid their price.
Scientists don't always science. Doctor don't always follow medicine. Teachers don't always educate. Many professionals just use their credentials to take money under false pretenses. Conversely, I never met a welder, plumber, construction worker, CNC operator, or gardener that regularly got paid without really doing their job.
Apparently Jim numbers is hallucinating about a completely different article. This one puts the blame squarely on the medical “profession.”
Jim, you're conflating absurd pronouncements. It's sad, and if you are so obsessed with bias, start with your own.
Also, if philosophers can't state what they consider clear truth without genuflecting to establish that their political opinions trump their professional ones, they're just dishonest.
Sad, sad, sad, as Martha said at sunrise.
This one puts the blame squarely on the medical “profession.”
me too
I can't respect the intellect or judgement of someone who would vote for Biden or Harris to be the Chief Executive of the United States. That's just really stupid and irresponsible. How could I trust their judgement on anything else? Voting for Harris was like prescribing a hammer to fix a headache.
Tina, I don’t follow. What’s absurd? I’m just quoting the executive order re trans in the military. Per usual trump’s mo is to divide.
The transgender spectrum includes homosexuals, bisexuals, simulants, etc.
Black swans are trans, too.
Jim rites:
“Scientific "truth" is what can be shown to be true in repeatable experiments. Mathematics has truth, physics has truth, chemistry too and a few others. Medicine and biology have some truths, but does have to rely conscensus. And sometimes that turns out badly.”
Answer me this, Jim: how do you explain all the “truths” that science said were true - things you claim were proved through repeatable experiments - that no scientist believes anymore? Take for example Phlogiston theory or the drift of luminiferous aether? Over the history of modern science, scientists told us all kinds of things were true that no scientist believe anymore. So if science produces truth, the history of science shows, and you have to admit, it also produces a lot of not truth. And how do you distinguish between what is true true and what is not true true? Ah, it’s what scientist tell us is true true. QED.
“Jim rites:”
I need to check text to speech better.
Jim writes:
“. Conversely, I never met a welder, plumber, construction worker, CNC operator, or gardener that regularly got paid without really doing their job.”
But many an auto mechanic….
Black swans are transsocial.
The only real truth in science is in the formal sense: a scientific theory must, by definition, be true, i.e., logical and internally consistent. The only question then is whether it's useful or not in an empirical sense -- are its empirical referents measureable, are the results repeatable and predictable, etc. People made stuff work for millenia without much in the way of formal theory, mostly by empirical generalization.
Cf. pedantic
Black swans are swans in black face, a Diversitist deviance. In the sexual context, they are swans in drag. Transsocial.
No philosopher writes clearly.
Too bad MAGA can’t focus on the science.
Sorry? Biological sex is "the science."
Instead they attack trans people as untruthful, dishonorable, undisciplined, and lacking integrity.
No, trans activists, who demonstrably are these things. Trans people in general may or may not be any of these things, but they're definitionally suffering from a disorder, and the activists take the tack that the best way to treat the disorder is one of the following, from most to least intervention in the disordered person's life:
Radical surgery and lifelong medicalization, rendering the person sterile and unlikely to be able to form or sustain romantic/sexual relationships with any but other trans or queer people
Hormone therapy with profound side effects including sterilization
Forcing the rest of society to pretend publicly that the disordered person is not disordered, is the sex s/he wishes s/he were, and is entitled not just to the same rights as the rest of society but a set of special privileges that can't be denied for any reason (in other words, not intervening in the disordered person's life, but rather intervening in the lives of everyone else)
What we need is a medical opinion regarding Alex Byrnes' addiction to ontological fallacy.
“The proverb ["Physician, heal thyself"] has roots in ancient Greece and appears in classical texts and religious literature. In Luke 4:23, Jesus uses the proverb in response to the people of his hometown, who are questioning why he hasn't performed miracles there as he has elsewhere.”
They are about as useful as psych majors. A point of order! Some psyche majors open a practice and at least pay for utilities, services, and hire staff. That's more useful than arguing about why you can't prove to me that you exist.
ah, the modern science of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Science is a logical domain, a philosophy, and practice in the near space and/or time where fidelity is inversely proportional to separation.
Today's SF Chronicle headline - covering the city's hallowed Pride Parade at the end of Pride Month - "Flamboyant Show of Resistance" - the most money, the most power, the most sway and yet, the underdogs.
Jim writes: "ah, the modern science of the 17th and 18th centuries."
In very long the history of the world (as science tells us it surely is), the 17th and 18th centuries are very modern indeed. But your scoffing remark has me now wondering if you also are victim to that same inattention to orders of magnitude that would tell me that Einstein only "slightly modified" Newton's kinematic equations (a 20th century radical revision of "truth", fully allowed with a straight face by science.) The ability to change "truth" as you go, is a particularly self-appealing characteristic of science, allowed to and by scientists.
Science is the pursuit of "truth," or at least it tries to show repeatable cause-and-effect relationships. This is not a left-or-right thing, and science often reveals brutal negatives about all sorts of things.
Philosophy and politics are ideals about human-imagined generalities, and they may have nothing to do with cause, effect, or repeatable patterns. They can (and do) involve raw wishful thinking and dreams and walking on clouds.
The left is (by definition) unhappy with the status quo, and each generation is compelled to move toward its perceived optimum and away from the "errors" and "inferior views" that came before. For example, the left invented IQ tests (Stanford-Binet circa WW1) to pick out the best students and help the worst students -- and place military draftees in suitable jobs. When next-gen lefties learned there were robust racial differences in IQ tests they tried to bury (very good) science.
The lefty changes with sex ID and gender have literally flipped the script in the last 50 years. Old-school progressive lefties like Jordan Peterson (a psychoanalyst) were logical positivists who wanted to promote "adaptive" social behavior and suppress "maladaptive" or destructive behaviors. They dripped old-school Christian "be fruitful and multiply" and "the body is the temple of God" thinking.
Then, in demanding further changes per NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS, the left attacked lefty Peterson and lefty JK Rowling over 1950s to 1970s leftism. Plus, medical people funded by Obamacare defended positions that enriched themselves. No conflicts of interest here. Move along.
Science is often "borrowed" by activists for propaganda.
How about this for science.
If you have two X chromosomes you are female.
If you have one X and one Y chromosome you are male.
"Gender refers to sex-correlated attributes."
Well, no. Gender originally referred to certain aspects of language, and had only a tangential connection to sex. But certain sexual obsessives decided that it would be useful to pretend their obsessions were about something other than sex (although that other something was, aaaah, sex), so they plucked gender from its linguistic garden and turned it into whatever the fuck it supposedly is. A "social construct", I believe. More like a sociopathic construct.
"Byrne is quick to assure readers that she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican, and opposes the "discrimination and prejudice" against trans people."
a) I think you have "misgendered" Byrne. I doubt he minds much.
b) Since there are no "trans" people, except those who have chosen to describe themselves in that fashion, it is entirely reasonable to have prejudices about them. Just as many here have demonstrated that they have some rather strong prejudices regarding those who call themselves "philosophers", another self-chosen identity.
"I am a philosopher, not a physician... Philosophers prize clear language and love unravelling muddled arguments, and the writings of pediatric gender specialists..."
"... serve up plenty of obscurity and confusion.... The review describes how the medicalized 'gender affirming care' approach to treating pediatric gender distress, endorsed by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, rests on very weak evidence.... [N]o reliable research indicates that these treatments are beneficial to minors’ mental health...."
The obscurity and confusion is a feature, not a bug. If the proponents of this pseudoscience were to disclose their true motivation, their efforts could be most thoroughly discredited. They don't care about inclusion. They don't care about mental health. It's all about disrupting traditional norms and using that destabilization to promote the disbanding of the nuclear family.
“Philosophers prize clear language and love unravelling muddled arguments.”
Those muddled arguments being the production of other philosophers. There’s an old saying that philosophers never settle an argument, they just get tired of it and decide to argue about something else for a while.
If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, the first thing you must do is reassure your audience that you are not a Trump fan. It's usually insufficient. Ad hominem attackers never run out of ammo.
she's no Trump fan
Absolutely destroying the common prejudice that only MAGA people are intelligent and able to reason.
Quayle said...
"Answer me this, Jim: how do you explain all the “truths” that science said were true - things you claim were proved through repeatable experiments - that no scientist believes anymore?"
There's an extensive literature around this question, but I think the practical, more complete answer is that things are considered "true" for a certain set of conditions and with a reasonable estimate of uncertainty when they are repeatable under defined parameters with an analysis of potential measurement error.
"gender specialists..."
"... serve up plenty of obscurity and confusion"
The whole movement is full of confusion. I was reading a story on the BBC website about two lay ministers in the Anglican church who had a dust up. One (a woman) was accused of stalking the other (described as a gay man) after her request to meet for a date was rebuffed. On further reading, the "gay man" was also described as trans. It was difficult to untangle the threads. A biological woman stalked another biological woman who prefers romantic (and presumably sexual) relationships with biological men but who likes to present outwardly as a man? Wouldn't that second biological woman by definition be heterosexual not homosexual? The story never made it clear if the stalker knew any of this about her target, or if she was just as confused as I was reading it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3velqy9rzo
Alex has got a long way to go if Alex wants to be a "she." If "Alex" is British, though, that would give Alex a bit of a head start.
Biff: "things are considered "true" for a certain set of conditions and with a reasonable estimate of uncertainty when they are repeatable under defined parameters with an analysis of potential measurement error."
Ah, yes. the "I think the bell curve looks about right" method. ;)
Modern science is practiced outside of a limited frame-of-reference, with liberal assumptions (e.g. uniformity, fidelity), and often only confirmed as hypotheticals (e.g. statistical inference, models).
Instead they attack trans people as untruthful, dishonorable, undisciplined, and lacking integrity.
Pointing out the truth isn't attacking anybody.
Answer me this, Jim: how do you explain all the “truths” that science said were true - things you claim were proved through repeatable experiments - that no scientist believes anymore? Take for example Phlogiston theory or the drift of luminiferous aether? Over the history of modern science, scientists told us all kinds of things were true that no scientist believe anymore. So if science produces truth, the history of science shows, and you have to admit, it also produces a lot of not truth. And how do you distinguish between what is true true and what is not true true? Ah, it’s what scientist tell us is true true. QED.
There is no “proof” in science—no assurance of certainty in one's theory or results—outside the realm of purely abstract mathematics, that is. What makes for a successful theory in science isn't that it has been proved—which can never happen—but that it successfully resists disproof. Proof isn't possible, but disproof is!
Thus Newtonian physics, after literally centuries of success (according to the foregoing criterion), has since been disproven (by ultimately not matching the observations) and subsequently replaced by Einsteinian general relativity—the modern “law of gravity”—which has inherited Newton's mantle of great success.
Polymath physicist Jacob Bronowski discusses—in a chapter of his slim, little book The Common Sense of Science—about “Truth and Value” in science. As he writes: {quoting…}
There is no sense at all in which science can be called a mere description of facts. It is in no sense, as humanists sometimes pretend, a neutral record of what happens in an endless mechanical encyclopaedia. This mistaken view goes back to the eighteenth century. It pictures scientists as utilitarians still crying Let be! and still believing that the world runs best with no other regulating principles than natural gravitation and human self-interest.
But this picture of the world of Mandeville and Bentham and Dickens's Hard Times was never science. For science is not the blank record of facts, but the search for order within the facts. And the truth of science is not truth to fact, which can never be more than approximate, but the truth of the laws which we see within the facts. And this kind of truth is as difficult and as human as the sense of truth in a painting which is not a photograph, or the feeling of emotional truth in a movement in music.
When we speak of truth, we make a judgment between what matters and what does not, and we feel the unity of its different parts. We do this as much in science as in the arts or in daily life.
We make a judgment when we prefer one theory to another even in science, since there is always an endless number of theories which can account for all the known facts. And the principles of this judgment have some deep appeal which is more than merely factual.
William of Ockham first suggested to scientists that they should prefer that theory which uses in its explanation the smallest number of unknown agents. Science has held to this principle now for six hundred years. But is there indeed any ground for it other than a kind of aesthetic satisfaction, much like that of sacrificing your queen at chess in order to mate with a knight?
We cannot define truth in science until we move from fact to law. And within the body of laws in turn, what impresses us as truth is the orderly coherence of the pieces. They fit together like the characters in a great novel, or like the words in a poem.
Indeed, we should keep that last analogy by us always. For science is a language, and like a language, it defines its parts by the way they make up a meaning. Every word in the sentence has some uncertainty of definition, and yet the sentence defines its own meaning and that of its words conclusively.
It is the internal unity and coherence of science which gives it truth, and which makes it a better system of prediction than any less orderly language.
{/unQuote}
(Jacob Bronowski, Chapter VIII: “Truth and Value,” The Common Sense of Science, 1951, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963; pp. 120-137)
Byrne wrote a book on the subject, Trouble with Gender, in which he unpacks the many layers of confusion on the subject and ultimately concludes that for present purposes gender just means 'sex' and that it's binary, not whatever you feel like today. Along the way, he demolishes the 'assigned at birth' silliness and much else too. The first chapter of his book is devoted to discussing the ongoing effort, within professional, academic philosophy, to shut down any critical discussion of 'gender identity' that doesn't toe the approved trans narrative. He recounts, inter alia, the over-the-top efforts at bullying and cancelling to shut down (shout down) any opposing views, to force the retraction of academic papers that express opposing views, etc. Well worth a read.
I like how she slyly validates mainstreaming of homosexuality. What if it is a pathology after all? Was a "gay gene" discovered while I wasn't looking? Or was it simply decided that since many homosexuals assert they were "born this way" it is now accepted science?
I like how she slyly validates mainstreaming of homosexuality. What if it is a pathology after all? Was a "gay gene" discovered while I wasn't looking? Or was it simply decided that since many homosexuals assert they were "born this way" it is now accepted science?
@Oso Negro: "What if it is a pathology after all? Was a "gay gene" discovered while I wasn't looking?"
IIRC, around 10-15 years ago research that hit the media said that a gay/lesbian orientation follows largely from pre-birth hormone exposure. When a mother's female (estrogen and related) hormones get into a male fetus --> gay. When the mother generates too much testosterone --> lesbian. Females naturally produce a wee bit of testosterone. Again, this was from news reports and I don't know about the authors' biases.
There was also research of male and female brains in that era using fMRI imaging, and the biological sex differences were obvious and reliable. Males and females have different brain structures and they use what they have differently. Biology/genetics predicts a solid 60% of behavior.
After the sex/gender biological science was apparently "settled," the hard left ignored it all and adopted a very very very very radical anti-science, free-will view of transgenderism.
Byrne is quick to assure readers that she's no Trump fan, never votes Republican, and opposes the "discrimination and prejudice" against trans people.
She'll get cancelled anyway. #youreeitherwithusoragainstus
jim5301 said...
Too bad MAGA can’t focus on the science. Instead they attack trans people as untruthful, dishonorable, undisciplined, and lacking integrity. What’s the science behind such moral judgements?
The science is that there are two sexes: male and female
There's no such thing as gender, your sex is a matter of biology, not feelings, and demanding that someone use your "preferred pronouns" is a demand that people lie.
And if you demand that other people lie in order to make you happen (by demanding they refer to you as a female when you're in fact male), then you are a lying worthless scumbag
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