I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
That is directly contradicted by the evidence from physical strength sports.
Go look at the times and splits for 2000m on a rowing ergo, for example.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
If you want to do any sort of analysis of a population it is often useful to split the population into different groups to see whether the different constituent parts are affected differently.
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
It's also not arbitrary - the body is fundamentally different. I do not have ovaries, a vagina, a uterus etc. I have a penis, testicles, a prostate etc. It's a denial of science to claim this is arbitrary. Biology shouldn't affect how you dress, what job you do, what films you like. But to say that the man Vs woman is an arbitrary split is nonsense.
Again, I would argue here about the definition of "fundamentally". Like, the biggest difference is clearly the ability to host and give birth to a child - but outside of that things are very similar - even comparing the vagina and the penis you can see how they are both just different developments of the same parts. Male biology even allows for the production of breast milk, if certain conditions are met. The sexual dimorphism in humans is minimal and somewhat superficial - there are changes in sensitivity, in skin and hair quality, and obviously distribution of fat and such - but compared to most other animals that's barely anything. Again, the sex organs are different but not dramatically so. It was the cultural significance of child birth and child rearing, and the cultural evolution of misogyny and such, that made the difference between the sexes so significant.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
At the 2021 London mayoral election Labour had a lead of between 12% and 25% (first prefs) in the opinion polls beforehand. Their eventual winning margin was 4.7%.
Bailey was a better candidate than Hall. The Tories were also doing better nationally then . The new ID rules and change of voting system will though mean it would be a rather stressful 24 hours for Khan .
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
Humza
Something of an anti-Muslim slur, Hamza
I hear you're a racist* now, 148!
*Islamophobe, whatever.
Last month I called him Yousaf Humza, nasty Islamophobe that I am.
FYI - Hamza is a Muslim name given to men and a surname too.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
That doesn't make them creationists. All the Free Churchers I know accept evolution and that the Earth is older than 6000 years etc. Apparently there are some within the Church who don't accept these things, but my friends seem to think they're in the minority. My understanding is that there are more avowedly creationist Churches out there.
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
The Presbyterian Free Church is certainly anti evolution 'When we consider evolution, it is important to remember that it is not a scientific fact but a belief; so it is a religious approach to how life began. Those who believe in evolution like to present it as scientific fact, but the evidence to support this approach just does not exist. There are some things in the Bible which we accept on faith because we do not have hard evidence for it; as the Bible itself says, “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb 11:3)'
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
Also, and quite aside from some of those assertions being incorrect - such as the hang Mandela stuff, protestors have protested against every conflict since time immemorial, including the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya, amongst others. They have also, at times, failed to march - like against Soviet actions in Prague and Budapest, and in favour of Solidarity.
Just because they might assert they were on "the right side of history" on one big issue doesn't mean they always are, which is what they'd like to be thought as being, and if you take all of them in the round they have been "wrong" on a great many.
There are two important points here. There have always been marches, on everything under the sun, and there have always been loons so swallowed up in ideology that they become anything from habitual marchers to actual rentamob rabble rousers. Also true that a lot of them have pretty unpleasant views on a range of topics and/or pretty shallow views once probed on them.
The first point is that marchers and "activists" who like to claim credit for the great social changes of history are often just passengers and don't have a monopoly on political righteousness.
The second is that moral panic about aggressive protests and riots is overdone because they've always been with us and are no more aggressive or violent than they always were, indeed in many cases less so.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
"technically" "now not even EVEL" - that's your party deleting it to try and stir up the shite "most Scottish domestic policy" - but that depends what you mean by domestic. Lots of UK legislation doesn't apply overseas, so id somestic, but is retained at Westminster. Fiscal, for instance.
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
But the world has moved on. Seems their time might have come.
Why do you believe that may be the case ?
As basically, although I don't like it, big data and complex algorithms control our lives beyond even what governments can. We don't have freedom anymore, so the downside to an ID system and database is a battle lost. The positives of control over resources of the state (healthcare, immigration status, border control and the like) are still there.
It may be a battle lost for you because you chose to give it away for your convenience, many of us though keep our digital footprints to the minimum. We don't routinely feel the need to carry a phone with us when we leave the house, we don't join facebook/linkedin/twitter etc. Where we can we use tor as a browser etc. We opt out of having our health records digitised and shared.
Just because you decided to make your life public doesn't mean the rest of us that didn't should pay for your folly.
I am fine with an id card that is just an id card.....I am not fine with all my information being linked and at the fingertips of any nosy civil servant/quango/ngo or hacker
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Is Birmingham Council's bankruptcy due to the council, government cuts, or its management software which by some accounts means they've not known for two years how much money they have? How do you vote against Oracle?
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
Humza
Something of an anti-Muslim slur, Hamza
I hear you're a racist* now, 148!
*Islamophobe, whatever.
Last month I called him Yousaf Humza, nasty Islamophobe that I am.
FYI - Hamza is a Muslim name given to men and a surname too.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
Also, and quite aside from some of those assertions being incorrect - such as the hang Mandela stuff, protestors have protested against every conflict since time immemorial, including the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya, amongst others. They have also, at times, failed to march - like against Soviet actions in Prague and Budapest, and in favour of Solidarity.
Just because they might assert they were on "the right side of history" on one big issue doesn't mean they always are, which is what they'd like to be thought as being, and if you take all of them in the round they have been "wrong" on a great many.
There are two important points here. There have always been marches, on everything under the sun, and there have always been loons so swallowed up in ideology that they become anything from habitual marchers to actual rentamob rabble rousers. Also true that a lot of them have pretty unpleasant views on a range of topics and/or pretty shallow views once probed on them.
The first point is that marchers and "activists" who like to claim credit for the great social changes of history are often just passengers and don't have a monopoly on political righteousness.
The second is that moral panic about aggressive protests and riots is overdone because they've always been with us and are no more aggressive or violent than they always were, indeed in many cases less so.
Thirdly, some of the most violent and stupid like to claim that *they* were the ones that changed things and thus justifies their violence.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Is Birmingham Council's bankruptcy due to the council, government cuts, or its management software which by some accounts means they've not known for two years how much money they have? How do you vote against Oracle?
The actual reason won't matter set against the gut feeling of blame in voters
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
"technically" "now not even EVEL" - that's your party deleting it to try and stir up the shite "most Scottish domestic policy" - but that depends what you mean by domestic. Lots of UK legislation doesn't apply overseas, so id somestic, but is retained at Westminster. Fiscal, for instance.
The Scottish government can also set income tax and bands for non-savings, non-dividend income
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
If we had become parents, I would have been going to mass every Sunday to get my children into the decent RC school. This would not have meant that I had stoppped being an atheist, however.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Yeah it is all down to Tory cuts. Damn those Tory cuts for the massive equal pay claim liabilities of nearly £1 Billion and the mammoth IT project overspend.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
If we had become parents, I would have been going to mass every Sunday to get my children into the decent RC school. This would not have meant that I had stoppped being an atheist, however.
Do you think the RC church cares? the Vatican may even prefer atheists who attend Sunday mass regularly and send their children to the RC school locally than believers who never go to mass and send their children to a secular school.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Is Birmingham Council's bankruptcy due to the council, government cuts, or its management software which by some accounts means they've not known for two years how much money they have? How do you vote against Oracle?
IT is also near £1 Billion equal right claim. A claim that was nearly settled until the Unions realised that unequal pay/terms was still going on to this day. Of course this is all down to the govt. Goes without saying.
Every inept council, of whatever persuasion, who has brought bankruptcy or near bankrupty upon themselves naturally blames the govt for their woes.
What does the truth matter when you can deflect and people will happily recycle it verbatim,
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
It is closer to 30% Christian for people aged in their 20s and 30s, which is the relevant age group for parents choosing a school.
Of that 30% only a small proportion will be active Christians going to Church.
It's a backwards looking policy from a tired government that I hope Labour reverses in time.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
I would have thought the Tories would be happy with Forbes too, given that her view that sex before marriage is wrong, wrong, wrong, is shared by so few people - and those who do share her view probably think she should be in the kitchen rather than doing politics.
Tories are irrelevant in Scotland, hated by almost everyone.
Though with the separatists tumbling backward in public opinion, Conservative & Unionists in Scotland to win seats at the General election.
With your fulsome support for Kate Forbes, it’s good to see you “for” something, Malcom.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
If we had become parents, I would have been going to mass every Sunday to get my children into the decent RC school. This would not have meant that I had stoppped being an atheist, however.
Do you think the RC church cares? the Vatican may even prefer atheists who attend Sunday mass regularly and send their children to the RC school locally than believers who never go to mass and send their children to a secular school.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
The body mass differences between men and women are biological. Men also, biologically, have different muscle distribution, so you can't just stick men and women of the same weight together in boxing. (That is, of course, not a reason to perpetuate socially constructed differences, nor does it mean that some people don't fit a simple binary.)
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Yes I had a similar dilemma.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
46% are Christian on the last census which is rather more than the 25-30% of schools which are faith schools (and not all of those will be Christian). So there is certainly plenty of scope for Outstanding rated C of E or RC secondary schools to require evidence of regular church attendance before admitting the pupil
It is closer to 30% Christian for people aged in their 20s and 30s, which is the relevant age group for parents choosing a school.
Of that 30% only a small proportion will be active Christians going to Church.
It's a backwards looking policy from a tired government that I hope Labour reverses in time.
So still even 20s and 30s have the same percentage Christian as the 25% or so of schools in the UK which are Christian (excluding non Christian faith schools), probably still even slightly higher.
Given the choice of their kids attending the nearest nice Outstanding rated C of E/RC school by attending church weekly for a while or being sent to the Inadequate/Requires Improvement bog standard comp down the road which option do you think most of those parents will take?
It is an excellent Conservative policy of parental choice
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
What I would do in the circs.
I think Street loses by 2 or 3 points....
Street now plugging his endorsement from Boris and photos of them together. Good idea?
I had the privilege of working briefly with Andy Street during his JL days. He is one of the nicest and most capable men I have ever met. Despite me being an absolute lowbody he always remembered my name and asked how xyz was going, where xyz=the week to week detail of the project I was working on.
He has done a great deal of good for Brum.
All that said, if he is relying on Boris endorsements, rather than his own campaign, I fear that he may be struggling electorally...
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
This is probably the most wrong and ill informed post I've ever seen about anything anywhere.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Interesting question. She seems sane but you never know. Within UK Christianity evolution denial is pretty much confined to a group within extreme evangelicalism. It never comes up in mainstream Christianity. I suspect creationism is much more widespread within Islam.
Questions will be asked of Kate Forbes because she's White and Christian that her detractors wouldn't dream of asking if she were Muslim, Hindu or even Jewish.
That's where cultural relativism leads.
Yeah, because no-one* talks about, say Sadiq Khan's religion.
* If we don't count Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman or Susan Hall.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The Yes crowd don't care a jot, they want Independence you fool. Then people will look at what government they want.
A question for the Scottish Experts. So on topic. Ish.
Does there exist a right to swim in any river or lake in Scotland, under Right to Roam?
I ask because I was looking into our local Open Water swimming location (Kings Mill Lake) and someone seems to think they have the right to control who swims there.
It's not a plan (I pick up too many snuffles swimming in public venues and do not recover from them very well), but I was intrigued by the idea of being charged £6.50 to run up and down a public footpath, and swim in a Council managed lake.
(I suspect that this has stopped now, as it seems a bit edgy commercially. People round here would not buy that unless it added significant value to what they can do anyway.)
AFAIK you can swim in rivers, lakes and reservoirs provided you do not interfere with areas specifically set out for other recreational purposes while they are being used for that purpose e.g. a lake with waterskiing areas, and from the official Access Code
...If you wish to canoe or sail on a loch or reservoir used intensively by a commercial fishery, be aware that this can be very disruptive, may raise safety issues because of the high number of anglers in a relatively small area and may impact on the operation of these businesses. Always talk to the land manager before going onto such water...
Having praised the loveliness of many Breton towns - and places like Quimper or Dinan are world class beauties - I have to demur on the Breton interior
It’s really really dull, so dull it becomes rather bleak. It lacks the grandeur and beauty of inland Wales - the wildness or mountains or intense greenery (despite industrial scars). It lacks the interest and strangeness of inland Cornwall - the mining landscapes, the sudden contrasts of moor and river valleys
Also, enough crepes already. They’re not that great
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
Your last sentence is pretty unlikely. There are sports where investment could create a certain overlap however there has been plenty of investment in women’s tennis for example and the top women’s players wouldn’t stand a chance against the top men, Serena Williams has been clear on this, and it’s nothing to do with investment.
There are physical differences that cannot be bridged except by a very very few women - we are seeing it in football where women are having much greater incidence of ACL injuries - they are using the same boots, same pitches as men so the only difference can be biological. There is also the study discussed on the news today that female footballers are majorly more susceptible to injury during their periods. Again clearly biological.
The number of women who have passed the ultimate infantry courses in the UK is negligible, again not because nobody invested in them before to train for it because nobody invested in the men either. There are just fundamental physical requirements to perform that role well where women are biologically hampered.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
That doesn't make them creationists. All the Free Churchers I know accept evolution and that the Earth is older than 6000 years etc. Apparently there are some within the Church who don't accept these things, but my friends seem to think they're in the minority. My understanding is that there are more avowedly creationist Churches out there.
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
The Presbyterian Free Church is certainly anti evolution 'When we consider evolution, it is important to remember that it is not a scientific fact but a belief; so it is a religious approach to how life began. Those who believe in evolution like to present it as scientific fact, but the evidence to support this approach just does not exist. There are some things in the Bible which we accept on faith because we do not have hard evidence for it; as the Bible itself says, “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb 11:3)'
That's the Free Presbyterian Church, not the Free Church (that is also Presbyterian, I think? Or Calvinist? Can you be both?). So far as I'm aware the Free Church of Scotland doesn't take a view, though some within it do. The Free Church Continuing, however, may, but I don't know any of those.
The King of Scottish centrist dads has spoken. Somewhat over egged but I largely agree. He’s also the type of default Labour backer who occasionally shows a watery curiosity about Indy that the SNP would rather have on board rather than any of the hacks from the Mail, Express, Tele etc.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
There's always room for sitting light to certain beliefs, even in an Evangelical and Calvinist (capital letters inserted, three red underlinings left out ) denomination such as the Free Church of Scotland I think - unless perhaps you are an elder or minister.
Just as there is amongst, for example, amongst Roman Catholics.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Whilst I appreciate that drugs would and do work differently on men and women - what is the statistical significance of that and what aspects aren't cultural? For example, I would understand if drugs interacted with estrogen / testosterone differently, for example, but is there that much difference between men and women of similar heights and weights taking the same dosage? I know men are over represented in trial groups, and I would suggest that is a cultural issue as well, but from my understanding the efficacy of the vast majority of drugs is not changed based on sex?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
Your last sentence is pretty unlikely. There are sports where investment could create a certain overlap however there has been plenty of investment in women’s tennis for example and the top women’s players wouldn’t stand a chance against the top men, Serena Williams has been clear on this, and it’s nothing to do with investment.
There are physical differences that cannot be bridged except by a very very few women - we are seeing it in football where women are having much greater incidence of ACL injuries - they are using the same boots, same pitches as men so the only difference can be biological. There is also the study discussed on the news today that female footballers are majorly more susceptible to injury during their periods. Again clearly biological.
The number of women who have passed the ultimate infantry courses in the UK is negligible, again not because nobody invested in them before to train for it because nobody invested in the men either. There are just fundamental physical requirements to perform that role well where women are biologically hampered.
In fact in the case of the Army, the established, medical position on injuries in training, is that if the same loads are put on women in training as men, there will be a massively higher injury rate for women.
Which means that either (a) training norms for women are less than those for men, or (b) get sued for not exercising a duty of care.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
I've just taken a look at the paper and its not exactly a slam dunk. Just as with imaging - take the CA repeats in the AR - you could not look at any individual, count the repeats and say trans or not. There is huge overlap. I would suspect that all the trans subjects did indeed have androgen receptor functionality - how much do you need?
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The Yes crowd don't care a jot, they want Independence you fool. Then people will look at what government they want.
The hardcore like you do, however some of them were just leftwingers wanting escape from a Tory government living in the central belt. Given the choice of a UK Labour government or an SNP Forbes Scottish government some of them would prefer the former
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
I've just taken a look at the paper and its not exactly a slam dunk. Just as with imaging - take the CA repeats in the AR - you could not look at any individual, count the repeats and say trans or not. There is huge overlap. I would suspect that all the trans subjects did indeed have androgen receptor functionality - how much do you need?
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
People with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will have male DNA, but appear physically to be female and generally identify as female: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ That is not a process of "wishing it so", but is does demonstrate that DNA is sometimes not the key issue.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
Name recognition and Labour voters not giving a toss about local elections.
I agree. Both certain to win now. Instantly one of the media’s headline take outs is “better than expected night for the Conservatives” based on expectations Blackpool South would be easy Labour gain, whilst just 4% swing needed to win West Midlands looks like Labour failing to score into an open goal.
What you are basically saying to us Anabob, despite opinion poll leads, incumbency allows against the odds holds in elections for the Conservatives, which has to be factored into the GE?
Another observation about the coming results, when it comes to PNS and NEV, should we be looking at the share rather than margin of victory? Ed Milliband got a 38% PNS in 2012 and Blair 46% in 1995 - Starmer continuing to fall behind both must be telling us something important about how Starmer’s Labour are still being regarded and how they are performing way below polling levels in real elections?
Or would you simply continue to ignore the message of these awful low PNS and NEV shares, and proclaim what a fun night?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
This is probably the most wrong and ill informed post I've ever seen about anything anywhere.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
I've just taken a look at the paper and its not exactly a slam dunk. Just as with imaging - take the CA repeats in the AR - you could not look at any individual, count the repeats and say trans or not. There is huge overlap. I would suspect that all the trans subjects did indeed have androgen receptor functionality - how much do you need?
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
People with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will have male DNA, but appear physically to be female and generally identify as female: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ That is not a process of "wishing it so", but is does demonstrate that DNA is sometimes not the key issue.
Complete - absolutely I agree. This paper is not about those with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. It really isn't.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
"...it feels like the right word to me". Just about sums up what is wrong with people who consider themselves left wing. It's about subjective "feels" rather than actual objective facts. Postmodernism has a lot to answer for.
Your attitude causes harm. The biological differences are real. Unfortunately you belong to a centuries old reactionary tradition of men who discount them as insignificant. That means that male physiology is regarded as the "default" while female physiology is ignored.
That puts you on what you described earlier in this thread as "the wrong side of history" (in fact you're on the wrong side of morality and ethics, as I said). A good summary is in this article -
The King of Scottish centrist dads has spoken. Somewhat over egged but I largely agree. He’s also the type of default Labour backer who occasionally shows a watery curiosity about Indy that the SNP would rather have on board rather than any of the hacks from the Mail, Express, Tele etc.
I agree with the thrust of the article andalso that it's somewhat over egged. I think Kate Forbes could make a decent First Minister, but I'm pretty sure I'm right she does think she's morally superior to those she disagrees with (the rest of her Party, coalition partners etc). And in any case the perception she does think this way is a political problem for her.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
Your last sentence is pretty unlikely. There are sports where investment could create a certain overlap however there has been plenty of investment in women’s tennis for example and the top women’s players wouldn’t stand a chance against the top men, Serena Williams has been clear on this, and it’s nothing to do with investment.
There are physical differences that cannot be bridged except by a very very few women - we are seeing it in football where women are having much greater incidence of ACL injuries - they are using the same boots, same pitches as men so the only difference can be biological. There is also the study discussed on the news today that female footballers are majorly more susceptible to injury during their periods. Again clearly biological.
The number of women who have passed the ultimate infantry courses in the UK is negligible, again not because nobody invested in them before to train for it because nobody invested in the men either. There are just fundamental physical requirements to perform that role well where women are biologically hampered.
Tangential to your post but the "same boots" is not an equivalence as the boots have been designed exclusively for males, so of course they are safer for males than females. It is only in the last year or two that manufacturers have started investigating how to design boots for women safely.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No, the "heavens" came billions of years earlier than the Earth.
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
I've just taken a look at the paper and its not exactly a slam dunk. Just as with imaging - take the CA repeats in the AR - you could not look at any individual, count the repeats and say trans or not. There is huge overlap. I would suspect that all the trans subjects did indeed have androgen receptor functionality - how much do you need?
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
People with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will have male DNA, but appear physically to be female and generally identify as female: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ That is not a process of "wishing it so", but is does demonstrate that DNA is sometimes not the key issue.
Complete - absolutely I agree. This paper is not about those with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. It really isn't.
I didn't say the paper was. I'm saying that your focus on DNA only is problematic.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
This is probably the most wrong and ill informed post I've ever seen about anything anywhere.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Conical testing involves placing a cone on the subject's head. Normally the cone has the letter "D" prominently printed on it, and this works best when the subject is sat in the corner of a clinic. Clear sex differences are observed, although whether the results for males are skewed by one outlier have yet to be confirmed...
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
I don't really want to spend all afternoon on the trans debate, as I'm a) off out for lunch shortly and b) would rather stick forks in my eye than go through this debate again.
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
I've just taken a look at the paper and its not exactly a slam dunk. Just as with imaging - take the CA repeats in the AR - you could not look at any individual, count the repeats and say trans or not. There is huge overlap. I would suspect that all the trans subjects did indeed have androgen receptor functionality - how much do you need?
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
People with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will have male DNA, but appear physically to be female and generally identify as female: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ That is not a process of "wishing it so", but is does demonstrate that DNA is sometimes not the key issue.
Complete - absolutely I agree. This paper is not about those with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. It really isn't.
I didn't say the paper was. I'm saying that your focus on DNA only is problematic.
Problematic is a bit over the top. For a few people DNA will not define how their body turns out. Caster Semanya is a classic case. But for the vast majority of people, including those in the paper we were discussing, DNA does lead to a male body.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
As I see it one problem with this view is that you have just removed the justification for category group sports - so perhaps the nine year olds should be playing football on the same pitch as the fifteen year olds.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Whilst I appreciate that drugs would and do work differently on men and women - what is the statistical significance of that and what aspects aren't cultural? For example, I would understand if drugs interacted with estrogen / testosterone differently, for example, but is there that much difference between men and women of similar heights and weights taking the same dosage? I know men are over represented in trial groups, and I would suggest that is a cultural issue as well, but from my understanding the efficacy of the vast majority of drugs is not changed based on sex?
To a certain extent we just don't know, because people haven't bothered to look!
For example, for a long time it was thought that heart disease was rarer in women than in men, but it turns out that this is to an extent because the clinical markers for heart disease were created based on male patients. So lots of heart disease in women had simply been missed.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Conical testing involves placing a cone on the subject's head. Normally the cone has the letter "D" prominently printed on it, and this works best when the subject is sat in the corner of a clinic. Clear sex differences are observed, although whether the results for males are skewed by one outlier have yet to be confirmed...
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
As I see it one problem with this view is that you have just removed the justification for category group sports - so perhaps the nine year olds should be playing football on the same pitch as the fifteen year olds.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
"...it feels like the right word to me". Just about sums up what is wrong with people who consider themselves left wing. It's about subjective "feels" rather than actual objective facts. Postmodernism has a lot to answer for.
Your attitude causes harm. The biological differences are real. Unfortunately you belong to a centuries old reactionary tradition of men who discount them as insignificant. That means that male physiology is regarded as the "default" while female physiology is ignored.
That puts you on what you described earlier in this thread as "the wrong side of history" (in fact you're on the wrong side of morality and ethics, as I said). A good summary is in this article -
I would argue that I take exactly the opposite opinion you say I do - and that I agree with you that it is a cultural imposition that male physiology is regarded as "default" and that it is bad. But rather than saying we should think in terms of the "average man" and the "average woman" I tend towards a consideration of "the average human" which would account for both. Again, the biggest difference would of course be the sexual reproduction organs, but the average human would still react the same way to the sex hormones most dominant in their body, for example, regardless of their chromosomal sex.
And I say it feels like the right word to me because words are imperfect reflections of feelings - their job is to be labels for shared understandings and the closest feeling I can point to with a word in this case is "arbitrary".
I'm not saying there are no biological differences between men and women - obviously there are. But there are lots of biological differences between groups of humans, and whilst I accept sex is a clearer one than many others, I don't think it is really as significant as we have made it due to the cultural significance placed on giving birth. I would point to intersex people as, in part, evidence for this - that intersex people exist shows how similar the male and female biology is and how it takes very little deviation from what are the two most typical expressions of sex to have a person that can express characteristics of both.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No, the "heavens" came billions of years earlier than the Earth.
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
I think these are category errors. Genesis is not a history book - "primordial myth" is perhaps a better description ('myth' being in the technical sense).
I'd see the basic error of the modern Evangelicals in this arena as being thinking they have to "compete" with "science"/"modernism" by reading rationalism back into their religious literature. They don't.
It's like somebody entering the Grand National using a bicycle or motor car, then complaining they are stymied by Becher's Brook.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No, the "heavens" came billions of years earlier than the Earth.
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
You are being overly literal.
For example “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is a merism: a rhetorical contrast. What it probably means is just that God created the entire cosmos. It doesn’t mean that the “heavens” and “the earth” were the first two things created.
Fundamentally the creation myth explains the order of creation and the move from simple to complex life forms, the importance of energy and water to human life and so form. It’s about establishing humanities place in the world - mythos not logos.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
@148grss if you want to be taken seriously on this site you need to not post absolute bollocks like "...suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this..." because it is not true. It's always been segregated, and was not segrgated because men didn't like losing to them. You are a fantasist.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
My best, worst, and only time for the 100m was 16.6 standard Earth seconds.
Although I did manage to fool the speed trap at Bristol zoo into thinking that I could run >80mph with the help of my daughter, but obviously that was over a much shorter distance.
I remember the days on PB when, from midday onwards on a Wednesday, PB would be full of comments about PMQs. In recent weeks (months?) it barely merits a cursory mention. Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull? Or both?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Does not just sound ridiculous it is ridiculous and pathetic in teh extreme. You point to lack of evolution theory
I mean, it seems that some members of the church are creationists - whilst some are not. It is of interest to me which group Kate Forbes sits in if she wishes to be SFM; I don't expect it to be in the top 5 things other people might care about her, but it's up there for me if someone is a creationist.
The irony if Simulation Theory is correct and creationism is adjacently correct
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No, the "heavens" came billions of years earlier than the Earth.
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
You are being overly literal.
For example “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is a merism: a rhetorical contrast. What it probably means is just that God created the entire cosmos. It doesn’t mean that the “heavens” and “the earth” were the first two things created.
Fundamentally the creation myth explains the order of creation and the move from simple to complex life forms, the importance of energy and water to human life and so form. It’s about establishing humanities place in the world - mythos not logos.
Indeed - I always like the version of this that Tolkien subscribed to. That the time periods referred to as "days" in Genesis were actually "ages".
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
@148grss if you want to be taken seriously on this site you need to not post absolute bollocks like "...suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this..." because it is not true. It's always been segregated, and was not segrgated because men didn't like losing to them. You are a fantasist.
You’re being much more assertive today than usual 👍😜
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
True story. I was in the Oxford University Athletics team in 1994. I was, frustratingly, the fifth fastest at 100m so I just missed a blue via being in the 1sts relay squad, but instead got to anchor the Centipedes (2nds) 4x100m in the Varsity meeting. I dropped the baton. I was so ashamed and embarrassed I went straight home and never went back to Iffley Road again. Which was stupid because with a bit of effort I could have done better the following year. Ah well.
I can't remember my PB but I was under 12 seconds at one point.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
No, that's completely wrong. Take, for example, conical testing of new drugs. These behave differently in women because of the different biology, and so, where they haven't been tested on women, they might be a lot less effective and we wouldn't know it.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Whilst I appreciate that drugs would and do work differently on men and women - what is the statistical significance of that and what aspects aren't cultural? For example, I would understand if drugs interacted with estrogen / testosterone differently, for example, but is there that much difference between men and women of similar heights and weights taking the same dosage? I know men are over represented in trial groups, and I would suggest that is a cultural issue as well, but from my understanding the efficacy of the vast majority of drugs is not changed based on sex?
To a certain extent we just don't know, because people haven't bothered to look!
For example, for a long time it was thought that heart disease was rarer in women than in men, but it turns out that this is to an extent because the clinical markers for heart disease were created based on male patients. So lots of heart disease in women had simply been missed.
That's fair, and in my mind leaves a lot of room for my understanding of this issue.
I remember the days on PB when, from midday onwards on a Wednesday, PB would be full of comments about PMQs. In recent weeks (months?) it barely merits a cursory mention. Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull? Or both?
Neither Sunak or Starmer are that good at it, so the entertainment value is low. Sunak is so far behind, and Tory morale so low, that it hardly matters for internal party reasons, or as a measure of the ebb and flow of political fortunes. The government is proving so adept at aiming both barrels at its own feet that there isn't much significance in terms of holding the government to account.
We're all just waiting, and have been for ages, for the election.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
@148grss if you want to be taken seriously on this site you need to not post absolute bollocks like "...suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this..." because it is not true. It's always been segregated, and was not segrgated because men didn't like losing to them. You are a fantasist.
You’re being much more assertive today than usual 👍😜
Yep! Be careful! I might look at your LinkedIn profile.
Fascinating comment by the Dudley’s Tory council leader in the FT yesterday. Like most councils now, Dudley is facing financial difficulty and is “struggling to maintain roads and parks”.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I thought that the order of creation in Genesis was reasonably accurate. So it describes the “what” not the “how” - which is evolution etc (I am not a scientist).
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
The order of creation in Genesis is not reasonably accurate, no.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No, the "heavens" came billions of years earlier than the Earth.
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
I think these are category errors. Genesis is not a history book - "primordial myth" is perhaps a better description ('myth' being in the technical sense).
I'd see the basic error of the modern Evangelicals in this arena as being thinking they have to "compete" with "science"/"modernism" by reading rationalism back into their religious literature. They don't.
It's like somebody entering the Grand National using a bicycle or motor car, then complaining they are stymied by Becher's Brook.
Stories we tell ourselves to explain the past. It helps if they are true, but it's vital that they be comprehensible. As you say, fact-checking them is missing the point.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
"technically" "now not even EVEL" - that's your party deleting it to try and stir up the shite "most Scottish domestic policy" - but that depends what you mean by domestic. Lots of UK legislation doesn't apply overseas, so id somestic, but is retained at Westminster. Fiscal, for instance.
The Scottish government can also set income tax and bands for non-savings, non-dividend income
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
@148grss if you want to be taken seriously on this site you need to not post absolute bollocks like "...suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this..." because it is not true. It's always been segregated, and was not segrgated because men didn't like losing to them. You are a fantasist.
You’re being much more assertive today than usual 👍😜
Comments
Go look at the times and splits for 2000m on a rowing ergo, for example.
Name recognition and Labour voters not giving a toss about local elections.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
At certain schools a priority was given to those attending the church, but very few places were allocated in that way given the number of religious schools far outweighs the number of practicing Christians. The 37% non-religious HYFUD quotes is across the population as a whole - for people in their 20s and 30s it will be much higher.
As it happens the state school my children have got into is secular until year 2, then they move next door to a CofE school that only covers years 3-6. About 1-2 of 90 children qualify for the place due to going to church, which suggests it's not too religious.
Both my wife and I are atheist so plan to teach them our reasons for that at an age appropriate point
FYI - Hamza is a Muslim name given to men and a surname too.
My mum did think about calling me Hamza.
https://www.fpchurch.org.uk/2016/08/evolution/
The first point is that marchers and "activists" who like to claim credit for the great social changes of history are often just passengers and don't have a monopoly on political righteousness.
The second is that moral panic about aggressive protests and riots is overdone because they've always been with us and are no more aggressive or violent than they always were, indeed in many cases less so.
"now not even EVEL" - that's your party deleting it to try and stir up the shite
"most Scottish domestic policy" - but that depends what you mean by domestic. Lots of UK legislation doesn't apply overseas, so id somestic, but is retained at Westminster. Fiscal, for instance.
Just because you decided to make your life public doesn't mean the rest of us that didn't should pay for your folly.
I am fine with an id card that is just an id card.....I am not fine with all my information being linked and at the fingertips of any nosy civil servant/quango/ngo or hacker
But in response to your question, the paper studies the dna of 112 people who identify as male-to-female, with 258 male identifying control subjects. It's not about imaging scans showing "female brain", it's about looking at the dna of people who identify as female. The research concludes that there are significant genetic markers present in the male-to-female group that make them less able to process androgens than the control group. In other words, their dna is a direct contributing factor to their perception of themselves as female.
So, to your original point, "I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so," I have given you a study which demonstrates the opposite - that a man born with DNA that causes poor uptake of male sex hormones is more likely to identify as male-to-female.
This suggests two things, 1) transgenderism does indeed have biological roots in dna and 2) that hormones (and our uptake of them) strongly influence our gendered perception of ourselves, which was 148grss's original point.
And on that note, lunch.
Ruddy Tory govt, it is all down to them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-67053587
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
Every inept council, of whatever persuasion, who has brought bankruptcy or near bankrupty upon themselves naturally blames the govt for their woes.
What does the truth matter when you can deflect and people will happily recycle it verbatim,
It’s basically an oral history to explain the creation of the world. The “inspired word of god” does mean it is literal.
Of that 30% only a small proportion will be active Christians going to Church.
It's a backwards looking policy from a tired government that I hope Labour reverses in time.
With your fulsome support for Kate Forbes, it’s good to see you “for” something, Malcom.
That had nothing to do with culture.
Given the choice of their kids attending the nearest nice Outstanding rated C of E/RC school by attending church weekly for a while or being sent to the Inadequate/Requires Improvement bog standard comp down the road which option do you think most of those parents will take?
It is an excellent Conservative policy of parental choice
He has done a great deal of good for Brum.
All that said, if he is relying on Boris endorsements, rather than his own campaign, I fear that he may be struggling electorally...
* If we don't count Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman or Susan Hall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
It’s really really dull, so dull it becomes rather bleak. It lacks the grandeur and beauty of inland Wales - the wildness or mountains or intense greenery (despite industrial scars). It lacks the interest and strangeness of inland Cornwall - the mining landscapes, the sudden contrasts of moor and river valleys
Also, enough crepes already. They’re not that great
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
There are physical differences that cannot be bridged except by a very very few women - we are seeing it in football where women are having much greater incidence of ACL injuries - they are using the same boots, same pitches as men so the only difference can be biological. There is also the study discussed on the news today that female footballers are majorly more susceptible to injury during their periods. Again clearly biological.
The number of women who have passed the ultimate infantry courses in the UK is negligible, again not because nobody invested in them before to train for it because nobody invested in the men either. There are just fundamental physical requirements to perform that role well where women are biologically hampered.
https://time.com/6971088/adolf-hitler-take-power-democracy/
This just popped up in my Firefox recommendations.
https://x.com/bellacaledonia/status/1785420388723270073?s=46&t=fJymV-V84rexmlQMLXHHJQ
Just as there is amongst, for example, amongst Roman Catholics.
Which means that either (a) training norms for women are less than those for men, or (b) get sued for not exercising a duty of care.
It may be that the DNA is having an effect. I don't wish to diminish or discount how people see themselves. I just don't think that you can change from male DNA to being a woman, just because that's what your brain is telling you.
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
That’s not too bad for oral history 6000+ years ago.
What you are basically saying to us Anabob, despite opinion poll leads, incumbency allows against the odds holds in elections for the Conservatives, which has to be factored into the GE?
Another observation about the coming results, when it comes to PNS and NEV, should we be looking at the share rather than margin of victory? Ed Milliband got a 38% PNS in 2012 and Blair 46% in 1995 - Starmer continuing to fall behind both must be telling us something important about how Starmer’s Labour are still being regarded and how they are performing way below polling levels in real elections?
Or would you simply continue to ignore the message of these awful low PNS and NEV shares, and proclaim what a fun night?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13371185/Labour-candidate-mayor-West-Midlands-reported-police-Tories-amid-questions-home-address-polls-tighten.html
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
Your attitude causes harm. The biological differences are real. Unfortunately you belong to a centuries old reactionary tradition of men who discount them as insignificant. That means that male physiology is regarded as the "default" while female physiology is ignored.
That puts you on what you described earlier in this thread as "the wrong side of history" (in fact you're on the wrong side of morality and ethics, as I said). A good summary is in this article -
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." No, light existed from the creation of the universe and the Sun was shining when the Earth was formed.
"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." No, the diurnal cycle was there from the start.
"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." No, sky existed as soon as the Earth formed.
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good." No, there was land before there was sea.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so." No, unicellular life long proceeded plant life. Animals probably came before plants.
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." No, the Moon was earlier than plants. The stars were there before the Earth was created.
"And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”" No, life in the sea came before the plants of the land. Birds were much later, after land animals, after mammals.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
For example, for a long time it was thought that heart disease was rarer in women than in men, but it turns out that this is to an extent because the clinical markers for heart disease were created based on male patients. So lots of heart disease in women had simply been missed.
And I say it feels like the right word to me because words are imperfect reflections of feelings - their job is to be labels for shared understandings and the closest feeling I can point to with a word in this case is "arbitrary".
I'm not saying there are no biological differences between men and women - obviously there are. But there are lots of biological differences between groups of humans, and whilst I accept sex is a clearer one than many others, I don't think it is really as significant as we have made it due to the cultural significance placed on giving birth. I would point to intersex people as, in part, evidence for this - that intersex people exist shows how similar the male and female biology is and how it takes very little deviation from what are the two most typical expressions of sex to have a person that can express characteristics of both.
I'd see the basic error of the modern Evangelicals in this arena as being thinking they have to "compete" with "science"/"modernism" by reading rationalism back into their religious literature. They don't.
It's like somebody entering the Grand National using a bicycle or motor car, then complaining they are stymied by Becher's Brook.
For example “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is a merism: a rhetorical contrast. What it probably means is just that God created the entire cosmos. It doesn’t mean that the “heavens” and “the earth” were the first two things created.
Fundamentally the creation myth explains the order of creation and the move from simple to complex life forms, the importance of energy and water to human life and so form. It’s about establishing humanities place in the world - mythos not logos.
Although I did manage to fool the speed trap at Bristol zoo into thinking that I could run >80mph with the help of my daughter, but obviously that was over a much shorter distance.
Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull?
Or both?
I can't remember my PB but I was under 12 seconds at one point.
We're all just waiting, and have been for ages, for the election.
https://www.bustle.com/articles/142759-what-womens-tennis-has-looked-like-through-history-because-women-have-been-part-of-this-sport
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6rvujIYT1M