No_Offence_Alan said:

boulay said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/

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.

148grss said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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:

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.

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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.

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Leon said:

The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood

Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?

Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Northern_Al said:

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?

No_Offence_Alan said:

Northern_Al said:

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?

Back in the day, all I remember is that the PB Tories would say "Cameron is on fire" or "Cameron is pulling his punches", depending on his PMQ performance.

wooliedyed said:

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.

Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus

turbotubbs said:

No_Offence_Alan said:

boulay said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/

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.

Minutes or hours?

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Pulpstar said:

wooliedyed said:

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.

Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus

If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.

ToryJim said:

Hmm this is becoming a trend and not a good one. Not sure reporting your political opponents to the police every 5 minutes is a great look.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13371185/Labour-candidate-mayor-West-Midlands-reported-police-Tories-amid-questions-home-address-polls-tighten.html

DecrepiterJohnL said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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.

If I were running a girls' boarding school, which tbh is fairly unlikely, I'd install dart boards in all the common areas, and maybe snooker tables as well. There is no strength advantage to men in these sports so quite possibly the very real sex differences we see in real life are due to lack of opportunity. If you've never thrown a dart, how would you know if you are any good at throwing darts? (A question for men as well as women.)

Casino_Royale said:

Gardenwalker said:

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.

Absolutely insane. The entitlement on adult social care, as hard as it may be on individuals causing some real issues of pain and difficulty, needs to be hugely qualified or we will go bankrupt.

LostPassword said:

Northern_Al said:

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.

DougSeal said:

Leon said:

The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood

Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?

Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure

That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

wooliedyed said:

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.

Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus

If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.

Or it might be a special case.

She has a huge profile and works that seat hard.

HYUFD said:

No_Offence_Alan said:

HYUFD said:

algarkirk said:

kinabalu said:

algarkirk said:

Theuniondivvie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Theuniondivvie said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

Northern_Al said:

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

FrankBooth said:

Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A protester apparently beaten unconscious

SandyRentool said:

FrankBooth said:

Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A protester apparently beaten unconscious

Their friends in Hamas do a lot worse.

Andy_JS said:

FrankBooth said:

Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.

Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.

Why aren't the police/authorities defending people from these attacks?

LostPassword said:

Isn't anyone else a bit concerned about the Home Office being used for party political purposes, by posting a video of the detention of asylum seekers for deportation to Rwanda the day before the local elections?

Sean_F said:

148grss said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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:

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.

Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.

turbotubbs said:

Sean_F said:

148grss said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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:

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.

Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.

See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.

NEW THREAD

turbotubbs said:

Sean_F said:

turbotubbs said:

Sean_F said:

148grss said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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:

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.

Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.

See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.

If it's a contact sport, then womens' lives would be placed in danger, if they competed against men.

Well quite - brilliantly as the England womens rugby team has been, they would be in serious danger against a mens team.

MoonRabbit said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

wooliedyed said:

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.

Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus

If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.

Or it might be a special case.

She has a huge profile and works that seat hard.

It’s also just one poll from one firm - other polling of the seat has her doomed by tactical voting.

Sean_F said:

148grss said:

Leon said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

LostPassword said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

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.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/

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:

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.

Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.

Gardenwalker said:

Casino_Royale said:

Gardenwalker said:

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.

Absolutely insane. The entitlement on adult social care, as hard as it may be on individuals causing some real issues of pain and difficulty, needs to be hugely qualified or we will go bankrupt.

Interesting response.
Your mind goes to, “this needs to be qualified”.
Someone else posted, “someone is making a killing”.
My mind goes to, “this sounds like an over-regulated producer-captured hellscape”.

One thing we all agree on: the status quo ain’t working.

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.

Andy_JS said:

Stark_Dawning said:

wooliedyed said:

We done ths Penny for LOTO poll?

Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.

Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.

Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.