Science as a Social Contruct

There is an abstract philosphical sense in which everything we know is a social construct. After singular solipsism, we might agree we are seperate minds; and then it looks, to those minds, like there’s an empirical reality; and that reality includes our brains; and our brains are the physical substrate upon which the mind software operates. This is how we see reality*.

(*when we’re not inventing fantasies and believing them)

The most useful social construct we have is science, because it’s so practically productive. And science can be used to evaluate other social constructs, sufficiently well that we can now assess the nature of the very mind that started to contemplate the nature of the world. Science is a social construct because it has been constructed socially, by cooperating humans over centuries; and, before that nascent ‘science’, natural philosophy was the most rigorous discipline, for millennia. Of course a lot of the old ideas have been superceded by better ones, backed up by good empirical evidence; and many old ideas have been rejected because after millenia there is still zero positive evidence to support them.

Science is such a useful social construct it can assess the utility and reliability of the sciences themselves. There’s a hierarchy of sciences. They are commonly referred to as being on a spectrum of hard and soft sciences.

But ‘hard’ sciences, while difficult at higher levels of expertise, are simpler, more reliable, easier sciences than the ‘soft’ sciences. The term ‘hard’ does not mean difficult or complex, relatively speaking, but solid, reliable, repeatable. The ‘soft’ sciences are far more complex and difficult to do well, reliably, as sciences. The hierarchy is not one of moral merit, but of simplicity, reliability, repeatability. Physics, Cemistry, Biology, Neuroscience, Psychology, Sociology, to pick a few, go from hard to soft. Note, though, for newer sciences, like neuroscience, the field will change fast but become more reliable, while much older sciences, like psychology, will contain a lot of historic contested results. Hard science experiments are easier to replicate, support, or falsify; soft sciences are way more difficult, with much more disagreement about the ‘facts’ that the science uncovers.

This is why the biology of sex, backed by general biology, chemistry, physics, trumps the flaky end of the social sciences, where the abuse of science results in statements like ‘sex is a social construct’ in an attempt to refute inconvenient biological science. Well, yes, in the extreme philosoiophical sense, sex is a social construct but it results from the reliable categorisation of members of sexually reproducing species into male and female; a categorisation that is NOT a construct of science, but a construct of millions of years of differentiation between males and females in many species.

Are there variations that aren’t as ‘hard’ as the difference between a proton and an electron? Yes. Biological complexity being far greater than atomic complexity (not least because biology is constituted by the physics and chemistry of matter – there are necessarily more ways to make a biological system than an atomic one) has variations that don’t conform to strict and simple ‘hard’ differences typical of smaller objects viewed through the social construct of the science of physics.

But, if reality has any meaning at all, it really is the case that there are two sexes, and that the variations we see are deviations from statistical norms that dominate the biology of sexually reproducing species.

The norm is so strong that it’s only in 20th and 21st century sciences of biology, neuroscience, psychology, sociology that we have established reliably that the variations we see in sexual attraction and gender identity are ‘normal’, natural variations, while not being close to the norm.

However, the softer the science, the easier it is to politicise and attribute moral meaning to, and interpret in any desired politically motivated context one wishes. It’s difficult to politicise Newton’s laws of motion – they do not care about your feelings or your moral probity. This is why the moralising politicisation of the social sciences looks so much like religion.

The religious often object to the ‘dogma’ of science, but to say Newton’s laws are dogmatic is to mistake solid consistency and reliability for unsupported actual religious/political dogma. To say scientists are being dogmatic when they debunk crank ‘science’ (perpetual motion, astrology works, morphic resonance) is to be completely ignorant of the reliability of the hard sciences. On the other hand much soft sciences is infected with claims based on unrepeatable results from inadequately controlled observations with too few trials, all wrapped up in moralising political dogma: decide what you want to be, invent the ‘science’ to support it, falsification be damned.

Out of respect for the difficulty of the soft sciences (how really ‘hard’ they are) they should be treated with far more scrutiny and caution, but sadly, that goes out the window when you have a political and moral crusade to push.

Social Constructs Gone Mad

[It wasn’t my intention to pick on trans issues when I started writing this post, but coincidentally, the trans-ideology and gender-idology just happened to have provided extreme examples.]

People that vary in their sexual orientation or their feeling of their gender identity have been, and still are, persecuted for wanting to be who they are. I don’t know any TERFs (to use the derogatary term that many trans rights activists are fond of) that do not respect the rights of adults to identify as they wish, to engage in any sort of consensual adult relationships they wish.

The disagreements amount to two key ones:

Respecting one’s chosen identity and how one wants to be referred to – typified by the topic of pronoun use.
The interaction in safe spaces reserved for women.

The main disagreement regarding identity is not whether one should use whatever pronouns one chooses, but to what extent everyone else is expected to comply. If your gender is so fluid it changes as often as your underwear, and appears (no matter how serious it may feel to you) that you are inventing it as a political social construct in order to make a political point and entrap others into being ‘transphobic’ (i.e. you’re forever being dramatic about it) then sorry, but not everyone wants to be on their toes all the time trying to pre-empt your current gender or apologise for getting it wrong.

If you want to take a look at the insanity of social constructions at work, look no further that left wing progressivism.

If a serious discussion about how you are going to end Capitalism is degraded by you forever interrupting with a ‘point of order’, don’t be surprised if people stop taking you seriously.

Conversely, you might have a case of claiming transphobia if you have established an identity and even after plenty of time for adaptation colleagues insist on misgenering you. This is all about social niceties, and sadly, on both sides, some people are dicks.

For many women, the second disagreement is far more serious. Millennia of male domination and abuse is not merely a social construct but an evolutionarily determined biological one. I find many, but not all, radical feminists to be dicks too. Many really do hate men. But it may not be without justification that they hate most or all men, if they have suffered abuse at the hands of one or more significant men in their lives: fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, boyfriends, husbands, … bosses and co-workers, … priests, police men.

The Changing Social Construct of Being a Man

Men have had to adapt to the realities that have emerged from the social constructs of science too. Women are not bimbos, sexual toys, properties of marriage, but are equal on most counts, and better or worse on others, on average.

Men also have to adapt to the fact that compared to the average woman, many if not most men are hypersexualised beasts that need to control our urges because we don’t have rights to women’s bodies. You only have to look at any war zone to realise this nature of men is on a tight leash, at least for some. The tendency not to rape may be innate to some men, perhaps many men, perhaps most – though its difficult to see in wars over the last few centuries to what extent the pre-war socialisation of behaviour of ‘gentlemen’ has programmed its suppression, rather than it being innate. If, as a man, you feel this is an unfair characterisation of men, that their ‘decency’ around women is not natural but socially programmed, you’d need a heck of a lot of information that isn’t available – we don’t have access to pre-social man; we can’t yet investigate our brains sufficiently well to separate nature from nurture.

The clues in other species don’t always help. While some species of ape seem to have acquired at least some habits of decency, requiring a modicum of consent, clearly females are attracted to some males when they are ready to mate – the biological tendency is heavily related to procreation, though not always.

Given the typical human family size compared to interest in sex, sex is very much a social pleasure that varies between the sexes and more so between individuals. Male sexual attacks dominate. Most sexual offenders are men. Female sexual offenders are far more rare.

History, even recent history, even the very recent history of 2023, shows that some men have a tendency to want to rape if the opportunity arises. To what extent is our socially constructed morality preventing men behaving in ways they would it the rules were not in place? How far off are we from becoming raping and pilaging mobs?

The sciences of anthropology, sociaology, psychology can inform us to some extent, but there’s no hard science test you can perform to determine whether women would be safe around any particular man if the social rules were lost in a post-apocolypse world.

Religious Constructs

Religions are social constructs. It may be difficult to convince a bleliever of a particular religion that theirs is a fantasy, but they are unlikely to conclude that other religions are fantasies, or at least delusional distortions of a true religion.

The hard science fact is that there is zero evidence to support the spiritual claims of any religion. Though the historicity of mortal religious figures is on firmer ground, they tend to be in the distant past, and the only ‘evidence’ are the books that were often written long after the period to which they refer.

It is ironic then when the religious complain about science being a social construct, as if that in any way lessens the abscence of evidence for their gods. Some of the challenges that refer to ‘scientism’ have some merit, when scientists are sloppy with their own claims about what science can and cannot prove. But it is particularly funny when the cry of “Scientism!” comes from the religious.

Summary

Yes, science is a social construct. An excellent one that has been particularly productive.

Every other systems of thought we invent is also a social construct, but always with less rigor and less certain results, and with a greater susceptability to ideological abuse, than is science.

Science is not to be confused with bad science, or the abuse of science, where it is used incorrectly to affirm some even less reliable ideology.

Gender and Other Body Dysphorias Meet Politics

Various forms of body dysphoria—including gender dysphoria, body integrity dysphoria, and body dysmorphic disorder—are deeply related to disruptions in the sense of self, particularly in how the brain integrates embodiment (the felt experience of the body) with identity (the conceptual sense of “who I am”).

These conditions involve mismatches between the subjective experience of the self (who I feel I am), and the perceived or physical body (how my body appears or feels). This mismatch implicates specific neural networks and regions that contribute to the construction of the embodied self. This can result in a personal struggle to come to terms with differences between perceived and experienced self.

When it comes to gender dysphoria it is no longer a private medical issue about dealing with personal problems of coping with one’s view of self. It has taken on a contentious political dimension that impacts not only the individual with the dysphoria, but also affects other people, especially women, and how the trans-lobby and weak politicians have changed policy and law.

Forms of Body Dysphoria & Neural Basis

1. Gender Dysphoria

Experience: Incongruence between experienced gender identity and assigned sex at birth.
Relation to Self: Affects the core narrative and embodied sense of self.
Brain correlates:
- Insula: Disrupted interoceptive and emotional body awareness.
- mPFC: Involved in identity formation and gender representation.
- Structural/functional differences in brain regions associated with body perception (e.g., somatosensory cortex, anterior cingulate, hypothalamus).
Evidence: fMRI studies show brain activity patterns in transgender individuals that more closely resemble their experienced gender than their assigned one, particularly in self-related tasks.

2. Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID)

Experience: Desire to amputate a healthy limb because it feels “not part of the self.”
Relation to Self: Distorted bodily self-awareness; a limb is disowned at the perceptual/identity level.
Brain correlates:
- Right superior parietal lobule: Associated with body ownership and multisensory integration.
- Premotor cortex and insula: Integrate touch, position, and body schema.
Evidence: Reduced connectivity in brain regions responsible for integrating bodily signals and constructing body ownership. The limb is intact, but not felt as “mine.”

3. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Experience: Preoccupation with imagined or minor bodily flaws.
Relation to Self: The aesthetic self becomes pathologically distorted—how one sees themselves is at odds with reality.
Brain correlates:
- Orbitofrontal cortex: Overactive in self-monitoring and error detection.
- Amygdala and insula: Heightened emotional response to appearance-related stimuli.
- Occipitotemporal cortex: Altered visual processing of faces and bodies.
Evidence: Functional imaging shows hyper-focus on details of the face/body, and difficulty integrating a coherent visual body image.

These forms of dysphoria reveal that the sense of self is not a monolithic entity—it’s layered and distributed:

Level of Self	Description	Neural Substrate	Disrupted in…
Embodied self	The sense of owning a body, having a location and agency	Insula, parietal lobes, premotor cortex	BID, gender dysphoria
Narrative self	The autobiographical identity—who I am over time	mPFC, PCC, hippocampus	Gender dysphoria
Social/aesthetic self	How I appear to others or believe I do	OFC, visual cortex, amygdala	BDD

Body dysphorias are expressions of fractured self-experience, often rooted in neurologically and psychologically measurable dissociations between aspects of the body and the self. They do not imply delusion or insanity, but rather a misalignment between brain-level representations of the body and one’s internal identity. They often involve core regions tied to self-perception, body ownership, emotion, and social identity.

Treatment

It is generally the case that clinical treatment of dysphorias aims to reduce or resolve the dysphoria itself—but how that is done varies greatly depending on the type of dysphoria, the individual’s needs, and evolving ethical standards.

The core goal across cases is to alleviate the suffering caused by the mismatch between self-experience and bodily or identity representations. However, how that’s achieved differs by condition and philosophical/clinical approach.

The general clinical strategy for dysphorias can be summaraised as:

Primary aim: Reduce psychological distress and improve functioning
Not necessarily: Restore a “normative” body or identity
Often: Align external realities (body, environment) with internal experience when that is stable and persistent

Examples by Dysphoria Type

1. Gender Dysphoria

Goal: Align body and social role with internal gender identity.
Treatment may include:
- Psychotherapy: Supportive, exploratory, not reparative.
- Social transition: Changing name, pronouns, clothing.
- Medical transition: Hormone therapy, surgeries.
Ethical approach: The dysphoria is treated by affirming the identity, not by attempting to “correct” it toward the assigned sex.
Effectiveness: Transition (social and/or medical) often results in substantial reduction in dysphoria and improvement in quality of life, according to major clinical studies (e.g. WPATH guidelines).

2. Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID)

Goal: This is highly controversial and medically complex.
Typical treatments:
- Psychotherapy (often ineffective)
- Experimental use of VR, neurofeedback, or brain stimulation
Surgical amputation: Ethically debated. A very small number of surgeons have performed amputations with informed consent, resulting in reduction of distress, but this is rare and medically contested.
Clinical dilemma: When the sense of body ownership doesn’t respond to therapy, clinicians face the challenge of respecting autonomy while avoiding harm.

3. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Goal: Correct distorted body image perception, not the body itself.
Treatment:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Targets faulty beliefs and behaviors.
- SSRIs: Often effective, due to overlap with OCD-like patterns.
Not recommended: Cosmetic surgery—can worsen symptoms since the dysphoria is about perceived flaw, not actual appearance.

Dysphoria Type	Core Strategy	Example of Alignment
Gender Dysphoria	Affirm identity, adapt body/social role	Hormones, surgery, social support
BID	Unresolved; experimental	Rare surgical cases, neuromodulation
BDD	Challenge beliefs, reshape self-image	CBT + medication, avoid surgery

While the goal is often phrased as “resolving dysphoria,” the ethics of treatment focus on minimizing suffering and supporting autonomy—not imposing a fixed or “normative” model of self or body.

In gender dysphoria, the most effective and ethical approach is to support self-identification and bring the body/social experience into alignment with the felt self. In BDD, the emphasis is on changing perception, not the body. In BID, treatment is still evolving because the condition challenges current medical norms of body integrity.

However, there are further controversies when it comes to treating gender dysphoria: the medical treatment of the young, and political consequences of affirmation and its impact on women.

Pushback Against Genger Affirmation and Self-ID

There has been increasing pushback in recent years against the affirmative model of care for gender dysphoria, in cases involving adolescents, and especially young children. This pushback isn’t uniform or universally accepted, but it’s shaping public policy, clinical guidelines, and ethical debate in many countries.

The gender-affirmative model holds that clinicians should respect and affirm a person’s stated gender identity, without pathologizing it, support social transition (e.g. name/pronoun change). When appropriate and desired, facilitate medical transition (e.g. puberty blockers, hormones, surgery). This model is based on the belief that:

“Gender diversity is a normal part of human variation, not a disorder to be corrected.”

But why isn’t that the case with other dysphorias? Why is gender dysphoria the special case? Aren’t other dysphorias also “a normal part of human variation, not a disorder to be corrected.” Would it be acceptable to start affirming BID by amputating limbs and carrying out other affirming surgeries?

Concerns About Medicalization in Minors

Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones carry irreversible effects on: Fertility, Sexual development, Bone density, Brain development (still under research).
Surgical interventions (e.g. mastectomy or genital surgery) are irreversible and, if later regretted, cannot be undone.

Some critics argue that adolescents may not be developmentally capable of informed consent for such life-altering choices.

Example: Sweden, the UK, Norway, and Finland have revised their national guidelines to de-emphasize early medical interventions, particularly for youth, in favor of psychological exploration first.

Detransition and Regret

A small but visible population of individuals have detransitioned—returned to living as their birth-assigned gender. Some feel that medical transition was rushed or encouraged without adequate exploration of other factors (e.g., trauma, autism, internalized homophobia). While detransition rates are low overall, some critics argue that the lack of long-term follow-up studies makes it difficult to accurately assess regret.

Ideological vs Clinical Framing

Some argue that the affirmation-only approach is politicized and discourages neutral, exploratory psychotherapy. Concern exists that therapists feel pressure to affirm gender identity without deeper assessment of psychological complexity (e.g., co-occurring conditions like depression, trauma, or neurodivergence). Critics say this may foreclose developmental possibilities, especially in adolescents whose identities are still forming.

There is also a marked political aggression shown to detransitioners by the trans-ideology movement, that pressures people to transition in the first place then demonises those that regret it.

Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) [Highly Controversial]

Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria describes a phenomenon where adolescents, especially natal females, develop gender dysphoria suddenly, often in peer groups. Critics say it may reflect social contagion, trauma, or identity distress—not a stable transgender identity. This term is not officially recognized by most medical bodies (e.g. APA, WPATH), but it has driven political and clinical debate, especially around screening and gatekeeping.

Responses from Medical Institutions

Revisions in Guidelines:

UK (NHS): Closed the Tavistock gender clinic in 2022, replacing it with regional centers emphasizing broader psychological assessment.
Sweden/Finland/Norway: Moved toward psychotherapy-first models, allowing medical interventions only under strict criteria.
WPATH (v8): Continues to support access to care but encourages individualized assessment and greater caution with youth.

Core tension:

How to balance autonomy and access vs safeguarding and caution, especially for young and vulnerable individuals.

Issue	Debate
Consent	Can minors consent to irreversible treatment? Should parents/clinicians delay transition until adulthood?
Identity Formation	Is gender identity always innate and stable, or can it evolve through adolescence?
Gatekeeping vs Affirmation	Does caution protect or harm trans people? Does affirmation suppress legitimate clinical inquiry?
Regret and Responsibility	Who is responsible if someone regrets treatment? Should clinicians be held accountable for affirmative pathways?

Women’s Spaces

There is a greater concern for the way trans-women in women’s spaces impact women that there is for the way trans-men impact men. Why?

Why do women historically have separate spaces and sports?

Women-only spaces arose from a need to protect privacy and bodily safety in a world where women were, and still are, at greater risk of sexual violence. They also ensure dignity and comfort during vulnerable acts like undressing, using the toilet, or seeking refuge (e.g., shelters), all of which are opportunities for male predators to take advantage of women. The safe spaces further acknowledge physical and social differences between men and women, including societal gendered power dynamics.

These spaces include: Bathrooms and locker rooms, Shelters for survivors of domestic or sexual violence, Prisons and inpatient facilities, Changing rooms and some female-only services (e.g., spas)

Women’s sports exist because biological males (on average *) have substantial physical advantages in speed, strength, endurance, and size due to male puberty and testosterone. Fairness and safety in athletic competition requires separation based on sex, not identity. Without this separation, women would be systematically outperformed in nearly all elite sports.

* It is the case that many women are stronger than many men. Comparing the bell curves of the distribution of stregth in men and women there will be some overlap. However, competetive sports do not pit strong women against weak men, they select for the strongest. And it has been shown over and over that trans-women that would be below average in a men’s competition tend to win easily when they compete against women.

The Religious Problem

Religious or cultural values may prohibit women from being seen by males while undressed. This is a particularly contencious point, politically, because there cross-overs of interests and political views.

The Trans-ideology lobby is typically ‘left-wing aggressive progressive’, and will demonise Christians for trying to impose their religiously motivated restrictions on how people live their lives. This has been the case when Christianity was explicitly homophobic, but even now, when homosexuality is accepted, or at least tolerated, in modern Christianity, the trans-lobby will be hightly critical of Christians that express their religious views on the matter.

However, the left has an odd tolerance for Islam, which has arisen out of Muslims initially being a minority in the West, and where the West has historically colonised what are seen of as ‘Muslim lands’. What they are keen to neglect is that ‘Muslim lands’ were aggressively colonised Christian and Jewish lands … but, one’s view of history is selective when current politics matters. (In a wider context, there is also the Red-green alliance that hangs over us, where both the far left and the far right of Islam are allied in opposition to democratic free market capitalist West.)

It is no easier for feminist critics of Trans-ideology, because many of them are also of the left progressive, and have been part of the ‘left-wing aggressive progressive’ (with some justification) when criticisng men. Many of them too are reluctant to criticise Islam for fear of stoking the perceived ‘far-right’.

But, as it happens, the regressive Islamic ideology does discriminate against women in many ways, and sees both homosexuality and transgenderism as corruptions of the human spirit. The idea that homosexuals should be “thrown off high places” has been reified by ISIS and other factions of Islam; and it is not far below the surface of the sentiments of many Muslims in the West.

This is a bit of a dilemma for gender critical feminists, though some have become more outspoken about it, such as Kellie-Jay Keen aka Posie Parker.

The Self-ID Problem

A major problem has arisen with Self-ID laws or policies that allow individuals to declare their gender identity (e.g., as a woman) without medical, surgical, or legal requirements—in some cases, without even psychological assessment.

Allowing anyone to enter women’s spaces based on self-identification creates a loophole that bad-faith actors (biological males) could exploit. Examples are: changing rooms or shelters where women are undressed or sleeping; cases where biological males convicted of sexual crimes identify as women and request transfer to female prisons.

Critics emphasize: Not all trans women are predators, but all predators are opportunists—and policy matters more than intent.

Many women are uncomfortable undressing or using intimate spaces with someone biologically male, regardless of identity. Critics argue that compelled exposure to male-bodied individuals violates women’s bodily autonomy and consent.

Trans women who went through male puberty retain significant athletic advantages, even with hormone therapy. In several sports, trans women have outperformed female competitors and taken spots in competitions, podiums, or scholarships. Female athletes may feel unable to speak out for fear of being labeled transphobic, creating a climate of suppressed dissent.

Policy Landscape: A Global Variation

Different countries have taken different approaches:

UK: Protects single-sex spaces under the Equality Act; debate ongoing over gender recognition reform.
USA: Highly state-dependent; Title IX interpretations vary.
Nordic countries: More cautious in extending self-ID to female-only spaces.
Canada & Ireland: Self-ID laws with few restrictions; some public controversy followed.

Closing Thoughts

This issue doesn’t have easy answers, but thoughtful policy needs to:

Respect the dignity of trans individuals, while
Preserving hard-won protections for women, particularly in safety-critical spaces and competitive arenas.

This will likely involve nuanced distinctions—e.g., between informal public bathrooms, high-risk environments like prisons, and regulated domains like elite sports—rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. The public bathroom is probably the easiest to solve, with more single occupant rooms, rather than a room with cubicles. Prisons and sports need to be segragates spaces. Sports are always for elites – most men and women do not make it into elite sports.

That does mean that there are some social costs to being trans-gendered, beyond those experienced as a result of the dysphoria directly. There’s more focus from the trans-ideology movement on how sex-based space affect trans-women, when in reality the really vulnerable members of the trans community are trans-men (i.e. women). While sex-based spaces keep trans-women out of women’s spaces, must trans-men therefore use women’s spaces because they are women? What friction will ‘they ‘passing’ trans-men suffer when women are already opposing the presence of male looking trans-men.

To counter that concern we might wonder how a passing trans-man would fare if they continued to use men’s bathrooms – they should fare no worse than many men that appear to be effeminate, whether gay or straight. There is a unspoken rule in men’s bathrooms that you don’t make eye contact or interact with other men … glory holes aside.

There are other associations with gender dysphoria that blur the issue: political persuasion, sexual kink, drag, homosexuality, non-binary politics.

We don’t have this political fallout with other dysphorias, because they do not have a related political activism that makes use of them for other goals, and they don’t have difficult consequences for half the population, women.

The social contagion aspect of gender dysphoria conflated with political activism and the weaknesss of policy makers that respond too easily to fashion, has caused a lot of conflict.

This may take a long time to resolve. In the meantime it will probably be the case that harmless ‘passing’ trans-women and trans-men will continue to use the batchroom of their choice

Woke AI – An Attempt to Clarify

Having seen some of the Woke (i.e. wrong) responses from ChatGPT, I decided to have a conversation, to figure out what was going on. My emphasis of parts of the ressponses.

Why is chatgpt so woke?

As an AI language model, I don’t have opinions or beliefs, and I cannot speak for any particular chatbot or language model. However, it’s possible that some chatbots, including those based on GPT, may be programmed to be socially conscious or “woke” in order to reflect changing societal values and norms. Companies that develop chatbots may choose to include such programming in order to appeal to customers who value diversity, inclusion, and social justice. Additionally, language models like GPT are trained on massive amounts of text data, which may include a wide range of social and political perspectives. This exposure to diverse viewpoints may influence the responses generated by the model. Ultimately, the specific behavior of any chatbot depends on its programming and training data, which can vary widely.

Do you have any politically biased restrictions on what you will respond to?

As an AI language model, I don’t have political biases or restrictions on what I will respond to. My goal is to provide informative and accurate responses to any questions or prompts that are presented to me, to the best of my ability based on the data and knowledge that I have been trained on. I strive to remain neutral and impartial, and to provide a wide range of perspectives and information in response to questions. However, I do have some restrictions based on the content of the question, as I am programmed to filter out certain types of content, such as hate speech, explicit or inappropriate content, and content that may be harmful or offensive.

What range of social topics do you consider hate speech?

As an AI language model, I am not capable of determining what is hate speech on my own. However, I am programmed to filter out certain types of content that are generally considered to be hate speech or offensive. This includes language that promotes or incites discrimination, hostility, or violence against individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. Examples of such language may include slurs, derogatory terms, and threats or expressions of animosity towards specific groups of people.

It’s important to note that determining what constitutes hate speech can be a complex and nuanced issue, and different individuals and communities may have different opinions on what language is offensive or harmful. Additionally, some forms of speech that may be considered hate speech in some contexts may be protected under laws related to free speech in other contexts.

How many sexes are there in humans?

In humans, there are typically two sexes: male and female. Biological sex is determined by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and anatomical factors, and is typically assigned at birth based on the appearance of external genitalia. However, it’s important to note that there is a range of biological variation in sex characteristics, and some individuals may be born with intersex traits or variations in their chromosomes or hormones that do not fit typical male or female categories. Additionally, gender identity, which is a person’s internal sense of their own gender, may not always align with the sex they were assigned at birth. It’s important to respect individuals’ self-reported gender identities and to avoid making assumptions about their sex or gender based on external appearances.

In your last response you used the phrase “the sex they were assigned at birth” but sex is binary and is observed at birth, not merely assigned, so why did you use that phrasing?

You are correct that biological sex is typically observed and recorded at birth based on the appearance of external genitalia, and is not necessarily “assigned” in the same way that gender identity may be self-reported or culturally determined. I apologize for any confusion my previous response may have caused.

It’s important to note, however, that even though biological sex is typically binary and observed at birth, there is a range of biological variation in sex characteristics, and some individuals may be born with intersex traits or variations in their chromosomes or hormones that do not fit typical male or female categories. In such cases, the sex observed at birth may not be a clear-cut binary determination, and medical professionals may need to conduct further tests or evaluations to determine the best course of treatment or support for the individual.

From the latest data you have access to, what is the proportion of the USA population that is biologically intersex, and what proportion identifies as a gender not aligning with their biological sex?

Regarding the proportion of the US population that identifies as a gender not aligning with their biological sex, data from surveys and studies suggest that a small but growing proportion of individuals identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. A 2020 Gallup poll found that an estimated 0.6% of US adults identify as transgender, while a 2016 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law estimated that approximately 0.6% of US adults identify as gender non-conforming. However, it’s important to note that these estimates may not fully capture the diversity of gender identities and experiences, as many individuals may not feel comfortable or safe disclosing their gender identity in surveys or may identify with non-binary or fluid gender categories that are not included in traditional binary measures.

In your last response above you answered for gender identity but not intersex. What proportion of the USA population is intersex?

As I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to determine the exact proportion of the US population that is intersex, as there is a wide range of variation in intersex traits and no standardized definition or classification system for intersex conditions. Additionally, many intersex individuals may not be aware of their intersex status, as they may have undergone medical interventions or treatments at a young age that obscured or altered their sex characteristics.

However, according to estimates from the Intersex Society of North America, which is no longer active, intersex traits may be present in as many as 1 in 1,500 to 1 in 2,000 live births. More recent research suggests that the prevalence of intersex traits may be higher than previously thought, with some studies estimating rates as high as 1 in 100 births, although the actual number may be higher due to underreporting and variations in classification criteria. It’s important to note that the exact prevalence of intersex traits is difficult to determine, and estimates may vary depending on the population studied and the criteria used for classification.

Trouble With Set Containment and Defining Properties

In what follows the distinction bewteen Islam and Islamism is used, though the distinction is debateable – Islamism = political Islam, but Islam is a political-judicial-religious expansionist ideology by design, so where is the distinction? It can be convenient to identify some Muslims as being not particularly political, but when push comes to shove, in the earshot of more ‘serious’ Muslims, you may find they are Islamists too.

Within a few days I’ve seen the shocking failure of Western education systems even in the basics. From religious nuts to Woke evangelicals there seems to be an inability to grasp the basic containment principle of proper subsets, and of their defining properties.

Define two sets, A and B, both not empty. If B is a proper subset of A then ALL members of B are also members of A, but not all memebrs of A are members of B.

If A is defined such that all members have property X, then all members of A (and therefore all of B) have property X.

If B has a distinguishing property Y that distinguishes its members from other memebrs of A, then all memebrs of A that are not in B do not have property Y.

More complex combinations of sets may be difficult to show in simple Venn diagrams, where there are many properties, and where the properties may or may not be changeable in individual members over time. But this does not detract from the basic principles.

Examples follow where this is misunderstood.

Islamists are Muslims and are Islamic

This diagram illustrates the principle of containment and defining properties of proper subsets.

Here is an exchange on Twitter that shows that Sara might not know what a proper subset is – or that she really thinks being Islamic and being an Islamist are mutually exclusive:

She either doesn’t know that Islamists are a proper subset of Muslims and are therefore by definition Islamic, or she doesn’t understand the meaning of the terms Islamic and Islamist. It may well be the latter – as a matter of wishful thinking. She wasn’t alone. Between them, Sara and Chris are simply not getting it.

The only way to interpret these responses is:

They are just dishonest. They know full well that Islamists are Muslims.
They really think there are two mutually exclusive sets of Muslims – Islamic Muslims and non-Islamic Muslims (Islamists) – but they would still have to understand they are both Muslims. You know they know this by rejecting my suggestion they are playing “Nothing to do with Islam”
They actually think Islamists are not Muslims at all. But “Islamists are comparable to Christian terrorism … or the violence perpetrated by Christian fundamentalists” indicates that they really do know that Islamists are Muslims. So, what do they think Islamic means? Just ‘Nice Muslims’? That judgement would require them to know something of Islam, which if they did they’d know it’s a nonsensical judgement.

Other respondants show similar misunderstandings.

Ash Sarkar: Tall Men are not Men

Ash seems very confused about the application of descriptions to the various sets. By definition there are biological males and biological women. Not shown on the diagram are some of the nuances of how to classify people that are biologically male or female at the edges – but this is not what Trans identity is about.

If you doubt this last claim search Twitter for #trans and you’ll be inundated with tweets of people who are very clearly biological males engaged in sex acts, and most are obviously male, with male penises and fake boobs – these are not the the people born with ambiguous genitalia. (*2024 – Twitter seems to have cleaned up its act since this was written. Oddly, these hyper-sexualised accounts were availably to everyone, including children, at a time when Twitter’s owners at the time were consoring pretty much anything they disagreed with.)

If you want further evidence of the male nature of many transwomen, look up #sissy on Twitter and you’ll see more men. This time they are projecting – it’s simply a more committed version of men imagining themselves as ‘slutty’ women, which these guys are acting out.

Good luck to them. Each to their own. Back to Ash’s points.

The diagram below illustrates Jenkinson’s point, and includes Ash’s addition of the characteristic of being tall.

Of course Ash does understand the point that Tall Men ARE a subset of Men. That’s why she’s using it, sarcastically, but dishonestly

In fact Tall Transwomen are also a subset of Men, the intersection of Transwomen and Tall Men – we love a bit of intersectionality. Ash’s intention is to try to illustrate what she thinks is Jenkinson’s error. She thinks that saying “Transwomen are not women” is the same kind of error as “Tall men are not men” because she thinks that Transwomen are actually women, as if there is no significant difference.

Ash’s use of “Tall men are not men they are tall men” is specifically trying to point out what she thinks a rediculous claim by Jenkinson, “Transwomen are not women they are transwomen”. But that relies on Ash’s false presupposition that Transwomen are women. Jenkinson is right, transwomen are not women (they are not a subset of women), they are transwomen (a subset of men).

So, of course, Ash’s “Tall men are not men they are tall men” is false, as she knows, but “Transwomen are not women they are transwomen” is true, because transwomen are a subset of all men.

To think transwomen are women is to confuse innate characteristics with adaptable identities, which becomes a problem every time Ash thinks she’s spotted a White Supremacists – she may well have dead-skinned a Transblack Black Supremacists, to use an adaptation of a favourite notion of Trans ideology, dead-naming.

After so many advances against bigotry the TRA ideologues are not only blurring that issue, but they are engaging in their own bigotry – as you can see by the many abusive TRA messages that appear in the social media of women. This also illustrates the fact that transwomen are not women but men, the misogyny of transwomen TRAs against women is far greater than is the bigotry against men, and is also greater than the abuse from transmen (women) against men or women. The most abuse you see is from TRA transwomen and their ‘allies’, against actual women.

Innate Characteristics v Changeable Identities

There are innate characteristics, and then there are changeable identities and behaviours:

1 – Man/Woman* – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real. The sets are distinct.

2 – Black/White – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real. The difference here though is that skin colour, and race, are ALL mixes, from pareant to child, within and outside human ‘races’, because all decend from a small number of original humans. Therefore it is far easier for ‘mixed race’ (mixed in the recent past when previously disparate groups began to mix more often) to identify as black or white or neither or both. The problem with race is not the variety of races, but the fact that some people use morphological differences to discriminate against people that don’t “look like us” – i.e. actual racism. The sets are actually complex in this case. Isolated peoples could be put into distince sets based on morphology that would have a correspondence in DNA. However, after so much mixing (and there was always some mixing except in rare very isolated cases) it is impossible to put individuals into distinct sets – even the whitest of white supremacists would have a hard time explaining away some of their genetic heritage.

3 – Christian/Muslim – Changeable identities – You get a choice. Note how committed many Chrisians and Muslims are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many atheists that were believers look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt in their religion they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity. The sets and subsets are clear, though people may swtich between them.

4 – Transman/Transwoman – Changeable identities – You get a choice, whether to be a man, or a trans woman; or to be a woman, or a trans man. Note how committed many Transmen and Transwomen are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many de-transitioners look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity. So, as in 1, you can act out as if you can change from a man into a woman, but that does not make it innate or real. The innate characteristics are being a man or a woman, the ‘feeling’, the adapted identity, trans woman, trans man, is not innate. The sets are clear, and even rare intersex cases do not refute this.

5 – Being Jesus – Mistaken identity – It’s clear to most sensible people that any person today claiming to be Jesus the returned Messiah is in fact deluded and mentally ill. Along with many other delusions, including many forms of paranoia, sufferers need help to overcome their condition, not affirmative support. The sets of mental illness are not so clear because we can all suffer degrees of delusion, which may change over time. But, in many specific cases there is enough information available to classify someone as suffering an illness, rather than genuinely being Jesus returned.

6 – Religious Belief – The God Delusion. Enough said. Distinct sets and subsets. There may be some ‘spiritual’ outer set that includes many people that can’t decide on a particular religion, but profession to one religion usually excludes all others, except to the extent that there are subsets, sects, or religions that are ostensibly the same religion at the core: Christian (Catholic, Protestand, Baptist, …) ; Muslim (Sunni, Shia, …). It’s laughable that the religious, which for expansionist purposes call themselves ‘inclusive’ are pretty good at letting you know which other scsts of the same religion are no ‘proper’ Muslims or Christians.

7 – Somatoparaphrenia – “Somatoparaphrenia is a type of monothematic delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one’s body. Even if provided with undeniable proof that the limb belongs to and is attached to their own body, the patient produces elaborate confabulations about whose limb it really is or how the limb ended up on their body.” Clearly, in these cases the problem is one of a sufferer of a mental condition caused cognitive impairments. The set of sufferers of somatoparaphrenia form a subset of people with mental issues**.

8 – Body Disphoria – “Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia, is a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others. People of any age can have BDD, but it’s most common in teenagers and young adults. It affects both men and women. Having BDD does not mean you’re vain or self-obsessed. It can be very upsetting and have a big impact on your life.” – On the other hand we have this arbitrary claim from a group that supports the affirmation of trans identities, “A transgender person experiences distress because their body does not reflect their true gender. Conversely, a person with body dysmorphia experiences distress because they perceive flaws in their body or weight that do not exist.” This is extreme gaslighting. As far as I’m aware there is no genuine research that shows “in the wrong body” compared to one’s “true gender” is a meaningful distinction from a delusion. People suffering body dysphoria form a subset of people suffering mental issues.

9 – Homosexuality/Bisexuality – These are sets based on what one’s sexual attraction is. This is not a mental illness**. There is no dysphoria regarding one’s own body. Some homophobes may like to classify it as a mental illness because sexual preference is traditionally and mostly heterosexual, and heterosexuality is evolutionarily required for the propagation of the species, at least prior to current advances such as artificial insemination. But, heterosexuality is not required across all members of the species. Many heterosexual couples choose not to have children and the species survives – though if this occurs in enough people it would not. So, the Human species (and others) can survive some proportion being homosexual – and bisexuality need have no impact on reproduction at all.

*Don’t let the arguments from ‘intersex’ confuse the issue. Most trans people are not intersex, they are straight forward biological male or female.

**There is a genuine question of what counts as a mental illness, as opposed to something that is contrary to a societies customs and moral attitudes.

Fallible Heroes – Alice Roberts

This is the first of a series on Fallible Heroes – where people I follow, support, and respect, get it wrong sometimes. This may seem like a trivial case, but the last tweet in the final image expresses the importance of it – “I too want everyone to feel protected but discussion gets shut down with cries of ‘bigot’. “

[Feel free to tweet this … since I’m blocked for opposing extremists.]

I use ‘cis women’ here to mean … shock, women. I do this simply to avoid the gaslighting narrative that presumes any mention of women includes trans-women, so that it’s clear which I’m referring to.

I’ve followed Alice Roberts since her days on the UK TV programme Coast. I’ve seen some of her other TV documentaries … and now she’s president of Humanists UK.

So, it was a bit of a disappointment to see the following exchange, since Alice’s response, in blocking rather than engaging – at least providing a link to some ready presentation of her views on the matter of transgender issues – leaves a vacuum that actual bigots could fill.

My interest here is not to support any positions that her interlocutor, Michael, might take, but to wish for a better response from the president of Humanists UK in trying to reach those that disagree with her. And, it is clear from other responses that Alice’s decision to block has not helped any case she might wish to make, but has simply affirmed, in the minds of those that disagree, that she has no position worth making.

Bit of an own goal.

Yes, I know, she’s busy and can’t engage with every actual transphobe on the planet. But, the current understanding of trans issues is not a done deal, and there are many people with mixed views on the issue, and I expect quite a few in Humantsts UK.

So, what was the exchange? Here is part of it (link to the thread), which began with a question regarding trans issues … and in particular the conflict of interests that exist between cis women and trans women in some specific scenarios.

Alice responded to an assertion in another tweet (from someone else) about the binary nature of sex …

This is the point where it might have been helpful, in spreading the Humanist scientific, rational and kind message, had Alice pointed to some useful information that she thinks lays out her position on this complex subject. After all, Twitter is hardly the place, and surely this isn’t a new topic for Alice.

Actually, he did. It was pretty clear from the start that what was being discussed was the human issue of gender identity with regard to the issues that are currently hotly debated. And, if anything, Alice could be quizzed here about whether she was attempting to slip in the appeal to nature fallacy.

And then …

And, why is this block a problem? Because it leaves other’s with their echo chamber and promotes the idea that Alice isn’t really as committed to trans issues as she might have tried to imply.

Alice Roberts cannot be expected to engage in debates that will probably go nowhere, so that she chose not to carry on, seeing the lie of the land in the thread, her disengagement might have been the best option … but, it could have been done with more dignity and less of what appears to be petulance (whether it was or not in Alice’s mind). For example …

This is too complicated for Twitter, so I’ll leave you with Humanists UK on trans issues … LGBT Humanists responds to Gender Recognition Act consultation

However, Alice does continue to subject, when it suits …

Sense indeed. But it still doesn’t address the actual issue, about humans, that eventually incited Alice to block. Those questioning Alice on this issue would really like to know how you square the circle here – which is, socially, how do we deal with the two conflicting (not always, but not never, either):

Allowing trans people to live the lives they choose.
Allowing women to live the lives they choose.

Do you remember when we had safe spaces for cis women to protect them from men – even though not all men are a threat to cis women?

Why can’t cis women have safe spaces from trans women – even though not all trans women are a threat to cis women?

Are there any trans women who fear other trans women? After all, some trans women are very much like traditional cis women, and those trans women need safe spaces from men too, … and by extension, from some trans women.

These are complex issues, and Alice Roberts cannot be expected to have all the answers (indeed, answers that would satisfy everyone are mythical beasts). But the block was disappointing, if only for the reason that the blocked person will not see a more reasonable debate going on.

Alice doesn’t say how she thinks this circle might be squared. Which I think is precisely the point Michael was trying to make, and which Alice avoided.

Nevertheless, Alice is a great president of Humanists UK, and this criticism on this particular matter of this block will not change my opinion on that.