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Showing posts with label Gerry Coyne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerry Coyne. Show all posts
Friendly Atheist 📜 When the Wall Street Journal is your megaphone, you’re not being silenced.

In an essay published in print yesterday, on the Trans Day of Visibility, biologist Jerry Coyne wrote in the Wall Street Journal (archived link) about his recent self-own against the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He said the atheist organization is no different from “religious fundamentalists” because they’ve “abandoned science,” and that’s why he and Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker resigned from the group’s honorary advisory board.

The article predictably paints Coyne as the arbiter of good science, leaving out all the lies he told along the way.

If you’re wondering what this is all about, you can read the whole backstory here. But in short, Coyne wrote an article in December that briefly appeared on FFRF’s website titled “Biology is not bigotry.” In it, Coyne wrongly insisted that sex is binary, lied about trans women, and pushed for discrimination against trans people. (More on that later.)

Nowhere in the piece did he describe the countless ways the trans community is under attack, largely by people making similar misguided arguments.

The article was so devoid of facts and empathy that FFRF soon took down the piece . . . 

Jerry Coyne Slams FFRF For “Abandoning Science” While Repeating Anti-Trans Lies

Friendly Atheist ✏ After several secular groups affirmed their support for LGBTQ rights, CFI has chosen to criticize them with more misinformation.

The Center For Inquiry is doubling down on its anti-transgender rhetoric following the release of a statement from more than a dozen other atheist/Humanist organizations defending LGBTQ+ rights.

There’s a lot happening here so let’s try to make sense of it.

What started this?

In early November, the Freedom From Religion Foundation published an article by former intern Kat Grant about how much of our society’s views on gender are steeped in religious traditions. Those views are still perpetuated today, Grant wrote, by right-wing groups and anti-trans people who “disregard both medical science and lived experience.”

That seems sensible. Who could have a problem with that?

Bigots, J.K. Rowling fans, and a whole bunch of “New Atheist” authors who think trans people are participating in a mass delusion. Jerry Coyne, who’s written multiple science books, asked FFRF to publish his rebuttal.

Oh no.

Don’t get ahead of me.

What did Coyne say in his piece?

In his essay titled “Biology is not bigotry,” Coyne wrongly insisted that sex is binary . . . 

Continue reading @ Friendly Atheist.

The Center For Inquiry's Latest Statement Continues To Push Anti-Trans Bigotry

Friendly Atheist ✏ Jerry Coyne, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins are big mad that FFRF removed an anti-trans article from their website.

Somehow, there are even more updates to the anti-trans controversy I first wrote about on Saturday.

In case you missed it, the short version is that biologist Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, wrote an article trashing transgender people. He insisted sex is binary, that trans women are more likely to be sexual predators (using misleading statistics), argued that trans women shouldn’t be allowed to counsel women who have been physically abused, rejected even the possibility of trans women playing women’s sports at any age, and said trans women shouldn’t be placed in women’s prisons (even though the alternative is disastrous).

Along the way, he just ignored the countless ways the trans community is under attack, largely by people making similar arguments.

None of this was shocking to those of us who have watched him go from a defender of science to an amplifier of right-wing propaganda.

But the problem wasn’t just that he wrote the piece.

Continue reading @ Friendly Atheist.

Three Prominent Atheists Resigned From FFRF's Honorary Board 🪶 Good Riddance

Freedom From Religion Foundation ✏ is dedicated to protecting the constitutional principle of state/church separation, which ensures religious beliefs do not dictate public policy. 

While advocating for LGBTQIA-plus rights is an indirect component of our mission, we recognize that many attacks on these rights are rooted in attempts to impose religious doctrines on our secular government.

We are acutely aware that Christian nationalists have cynically manipulated the LGBTQIA-plus issues just as they have cynically done so with abortion rights. We are proud to have a diverse staff and membership, 13 percent of whom identify as LGBTQIA and 97 percent support civil rights for the LGBTQ community — far more than the general population.

Religious interference often seeks to erode protections for LGBTQIA-plus individuals in areas such as marriage equality, health care, education and workplace rights. FFRF opposes these efforts, as they threaten not only individual freedoms but also the integrity of our secular democracy. FFRF recognizes the right of bodily autonomy for LGBTQIA-plus individuals, just as we consider that the government or outside individuals have no right to dictate or interfere with such intimate matters as abortion or contraception.

Continue reading @ FFRF.

Gerry Coyne's Letter Removed

Friendly Atheist ✏ The Freedom From Religion Foundation says they "regret any distress" caused by Jerry Coyne's thoughtless piece.
 
Jerry Coyne, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins have all resigned from the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Honorary Board.”

Good riddance. It’s always nice when the trash takes itself out. I urge FFRF to replace them with people who advance their cause instead of setting it back.

Somehow, in the span of about 24 hours, the Freedom From Religion Foundation made an egregious mistake, got plenty of well-deserved backlash for it, then quickly attempted to correct the problem. (And you can bet they’ll get plenty of undeserved backlash for trying to fix the error.)

If you have no clue what I’m talking about, congratulations on having a life outside the internet. I’ll be asking you for advice later.

This whole controversy dates back to a post on FFRF’s “Freethought Now” blog. (“Freethought Now” is the site where some FFRF staffers, lawyers, and interns elaborate on the group’s work. Recent articles focus on topics like Christian Nationalism and feminism. It’s nothing that would surprise their supporters.)

In early November, former FFRF intern Kat Grant posted an article about how much of our society’s views on gender are steeped in religious traditions.

Continue reading @ Friendly Atheist.

Atheist Group Faces Backlash After Publishing, Then Removing, Anti-Trans Article

Freedom From Religion Foundation ✏ Disclaimer: FFRF Honorary Board Member Jerry A. Coyne requested that this column be written as a guest blog. The views in this column are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the FFRF.

26-December-2024

In the Freethought Now article “What is a woman?”, author Kat Grant struggles at length to define the word, rejecting one definition after another as flawed or incomplete. Grant finally settles on a definition based on self-identity: “A woman is whoever she says she is.” 

This of course is a tautology, and still leaves open the question of what a woman really is. And the remarkable redefinition of a term with a long biological history can be seen only as an attempt to force ideology onto nature. Because some nonbinary people — or men who identify as women (“transwomen”) — feel that their identity is not adequately recognized by biology, they choose to impose ideology onto biology and concoct a new definition of “woman.”

Further, there are plenty of problems with the claim that self-identification maps directly onto empirical reality. You are not always fat if you feel fat . . .  

Continue reading @ FFRF.

Biology Is Not Bigotry

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