I do not mind that Lisa is put off by some of my fellow conservatives BECAUSE she listens and is willing to respect those with whom she does not have all her values validated. This story is so very important. I am a retired pediatric specialist and I am deeply troubled and shocked at the extent to which academic pediatricians have retreated into their silos and refused to consider the fundamental violations of medical ethics. The idea that a 12 year old can provide informed consent for permanent, life-limiting decisions is abhorrent to all who understand adolescence in the most elemental sense.
I'm also not put off by conservatives themselves—I like lots of you guys! I just am not a conservative and am reminded of that by the interactions. But I very much understand the belief system. I just don't share it. And I certainly don't share the far left belief system, either. really hoping we get a vibrant center!
I don't believe for one second that there are more male geniuses than men, biologically. Mozart was a genius. So was his sister, Nan, but we've never heard of her because of patriarchy. How many female geniuses have been and are currently missed. Probably most. Who even says IQ tests (invented by men) are able to capture female genius? The IQ distribution also perfectly reflects social dynamics: women are oppressed and controlled by men as reproductive resources, so we have less chance of failure but also less chance of great success. It’s not that women natural don’t achieve either extreme: it’s that our social role and how people treat us is totally different and this yields different results. This dynamic affects the development of our IQ. Virginia Woolf a Room of One’s Own addresses this whole dynamic. It’s the reason why men are now claiming that the formal school system (which they designed, at our exclusion) is “biased to benefit girls”...bc when we actually get to do the things they do (ie study Latin, study chemistry)...we’re better at it. The grades don’t lie. Maybe the male smartness tests say we’re dumber, but the real world results don’t lie. You systematically lower the text scores of female applicants to Tokyo University med school because women have BETTER scores. Female surgeons have a lower rate of patient morbidity because women are BETTER at being surgeons, clearly. You have historical laws that only a tiny minority of applicants to the formal exhibition salons in France for paintings are female...because women are so good we need to be actively prevented from achieving our max ability. The more women with the opportunity and the self trust to dream, test and fail...the more female geniuses. If female IQ is as high as it is across the board after 20,000+ years of male oppression...men should be really scared. We’ll see how things change. But I don’t for one second buy the “less female super high IQs is biological” garbage. I work in a creative field with a lot of “geniuses” ...let me tell you right now. Yes, all the past ones are men bc women couldn’t even leave their house and talk to a stranger alone back in the day, let alone have proper schooling. But in the present...the women would be called geniuses if they were male. Instead, they’re just called “hard workers.”
"If only The New York Times had covered this issue adequately…"
Yes, it's impossible to know just how much a trusted news source can influence the dialogue but for many people the Times is the "style" guide to political salience. They whiffed on this big time. Why? Perhaps because peers of NY Times writers are experiencing the issue first hand and it's a sticky wicket for their friends to navigate.
Please remember that not every foe of your foe is a friend.
Heather Heying has thoroughly discredited herself with her uncritical embrace and promotion of her husband Bret Weinstein's dangerous and unfounded claims about the dangers of the COVID vaccine and about the safety and efficacy of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. And that's not the half of it.
Listen to the October 16, 2023, episode of the podcast "Decoding the Gurus" where the hosts "dive into a recent episode of the DarkHorse to explore the Alex Jones' level conspiracies that Bret and Heather have recently been promoting about the horrific events in Israel. You might imagine it would be difficult to make such a tragic event about COVID dissidents and vaccines but if so you are underestimating the InfoHorse hosts."
Brett and Heather are notorious for holding themselves out as instant experts on culture-war topics light years removed from their academic specialties and for their affinity for terrible takes on critically important issues.
It is extremely disappointing that the program planners did not vet Heather more carefully before extending an invitation to participate in the event.
I struggle with this in so many areas. There are many, many commentators (including some of the guests that appear on my favorite podcasts, Substack and YT channels) who in my view espouse abhorrent beliefs on other issues, but have a spot-on analysis when it comes to gender. It’s helping me move away from throwing out the baby with the bathwater - but it does make me wonder whether the fractures make it harder to get work done on this issue. I’m certainly a “left-ugee” so to speak, but I still share and support lots of left and liberal perspectives and causes.
In my opinion, Heying and Weinstein's unfounded and loony claims that the COVID-19 vaccine is terribly dangerous to humans and their baseless and dangerous promotion of Ivermectin as a therapy for COVID-19 are the moral and scientific equivalent of when a gender affirming doctor tells the parents of a boy who says he's a girl that they have a choice: they can have a live daughter or a son who died by suicide.
How could Genspect, an organization that prides itself on embracing science, possibly provide a platform for someone who has made and continues to make such false and irresponsible claims about COVID-19, the greatest global health emergency in generations? It is not a matter of having reasonable differences in scientific opinion. Among other things, neither Heying nor Weinstein possess the academic credentials and experience to give informed opinions on these matters. They're just plain reckless.
This new left is incapable of sanity... so don't get your hopes up. A life time of damage from lies with reinforcement from equally damaged professors and spiritually hammered people will require a new reincarnation I think and long suffering until that day arrives. You know, wipe the slate clean and hope for the best.
From your link: According to psychologist Diane Halpern, "there are both differences and similarities in the cognitive abilities of women and men, but there is no data-based rationale to support the idea that either is the smarter or superior sex."[2].
Thanks for saying this. I’m glad you were able to get some credit, although it’s outrageous that you had to fight for it. I always have to wonder about the methodology of these studies when reading “statistics” about males vs females. I learned long ago that statistics can be manipulated.
I normally agree with everything that Lisa says, but her comment agreeing with someone who said there are “more male geniuses and more male morons” makes me want to ask for the statistics on that. How many females and males never have a chance to fulfill their intellectual potential? This is one of those questionably funny generalizations that take away from the rest of what she is saying here.
I don't know if I agreed with her—I thought it was funny. But I notice that the women who feel most comfortable with these data are those who defy it and aren't defined by it. They're not the least bit threatened by these averages because they fall outside them.
The women who defy it may be comfortable with it, but it's not doing any of the rest of us any favors. Still, thanks for your helpful reporting on gender ideology.
It’s just the IQ distributions of males and females. That stat has been available for a while. More women are of average intelligence--so the median female is more likely to be of slightly higher intelligence than the median male, but males occupy more of the extreme tails of the bell curve--a few more geniuses and a few more morons.
That there are differences between males and females, and they are important and salient differences, and there is an impulse among both feminists and gender identitarians to pretend that the sexes are actually perfectly equal or the same along any axis.
It's true from an IQ distribution standpoint. More men at the top and the bottom but very little differences otherwise. Check out the James Damore (Google) and Larry Summer (Harvard) sagas. Both dated state the facts but ran into intense criticism for having done so.
This isn’t about level of education or professional attainment--it’s about IQ. You can disagree with whether IQ is a meaningful metric, but if you believe it is, then this is just the recorded distribution comparing males vs females.
I don’t think anyone talking about that stat is arguing that that is the sole reason why we haven’t had more female geniuses throughout history--certainly we all recognize that there were social and other artificial barriers to women participating in the competition for genius in science, art, mathematics, literature, etc.
The “someone” who said this was Heather Heying during her opening presentation Sunday morning. I doubt she’s a misogynist--her entire presentation was about her experience as a biologist in the 80s--but if you’d like to quibble with her statistics or her sexism I suppose you are more than entitled to do so.
Did you get to go the conference? Who was your favorite speaker? I like Jesse Singal, and Carole Hooven, Leor Sapir and Jamie Reed. No one can say this conference didn’t have some great speakers. I saw a lot of my friends in the photos.
I did. I really enjoyed just about all of the speakers. Jamie Reed was very moving, Shellenberger was rousing, Zhenya’s citations for the original Dutch studies on adults blew my mind, Wilfred Reilly made us all laugh at the very end.
Did Ms. Heying explain how IQ is relevant to the task at hand, namely rolling back the excesses of trans activism and protecting children and others from the rush to use drugs, hormones and surgery to treat people who claim they are or want to be the other sex or gender or none?
It was part of her presentation on sex differences that she’s studied in other animals.
It seems to me that there is an unwillingness to acknowledge this as fact because it feels sexist that is indistinguishable from gender activists’ refusal to acknowledge that males are stronger, bigger, faster than females.
Just because it feels unequal or unjust does not mean it is untrue, and denying reality is exactly how we got here in the first place.
My mother got me and my brother an E-Z Bake oven when we were kids in the 1980s. I believe it had a positive impact on me. I just wish gender could be more of a play thing for kids and adults, and not something so dire and permanent that everyone is expected to figure out for their whole lives the moment they sprout the first patches of body hair.
I do not mind that Lisa is put off by some of my fellow conservatives BECAUSE she listens and is willing to respect those with whom she does not have all her values validated. This story is so very important. I am a retired pediatric specialist and I am deeply troubled and shocked at the extent to which academic pediatricians have retreated into their silos and refused to consider the fundamental violations of medical ethics. The idea that a 12 year old can provide informed consent for permanent, life-limiting decisions is abhorrent to all who understand adolescence in the most elemental sense.
I'm also not put off by conservatives themselves—I like lots of you guys! I just am not a conservative and am reminded of that by the interactions. But I very much understand the belief system. I just don't share it. And I certainly don't share the far left belief system, either. really hoping we get a vibrant center!
Your journalism is greatly valued, both published and unpublished.
Today I’m identifying as a MALE genius
I don't believe for one second that there are more male geniuses than men, biologically. Mozart was a genius. So was his sister, Nan, but we've never heard of her because of patriarchy. How many female geniuses have been and are currently missed. Probably most. Who even says IQ tests (invented by men) are able to capture female genius? The IQ distribution also perfectly reflects social dynamics: women are oppressed and controlled by men as reproductive resources, so we have less chance of failure but also less chance of great success. It’s not that women natural don’t achieve either extreme: it’s that our social role and how people treat us is totally different and this yields different results. This dynamic affects the development of our IQ. Virginia Woolf a Room of One’s Own addresses this whole dynamic. It’s the reason why men are now claiming that the formal school system (which they designed, at our exclusion) is “biased to benefit girls”...bc when we actually get to do the things they do (ie study Latin, study chemistry)...we’re better at it. The grades don’t lie. Maybe the male smartness tests say we’re dumber, but the real world results don’t lie. You systematically lower the text scores of female applicants to Tokyo University med school because women have BETTER scores. Female surgeons have a lower rate of patient morbidity because women are BETTER at being surgeons, clearly. You have historical laws that only a tiny minority of applicants to the formal exhibition salons in France for paintings are female...because women are so good we need to be actively prevented from achieving our max ability. The more women with the opportunity and the self trust to dream, test and fail...the more female geniuses. If female IQ is as high as it is across the board after 20,000+ years of male oppression...men should be really scared. We’ll see how things change. But I don’t for one second buy the “less female super high IQs is biological” garbage. I work in a creative field with a lot of “geniuses” ...let me tell you right now. Yes, all the past ones are men bc women couldn’t even leave their house and talk to a stranger alone back in the day, let alone have proper schooling. But in the present...the women would be called geniuses if they were male. Instead, they’re just called “hard workers.”
Exactly! Ain't this the truth!
Lisa, I’m glad you felt up to reporting in, and so appreciate your recap and observations. Sending all best wishes for a speedy recovery.
"If only The New York Times had covered this issue adequately…"
Yes, it's impossible to know just how much a trusted news source can influence the dialogue but for many people the Times is the "style" guide to political salience. They whiffed on this big time. Why? Perhaps because peers of NY Times writers are experiencing the issue first hand and it's a sticky wicket for their friends to navigate.
Thanks!
Please remember that not every foe of your foe is a friend.
Heather Heying has thoroughly discredited herself with her uncritical embrace and promotion of her husband Bret Weinstein's dangerous and unfounded claims about the dangers of the COVID vaccine and about the safety and efficacy of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. And that's not the half of it.
Listen to the October 16, 2023, episode of the podcast "Decoding the Gurus" where the hosts "dive into a recent episode of the DarkHorse to explore the Alex Jones' level conspiracies that Bret and Heather have recently been promoting about the horrific events in Israel. You might imagine it would be difficult to make such a tragic event about COVID dissidents and vaccines but if so you are underestimating the InfoHorse hosts."
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-the-gurus/id1531266667
Brett and Heather are notorious for holding themselves out as instant experts on culture-war topics light years removed from their academic specialties and for their affinity for terrible takes on critically important issues.
It is extremely disappointing that the program planners did not vet Heather more carefully before extending an invitation to participate in the event.
I struggle with this in so many areas. There are many, many commentators (including some of the guests that appear on my favorite podcasts, Substack and YT channels) who in my view espouse abhorrent beliefs on other issues, but have a spot-on analysis when it comes to gender. It’s helping me move away from throwing out the baby with the bathwater - but it does make me wonder whether the fractures make it harder to get work done on this issue. I’m certainly a “left-ugee” so to speak, but I still share and support lots of left and liberal perspectives and causes.
In my opinion, Heying and Weinstein's unfounded and loony claims that the COVID-19 vaccine is terribly dangerous to humans and their baseless and dangerous promotion of Ivermectin as a therapy for COVID-19 are the moral and scientific equivalent of when a gender affirming doctor tells the parents of a boy who says he's a girl that they have a choice: they can have a live daughter or a son who died by suicide.
How could Genspect, an organization that prides itself on embracing science, possibly provide a platform for someone who has made and continues to make such false and irresponsible claims about COVID-19, the greatest global health emergency in generations? It is not a matter of having reasonable differences in scientific opinion. Among other things, neither Heying nor Weinstein possess the academic credentials and experience to give informed opinions on these matters. They're just plain reckless.
Heying and Weinstein truly jumped the shark with their Covid conspiracy-mongering.
I suspect the road to that particular hell was paved with the vile treatment they received at Evergreen State College.
Nonetheless, like you, @Ollie Parks, I am not inclined to give either one an audience these days.
This new left is incapable of sanity... so don't get your hopes up. A life time of damage from lies with reinforcement from equally damaged professors and spiritually hammered people will require a new reincarnation I think and long suffering until that day arrives. You know, wipe the slate clean and hope for the best.
From your link: According to psychologist Diane Halpern, "there are both differences and similarities in the cognitive abilities of women and men, but there is no data-based rationale to support the idea that either is the smarter or superior sex."[2].
And then, too, this is Wikipedia.
Thanks for saying this. I’m glad you were able to get some credit, although it’s outrageous that you had to fight for it. I always have to wonder about the methodology of these studies when reading “statistics” about males vs females. I learned long ago that statistics can be manipulated.
I normally agree with everything that Lisa says, but her comment agreeing with someone who said there are “more male geniuses and more male morons” makes me want to ask for the statistics on that. How many females and males never have a chance to fulfill their intellectual potential? This is one of those questionably funny generalizations that take away from the rest of what she is saying here.
I don't know if I agreed with her—I thought it was funny. But I notice that the women who feel most comfortable with these data are those who defy it and aren't defined by it. They're not the least bit threatened by these averages because they fall outside them.
The women who defy it may be comfortable with it, but it's not doing any of the rest of us any favors. Still, thanks for your helpful reporting on gender ideology.
It’s just the IQ distributions of males and females. That stat has been available for a while. More women are of average intelligence--so the median female is more likely to be of slightly higher intelligence than the median male, but males occupy more of the extreme tails of the bell curve--a few more geniuses and a few more morons.
What does this have to do with combating gender identity ideology?
That there are differences between males and females, and they are important and salient differences, and there is an impulse among both feminists and gender identitarians to pretend that the sexes are actually perfectly equal or the same along any axis.
Please provide a link.
https://www.google.com/search?q=iq+distribution+of+males+vs+females&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Take your pick.
It's true from an IQ distribution standpoint. More men at the top and the bottom but very little differences otherwise. Check out the James Damore (Google) and Larry Summer (Harvard) sagas. Both dated state the facts but ran into intense criticism for having done so.
This isn’t about level of education or professional attainment--it’s about IQ. You can disagree with whether IQ is a meaningful metric, but if you believe it is, then this is just the recorded distribution comparing males vs females.
I don’t think anyone talking about that stat is arguing that that is the sole reason why we haven’t had more female geniuses throughout history--certainly we all recognize that there were social and other artificial barriers to women participating in the competition for genius in science, art, mathematics, literature, etc.
The “someone” who said this was Heather Heying during her opening presentation Sunday morning. I doubt she’s a misogynist--her entire presentation was about her experience as a biologist in the 80s--but if you’d like to quibble with her statistics or her sexism I suppose you are more than entitled to do so.
Did you get to go the conference? Who was your favorite speaker? I like Jesse Singal, and Carole Hooven, Leor Sapir and Jamie Reed. No one can say this conference didn’t have some great speakers. I saw a lot of my friends in the photos.
I did. I really enjoyed just about all of the speakers. Jamie Reed was very moving, Shellenberger was rousing, Zhenya’s citations for the original Dutch studies on adults blew my mind, Wilfred Reilly made us all laugh at the very end.
Did Ms. Heying explain how IQ is relevant to the task at hand, namely rolling back the excesses of trans activism and protecting children and others from the rush to use drugs, hormones and surgery to treat people who claim they are or want to be the other sex or gender or none?
It was part of her presentation on sex differences that she’s studied in other animals.
It seems to me that there is an unwillingness to acknowledge this as fact because it feels sexist that is indistinguishable from gender activists’ refusal to acknowledge that males are stronger, bigger, faster than females.
Just because it feels unequal or unjust does not mean it is untrue, and denying reality is exactly how we got here in the first place.
Stickering right in Brooklyn!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g_-wcxyDduY
My mother got me and my brother an E-Z Bake oven when we were kids in the 1980s. I believe it had a positive impact on me. I just wish gender could be more of a play thing for kids and adults, and not something so dire and permanent that everyone is expected to figure out for their whole lives the moment they sprout the first patches of body hair.
Thank you for this reporting! For all your work. And when is Housewife coming out?! I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Was great meeting you there.