When the obvious is transgressive

From The reality of sex by Emma Hilton, Pam Thompson, Colin Wright & David Curtis.  From their letter.

Public discourse around sex increasingly seeks to deny basic facts of human biology. One recent example has been the treatment of Suzanne Moore at The Guardian following her attempts to discuss sex-related issues (https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/). This denialism is no longer confined to humanities departments and social media hashtags but has made inroads into mainstream culture, in part due to a highly sympathetic media environment. Of particular concern to us is the sight of respected scientific publications, such as Nature, now beginning to echo these popular trends. In a recent article discussing a research study of differential disease burden in male and female patients with cystic fibrosis, the following disclaimer was inserted: “Nature recognizes that sex and gender are not the same, and are neither fixed nor binary”. The Chief Supplements Editor of Nature has confirmed that it is the journal’s policy to add such disclaimers (Herb Brody, personal communication).

We regard the claim that sex is neither fixed nor binary to be entirely without scientific merit—there are two sexes, male and female, and in humans, sex is immutable (disorders of sexual development are very rare and, in any event, do not result in any additional sexes). Such politically motivated policies and statements have no place in scientific journals. It is essential that impartiality be maintained in order to preserve public trust in science as a process dedicated to producing shared knowledge.

I agree with their position .  But it is striking that Postmodernism and Critical Theory have brought us this low, affirming the otherwise obivous.

On the other hand, as I have posted before, sometimes it takes a while to establish the obvious.

All of this calls to mind a footnote from long ago. It was from Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Published in 1910, it was their attempt to put mathematics on a firm and logic-based foundation, an effort which extended to three volumes. It is famous for the fact that not till page 379 in the first edition of Volume I do they find it safe to conclude:

From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1 + 1 = 2.

379 pages is a long way to get to one plus one equals two. But well worth it.

And in fact they were not completely done. They didn't actually complete the proof until page 86 of Volume II. And when having finally proved it to their satisfaction, they observe, tongue in cheek "The above proposition is occasionally useful."

 For practical purposes though, we all ought to be comfortable that sex is real and 1+1 = 2 and we don't need to spend some 450 pages proving either useful proposition.  No matter how loudly critical theorists and postmodernists hoot and holler.