Reality's Last Stand

Reality's Last Stand is a hub for great writing on science, free speech, sex and gender, and related topics. If you'd like to publish your writing in RLS, please send your submission to: realityslaststand at gmail dot com realityslaststand.com

Here's something I'm seeing more and more in "woke" research papers: ritualized, emotion-filled confessionals about the authors' "positionality" designed to signal academic rigor. These aren't actual research methods, although they're often in the Methods section. In this paper, the section is called "Reflexivity and Rigor." One author's "experience as a Black, genderfluid, queer clinician and academic" apparently shaped the research questions, while the other authors are described as "white, heterosexual, cisgender women." Then we get this: "These ongoing dialogues created intentional spaces to question ideas and examine how each author's social location informed their meaning-making." They also "shared excerpts from analytic memos...which captured the first and second authors' emotional reactions to the transcripts and their analytic insights." All of this apprently "deepened the authors' understanding of the data and helped to manage bias; thus, ensuring a thoughtfully interrogated analysis." This is bizarre. Academic publishing is supposed to minimize bias. That's the whole point of blinded peer review. But instead of concealing the authors' immutable characteristics, these papers foreground the authors' skin color, sexuality, and gender identity. The authors claim this helps "manage bias," but I suspect it does the opposite. Instead, it signals to reviewers: We are good, progressive, emotionally empathetic people doing The Work. Please treat us accordingly.

You know what PHYSICS education needs more of? Indigenous pseudoscience. This new paper wants to integrate "Indigenous Knowledge Systems" into physics classrooms to "advance epistemic justice." You see, physics is frequently characterized as "culturally neutral" and "universally valid" despite being "grounded in Western epistemology," and this cultural bias "marginalises Indigenous ways of knowing." We need a "pluriversal engagement framework that operationalizes Indigenous Knowledge Systems integration...to teach thermodynamics [and] community-based astronomy initiatives linking Indigenous cosmologies with physics concepts." By "embedding Indigenous knowledge within physics curricula in universities of technology and similar Global South contexts," we can finally get to back to what physics education is supposed to be all about: "advancing epistemic inclusion." Just think of what @SpaceX could achieve if @elonmusk integrated Indigenous Knowledge Systems into rocket design. They would be truly unstoppable!

"This meta-analysis had eight authors, presumably two to four peer reviewers, and at least one editor. Yet apparently none of them identified one or more of the problems I have highlighted here. That is terrifying!" –@JamesLNuzzo realityslaststand.com/p/how-a-flawed…

"'Sex,' once understood as a biological classification, was gradually made to include 'gender identity,' a subjective feeling. Once an objective biological anchor is gone, policy will go wherever activists want to pull it." –@SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/the-lefts-lo…

🧵A new woke paper introduces the concept of "temporal dysphoria" and "trans time," which is a distinct relationship to time experienced by transgender people. Yes, really. It supposedly manifests in three forms: • "Missing time" • "The time loop" • "Disjuncture of time, place, and progress"

"This case was never complicated from a biological standpoint. The confusion did not arise from a lack of evidence, but from a refusal of left-wing journalists to report the truth and the public's unwillingness to reason independently." ✍️@SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/imane-khelif…

"This barrage of activist-driven research has created the illusion that biology has undergone a paradigm shift where biologists no longer believe in a simple male–female distinction... But that scientific revolution never actually happened." @SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/the-latest-a…

A new @ncri_io report reveals that coordinated booster networks, foreign engagement farms, synchronized retweets, and a media ecosystem that mistook fake momentum for real influence all helped elevate Nick Fuentes into national view. By @SwipeWright. realityslaststand.com/p/the-manufact…

"The more one digs, the clearer it becomes that PATHWAYS is less a scientific endeavor than an expensive piece of theater designed to keep puberty blockers on the table while performing a pantomime of clinical trials." @lecanardnoir realityslaststand.com/p/the-nhss-pub…

"If people discriminate over something as trivial as a coin toss, it should come as no surprise that identities rooted in centuries of culture, religion, ethnicity, or nationality exert far greater influence on how they perceive and treat others." @JowanM realityslaststand.com/p/the-multicul…

This is a truly fantastic essay by @JowanM exposing the paradox of multiculturalism through the lens of human psychology. Multiple groups maintaining strong racial, ethnic, or religious identities does not foster national unity; it fosters prejudice. "We readily recognize the dangers of strong group identity when it fuels far-right movements, yet this insight mysteriously disappears when the very same dynamics emerge within migrant or minority communities. This blind spot reflects the core creed of multiculturalism: noble intentions and moral rhetoric paired with total disregard for real-world outcomes." Free article. Link below: 🔗realityslaststand.com/p/the-multicul…

"Is the sex binary a trap sprung by conservative reactionaries? Or is it a widely known scientific fact that well-intentioned progressive academics have squirted out much squid ink to deny, clouding the public discourse to no valuable end?" –@byrne_a realityslaststand.com/p/beyond-the-b…

"Anticipation of a thing is, by definition, not the thing itself. This is why Orr and colleagues’ claim violates one of the foundational principles of logic: the Law of Identity." – @JamesLNuzzo realityslaststand.com/p/no-anticipat…

"The new policy would impose a blanket ban on athletes who have undergone male puberty, regardless of identity or what’s indicated on one’s birth certificate. Predictably, this has been grossly misrepresented in the press." –@SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/after-years-…

"When it comes to why female sex symbols like Sydney Sweeney are so captivating, it may be that their appeal lies in a rare biological combination: boobs that are perkier than one would expect given their enormity." – @SpeciesTypical realityslaststand.com/p/the-science-…

"The principle that 'community well-being is more important than accurate data' is indistinguishable from the claim that lying is acceptable when the truth is politically inconvenient." –@SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/data-activis…

Why I reject the "No enemies to my right" approach pushed by @MattWalshBlog and others: For one, it’s electoral suicide. Much of the left has already embraced a “no enemies to my left” ethos in recent years. Leftist commentators who promote absurd or even openly racist ideas—such as Robin DiAngelo and Sarah Rao—have been largely shielded from criticism by their ideological allies on the grounds that they’re fighting for the right team. The result has not been increased political effectiveness. Instead, the right successfully tied these radicals to the Democratic Party as a whole, tainting the party with the worst excesses of its far-left fringe. Many voters supported Trump—or simply stayed home—not because they admired him, but because they were exhausted by the overreach, moral hysteria, and frequently insane ideas of the far left. The right shouldn't make the same mistake. My latest for @SwipeWright's @RealLastStand realityslaststand.com/p/no-enemies-t…

"In short, the ruling restores the plain meaning of 'sex' as Congress originally intended and reasserts that only lawmakers—not unelected officials—have the power to redefine such a foundational term." – @SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/breaking-fed…

"Research among Pakistani families shows that most parents have a limited understanding of genetics or basic patterns of inheritance. Many attributed congenital disorders to supernatural causes like the 'evil eye,' fate, or divine will." – @SwipeWright realityslaststand.com/p/first-cousin…