The sad decline of Humanists UK and a very silly professor

Professor Alice Roberts is a TV personality best known for presenting science and history television documentaries. She is also the vice president of Humanists UK.

She is also very, very silly.

Despite the PhD, the title of Professor, from her role as Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, and a lifetime in scientific disciplines, she promotes some nonsensical ideas. Here’s one of them: that it’s not possible to say there are two human sexes.

Here’s her post quoting from and supporting a nonsense Guardian newspaper article based upon a ridiculous article in the journal Nature:

Now, my girlfriend’s dog knows that there are two human sexes. She can smell the difference instantly. Her dog, that is, not my girlfriend. Despite that, the Professor thinks:

“there has never been scientific (or philosophical or sociological) consensus that there are simply 2 human sexes, that they are easily (and objectively) distinguished, and that there is no overlap”

How embarrassing for her that she has decided to promote such claptrap. Fancy a dog knowing more than a Professor of Public Engagement in Science.

There are and always have been two human sexes, because in every plant an animal that reproduces sexually and has different sized gametes (sex cells) there are two types, ones which produce large gametes, called eggs, and ones which produce small gametes, called sperm. Sometimes other plants and animals can be both sexes at the same time, sometimes other plants and animals can be one sex then another. Not humans.

The Universal Biological Definition of sex is that there are two. It’s literally defined that way.

Any belief other than this is a religious belief that depends upon a belief in the existence of gendered souls inhabiting wrong-sex bodies. Since you are your body, any such idea is anti-scientific nonsense.

Joan Smith is a prominent feminist and successful author who resigned as a patron of Humanists UK over its ‘pro-trans posturing’. She said she could no longer support Humanists UK after it opposed moves to define sex as biological sex in the Equality Act 2010. Why did Humanists UK do this? It’s because this anti-religious group has fallen for believing in the new quasi-religion of Gender Identity.

Why I resigned from Humanists UK – Joan Smith

Who could have imagined that an organisation which rejects all religions and provides a home for people who live ethical lives based on reason, compassion, and the belief that humans are responsible for their own lives and society, would promote a new quasi-religion? How ridiculous of them. Humanists having a holier-than-thou attitude and belief in gender faeries is a complete betrayal of all they are meant to stand for. How could they not have noticed the irony of their take-over?

Humanists do not believe in a god or in supernatural forces, but are meant to rely instead on science and rational inquiry to understand the world. No science or rational inquiry supports babies being born in the wrong bodies or people having opposite-sex souls. Show me the evidence for opposite sex brains. Show me the evidence for all the other sexes apart from the two which actually exist. There are eggs and sperm and what else? Show me the evidence for a third, fourth or fifth gamete.

Why would anyone seemingly sensible promote the idea that ‘there aren’t just two sexes’ or that ‘people can be born in the wrong body’ or that ‘sex is assigned at birth’? In my view it’s easy to understand:

Humans are a social species and will believe literally anything which makes them popular or increases their social standing.

The fact that weak-minded individuals leading major organisations have abandoned their founding principles in a desperate attempt to appear fashionable should worry us all. Thank goodness for the Joan Smiths in this world.