It’s still International Women’s Day in some parts of the world. There are still people who believe their feelings about their gender can trump biological facts. There are still people who risk their jobs if they question gender ideology. But there are also people fighting back, among them is Sall Grover: The founder of a […]
Women’s rights vs men’s demands
Women’s rights vs men’s demands
09 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, property rights Tags: conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Should we ditch the word “gender”?
06 Mar 2025 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
I’ve written sentences like this many times: “While biological sex is a binary, gender in humans forms more of a spectrum.” But I was never really sure what “gender” meant. I know that it’s generally synonymous with “sex”, but that is clearly not what I meant when I spoke as I did above. What did […]
Should we ditch the word “gender”?
Alex Byrne on sex, the history of its definition, and assorted misconceptions
03 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
I guess the number of papers and articles people send me about the definition of sex is one sign that it remains an important issue for the populace. Indeed, I think that in future decades people will see the kerfuffle about a simple and widely accepted definition (the gametic one) as a tempest in a […]
Alex Byrne on sex, the history of its definition, and assorted misconceptions
Upcoming talk and new book on ideology and science
02 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
I have two announcements this morning: a.) First, next Monday, Mar 3 at 12:30 Chicago time (1:30 Eastern time), I am having a 1-1½-hour discussion with DIAGdemocrats (“DIAG” stands for Democrats with an Informed Approach to Gender. And their slogan is “Liberals guiding our party back to reason and reality.” It’s tailor made for me!) […]
Upcoming talk and new book on ideology and science
Mandated Board Diversity Reduces Firm Value
27 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, econometerics, economics of regulation, financial economics, gender, industrial organisation, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: efficient markets hypothesis, sex discrimination
Jon Klick finds that when courts in CA surprisingly invalidated a set of DEI laws, the market value of firms subject to those laws increased: California mandated that firms headquartered in the state include women (SB 826) and underrepresented minorities (AB 979) on their corporate boards. These laws, passed in 2018 and 2020 respectively, were […]
Mandated Board Diversity Reduces Firm Value
If You Date Me, You Date My Debt
27 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of education, economics of love and marriage, gender, law and economics Tags: College premium, dating markets, marriage and divorce
Romance can pose challenges to those with large credit balances, student loans or other financial obligationsBy Julia Munslow of The WSJ. Excerpts:”For daters, debt can be a turnoff. In a 2024 survey from the Achieve Center for Consumer Insights, 64% of respondents said they wouldn’t want to date someone with a lot of debt.””The economics…
If You Date Me, You Date My Debt
Bill Maher vs. Jon Lovett on trans rights
26 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Jon Lovett is identified by Wikipedia as . . . . an American podcaster, comedian, journalist, and former speechwriter. Lovett is a co-founder of Crooked Media, along with Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor. All three formerly worked together as White House staffers during the Obama administration. Lovett is a regular host of the Crooked Media podcasts Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It. […]
Bill Maher vs. Jon Lovett on trans rights
More tacit recognition of two sexes in humans
26 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, economics of media and culture, gender, health economics, human capital, labour economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, life expectancies, political correctness, regressive left
This article was mentioned in a comment by reader Ted Gold, but I thought I would highlight it just to show that when the rubber meets the road, people recognize that, yes, there are just two sexes. This is from the NYT on Feb. 25th. Click headline to read, or find the article archived here. […]
More tacit recognition of two sexes in humans
Gender gap
25 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, gender, health and safety, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: gender wage gap
The fundamental fallacy of the “sex spectrum”
24 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
While thinking about about objections to the sex binary—usually discussed in humans but sometimes in other species—they all seem to come down to a single assertion: “Sex is complicated in both development and expression, involving chromosomes, behavior, hormones, genitals and even psychology. Therefore there are more than two sexes.” One example of this is from […]
The fundamental fallacy of the “sex spectrum”
Richard Dawkins on the “tri-societies” fracas on sex (and a call for signatures)
22 Feb 2025 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
And so we come to the last sex post of the day—about a new piece by Richard Dawkins on his Substack site, The Poetry of Reality. Richard points to what he sees as arrant hypocrisy in the statement on biological sex by the Presidents of the SSN, ASN, and SSB. As I mentioned in my […]
Richard Dawkins on the “tri-societies” fracas on sex (and a call for signatures)
The U.S. government’s new definition of sex
21 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
There will be a few posts on the definition of sex today, as everything “dropped”—as the kids say—at the same time. First, on January 20, the Trump administration issued an executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government”—an attempt to efface gender ideology from the government and […]
The U.S. government’s new definition of sex
Our letter to the three societies on the definition of sex—with signers
20 Feb 2025 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Six days ago I posted a group letter to the Presidents of three ecology/evolution/systematics societies who had issued a joint statement that many of us found deeply misguided. As I wrote at the time: The Presidents of three organismal-biology societies, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) and […]
Our letter to the three societies on the definition of sex—with signers
Apparent independent and multiple evolution of binary sex
15 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
My friend Phil Ward at UC Davis found this reference and called it to my attention. It’s from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B), and access is free (click on title below). The pdf with the numbered references is here. The paper is about how the evolution of two different types of gametes […]
Apparent independent and multiple evolution of binary sex
A group letter to the presidents of three evolution/ecology societies objecting to their characterization of sex as a spectrum in humans and all other species
14 Feb 2025 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
As I reported recently, the Presidents of three organismal-biology societies, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) sent a declaration addressed to President Trump and all the members of Congress. Implicitly claiming that its sentiments were endorsed by the 3500 members […]
A group letter to the presidents of three evolution/ecology societies objecting to their characterization of sex as a spectrum in humans and all other species
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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