[rocketraman]

Communication and honest debate about facts and details, such as the ones you bring up yourself, is impossible when the people you are attempting to communicate with don't care about the truth -- they only care about how the words you are using make them feel.

Which is the whole point of the article: when feelings take precedence over truth and knowledge, science is at threat.

[MrJohz]

That's a cop out though, a "dog ate my homework" type argument. "I don't need to make a solid argument because they'll just ignore it if I do."

The problem with this logic is that it can't be disagreed with. If I accept the premise, then you're off the hook for evidencing your claim - like you say, honest debate is now impossible. If I don't accept the premise, then I'm clearly wrong, and therefore part of the group who put feelings over truth and knowledge, and therefore reasoned discussion with me is pointless.

But in neither scenario can I get a reasoned debate. Ironically, you've built a situation where your feelings trump logical argument. You only need to say "I believe science to be at threat" (or perhaps just "science is at threat", because "I believe" is always implicit in these sorts of statements without argumentation), and any response I give to you, positive or negative, will only confirm your position.

To me, the central claim here is that it is now unacceptable to teach that sex is purely binary. But as far as I can tell, medically speaking, sex isn't binary (although heavily bimodal), and biologically speaking sex as a binary is a useful model as long as you recognise the caveats. So I don't think the author's central claim holds true. Which to me breaks apart most of the argument. The rest of the article seems to be examples of students doing things that other people disagree with, which is surely the greatest prerogative a student has, and has been happening for millennia. If science is at threat because students are uppity then I think we have different definitions of the word "threat" (as well as, potentially, the word "sex").

[kodyo]

People are getting fired for saying things that COULD hurt somebody’s feelings, but no sane person’s feelings are actually being hurt.

Seems like a threat.

[dTal]

"No sane people" sounds like a "no true scotsman" argument. The fact that you felt the need to slip "sane" in there suggests that you suspect that some people's feelings are actually hurt. And if someone's feelings are hurt, you just dismissed them by calling them insane. This merely seems like a nastier way to express your disagreement, rather than a justification of it. There's a pretty big distinction between "people aren't offended" and "people ought not to be offended".

[rocketraman]

You mistake the author's central claim. The central claim is that certain things cannot be taught or even researched if they appear to hurt the feelings of students.

Sex being binary (and the author carefully distinguishes between sex and gender) based on the size of gametes was simply one example. Other examples are discussed in the article:

  - the inability to use the terms male and female
  - fear of mentioning historical figures that are white and male to students
  - teaching the concepts of sexual conflict, kin selection, heritability
  - research about sexual selection and cultural differences
  - NIH is denying scientists access to data if their research appears to be "stigmatizing"

Your focus on one example as the central claim that invalidates the author's thesis seems like a giant evasion of the real issue.