Professor Dave Explains the origin of life, trans rights, creationism and more!
Copy of Dave Farina
Abhijit:Hey, everyone. Welcome to Rationable Conversations. Today, we have an amazing insight into the origin of life and a very special guest to help us do that with.
See you on the other side of the intro.
Abhijit: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. This is Abhijit from Rationable, and you are watching Rationable Conversations. Today, we have Dave Farina, otherwise known as Professor Dave, who has been doing amazing work in science communications for many years, actually, not just in helping students figure out their high school science or middle school science, as well as doing debates and debunking videos. Professor Dave, welcome to the show. Howdy, thanks for having me. My pleasure. In fact, I think we should have done this a long time ago, but for some reason or other, it didn't work out because I really wanted to suss out what kind of content you made.
And I've been following you for quite a while now. Is this your second foray into Indian scientific communications?
Dave Farina: Science is dope. We did a little collab.
Abhijit: How was that? That was pretty amazing. And, of course, we've known each other for the last couple of years.
Dave Farina: 20 years.
Yeah, we've seen each other at some different conferences and things.
Abhijit:The science communication workshop that we did near LA was absolutely amazing. I really wish they could do more, but they're not doing it. Good to see you at CSICon last year. This year you're a featured speaker.
Dave Farina: I'm speaking this year. I went last year to weasel my way onto the roster, and that's exactly what happened. So yeah, I am allowed to speak this year. I'm very excited.
Abhijit: Wicked. I am so happy for you. And I'm looking forward to it because I'm going to be there myself. Nice.
I'll be watching you speak, and we'll hang out and catch up.
The big thing I wanted to talk to you about was your debate on the origins of life. I was watching that debate. It was fascinating. There was a lot of stuff that went over my head because I'm not really a scientist. I'm a science enthusiast. And you'd been covering this guy before on your channel. So tell us a little bit about your opponent.
Dave Farina:Yeah, there's a lot of lead-up. It was about two years of back and forth. I had been made aware of this guy, James Torr, because people kept linking me to some of his content.
In particular, one video where he's very emphatically shouting, 'We have no idea about the origin of life; we don't even know how to build the molecules’’ I saw immediately, and I was like, ‘okay, he's a chemist, but why is he saying all these things that are not true?’
I was fascinated by it immediately. I looked into it and saw the creationist ties. I noticed nobody was pushing back against him, and he was being propped up as this heroic guy speaking truth to power and exposing the fraudulence of the abiogenesis community, and I was like, 'This is ridiculous. If nobody is going to debunk this guy, I guess I'll do it,’ I wanted to differentiate my tone from something like flat earthers. I tried to be a little bit softer because he is a real scientist. I made a 40-minute video exposing a bit of the agenda and commenting on what was fallacious. He completely flipped out and made a 14-part series about how dumb I am. That's not going to fly, so I made a two-part series responding to that.
Both of which got a million views. He was even more irate; he made another series about me that was really out of line—character assassinations and cartoons of me. He made another series debunking that and accepted this phony debate challenge that he had put out earlier to grandstand for his fans. Of course, he then begrudgingly had to accept what took about a month to hash out the terms.
But finally flew out to Houston and did it. And hilarity ensued.
Abhijit: Yeah, that was quite an insane debate. That got quite heated. And you had Aaron Ra, who attended.
Dave Farina:Sure. We had been casually acquainted for a while. And so we were talking about it.
I was like, 'Yeah, I don't know how far you are.’ Presumably just a couple of hours. So come on down,
Abhijit: I saw a video of Aaron, which came out shortly before the debate. going into this debate with Dave Farina about the origin of life.
I quickly searched for it, and then I found your video. I found the entire debate right then. How did you go about preparing for a debate like this? What kind of background did you have in the origin of life sciences? How did you look it up, etc.?
Dave Farina: Prior to covering James, I learned a lot through the exchange because I ended up reading, a significant amount of the primary literature, I actually ended up corresponding with and interviewing many of the prominent members of the field.
over the past two years, I've learned an immense amount. I wouldn't call myself necessarily an expert on origin of life research, but I'm very well versed in it now I certainly know more than James does, but preparing for the debate, was challenging because when you're interacting or debating with somebody like James there's zero intent to approach the subject with any intellectual integrity or honesty.
He can lie about anything any subfield any paper, any researcher, so I have to be prepared to counter whatever he's gonna throw out, I had about a hundred papers queued up and knew some things about and could go, depending on what he wanted to lie about the preparation was necessary because there were a couple instances where he threw out a very specific claim and I actually did have a paper ready to counter what he was saying to demonstrate that what he was saying was not valid.
it was laborious preparation, but it paid off because... I had quite a bit of literature ready to make him look like a fool,
Abhijit: That was quite successful. for a lay person like me, like I'm sure a lot of our viewers are how does one start?
Understanding the basics of the origins of life. Where does one look? What can one look up to learn more?
Dave Farina: one absolutely has to have a basic understanding of chemistry, biochemistry, biology and physics, it is a tricky subject and it's why James is so revered in the creationist community.
there's almost no creationist who can even speak about it. The other Discovery Institute guys, when they talk about it, they sound like buffoons because they don't understand chemistry. James does understand chemistry. He's a chemist. unfortunately, that allows him to use his chemistry to trick the viewer. we're talking about the assemblage of the components of life, and so we have to understand what those components are, how they come about, how they function, what their function is supposed to be, how that can have changed over time.
But yeah, you really just go at it little by little and then you get surprised when you turn up new systems chemistry for me was the field that I'd never even heard of, but is this field that that examines the interactions of sets of biomolecules and how those can evolve over time and even display Darwinian principles, there can be natural selection occurring on the molecular level absent of any biological system, this completely blew my mind. you just don't know about these things, until you start looking many fields of science are like that, you can start looking at astrophysics and go, I had no idea this existed
So it's very dense, but if you're interested, my debunks of James serve as pretty good primers for the field, because I look at a lot of the landmark research, the primary researchers in the landmark papers in the field.
you do get a good introduction that way. Oh, cool.
Abhijit: I'll link those videos in the description so that, everybody can go through that. But just for a primer.
What's the prevailing theory about the origin of life on earth?
Dave Farina: So a mixture of a lot of things.
obviously we need to have the components of life. We need biomolecules. we need polypeptides, which act as proteins. We need nucleic acids in this case R n a. And those would be the two main ones because those, the, those are the ones that have biological functions.
And so the r n A world Hypothesis posits that R n a first served served as the first genetic material, but also as the first enzymes that kind of did reactions. So you could have these r n a molecules that would That would catalyze reactions, they could build other things, so they could maybe build short peptides, short sequences of amino acids.
And then there's a lot of work being done in systems chemistry that has to do with autocatalysis and systems of molecules that can replicate and amplify themselves. that's a huge part of abiogenesis, We need to have something that is self replicating before you can have any living system, self replication has to be a component there, that's the RNA world, but then there's other hypotheses that have to do with metabolism first and how very small molecules can have brought about rudimentary metabolic pathways if you have a bunch of molecules enclosed in a vesicle, there has to be some source of energy to promote all of these different reactions It seems to me that there's going to be synthesis of these various hypotheses. there are aspects of many that work in tandem, we're not in a place where we know exactly what happened, it's due to us having so many conceptions of viable possibilities that it's hard to weed out the ones that didn't happen.
But, yeah, hot springs is probably the place where it maybe first started and you get RNA, peptides enclosed in a vesicle evolution over millions of years till you get something that looks like a rudimentary protocell.
Abhijit: These little vesicles what are they made of?
Because I read, in a Scientific American many years ago that it is probably lipids which are created in layers of clay at the bottom of the ocean. Is that still a thing?
Dave Farina: Yes, certainly lipids there's some discussion as to what type because our cells have phospholipid membranes, but phospholipids have to be synthesized.
there's a lot of data that supports the idea that it's just very simple fatty acids, making a monolayer, not even a bilayer like in our cells. a fatty acid monolayer was most likely the first membrane. Now, obviously it cannot have been as complex with so many membrane proteins and channel proteins, things like that.
it was very simple at first, but everything complexified over time, both in the membrane, internally, etc.
Abhijit: That is fascinating. And of course, it's developed a lot more than that article I read in Scientific American.
Dave Farina: The thing is, it's almost impossible. to talk about this topic for a layperson.
It's extremely difficult because there's almost nothing that you can say because every aspect of it requires some kind of sophisticated information for it to be even intelligible that's why somebody like Jack Shostak, who's a Nobel laureate who worked in origin of life research for decades becomes a target of the creationists because he actually does take the effort to try his best to simplify it for the lay person and then what do the creationists do? They go, look at this. This is ridiculous. This is in nature, the journal nature. No, that's not in the journal nature. It's in a magazine and it's for lay people with these big pictures and everything.
Of course, it's not rigorous. It has to be simplified, because the laypeople don't even really know, what DNA is or what proteins are, like, structurally, fundamentally, what they're made of, so it's hard.
Abhijit: Absolutely, undoubtedly. And coming back to the debate, how was the experience leading into it? How were you feeling when you were, in the middle of it? What was the entire experience like?
Dave Farina: It's certainly chaotic. I knew to an extent what was going to happen because I knew I was there to really press on him. you can see how worked up he gets in his videos alone in his office. He's shouting I get these great screenshots of him that I can use in my videos because he gets really shouty they became memes after a certain point in my content. I knew he was going to lose his mind I was a little bit jarred by it, because it's a lot when it's directed directly at you. But as soon as he started doing that, I was like, oh, this is gold.
you don't even have to hear what either of us are saying. You can just observe that one person is losing their mind and you can tell what's going on. I wanted to take the opportunity to press him on a number of the most blatant lies that he has been telling repeatedly in his content.
I know that his viewers have never watched any of my content, and never will. it was a rare opportunity where I knew they finally have to listen to me talk. they're going to hear these lies, and they're going to watch James waffle in attempting to redirect and change the subject, which is all he did every time.
The first time I did it, he jumped over to his blackboard theatrics It was breathtaking to behold.
Abhijit: this actually reminded me of a lot of these atheist experience and the line episodes where you have, A theist who comes on and is being absolutely blown away by the arguments that the hosts are giving. they just get more and more pissed off with everything. there was one which was brilliant when Matt Dillahunty had very coolly dismissed everything. This guy says, why don't I just come over and punch you in the place.
Dave Farina: It's funny because his entire identity relies on this I'm just a good, earnest Christian, and then you have to watch his viewers try to justify it after the fact okay, James shouted, but it's only because Dave was so mean, my God I cannot believe you're trying to actually justify this behavior he was, like, shaking and convulsing
Abhijit: You have to admit, you do have a very provocative way of going about a debate. you've got that kind of flavor of sarcasm and poking and you do that in a lot of your videos especially when it comes to debunking videos and the flat earth videos, is this something you developed over time? this is just you.
Dave Farina: It's a good question. I think I developed it over time in the sense that I wasn't this way when I was 10 years old, necessarily, but it's just look, I'm tired of it. I'm a no nonsense kind of guy.
I call them like I see them. When someone's a fraud, I call them a fraud. When someone's lying, I present their lies to them, if in the case of a debate, to their face, and press them. I'm not here to play nice. This is not how I would behave with someone with whom I have a genuine disagreement
That's a completely different story. If you and I are debating which one is the best Beatles album, I'm not gonna go, You fraud! You think... Abbey Road is the best, it's rubber salt. No, that's opinion, that's just two people talking, this is a guy who is a very toxic influence on society. He lies and he damages the reputation of the scientific community, he promotes science denial, which turns into anti vax and climate denial and all these other things that have a very quantifiable direct impact on society. And it's got to be neutralized.
You are ruining the world for other people. And so I'm going to do something about it. That's how I do it here.
Abhijit: fair enough. I was wondering something when I was watching it, The thing is, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to your way of, debate.
That's absolutely fine. I think we need every variable of voice or tone to have these conversations. some of them need to be, in your face and telling it as it is. From, all the years that I've been, learning about skepticism argument and debate there is a large part of it, I resonate with because that's my way of, discussing things to have a certain humility, for example, you have Anthony Magnabosco, who is exactly on the absolute opposite end of the scale, who doesn't even govern proclaim anything to start with, he will just ask questions in the Socratic manner, which I also resonate with.
because you're a science communicator, you've been teaching students about science and how to unpack things and understand the fundamentals how do you think your tone is affecting the future science communicators, the future scientists who are also watching your channel and being influenced by you?
In what way do you think your tone helps them or maybe doesn't?
Dave Farina: I think I can serve as an example for a certain kind of science communication, I think that it is necessary, it is warranted. I think that a calmer approach, as you describe, is more effective in a one on one interaction,
If I was talking to somebody who had earnestly fallen for the propaganda that I'm debunking, I would... not take the same approach, this is a situation where it is very important to me if you do not call it what it is, pseudoscience, fraudulence, a script of lies you are doing a disservice to the situation because you're giving this false air of legitimacy to the other side, the charlatan, the grifter, the liar, the propaganda peddler, want is to be seen as equivalent with science so people will watch and go I don't know, he was more handsome and then they come away with their own impression You got to dash that on the rocks. Now some people maybe don't have the stomach for that. They don't want to do it my way and that's fine. I would never demand that anyone do things my way. This is my way. If it works for you, also do it. I know other people, other Psycomers that I really respect Erika of Gutsick Gibbon I've watched her have debates with Discovery Institute people, she did one with Gunter Beckley, and she, there's all these situations where you have someone like her, who is very polite, and very respectful, and when you, what happens when you go into the comment section of those videos is you have all of these people going, wow, that is how debate should go, everyone was so polite, and everything was so pleasant, ultimately, nothing she said changed my mind, and nothing is any different at all.
But she was really nice. So is that the outcome that you want? There's no strategy that's going to check all the boxes. You're never going to get all the science deniers to change their mind in one fell swoop. So you pick the way that works for you.
And this is my way. I'm scorched earth, baby.
Abhijit: And it is necessary because I've seen for example, Matt Delonte, who is just, he pulls no punches. He's absolutely ruthless. And yet, he also has a tremendous effect on the people who are listening. I do see the value in that, for sure.
I'm not like that, but, I don't have an aggressive bone in my body. I'm all Buddhist.
Dave Farina: It's fine, you gotta do what works for you, exactly. There's a personal touch to it, but I defy anyone to... No one has ever been able to convince me that my approach is not... Correct. I get that gut reaction from people, and they go, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't be snarky in your debunks, you shouldn't, argue with their followers or anything like that. Convince me. I have yet to be convinced.
Abhijit: Fair enough. But have you ever been proven wrong on something, like in your videos, in debates, Has that ever happened?
Dave Farina: It's possible on a trivial detail that I can't recall off the top of my head. Certainly not for the main thesis, right? No one proved that the earth is flat. No one proved That evolution isn't real, obviously I'm not wrong, otherwise what would I be doing there? I'm pushing back against people who are denying science, I'm pushing back against flat earthers and things like that. Of course I'm sure that there are small details that I've been incorrect about that I just can't recall off the top
of my head.
Abhijit: Yeah, that's fair enough. for each one of your episodes, how frequently do you publish?
Dave Farina: post three times a week. those are my academic tutorials. I cover various academic subjects, like geology ecology Philosophy and economics, they're just little, four to 12 minute videos, and they're very simple.
The production value is minimal. It's not like the debunks that require a tremendous amount. They're longer and require that I read primary literature and do more,
Abhijit: Yeah, I'm sure they do. That is quite a hefty schedule you've got there. I need to get my show on the road.
how do you go about especially the preliminary literature ones, the debunking ones what's your process of getting into that, like selecting the topic and digging into it? Do you have a set process that you go through with each one of these?
Dave Farina: I find something that pisses me off. I try to make sure it's at least somewhat adjacent to my expertise. What I know best is chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, that sort of realm. I'm competent with biology. I'm competent with physics. But that's, the closer, that's why I was such a good fit for taking on James the abiogenesis stuff is where my best knowledge lies, my ability to take him on was more than any of the other debunkers because, if you studied biology or anthropology you're missing that hardcore organic chemistry aspect I find something that irritates me. Some charlatan, some fraud, talking a bunch of crap. I watch a decent chunk of their stuff, and take notes because there's definitely some things that they say that I immediately know how to counter, And then... I fill in the blanks if they make claims that requires I look up certain literature. Sometimes they just say such and such has never been done, and then it's did it? Look at that. Yes, it has a dozen times. It takes a five second search on Google Scholar to find it.
with the case of the abiogenesis stuff, I did actually reach out to a lot of different researchers and I began corresponding with a number of them and some of them aided in the way of directing me towards specific papers
Abhijit: if you had a chance to do this debate over again, would you have done anything differently?
Dave Farina: the only thing is that I would have the advantage of knowing exactly which lies he was going to tell, so I could have been more prepared on the very specific papers.
I had a hundred papers ready to go, and I ended up only needing about six of them. because it's hard to remember the details of a hundred papers in your head, yeah, absolutely. Couple moments where I was like, okay, this paper is about this and what's this specific detail? I don't remember that detail. It's in the paper. This is what the paper says and then his fans are like, oh He doesn't know what we're talking about
So it's just like it was treacherous, with them ready to boo for things they don't know if I could do it again, I would know what he's going to lie about. And then also maybe I would have gone in and sabotage his chalkboard thing
Abhijit: Yeah, that was so weird, like he just clueless,
Dave Farina: Clever on his end. It was clever on his end in the sense that that was the only thing he could do to make them go, Yeah! Yeah, he wrote Clueless, so it's true, yeah! But yeah, all he had was pageantry. I don't really know what else I could have done.
all I could do is shove facts in his face and shove his lies in his face and then keep trying to corral him every time he tried to jump and gishgallop, hey, over here, and then call attention to it, Put the spotlight, which I did probably two or three times, go, He's gishgalping. I asked him this thing, he's talking about that. Why do you suppose that is? He can't even talk about this,
Abhijit: no, it was brutal the way you did it. yeah, it was fantastic. I love that.
a lot of the content you've made has been about flat earth, some of them are absolutely fantastic, especially when you're refuting flat earth without using science.
Dave Farina: The bite sized ones.
Abhijit: But there have been a couple of ideas I've encountered, which I didn't even know about before, like the electric universe. What is that about?
Dave Farina: I encountered this stuff. there's a common thread that runs through pseudoscience in the realm of astrophysics.
it's gravity denial and Einstein denial which may have a link to antisemitism. it's just all these different charlatans. That astrophysicists are wrong, they arrogantly think they know about the universe and me, this not even a real physicist, I know the truth, people who get off on an anti establishment narrative will buy into it, it's insane because it's not like anti vax where there's a direct interface with medicine and something that you may be having to take or a very direct societal thing going on
Astrophysics doesn't really affect us, if you don't want to learn about astrophysics, you just don't learn about it. But yeah, there's these people who just go on there and Einstein is wrong, general relativity is stupid, and stars don't work by nuclear fusion, it's something else, it's this other bullshit I made up, and people just lap it up, not a lot but thousands and thousands of people that are super into this whole thing,
Abhijit: Why do you think that why are people just wandering off into the wilderness and creating their own nonsense for reality?
Dave Farina: It is a symptom of delusional narcissism, because you have people that need to feel superior in intellect,
They need to be like, I know the truth. Many delusional narcissists are also ignorant. their neurosis will cause them to live in this fantasy world where they understand science, they understand physics better than Einstein.
That, oh, Einstein was an idiot. you couldn't pass a middle school physics quiz. You couldn't even draw a force diagram. how did you convince yourself of this? this pathology is out there, and there are charlatans that take advantage of it.
And they present themselves with confidence, with this, Alternate narrative, so it fits the, it fits that, it scratches that itch psychologically that viewer wants, this secret truth about space. And then they present themselves very confidently, in the case of Electric Universe and Wal Thornhill, who, actually died recently, There's a few of those guys and they have their little conferences anybody who's a fraud about space goes to the conference.
they can even be saying things that contradict each other. It doesn't matter. The common thread is that their right in astrophysics as a whole is wrong. And they just spew their bullshit. people are like, wow, we're here witnessing a paradigm shift in science.
Abhijit: think it's just like people.
Yeah, I don't because I've been trying to figure this out I understand the anti vax position, why it exists people have become complacent because they don't have to deal with these incredibly deadly diseases anymore. So they're just taking it for granted. But it's a component of it.
as far as things like astrophysics et cetera is concerned, when you start coming up with completely novel, random shit, like this electric universe nonsense, it boggles the mind. Maybe it's a person who has a very active imagination and has just thought this stuff up on her.
Dave Farina: most of them are grifters, right? the people who are peddling this stuff don't actually believe it, the ones who run the conferences and sell all the stuff, this is their income.
You had what's his name? Donald whatever, the guy who it was a Sapphire project and now it's Orion. They take 25, 000 investments. They're defrauding people of large sums of money, this is money for them. They know they're completely full of crap.
Abhijit: speaking of the anti vax movement, apparently there's a pool going around to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Dave Farina: Of course I would do that. Are you kidding me? That would be huge for me. And I would work hard and I would humiliate him.
But yeah, see the thing with that is I'm not quite big enough. So I tweeted like crazy and nobody noticed or cared, Medical professionals say we should not be debating RFK because it gives him an air of legitimacy. Part of me wants to push back on that, but part of me gets it, right?
Part of me is you're not wrong, but that's why I should do it. I'm not a doctor, right? This is my job. I'm a science communicator. I sit in between the scientific and medical communities and the public. I'm the one that interfaces with the public. I'm the ambassador. I'm the one that transmits the information both ways.
I'm not making doctors look bad by humiliating RFK, right? I would gladly do it. I would gladly do that, yeah.
Abhijit: Yeah, it's very important to push back on ideas like this. This is life or death, very literally. Absolutely. You're much closer, relatively speaking, to be able to push that around. But I hope somebody does. And I hope somebody does mash him into the ground because that man's got blood on his hands.
Dave Farina: I just want to flush all of these turds. I'm just so sick of it.
I'm so tired of these people gaining so much traction gaining so much notoriety and gaining so much wealth from paddling a script of lies. It's a well rehearsed and well funded script of lies, and I would like the opportunity to make a career of... Exposing every last one of them.
Abhijit: that's what we are both on the path to do, right? We're trying our best.
Dave Farina: Trying our best,
Abhijit: So what are you going to be what's in the future for you? Or of course, PsyCon's happening. What are you going to be talking about at CSICON?
Dave Farina: CSICon it's an interesting situation because I'm actually, I haven't quite, I haven't begun preparing for it I've given a version of a talk several times and I think I want to retool it I know I'm preaching to the choir at an event like that.
Everybody agrees with everything I'm saying and knows that everything that I debunk is fraudulent. But I want to talk a little bit about my specific strategies successes I've had, challenges I've had, like I want us to all sit in that room and think together about what are we doing?
how can we do this? Here's what I've done that's worked. I'll be using examples from Discovery Institute because I've been giving them a hard time lately and it's working well, I wanna share some Unique insight that I've found in what I do because we're all there.
We're all debunkers I'm not gonna be like did you guys know that this thing is false? Yeah, we all knew that
Abhijit: absolutely CSICon is amazing, because you feel like we're all on the right track, on the same plane.
And fighting for the same thing. But the astonishing thing is, you're also going to realize that we've been fighting this collectively for years. the older members of CSICon have been doing that for decades longer than we have. And there is a part of me which kind of goes, looks like an impossible.
Dave Farina: It's gotten worse, not better.
Abhijit: and every day you have new nonsense to deal with.
Dave Farina: Yeah. And more and more people who fall for it. COVID really ramped up the science denial.
Abhijit: It's been really nasty. there was one thing I really wanted to talk with you about because your videos on Transgender people and the science of transgender has been very informative because I've noticed that Richard Dawkins Yes,
Dave Farina: Yeah, I think Just today, I didn't watch it, but I saw a thumbnail of Dawkins and Matt Walsh on the same team on a debate against someone else, Dawkins he's shattering his legacy with this. if I get the chance to talk to him this year, maybe I can talk some sense into him.
Abhijit: I've already sent him several mails saying that I would love to interview you while you're at CSICon I won't take too much time I'll try and get a little bit of equipment and sit down and have a conversation with him primarily about this. of course I want to talk about a lot of other stuff, but this one really shook me.
I couldn't believe that he's let his confirmation bias get to him this. Bad. Yeah, he's got a few strongly held beliefs that he's holding onto tightly there. But just to give an overview, I'll link the videos in the description, but tell me what you found out about the science behind the transgender phenomenon.
Dave Farina: And we all had that moment, ten years ago or whatever it was when we discovered that being trans is a thing, a good chunk of society has been fighting since that moment where they just don't want to accept that being trans is a thing, but very clearly there are millions of people who are trans, what you come to understand, if you have an open mind about it, is that sex is a concept linked to your sex chromosomes, and usually on a one to one correspondence with your external genitalia and reproductive organs.
All of that is the domain of sex, and then there is gender identity, which is more subtle, it's a neuroanatomical phenomenon. there is such a thing as having the experience of being male or female and it is correlated with brain structure, you can do MRIs of trans people and find anatomical differences in the brain, it's not a perfect science yet, but they're identifying, the uncinate nucleus
There's parts of the brain that have specific structural features that correlate with gender identity. overwhelming percentage of people, something like 99 percent of people are what we are now calling cisgender, where your sex and your gender identity align.
So I'm cisgender because my sex is male and my gender identity is male. trans is when they don't align. if I'm of male sex, but my brain structure was such that I had female gender identity, I would be a trans woman. That is what society has decided to label that situation as, trans woman.
The problem with conservatives and transphobes is that they refuse to acknowledge that sex and gender are different things. gender identity, is a subset of gender is specifically biological and not social But furthermore, they absolutely refuse to listen to what educated people are saying and just continue to spew the same things over and over again. You can't change your sex, you can't change your gender, men can't turn into women, Nobody is turning into anything. Trans women have male sex. They know they have male sex. The entire scientific community knows that they have male sex. They're not saying otherwise. But they have female gender identity. in calling them trans women, that is a social courtesy that we afford them to ascribe them with dignity. if you were to say, Oh, it's a man because gender, identity, female, sex is male, so I'm gonna call them a man, okay, you're just a jerk now, but at least we agree on physical reality, You're just being rude, but we agree on what's going on biologically. Liberals think that men can have babies. Trans men, because they have uteruses, Nobody thinks that cis men can have babies. No one's ever said that. But they're such toddlers that anybody who brings it up, they have these little tantrums and they put their fingers in their ears. Won't listen to anything. trans people are a thing.
Get over it, Just deal with it and move on,
Abhijit: I was listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson's Starry Messenger audiobook. And it is phenomenal. I love his cosmic perspective on things. And it's especially in gender identity. And he said this in many interviews as well.
we've divided sports, say, which is one of the most controversial parts of this discussion is We have divided sports between men and women, and that's the way it has carried on for millennia. But, we, maybe in the future, should have... other divisions, which distinguish maybe a certain level of testosterone or estrogen in their body.
It's not just men and women. Maybe it's muscle mass, maybe it's weight class like we have in boxing, which is much more, evenly divided. There could be a lot of other divisions that we could have in sports to take things forward. We just haven't wrapped our heads around it enough to really be able to adjust.
there's a lot more To discern about the fact that humans are in a much larger variety than one imagines.
Dave Farina: Boy's penis, girl's vagina is what you learn in second grade. And as it turns out, human biology is not that simple.
Just tell a conservative, what would you call someone with two X chromosomes that expresses male genitals? Watch their heads explode, human biology... is complicated. Sorry, guys. It's not like they're the liberals or science deniers. No, you are science deniers because you refuse to learn anything beyond a third grade level.
where I want to offer a little bit of sympathy is with the sports stuff and all the social stuff. there is actually something to discuss. We could have nuanced Discussions about where trans people should be doing sports and where they should be changing
But that's never going to happen until conservatives find the courage to have an honest discussion about human biology.
Then we can talk about society. Because to be honest, I would push back on what Neil said, because it's impractical. You can't have a dozen weight classes or different hormone classes for all these sports, right? And I do think that Leah Thomas the trans female swimmer, that's not fair. I don't think that she should have been allowed to compete in that. I thought I was taking a centrist position, but instead, conservatives were like, he's an animal. I don't know what's going to happen with sports and where everybody gets to go in all of the subtleties of society.
But first we need to be on the same page of biology and then we can have an adult conversation about what to do with all the social stuff and figure that out.
Abhijit: Yeah, exactly. And even though this might be happening to a very small percentage of the human population, it is still a large number.
It's millions of people. Exactly. Millions of people all across the world. Even in India, we've had newspapers where we've had articles which have come out which says, husband is giving birth to a child. I'm like, yeah, okay, it's two trans people
It's a trans man married to a trans woman and they're having a child in the only way that they have available to them. so be it.
Dave Farina: Certainly interesting. Interesting, rare situation.
Abhijit: exactly. It's nothing to be ridiculed and definitely nothing to be ostracized about. And I'm I'm trying to put together, I've already just recently had another interview with a trans person, and a journalist who has given me a lot of very good information.
that video will have just released if you haven't watched it, I'll put that link in the description as well. this is something I need to figure out. if I have dinner with Richard Dawkins, I want to bring this up and see what happens.
Dave Farina: If you need backup, let me know,
Abhijit: thanks Aton for joining me, I think we can probably have 50 other discussions, but I will see what Cycon and we'll continue this.
thanks so much for joining us on Rational Conversations. It's been an absolute pleasure. guys, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this conversation, give it a subscribe to the channel for more content like this and interesting conversations with people like Professor Dave.
thank you very much for watching. Thanks Dave for joining and we'll catch you later. Be Rationable.