 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio, our NWOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm Doubter 5 or Larry Rhodes and our recording is on Sunday morning, July 23rd, 2023. As usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, it's the Wombat. I'm here all day. And our guests are John Richards all the way over from England. Welcome. Hello. Doesn't look like England behind him. Doesn't look like it. Hey River, where are you from? South Coast. Knoxville, Wombat. Nice. Very cool. Very good. Digital Freethought Radio, our talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not a bet on it. In Knoxville, here in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. We're the Atheist Society of Knoxville, or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after mid-show break. Be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? Dogma in strange places and how Dogma seems to keep strange bedfellows and pops up whenever you least suspect it. But what do I mean by that? I want to talk about dogmatic arguments that have popped up as in potentially some unfortunate circles regarding places where science and empathy might be better places to have as participants in that conversation. How dogmatic thinking tends to slow down progress and allow beneficial solution for all parties to exist. And how unfortunate that can be in the long run. But we have a guest who hasn't been on the show for a while. I want to just catch up with him because he looks so more felt and handsome. You got to look at this guy. His river, how you been? I just want to catch up with you real quick. How you been, buddy? Busy. I can imagine. I can imagine. Yeah, I went to Canada and visited a friend of their went to a cabaret in Minnesota. Going to DC this coming weekend. Very cool. Starting back in uni. And then just a lot of side projects of the summer that really give us a lot of time. That's just you all over. Yeah, that sounds like you. It sounds like you have not changed. It's just on being productive. Do you still have your utility belt? Do you still maintain a utility belt? The socks that had to handle the. Yeah, yeah, I would have said, I would have said fanny pack, but we have John Richards from the UK on the show and he always gives me a right eyebrow. Right. I have it. It's nice. Okay, well that's fantastic. Looks like you've had a lot of fun to you said you recently been to Japan. Yes, also in Japan and earlier in the year met my friend Tokyo. Wow. Very, very cool. Very, very cool. I know, I know that's I know how much that culture means to you so that's that's really fantastic. John Richards, how you been your quest for chaos. Well, as you can see climate change has hit the south coast of the UK. It's about time right. I actually do have a tree like that in in in my garden. Okay, not quite so big but it's it's one of those. And have I been I've been busy busy. And I'm organizing our next event. Going to be in the Midlands near Birmingham. The end of September. Wow, you're coming all the way down to Alabama. That's lovely. Birmingham is one of those names that you've stolen from us. Oh, I stole it. My ancestors stole it. Okay, like York. That's some way to point the finger there. Okay, we should have called it. Yeah, London. There's some of the ones that we've stolen from them. Yeah, they're actually actually there is a London, Tennessee, I believe. I there is a. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 14 London's. Okay, okay. I've actually been to one of them. Really? Yeah. Yes. Were you looking around like a guy who's like, my target's bigger than this target. Guys, you're, you place the rivers all wrong. You're not supposed to worry in this. Okay. But John, how's your family? How has everything been going since last time we ran out to catch up? The family. I'm alone. All gone on holiday and left me. It's never been so peaceful. You know, they said they, there's not a bring your own atheist policy everywhere. They must have provided it where, where they're located. They must have already had plenty of atheists that they could just take off a shelf. And they said, I would just leave our atheists at home. It'll be worth it. Where they've gone is to one of the two most religious countries in the world. America. Where? Ghana, West Africa. Okay. Okay. And what's the other one? Is it Nigeria? Would that be number two? Yeah, Nigeria's number one. Yeah, definitely. I can tell you that. Larry would love to catch up with you. Don't just say video games, motorcycles and having fun times. Come on, man. Give me something. Okay, working. That's all the stuff. They'll work 40 hours a week. Nice. Nice. Nice. We're going to go see that new Indiana Jones movie this afternoon. So that should be cool. Okay. Oh no. Well, I, you, you, you grew up with Indiana Jones. So you'll have a deeper appreciation for it. I hope it does you right. I hope you enjoyed it. I also love that you've been sending me texts about you enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn. Oh yeah. That's finished the game. Yeah. I'm still going back to complete the map. Any of you guys going to see the new Bobby movie? I saw that. No, but if, if we're on the subject of movies, I would say that would definitely say if you have a chance to watch the Mona. It's a movie that's out on Netflix. It is the less you know about it, the better, but it's a CGI work that was originally going to be a Disney property. Disney thought it was too gay and literally shut down the entire studio when the studio didn't want to change anything after an acquisition. And then Netflix said, listen, we'll, we'll, we'll help you finish the movie. And they did. And they, with the help of Adam Perner studios released it on Netflix. And it's not even like, obtuously gay. It just has a gay lead. That's it. And there's like one kiss at the end of the movie, but like everything else is like so good. I was amazed and motive characters. I saw that and I saw spider verse second. And I was thinking my head, man, I could be rewatching the Mona, like the entire time I was watching spider was I'm like, oh, this is a good one. It's really pretty. But the story that I'm missing from the Mona was just so good. What was the name of it again. And I am on a me Mona. Yeah, yeah, yeah, highly, highly recommended. of the gay movies from the past, you know, the being trying to be made now like boys boys in the band, you know, yes, things like that. They'd never make it past any sensor at the right. Yeah, shut it down so hard. It's also amazing what we take for granted in movies nowadays because I remember when I was in high school and there was this movie where there was a white girl and a black guy who were in a romance and that was the hook of the whole movie. It's like wow interracial romance and I'm like, oh my gosh, like that's Sydney Portier and Catherine Hepburn Catherine. Yeah, it was Hepburn and Lawrence. Well, I can't think of the other guy, but it was a heck of a movie was really well done back in the 60s. The Star Trek kiss. I don't know if you remember that, but we'll shat in a kiss like it was coming to dinner. That's okay. Yes. Yeah. And now we have like high budget movies where CGI characters that have a romance and no one takes everyone just takes it for granted. It's not going to be first page news. I think this is good. It's a good trend that we're on where like we can see diversity in different people and we'll be talking about that or running into those things later on in this conversation. But for me catching up on things that have been going on with me, I've been playing a lot of pickleball. Larry, I'd recommend it. John Richard, I recommend it. River get into it. I think you'd love it too. But of course, been playing a lot of disc golf, not only physically playing disc golf, but watching it online. And there's an interesting debate that's going on in the disc golf world at the moment, because disc golf has two divisions. One is called MPO, which is mixed professional open. It's a division that's open for everybody to play in, regardless of whether you're a man, a woman, non binary, trans, a kid, an adult, like you could do whatever you want in the mixed division. Anybody is allowed to go in. However, since the MPO is typically has elite level events and only 200 people can register in order to play in that division, it tends to be the case that people that are most physically capable qualify to be in the MPO. And historically, that's always just been men, at least at the elite level series where they have like a shortcut off of this about 200 participants. And so it functionally works as the male professional open, even though it's called the mixed professional open. And so what the disc golf association has done is made different categories or different divisions that can recognize other players that would not necessarily have the physical capability, but the talent to still be able to play in an elite level. And so what they made was the FPO, which is the female professional open, which is open for females. And by females and in this conversation, I mean, people who are signed female up birth, you know, don't go through male puberty and typically have physicality that's less than the general curve of physicality for people who are on testosterone or naturally produced testosterone like men. And what's happened unfortunately is there is a group of transgender women that feel that they identify as female and want to play in the female category and have actually been winning tournaments, but also winning long distance competitions by like hundreds of feet. And it's come to the ire of some of the female players saying, this is a threat to essentially our representation in the sport, because we cannot just suddenly practice more and overcome the biological advantage that these other players have. And we would like to have better protection for our league. Or else, why are we here? Because we might as well just continue to not qualify for MPO if this continues. And then on the other side, there's the contentious conversation or the one I deeply empathize with, but also somewhat contentious between the both of them is that I am I want to identify as this and for you to not let me identify and participate in this league is transphobic, is hateful, and is against my protections that I have in the state. And I'm going to sue the the the Disc Golf Association for not allowing me to participate in the league that I that I identify in because how are you to tell me that I'm not a female. And so I look that up online. I've gone through some rabbit holes on the internet trying to figure out like, man, is there is there anyone that's having like a sensible conversation about this where it's not necessarily immediately your bad person if you think this or or you're an evil person if you think that. And I realized that I can't find any of it. All these conversations spiral into scarily dogmatic patterns of thought that I find parallel very well with Christian conversations with regard to if you don't believe me you're evil or you're going to hell or you're a bad person if you don't think I'm right or if my past is true or you're damned or you're a sinner if like these terminologies that come out and I have to I can't just speak to the science of it dogmatic thinking. Yeah. And I would I'd love to I'd love to point out other realms where these kinds of conversations are happening and recognize that if we were to take up this potentially dogmatic thinking it leaves a realm where there's just empathy and science hopefully behind or at least proportionally allows more room for those voices to speak louder. And I think that could be the more constructive path to get everybody to where they want to be in a more helpful solution at least provide the best context and the best information rather than your bad your evil. Let me keep doing what I'm doing or don't do what I'm don't don't allow this to happen because they're bad and evil. How can we meet? How can we reach the middle ground? I always find like dogmatic thinking leaving the room is probably some of the best things that we can do. I'd like to get a round table thought on this concept and if you'd love more details I'd be happy to give it. Riv I see you nodding your head. What do you think? Well I was just thinking as you mentioned in the examples it kind of in a sense combining what I was mentioning earlier and with the dogmatic and the problem of that way thinking when it comes to pretty much anything I mean you want to be careful of echo chambers right turning off the ability to analyze alternative solutions those against bias and so on and what came to mind was looking at outliers not as understandably outliers but useful for making points and then kind of coming back in middle and saying okay what can we learn from the resistance of these outliers and what your perception of the aggregate is yes and you see this all over the place and a a bit tongue-in-cheek example I didn't think of but I think useful is let's say LeBron James suddenly decided I wouldn't advise him he would dominate every single thing in sport that was relevant in that sense I'm not necessarily seem to be faster and so on but you can see that you know clear this revenge of you know other things that would be a huge outlier you don't see that happen at the same time oh no no I I was just saying I agree with you please continue I have a weird I have a weird black thing where I'm like I'm about that or hell yeah excuse me I got you that's just an affirmational grunt yeah yeah yeah um but so that's like an outlier on one side but then not even an outlier on another perspective but it's just taking into account the you know uh the veil of ignorance kind of you know perspective of you know we were born in this place under these socioeconomic conditions you know social conditions your DNA which plays you know far more than I think we'd like it to play in a lot of cases you have all these factors you have your inculcation all surrounding all around you and yet you feel a different way than what your your mind and body are not in connection and so uh someone might come along and say well that's just your block that's just you know those are the circumstances you weren't born in the situation okay well if you there should be some kind of medium of understanding specifically when it comes to hormone therapy with uh with with nativity there are certain peak points right and of course in development right puberty times and so on you have these certain growths and formations and there's blockers and people all look against that and that's just some separate thing but I understand even in uh grown adults sufficient time on hormones will bring the male physique down in line to where it's you know it's uh it depends on what it is but uh there's been competitions having resources exactly in hand in which the cis female win against the trans you know uh after a lot of time is passed to have the you know the hormones do their work I'm not saying this is a cover all but um I think they're considerations would you mind if I let John Richardson I saw I saw some by what do you think well we're skating over several areas here I want to talk about general dogmatism first but then I'll be happy to join in on the trans issue yes please I'd love your thoughts okay so I meet a lot of dogmatic people who are hubristic they think they they've got the righteousness and we haven't and they're intolerant and I don't like it and it's not just to do with religion it can be to do with words I argue with a couple of people on social media one of whom thinks that definitions are the law you know yes you've you've got to take what it says in the dictionary or or in a specific philosophical dictionary as god's given meaning and unfortunately he's got that backwards because dictionaries work the other way around they work on usage they don't they are not able to control what words mean we do that and then the dictionaries report on it but this particular person I'm not going to name him but for example he thinks that atheism only means god denial he won't anybody who thinks that I'm an atheist because I am not convinced that your argument for your god is true right he calls he calls those lack theists he's trying to coin a new term to muddy the water or something yeah he really wants to fight up against people who deny his god and it's not sitting on the fence but you know simply not accepting the alternative the polar alternative is the option doesn't work for him and I've got somebody else who's a bit like that in terms of philosophy he thinks that logical thought is boss you know and it takes precedence over observations right right I've met people who think if we agree about this in a room together then that must be reality without realizing that logic is just a model and it's and you still need to rely on observation but already if your model relates to actual reality yes yes so so for example he was if he'd been on the Nobel committee he would have awarded Higgs the prize about 60 years earlier for having thought up the boson explanation right rather than waiting for it to actually be discovered and so that's a couple of types of people that are dogmatic in a different way I love that that's a great point that's a great selling point there's a lot of nuance to that even while meaning people can be dogmatic it's very true it's very true yeah I want more humility bring bring in imho you know what do you think the trans debate what do you think about this oh the trans debate that's an interesting one for a start once you've been through puberty you've got a male body it's right more it's got stronger bones it's larger enough on average that the female body it's got more muscles it's got this fat you know and generally longer limbs exactly yeah it has this really beautiful thing called a thing that makes this testosterone so your testes right like if you have testes and you go through puberty now your testes are active and they are literally making the thing that you can be kicked out of sports organizations if you inject that into your body illegally right your body is making the performance enhancing drugs the Nobel yeah well even even if even if you were castrated and or given you know an ultimate amount of testosterone blockers you can't unbuild you can't return your skeleton to pre puberty oh great it's not possible so I think we've got to accept that post puberty trans medication isn't going to make the playing field level John riches I have this question for you before we move to Larry because you're a soloist scientist and I want to say something that I've heard from the disc golf community when they saw the trans female or the trans women players throw 100 feet further than the the cis the cis players and they're like that shouldn't be the case like no no this is all natural well let's wait until the science says it's not natural so they waited they looked at the current state of academia and said do people who transition have a physical advantage over those who have never had the opportunity or chance to transition and when the overwhelming conclusion from science I was currently literature was yes I mean it's testosterone like we all know what this does we all know when it kicks in in the state of human development post puberty and we also know that it's a very hard thing to track back from and some people still identify and don't even do it so how you're going to come up with those by-laws right but the the consensus from the players was well you know that doesn't really support our point so let's wait for more science yeah here's the thing here's the thing I want to throw into this discussion I wonder how many athletic records in the past in the female category were actually set by men help me out how many actual records in the female category were set by men in the past if before we became you know hyperactivity looking out for this I wonder I wonder maybe 50 years ago I'd say startingly low I would say it's startingly low if anything but that could be a novel thing to look up for sure but I do know this the organ the disc golf organization did a internal study and then came up with their own scientific report with that they released out that they were going to base their new by-laws on regarding how much the testosterone can have in your bloodstream before you're allowed to play and it again did not agree with the point of those who would fight to have trans inclusion and and again they said let's wait for more science and so in my head it sounds like the evidence is out but it's not the evidence that the people want to have and so they are willing to dismiss evidence until they get the the points of evidence or the outliers as Ravel is referring to that agrees with their point and at that point you're not really looking for science you're just chair picking for results that agree with you and that's when I start to see science right get the backseat and really just be I'm just looking for ammunition for my own dogmatic thinking to support my if you don't consider all the evidence then you're not doing science thank you you're doing bias yes wish you'll think you had a lot of points but I'm sorry what's up well no the only point I was going to make was the one that you made earlier is the testosterone is the difference and you know if you inject it or use it you know from outside your body into your body then it's it's illegal we made it illegal for a reason now you can categorize the people who fall into the different sports if you want by that routine if you want to the people that haven't had a choice and whether or not they have testosterone in their body they go into one category of of athletics males generally and the ones that haven't shouldn't be grouped with those others like women should have their own sports and you shouldn't in my opinion you shouldn't allow people who have used testosterone legally or illegally because it's biologically natural into the area that didn't use testosterone to boost their performance you know growing up Larry what a completely what a completely transphobic hateful just said I can't believe you just said that you're a terrible human being I can't believe you're you're you're breathing right now I'm sure a lot of people for this I should sue you for this I'm so offended and my thing is like I would I would love for a reaction suggest a reasonable scientific statement to be countered with another reasonable scientific statement rather than a tax at the person because generally what I find with what you what everyone said on this panel is that I agree I think we can agree that there's a physicality difference and we should just instead of like grouping it in a hey here's the difference let's work around it we should we with the argument is there's a difference how dare you see that difference you are clearly biased and prejudiced in your thinking I would love for this to just be acknowledged as a common sensical point that there's a difference and work from there maybe we can change the names of the categories maybe we can come up with different divisions maybe we can find a way to support each other within the division say trans women can't compete in the FPO but they'll do it as like a subcard or like a different group that we can highlight and and since there's enough trans women we can have them participate with the females together and pioneer like awareness for for both parties right but it's now so contentious that I I feel like we've missed a lot of opportunities uh where do you want oh it's going ahead rev you want to clarify point yeah it's fun so I originally had this point I was going to make it's really useful so in mongolia and their heyday of conquering and everything maybe makes makes perhaps two like all they did but so originally the mong the mongolian cis women were basically stronger and overpowered non-mongolian cis men and so this is an interesting thing not only that but mongolian women uh had I recall typically they did better in archery than cis men did they seem to have on average better um just actually see better articulate mistaken muscle control um and so there are some things physically speaking that cis women did given the situation they were born into and only little circumstances and then kind of zooming out from living different weight divisions and so on uh when you look at when you look at the enterprise of sports competition as a forward right we all what were we all but some of us a lot of us I think get into this mindset of ah this is perfectly for odds they train they did this and this now it's just who does the best in the field or whatever but no you go back to the the time of the year you're born in Canada for instance if you're born one year later or earlier you would put in a different division of class as you go through a year goes by will be stronger on average it'll be a little bit stronger you know taller and faster than the other kids who were age group the coaches will notice that give you more attention it's that one difference of month age will make the difference is someone who goes on to be a successful hockey star right and the person just get ignored right so when it comes down to sports on the field and performance we look at the results not what brought to that point and so sports in general seems far more uh rather than that should be appreciated that it's not everyone had a fair shot no it's only the most successful and lucky and fortuitous people got to be where they were so it's not a competition of the group of the crop it's a competition of the very lucky and dedicated and successful and so when someone says I want to do things just because I want to do them you're not never cases but I think in some cases they're not taking into account how do my actions affect your one that's consequences my action let's get into that I think that's a good point Larry why don't go to a break and we'll come right back to this topic sounds good this is the digital free thought radio hour and w o zero radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville Tennessee we'll be right back after this short break we'll be right back after this short break welcome back to the show five four three two welcome back to the digital free thought radio our second half I'm doubter five and we're on w o zero radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville Tennessee let's take just a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville ASK was founded in 2002 over 21 years ago and we have over a thousand members we have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria look for us inside at the high top table or if it's pretty outside uh outside on the deck you can find us online on facebook and meetup.com or go to our website at KnoxvilleAtheist.org you can just google at Knoxville Atheist and get there it's just that simple by the way if you don't live in Knoxville you should still go to meetup and do a search for an atheist group in your town don't find one start one but where do you want to pick up I wanted to pick up right after what Riv said with regard to understanding the consequences of your actions because there sports don't happen in a vacuum uh at least not until space sports exist until then what you're doing affects other people and you and as much as we can care about a one person's personal plight or group of a people's plight it's still going to impact everybody else so we have to think about how those decisions can have consequences in other groups of people and I think there's no better example of that than for me to assess the safety of the participants so like we've we've had lacrosse play so if someone's running track and field that's not a physical you know yes it's a very physical sport but you're not physically engaging with other players you have your own track to run in and largely people are disconnected from each other but if you have lacrosse or if I have a soccer game or if I have MMA or boxing I want to be as consistent with my rules as possible but there's also the consequence of safety if I start to for me to be a male to say you know what females you're going to just have to deal with the fact that we want to be inclusive we're going to allow groups of people who've gone through male puberty that also identify as female and women to to compete against you and you're just going to have to deal with it I don't lose anything from that but a female could potentially put themselves in dramatically more danger in a situation where I should feel poorly in the event that they've signed up to some sort of combat or physical engagement where they didn't have the full consent or awareness that the people that they're participating in had perhaps have a physical advantage or some sort of hormonal experience that gives them the ability to punch or check or trip or or hurt them in a way that they don't think would be fair to the general population of people that they would normally be competing against I I I strongly empathize with with this situation and I think if we were to remove dogmatic thinking from the thought process and just say hey looks if we're going to make a situation where this could potentially happen what's the safest way that we can do it let's because we need to be aware of what the dangers are which requires some honest recollection of like the scientific realities of these different groups of people and if we can't come to an awareness of or a consensus of this is actually a point of increased risk for a group of people then let's come up then let's come up with a either better safety PPE or a completely different division that can allow these groups to interact with each other without additional harm that could needless to be inflicted on people. Riv what do you think? Weight divisions. Whoa! Almost as simple as that you look at wrestling, you get your weight, you get your lightweight, you get your midway and so on. Do that for a reason apply that to everybody. Why did they do that as a reason Riv? What's the reason behind the weight division? I just want to get that just quick consensus. What's the reason behind a weight division? So I'm not sure that myself but I do know there was it's okay so it seems to be for instance back in the day you had a remiss period junior versus Kevin Nash at that famous match and you know a remiss period general sorry Kevin Nash basically twice the size of remiss period junior right it's you know spoiler alert wrestling is you know kind of a show so maybe it's not maybe it's just a little but it's a show it's an opera science is out we're not going to offend anybody and people love being so cool I mean so in that match remiss period basically was able to take down Kevin Nash and it's kind of reversal Kevin Nash was going up for the power slam and then bring the stereo kind of this down down the rest is on the bat Riv I know you love wrestling the the answer I was looking for was just fair play like we allow these weight division that people can have more fair play with less potential risk of harm to them if a heavyweight boxer fought against the middleweight or anantom weight or strong weight that wouldn't be fair in the sense of this guy they're exposed to different degrees of risk and we just as a society don't think that's honorable in competition so we have people in the same weight in the same way I think people of the same hormonal experience particularly just based on puberty should be able to compete with each other because it's such a disadvantage to train and and be met with someone who or exceeded by someone who just has oh when I was 13 I existed and therefore I'm better it's like how are you better it's like well you know my body just did a thing and but I I'm taking hormones down I've I've regressed it it's like yeah but still I I never had the opportunity to do that I would love to have the opportunity to go through male puberty because if we look through records John John I think the consensus we might agree on or so I'd love to push back on is if you look at every record that's just based on speed strength endurance distance it's typically done by a person who's gone through a male puberty mostly yeah yeah I'm hard pressed to find an example where that's not the case in like any sport that's focused on physical performance because we we happen to know that there's hormones that affect physical performance and if you make more of it than other people you're going to have the better advantage of doing so yeah yeah well we are a dimorphic species in the same way that a male lion is bigger than a female lioness that's us you know if you've got the right male chromosomes you're going to be on average which is an overlapping normal distribution right right females and males but in in average the males are bigger and heavier and faster and everything so that's why they win all the records there there's a gym that I work out at and back when I was like a hundred pounds more than I was now that was like well maybe like two years ago I did not have a lot of muscle mass it didn't have a lot of strength and I knew these women who worked out every day with me and it's two years later and I've just put on a crazy amount of muscle mass I've lost a lot of fat my strength has dramatically increased but I'm not doing anything different than the girls that I'm working out with they are in the gym with me doing the almost nearly the exact same routines we're still doing the same hit classes and they're looking me thinking like you look so much better I'm like I don't know maybe I'm eating I just changed what color of jelly beans I've been eating so I there's definitely a advantage there Larry I know you want to go into listener comments real quick but I want to ask you one question before we can take this on the idea of honor in sports is something that I don't think we consider when we when we think about fairness inclusion fair competition stuff like that whatever happens just honor like if I'm in a boxing fight I could pull out a knife from like one of my boxing gloves and just stab the guy and what I when sure I beat the other player but I wouldn't be following the rules it wouldn't be any honor there we understand that if we can recognize an unfair advantage in an honorable sport we would try to mitigate that so that we could have true competition between players who have access to more or less the same tools and I find male puberty to be a very substantial tool whatever happens the idea of just honorable competition between people who have the same toolkit well first of all you seem to be thinking that it's it's always there it hasn't always been there in boxing the coaches constantly have to check people's gloves for like sandpaper or or edges or something where they can cut their opponent yeah so you know there there are advantages that people will take during sports that are not honorable but I agree with you we should always strive for the honorable outcome the honorable competition and I think it's a good way to approach this particular question as well if you've got a distinct advantage because of your biological upbringing your your sense of honor should keep you from trying to compete with people who haven't had that advantage uh to not be a roomful of men coming up with a logical argument that we're not applying to reality I would like to put on for two things uh one my my argument on trans women being able to participate in sports is a sensitive issue because I want to be listening to what the females have to say about this engagement but also I I feel like they can't speak up or protest it because we live in a social age where you can be potentially canceled on on social media for just expressing what could be common sensual science scientific knowledge if it's not in the interests of a particular group that have a lot of sway online and can help you and can help to pull away sponsors that can be used to support you or affect you or reputation or your career and um the the sad the other sad thing is there's also such thing as trans men and to call this issue transphobic in a sense sort of like diminishes their point because I have no issue of a trans man uh a female a person with a female body who did not take testosterone but wants to participate in female sports even though they identify as male I have no problem with that because in my mind it's just the puberty aspect do you understand is that is that fair what do you think so like if I if I if I had a female body from birth but identifies man male and I did not take any testosterone but I just changed my pronouns and I still want to be able to compete in female sports I have no problem with that go ahead yeah literally no problem in my mind the competition is still fair I have no problem with trans men competing in female sports that's 10 000 okay I have no issue there's no none of my alarms go off from stuff like that um what do you guys think it's a small mind of thinking what do you think what we're talking about here is the difference between sex right and and sexuality because sex is one very few things that is actually polar you know 99.9 percent of the human race is either one or the other there's a very tiny percentage of people who are indeterminate believe it or not even those interterminates are just subsections of the main two they're not like their own separate thing we have two sets we have two states of gametes and then yeah purifications of these two sets that make them that we call intersex yeah well there's yeah there's been one or two probably well documented cases of hermaprodites but it's negligible so but how people choose to live how they want to express themselves that's sexuality and you can impose your own choice on top of that if you want to wear a dress that's fine yeah but if you want to go into the girl's toilet that's a bit different huh that's a completely different thing maybe it is a separate thing yeah that's a different thing I for me for me on on sports I have my issue with safety and fair competition and access like funding and recognition I really don't care what bathroom somebody uses uh and I'd be more open to I just want to access to urinals I know that's specifically a male thing but I don't change your rules yeah just let us have urinals and I don't care what you do you can put whatever little on that sign you might have to piss into a basin in the grass but yeah my my my basis on maybe that color is my perception so like these issues that I have are based on one scientific principle just based on access to testosterone and history of testosterone whether you go to different bathrooms or want to wear a dress or what pronouns you want to use I'll follow any of those I'm I'm okay with it my issue is just safety in sports and access to fair competition for all parties that are involved and I at least want to be consistent with that rib do you have final thoughts before we go into listener comments uh yeah just to kind of follow up on that I I want to be clear of the nuance in which I approach it with you know I do think there are areas in which uh you know again you can have sort of to speak to you be modern you can go into weight divisions you can make it to where you make it to where people took more testosterone uh or uh trans men uh they want to maybe compete in uh uh what might be more in line with what might be you know uh their kind of competitive skill set if they've that's a separate thing um if the point being there is that acknowledging I don't see reality has a lot of connotations to it um but certainly there should be an empathetic approach yes accommodate where you can but at the same time they realize that if if uh because there are some times when when you know cis gender being separate from sex of course when cis you know biotypical you know bodies uh might have in both sides might have one binge or another you know acknowledge that right but then just also be empathetic about but also realize that um you know just wishing to do something does not make it fair in everyone else so just be a whole asian sort of right uh uh I'll add to that because I find that a lot of people will say it's important to recognize the difference because a lot of people would say I'm not racist I see everybody equally and I'm colorblind it's like you should be able to see that there are different races of people because that will clue you into the treatments of each of these people and allow you to see if there's a and histories yes and histories of groups of different people to and let you see if Jewish people have always had an equal experience as everybody else or black people or white people or Mexican asian like it's important for you to be able to see that there is a difference so that you can recognize inequalities and and adopt the behavior or at least a degree of empathy that can that can hopefully correct that and it doesn't mean that you're a bad person if you recognize that men bodies are different than female bodies and it doesn't rob anyone from their ability to express themselves as a person but you should be able to freely recognize that so that we can come up with systems to to to benefit everybody rather than ignoring the differences and coming up with rules that are blinded to what I would consider obvious reality I'm a bit concerned about rift suggestion no offense rift that the weight divisions might be the way forward because it isn't just about the total weight right it's about how it's distributed yes because in general men have thicker skulls and heavier jaws and if you're boxing a woman you've definitely got an advantage even if she's the same overall weight as you absolutely correct I was thinking rib was talking about weight division as an example of just the men's division how we even bifurcate that I don't think yeah and not to speak to you point yeah I don't think he was saying that men and women should be in the same weight category right I think he's just saying hey we clearly separate in other divisions already maybe we can use that as a model to separate within a female division and have trans women be in a separate category that's also allowable in the overall group of female but not directly competing against cis well I mean it is when it is with public earlier mentioned earlier I'm not entirely opposed to that yeah okay I may be wrong but I've got a vague memory that one olympic sport has divided it along the lines of proper women whoa and the rest yeah that could be that could be a bad way of praising it so right now the federal association for I'd say federal the the governing body of sports of swimming have said that uh uh current so there's a competitor named Leah Thomas who was a male swimmer I've got to be careful with my terminology a swimmer collegiate swimmer who then came out as trans and now she competes in the females division only maybe three or four years recently removed from transitioning and is and has been crushing it without too much surprise and so the female competitor the female competitors had two issues one that this person did not even go through the surgery and still had male anatomy and was still in the females dressing room changing with all the other women and then two was just had demonstrated demonstrable unfair advantage with regard to swimming and was being competition competitors and so the governing body decided to side with the the the the the complainants and say you can't have uh trans women participate in the female it's going to be your your birth it's going to you can compete in the division that you're signing at birth on the flip side in minnesota uh a competitive weight lifter a power lifter who was male at birth has recently won the record for uh deadlift bench lift and squat for uh powerlifting and so that was sued by the the female competitors who complained on the same issues and the judge cited for the trans women's favor and so that set precedent in the state of minnesota that you can compete if you just identify and to and to um to protest this a professional coach in powerlifting who was male decided to just show up one day say that they identify as female on that day and broke the record by 200 pounds in every category and now he has now i think he switched back to his regular pronouns now he has the records for every female uh base powerlifting so like the females are still upset but they are hoping that this could hopefully highlight that there's a difference in bodies that should be recognized and it doesn't rob people from personhood to to recognize that difference and it's a good thing to observe and look at and what's the best way to observe and look at things it's a scientific model we should be relying on science in order to come up these conclusions john riches do you have a final thought before we go to listen or comments nope larry final thoughts before we go to listen or comments real quick no no no no okay okay okay so uh some listener comments hearts and hearts and love from x x x van jel carol 5336 um data straight room has asked us have you guys seen the series the good place that was on from 2016 to 2020 you'll find answers to the topics you point out ty and he refers to that as what are we just entertainment from that episode have you guys ever seen the good place yeah it's a good series yeah good series where you can think of like the plight of humanity on earth is just a tv show that people in heaven are clicking through and so if someone's gone bankrupt that's just a channel that people can experience yeah what's funny about the the series is that they didn't observe humanity very much there's all like taking place right there in the place very very little outside observation which was the point of our show right observing from that place right and and on top of that young idealists left a comment on the same episode what are we just entertainment and said uh larry i totally get why oh tyrone i totally get why you always need new things but i would consider for a minute new things in heaven to constantly stay entertained for all of eternity but i would also consider for a minute that sometimes what we need is something very old to give us the feeling of nostalgia then with the nostalgia of old happy memories being brought back to us we often try to recreate as we uh as we create new memories for entertainment so perhaps what the channel surfing of life on earth can provide for people in heaven is a sense of nostalgia and they'll have other stuff that they can do other than just watch tv and that's well keep us entertained for larry why are you making that face no that's fine it's just even the sense of nostalgia you get from looking back on other things will grow old uh if you have eternity to experience it i mean it's a unique feeling that you can only get you know so often before it gets stale like everything else if you're going to do anything forever you'll eventually do everything right uh heaven is just an excuse to wait until you're so bored that you could do what there's nothing else to do that you haven't done a thousand times i do like the idea of selective longevity i don't like the idea of forced immortality right some kind of medicine or tech i like the idea of chosen but that goes and hold people well yeah if you've ever seen the movie zardos without giving away too much the immortals at the end of the movie were running around trying to get people to kill them once they were no longer immortal oh end it end it please kill me there's an episode of rick and morty about that that's crazy okay i want to point out like i often do on this show that heaven is actually a gay club near charring cross in london yeah it'd be it'd be weird to show up there randomly one day it's like here's your gay club card here's your here's your token membership uh rev any final thoughts that saw you post one last thing and uh we can get ready to start closing out the show go on ahead take the final words uh that's no pressure no you're not fine uh basically this is an opposite of what i just said is that we i think as a society should take into account that no one asked her how to control it when you're born in that society what what conditions but at the same time i think it also seems unfair to say okay well due to my conditions i'm going to impose that on everyone else without considering what everyone else's situation is so right i think it's a bit muddy and almost meaningless from one perspective but it should just be a constant consideration of your you know your neighbors everyone around you uh wouldn't you're not not an island right you know and um that applies across the board is we're missing these four judges there is a more considerate path and we can get there more effectively if we were to just lose lose some of this dogmatic terminology and thinking that we are forcing on other people and realize that we have a lot more in common if we love these sports and we want the sport to thrive we have a lot more in common than what our differences are and we can work to a conclusion that can make everybody move and progress forward long term but we can't do it if we're poking each other and calling each other names or being rude or unkind that's just only going to get in a way and the dogmatic thinking tends to enforce this tribalistic us versus them let's look at the science let's come together let's be considerate and I guarantee we can come together on this uh my last final words is it's funny because in America we are relying people are saying they're relying on Republicans to block laws that allow trans women in sports but Republicans are also the people who are blocking females from getting abortions so like in my head it's like you can't you we have these parties that just don't agree on anything and like you have to like this two-party system is not working that's my final that's my final two points and blocking uh key uh military uh ascension in DET roles yeah the senator senator total bill yeah yeah don't just report don't be a one don't be a one item or one ticket voter like look at the whole trend of the whole party and try to make the best you can john riches what's your final thing that you'd love to plug oh plug okay right well it's my channel which is called free thought productions on youtube nice i i've just well yesterday i uh i uploaded the latest edition of global atheist news and i i held the uh free thought hour show with a very good guest who is a psychiatrist at a hospital in toronto canada oh very cool it's well well worth a watch yeah nice and of course later today hopefully you'll be able to join me in views on the news let's do it hey my cat will be there too larry have you now that we've proven that souls are real um how long how long can we uh wait before the end of the show i don't know what you mean if uh my content without souls by the way can be founded digital free thought dot com be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives atheist songs and many articles on the subject uh my youtube handle is at doubter five you can find my book atheism what's it all about on amazon remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to really worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next wednesday night at seven o'clock on w o zero radio say bye everybody bye bye