In an earlier post, I asked whether scientists might soon be forced to consider the occult as science. Perhaps some readers think the concern far-fetched. But consider: Science is as dependent on the concept of public truth as the great religions are. In an age when private truth is rapidly gaining in power, it is just as vulnerable as religion.

For example, last October, the joint annual conference of the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society canceled an all-female panel that was trying to defend biological sex as a “necessary category” in anthropology. They were accused of potentially causing “harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at large.” At Inside Higher Ed, the issue was framed as “‘Let’s Talk About Sex,’ or ‘Let’s Platform Transphobia?”.

How did the Darwinians get caught up in this?

Darwinian evolutionary biologists have enjoyed a privileged status in biology as guardians of a widely held public truth about how human beings came to exist. Whatever we may think about ourselves, we humans are biologically binary — either male or female in body type — except for rare instances. But now we hear anguished wails from figures like Richard Dawkins, Colin Wright, and Jerry Coyne, over the abrupt Cancelations of those who acknowledge that fact.

Dawkins lost his Humanist of the Year title for refusing to acknowledge that humans can change sex. Colin Wright left academia after enduring concerted attacks for doubting current gender ideology. Coyne, now emeritus, is still trying to understand. His many concessions are never going to be enough. Anyone who thinks that biological sex is a public truth is guilty.

Something similar happened to popular Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven, author of The Story of Testosterone (Holt 2021):

In the brief segment on Fox, my troubles began when I described how biologists define male and female, and argued that these are invaluable terms that science educators in particular should not relinquish in response to pressure from ideologues. I emphasized that “understanding the facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect.” We can, I said, “respect their gender identities and use their preferred pronouns.”

Carole Hooven, “Why I Left Harvard,” Free Press, January 17, 2024

Hooven’s world collapsed under a storm of widespread hostility that the Harvard administration passively tolerated. Her health also collapsed (“Eventually I was diagnosed with severe major depression, which included intrusive, persistent, and unwanted suicidal thoughts.”) and she resigned.

But now what replaces the public truth certainties of the evolutionary biologists? Here’s a sentence that appeared in a recent article in Scientific American: “The inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.”

That’s classic private truth. A public truth analysis of the difference between male and female performance could not ignore anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry. But a private truth analysis can. In this case, perhaps it must.

Scientific American is owned by Springer Nature. As we see, science is far from immune to the inroads of private truth.

Public vs. private truth is not truth vs. falsehood

The distinction between public truth and private truth should not be confused with a distinction between truth and falsehood. Evolutionary biology claims — offered as public truths — could easily be incorrect. But because these claims are offered as public truths, contentions around them should follow the usual rules of combat around ideas.

But as Colin Wright and Carol Hooven can testify, claims anchored in private truth are immune from the vulnerabilities of claims anchored in public truth. Biologists who insist that sex in humans is binary, not fluid — no matter how sensitively they state their case — are seen as attacking the personhood, the very self, of the proponent of the fluid view. Scientists must instead confess that nature itself acknowledges and obeys private truth. Otherwise, the entire private truth enterprise collapses.

The private truth enterprise will certainly collapse but it will take many victims first. One gets the sense that, at present, the evolutionary biologists don’t clearly understand what they are up against.

For example, the Paradox Institute, founded by Zachary Elliott, is taking a stand:

A team of self-styled science communicators are taking a stand against what they view as outright science denial through their new organization, The Paradox Institute, which works to inoculate young people against falling for gender spectra ideology myths and falsehoods …

The materials include written and audio essays, pamphlets, short animated videos, and podcasts on topics like the “The Denial of Biological Sex,” “Why Sex is Binary,” and “Defining Sex vs Determining Sex.”

Daniel Nuccio, “Evolutionary biology-themed institute works to debunk gender spectrum ‘nonsense,’” The College Fix, December 11, 2023

If the science communicators think they can change the conversation simply by opposing private truth with public truth, they just don’t understand the problem. Private truth cannot be confuted that way. The public truth advocate faces a hostile mob, angry that he dares tread on the sacred soil of an immutable private truth, which need not be based on any evidence whatever, only on confident assertion.

A short-term solution would be strengthening freedom of speech in academic life. But the evolutionary biologists might hesitate. After all, there are many problems with their passionately espoused Darwinian theory, which is often protected simply by Canceling the critic. To save their discipline from the onslaught of private truth, they would have to give up that immunity. Let’s see if it’s too high a price to pay.

Next: Private truth as history without evidence: Murders that never occurred