SGU promotes misinformation about the Cass review

[pipelineaudio]

I think they dropped them a long time ago. A number of other podcasts have as well, such as Very Bad Wizards (which dropped ALL advertisers... or all advertisers dropped them so they claimed they didn't want them anyway...)

They were certainly promoting them at least a year after the really bad press about them came out, and that is likely four years after their data breach

 

[Elaedith]

Anybody ever hear of any correction being issued by Novella or associates? I haven't been listening to them lately.

 

[lionking]

Anybody ever hear of any correction being issued by Novella or associates? I haven't been listening to them lately.

On the last SGU Steve was nominated as a “skeptic of the year” with the rest of the team saying he brought “science to the transgender debate”. Which of course is utter ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.

There will be no correction.

 

[angrysoba]

On the last SGU Steve was nominated as a “skeptic of the year” with the rest of the team saying he brought “science to the transgender debate”. Which of course is utter ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.

There will be no correction.

There were two parts where this came up. Cara first of all praised him for his talk which was about when skeptics disagree. I think that the trans issue was the illustrative example. I would actually like to see if this talk exists somewhere on audio or on video.

Anyway, this is the transcript of what Cara and the others said (the transcript is a bit of a mess, presumably automatically generated):

C: Speaking of best talks at a conference,
let's talk about Steve while he's not here. Yes, right. How amazing was his talk at Cyclone this year?
E: It like kind of brought the house. Down.

B:
It was amazing. It was amazing. People. I remember people going coming up to Steve afterward sobbing.I almost lost. It was like, holy crap. I mean this all this from.

E: In appreciation, sobbing in appreciation.

B: And I've just heard of other, I've heard of other people talking about it at a recent skeptical event in New York this this past couple of weeks, like people were still talking about it. Such an amazing an amazing talk.

C: Absolutely. Somebody who took the survey did answer for their favorite rogue segment that the discussion on gender was really interesting and timely and Stephen Kerr did a great job. What people may not realize is that Steve, I don't remember, did we talk about this on the show even a little bit after Cycon? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked a little bit. So you may remember that we talked about, but you didn't get to hear that Steve gave this incredible talk in Vegas this year about sex and gender. And it was really measured. And
it was honestly a breath of fresh air within the skeptical movement where we often see a lot of division and a lot of a lot of talks and and writings that are quite fraught.
Voice-over: Yes.

E: Absolutely, absolutely that. And these things do happen within the movement. We've seen it before and this is necessary, this is healthy and this is what does help keep the movement going, frankly.

C: As far as this, what you're referring to is when skeptics disagree, correct? Right. That was really the title of. This talk.

E: Exactly.

US#07: And
luckily, what Steve talks about comports with reality, so there is always.

C:
That's always. Helpful.

Then later on when Jay calls Steve his skeptical hero.

However,.... there was at least a glimmer of a possibility that they may have left the door open slightly to coming around on some of their positions. My guess is that it would be hard. If you get lauded as a hero for taking a particular stance, and if you later wonder if you are wrong, and worry that somehow this may have created both an audience that believes in you and one that has been repeating what you say, you may fall foul of the sunk cost fallacy.

I think Novella has probably ended up falling out with people over this, and knows that on top of what he has already said, he may end up falling out with friends on the other side, such as David Gorski and Cara Santa Maria. But even so, I do interpret Jay's words as saying that there could be a re-evaluation at some point...

J: Go and I wanted to say one more thing to to add a little flourish to our to our mention about Steve's talk at Sycon. That talk was was very, very impactful. There was a lot of layers to the onion there that Steve presented to all of us. You know, first of all, Steve was saying we need to talk as skeptics. We need to be able to have discussions with each other. It's OK for us to disagree. We have to do it in a constructive way. And we should kind of, you know, get our story together before we go public with things. And, you know, we, we should spend the time talking to each other, figure things out. And then, you know, we could we, we could turn a, a collective face to the public, right. I agree with that sentiment. You know, Steve also talked was talking about an issue that means a lot to a lot of people, this issue about biological sex. It's not, it's not something that people that most people have an opinion about it one way or the other. I know that Steve's position is based on, on science and on critical thinking because we've talked about it so much and we've gone into the weeds and I've read most of Steve's blogs, if not all of them about, about it. You know, Steve, Steve is, isn't coming at this with any kind of preconception. He's he wants to know what the science says and he's talked to experts and he's done an amazing amount of reading in consideration. So I just think it's important that Steve did do this, put the energy and I think it's a really important topic. W
hen Steve finished his talk, Barry Carr, who is the executive director of the Committee for Skeptical inquiry at Sycon, he's also the producer of the Sycon conference. He said that that was one of the most impactful skeptical talks that he's ever heard. And he's been around for pretty much all of them. And I would definitely agree, you know, as a, as someone who attended almost every Tam and went to every single Nexus, it was on the board and, and was, you know, you know, running that with everybody else during those years when it was all live. And then we went to live stream. Like I've been around these talks. I've, I've heard everything. You know, I thought Steve's talk was not only entertaining on its surface, but my God, it, it had a punch that was so freaking hard. It was so it was so valuable and, and it was the kind of talk that I didn't realize that I was craving. You know, I, I want to hear talks like that because it was provocative. It had, it was, there was humor in there. There was a lot of Steve's personality in there and it had very important messages. And I, I learned a lot from listening to it. And I just think that Steve is a, it was a triumph of you to do that and give such a high quality talk. I mean, that was you at the top of your freaking game.

J: And you know,
I think an important side note here, throughout the years, like, you know, including ourselves, right? We are aware that we have biases, right? Bob and I in particular, like are really positive about future technology. It's been something that we've been interested in since we were kids. You know, I want to believe that we're going to have a fusion reactor, you know what I mean? I want to believe that it's going to be an unbelievable, you know, I'm also a big fan of artificial intelligence. You know, I use ChatGPT all the time. You know, I think we have to realize that all of us have these chinks in our armor, right? We, we, we will give, we will turn a blind eye to certain things.
We all have sacred cows.

J:
We need to keep each other honest. But you know, we, we've seen over the years, many skeptics, many of you know, high profile skeptics get major things wrong, you know, and we and we, we're wrong as well. Like we're in that group as well.But I'm just saying that the humility that Steve, that Steve is talking about, you have to have it because no one is perfect, right?
Like we all, we all are going to make these mistakes continuously for our entire lives. We're all going to do it. Hopefully we can lower the cut, you know, the instances of it, but it's always going to be there. And that humility is so freaking important. Thank you again, Steve. You know, that was another thing you taught me that really, you know, changed the way I look at my reality.

Of course it could just be that the SGU are holding out the olive branch and saying, "I'll forgive you for being wrong on gender, because everyone makes mistakes..."