OPINION: The Real Enemies of Science

Bear with me. I get to the point, but you've gotta get the whole story first.

Every morning I wake up, get my kids breakfast, grab my first of several cups of coffee, open my laptop and check my Google news feed for the day. Usually I just go right to my recommended feed, but today I decided to take a glimpse at some of the top stories for the day. What I came across was something that made my neural circuits shut down for a moment. It was like time was standing still and my brain was saying, "Cannot compute. User error. Rebooting in 3... 2..." well, you get the picture.

Now, I think I'm a pretty fairly balanced person. I always scrutinize information I come across and I'm someone you could most definitely label as an 'independent fact-checker'. I don't swing far either way, and I'm content to sit in the middle and see every angle of a problem, situation, or argument. But today threw me for an absolute loop.

The story that got me thinking

I was reading an article entitled, "'This is not a Miss America Contest: Sexism in science, research is challenged". This article was published October 23, 2020 on the Washington Post. It's also important to note that, according to mediabiasfactcheck.com, The Washington Post is a left-center biased website that often publishes factual information.

This article began with the story of a medical student that was nervously awaiting an online interview for a job. She was researching proper social media and online etiquette for medical professionals. What she found could only be labeled as 'appalling', in her view. Among what this article labeled as 'unprofessional online content' were:

• Appearing intoxicated
• Offensive language directed at peers or patients
• Provocative posing in bikinis and swimwear

If that last one made you say, "Wait, what?" you're not alone. I, too, had to stop and think for a minute after reading that. Do medical professionals really need to be told this? The key word here is 'provocative'. The definitions in a nutshell are either provoking sexual desire or deliberately causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction.

So bikini pictures, especially in lewd or propositional poses, can cause people who view them to feel uncomfortable or sexually aroused. Of course, that's not your fault... Is it? On the other hand, how can you pose in a sexy way and expect people not to comment on it? That's pretty audacious. And, I'm pretty sure that when they used the word 'provocative' they didn't mean 'your bikini pictures are annoying so please stop'.

Also, I'm pretty sure they didn't mean you can't have pictures of you in your bathing suit, as long as you're not in doggy pose or doing something obviously sexual and inappropriate. No Boudoir shots, please!

I'm not sure if this woman was angered by the fact that they dared to tell her what/not to do, or if it was due to the fact that these companies were looking in on employees/potential employees social media profiles. Either way, she was definitely provoked by their statement (see what I did there?)

She immediately took to Twitter to not only voice her disdain but also to post a picture of her, posing in her bikini top repping a peace sign with an emoji over her face, with the hashtag #MedBikini. This hashtag immediately began trending internationally, and the article in question was reportedly removed the very next day.

You might be thinking to yourself, "So what? Why did that make your brain shut down? That's ridiculous." But wait! There's more!

The article then goes on to mention a recent increase of studies with authors being accused of 'alleged sexism and other biases'. It also mentions the need for diversity within the scientific community - which I fully support.

However, the specific study mentioned in this article is really what made my head spin (with a dimly lit, hesitant and subsequent light bulb at the end). The paper published on this study was entitled, "Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis". What in the actual f[leep]? What in earth's name does attractiveness have to do with rectovaginal endometriosis? That just sounds sexist, doesn't it?

This paper on the Italian-led study was published in January of 2013 in the highest-ranked and most trusted reproductive health journal, ASRM. In the study, 100 patients with this chronic condition participated in several surveys and ensuing studies.

Before their scheduled surgeries, the participants were surveyed about their health, personal habits, and sexual histories. Afterward, they were measured in several areas of their body, and then ranked by two male and two female physicians based on their attractiveness. Their results were then rated amongst two control groups - one with endometriosis and the other without.

The results found that, compared to the two controls, more than twice as many women with the condition were deemed "rather attractive" or "very attractive".

Upon publication, you could just imagine the backlash that these physicians received!

They were deemed sexist, accused of bias and bias-led flaws in their study, and of objectifying women. It was also decided that, since attractiveness is subjective, that their results were inconclusive and 'faulty'. For years the physicians who worked on this project defended their work; unfortunately they eventually acquiesced 8 years later and took down the publication.

Among the various people who were a part of this project, three really stuck out: Paola Vigano, Laura Buggio, and Guissy Barbara, who were very surprised at the 'harsh reaction' from the public. They stated, "After eight years, we have lost our hopes to convince readers that this study was based on a reasonable biological rationale... A constructive debate on the findings never started and most likely never will." Why were these women defending this publication if it was so objectifying and biased?

Logic and Reason

Their reasoning was that attractiveness could potentially be 'accompanied by genetic or hormonal markers' and that women with 'the most feminine phenotype' might be more at risk for endometriosis. In short, they were speculating that a large amount of excess estrogen - the female hormone - could not only be cause for more feminine features but also be an early warning sign for developing this condition (rectovaginal endometriosis) later in life.

So, if the science behind the study involved women and the voluntary participants in the study were women, where is the objectification? I mean, they're acting as if it was that part in Miley Cyrus' song "Mother's Daughter' where she has a bunch of sexually explicit content followed by the very solemn message "Not an Object".

Here's where my brain lapsed for a second before the light bulb. Ready?

There wasn't any bias or objectification; and those who attacked these researchers are stifling useful scientific information from getting out to the general public or being accepted by it, even as an idea. That, my friend, is called being an enemy of science.

Halfway Point

This is where we come full-circle and realize that perhaps these outcries, rather than the publication, were wrong.

I find it very hard to believe that such backlash could come from an average person reading the article, or just the title - which I'm sure many people did the latter rather than actually reading the article - and feeling the immense need to vehemently advocate for these 'objectified women', who volunteered their time before surgery to participate in this study so that the researchers could potentially identify a new marker or link in the condition that they've had to live with. How can you possibly decide for someone else that they are being 'victimized' or 'objectified' when they don't even feel that way themselves?

Well, I can think of a few types of people who would act in such a way - and I have gone through a lot of thinking before deciding to write this article. If not to enforce the idea that we should always try to keep both objective and subjective outlooks in life, then at least to enforce that it's not ok to act these ways - especially when you don't even understand the work that went into the conclusion you're arguing against.

So, without further ado, here are a few of the types of people I came up with that may have had something to do with this publication being denounced. People that I consider 'enemies of science'.

1. Feminists

This is the first one that came to mind due to the nature of the accusations against the study. Feminists today seem to look for anything to preach their narrative, even if they have no idea what the research actually entails in the first place. All feminists seem to know today is "Men bad", "Women Superior", "Wonder Woman is Objectifying Women".

For most modern feminists, it's a my-way-or-the-highway-but-wait-I-don't-like-my-way-now-and-what-I-just-told-you-to-do-is-now-sexist-you-bigot type of mentality. And boy do I have some relieving words for these women who are 'genuinely worried about their stance and status in modern America"!

Firstly, I do not like to quote biased media generally. However, this particular article had some really revelational content hidden inside that was just too good to share. So, before I completely oust the notion that there is gender discrimination in science communities, I will first quote a few of my favorite excerpts from The Guardian's article:

• "It's time to lean out of corporate feminism... Capitalism has coopted feminism and turned it into a way for privileged women to advance their careers [bypassing hard work and experience]."
• "Tarana Burke, who founded the #MeToo movement in 2006, says the campaign has become unrecognizable.. Burke lamented that, 'Suddenly, a movement to center survivors of sexual violence is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men.'"
• "The Guardian ran a quiz where you could check how 'populist' you are. The results of the quiz suggest leftwing populist attitudes are more common among women."

Now to address wage gaps. As a woman myself, I was always skeptical on all these statistics that suggest - as well as enforce some self-righteous victim mentality to justify being a rude human being for no reason - that women are paid way less than men in damn near every profession. However, I am about to debunk this with the help from Science Magazine. Here's what you should know.

1. There is a slight wage gap between men and women in the same industry which researchers have linked, in part, to the presence of children. Where there was an absence of children, women matched men in income.
2. There is an obvious difference, statistically, in the degree concentrations between men and women. For example, men are more than 2x's likelier to go into a field such as engineering (45% vs 21%) and women are more likely to focus on fields such as biology, health, or chemistry (59% vs 27%). Fields such as engineering, physics, and computer science tend to pay more than fields like biology or health. Thus, this creates a profession wage gap, not a gender wage gap.
3. Men are more likely to work in industry, which pays higher than academia or government where there is a majority women staff.
4. "Women and men earn the most in industry, but the gap is also larger... The only variables that fully account for the gap were the combination of gender, partnership status, and parenthood." Here, I'd like to add that there are things in industry that require long hours and intense conditions at times. Women or men alike who are parents, especially single parents, are not able to work those types of hours and are usually more cautious about the risks they take. Having children tends to make people a little more conscientious in their actions. This could be another playing factor.

Side note: I have noticed a large increase in advertisements for women to go into computer science and STEM fields, mainly targeted to young girls. Do I think this is a good idea? My answer is "Eh". Not that it's a bad idea per se, but to put this idea in girls minds that these fields "need them" could cause a lot of driven young women to enter these fields without having a strong interest, simply because they were told they were "needed".

Women who are truly interested in these fields are already entering them, it's just a smaller number.

I think a good philosophy is that women need to be needed; men want to be wanted. To pander to these is a dangerous game sometimes. However, nothing is true 100% of the time with these types of things and there are exceptions to every rule, so take that with a grain of salt.

2. Advocates

Another type of person who may have jumped on the bandwagon to boycott the aforementioned study could be advocates. And I know advocates - I'm an INFJ, that's my personality ha-ha! Anyways, advocates have this innate need to be involved in anything that evokes change for something they are passionate about.

A lot of times, an advocate may feel passionate about things that their friends, family, or peers are passionate about - thus becoming a follower by proxy. I was one of them for a long time, and I can tell you that 7/10 times, I really wasn't passionate about a lot of the causes I 'advocated' for.

If an advocate hopped on Twitter or Instagram one day and saw this article, just knowing that all of their peers are into these women's rights movements and modern feminism, would cause most advocates to act. It's almost involuntary, like being on autopilot. Especially true for the young ones, they usually aren't thinking, "Hmmm, let's look at this subjectively." Instead, they're more thinking, "What would my friends/family/peers say about this?" They are drawing off of how these other people feel when they respond, rather than how they themselves feel about it.

No one ever said that advocates always make sense.

3. Blind Followers

This sort of goes along with the mentality of an advocate who falls in line with the societal trends in thinking. A blind follower is someone who prefers to think "safely" not "critically". It's harder to be denounced if you fall in line with the majority.

Blind followers may not feel strongly one way or another, or will go out of their way to voice their support for whatever majority they follow at every chance they get. As with everything, there's a spectrum. Blind followers tend to be, in my opinion, people who are a) desperate for attention, b) fearful of confrontation [even if the majority they follow is confrontational, they have a whole group to back them up], c) the type of person who needs to be needed, or d) are simply ill-informed and go by what others tell them rather than by constructive criticism, logic, and research.

One of the main differences between an advocate and a blind follower is that it seems blind followers can either be less or more vocal and aggressive about the topic, depending on the type of blind follower they are (Attention-Seeker [more], Non-Confrontational [mixed], Needer [more], or Ill-Informed [mixed]).

4. Liberal Activists

You might be thinking that there really isn't a difference between liberalism and advocacy. However, I'd like to correct this with definitions of each for reference.

Liberal/Liberalism: relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise [I nixed the first definition due to the fact that modern liberalism has shifted it's focus, but it reads as follows: willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas]; a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law.

Advocate/Advocacy: a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy; an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions.

Current liberals have proved to be some of the most intolerant, ignorant, and privileged people in this country. As I've mentioned before, there are exceptions to every rule, and if you're an exception I highly suggest you no longer identify yourself as a liberal for this reason (I'll never admit it, but I'm slightly liberal as well as an independent... whoops).

They obsessively scrutinize everything, twisting things to fit their given cause. A liberal can make pretty much anything a part of their cause. Since we're talking about feminism and women's rights in this article, we'll stick with that example:

A liberal see's a meme posted by a friend of a sandwich that says, "Best sandwich ever. My girl spoils me, thanks babe!" The liberal will then proceed to dissect this and make it about how you enslave your girlfriend and somehow forced her to make you that delicious sandwich with your male privilege.... You dirt bag!

5. Joe Biden Supporters

Okay, this one is pretty satirical, but I like to think it's more accurate than people will admit. It's just a well-known fact that most of Biden's supporters are liberals, far-left activists, more women than men, and a lot of them are on the younger side. Which brings us to our last one.

6. Millennials

Hate me if you want. I'm a Millennial, and I am personally offended to be a part of this generation. It's a fact that Millennials are the most liberal voting bloc, although they don't actually align values-wise or policy-wise with either party.

Perhaps Millennials simply want some more excitement in politics and, since the Democrats seem to be handing it over and excessively pandering to this notion to a ridiculous and blatant extent, perhaps that's why the vote is overwhelmingly Democratic. However, Millennials are probably also the most flaky generation, so you won't be able to hold that sway for long. They will get tired of you.

One thing I know as a Millennial is that they are impossible to satisfy. When you do what they ask or give them what they want, they're bored just as quickly and have moved on. Their attention span is similar to that of a gnat.

As a Millennial, they feel compelled to be individual and 'go against the grain'. If you say it's right, I say it's wrong!

The End

"Once upon a time, there was a magical place where it never rained.... THE END."

- Mr. Sir [a.k.a. Marion Sevillon], Holes

To summarize: Science is definitely under attack, but not in the way most media reports. The people who understand the data and logic and still turn the other way are the worst kind of people. After all, you can't fix stupid... but harder still is trying to fix willful ignorance. You don't have to like the results to appreciate the implications. You don't have to like the process to understand and appreciate the work that goes into it. You can't just make it go away because you don't like it.

We require science as a species to understand ourselves, our world, our neighbors, and just about everything. Without science, you mine as well still be living in a cave getting freaked out by that hot stuff on a stick started by that big, crackling boom thing that comes out of the sky every once and a while.

Another important point is that you can't get offended by everything. It's important to look at things from a broad point of view, instead of a narrow perspective that makes it easy to take everything personally. We all do it sometimes, but we need to get over it, see it for what it is, and move on. No more stewing-and-brewing over every little thing.

Just because the word "female" is in the title or because you get offended (most likely because it's either true or true for the majority), doesn't mean it isn't science. Science, facts, and logic are what keep this country running. You can't stifle that because you don't like the outcome - and if anyone knows that, it's scientists.

You think that scientists always like the outcome of their studies? You think they like proving themselves wrong? How many scientists have withheld the conclusions of their studies simply because they didn't like the results and modified factors to match their desired outcome? I hope there have been none, but I can almost guarantee with all the pseudoscience out there today that there have been a few cases at least.

You can find a list of "scientific websites and blogs" that are based on conspiracy-pseudoscience here.

With that being said, I implore you after reading this to really take in this one message, if nothing else: think for yourself, be critical and logical, and when in doubt do your research before reacting.

Oh, and don't be a liberal.