What we think is true can have the same effect on us as what is true. We have known this forever. But today, in our post-truth culture, we are becoming less concerned with discovering what is true and more focused on what we feel is true. Public opinion today is shaped more by emotion and personal beliefs than facts. The impact of this post-truth era is profound.
Our recent Covid pandemic is an example. Here are some of the things people all over the world were told:
- Covid originated in a wet market, not in a Chinese lab outside of Wuhan
- Surgical and cloth masks work to prevent the spread of the virus
- It was necessary to shut down to stop the spread of the virus
- Stay 6 feet away from other people, and the spread will be prevented
- The vaccine, although untested, is entirely safe
- Covid is a pandemic of the unvaccinated
- Vaccinations prevent the spread and protect you from contracting the virus
Every one of these statements was, ultimately, provably false. Yet every one was claimed to have been based on “science.”
People who questioned these unequivocal pronouncements were widely condemned and often lost their jobs, friendships, social standing. Their social media accounts were canceled or restricted. Or their posts were tagged with warning notices. In some countries, even Western countries like Australia, people were jailed for violating government-imposed pandemic guidelines.
What people believed to be true had profoundly detrimental effects on our entire country. Tens of thousands lost their businesses that they spent a lifetime building, and millions lost their jobs. All this and more happened because of lies that many believed were true.
Some subjects taught in our schools today are no more factually based than the falsehoods promoted during the pandemic. Race and LGBTQ issues are two examples.
Last month, Pew Research released the results of its study into the views of teachers, parents, and teens on the debates about race and LGBT curricula in schools. The findings are fascinating.
One race issue that was explored was the views of teachers on whether to teach students that the legacy of slavery still affects blacks in America today. Some believe it does, and some do not.
Sixty-four percent of teachers think that students should be taught that the impact of slavery still has an effect. Twenty-three percent of the teachers think it no longer has an impact and should not be taught that it does. Eight percent of teachers do not believe this issue, whether slavery still has an effect on the black community, should be taught at all.
Does the legacy of slavery still hurt blacks?
This seems like a yes-or-no answer. If so, how much? In what way? What is the answer? Where are the empirical studies that document these things? Where is the proof?
Why teach something as factual without evidence?
One thing I know is true. If you believe that you are disabled in some way, or that you are inferior to others, or that the other guys are much better than you and have all the advantages, or that you drew the short straw and didn’t have a chance, it’s a good bet that you will not achieve to your fullest potential.
Tell someone he is a victim long enough, and eventually, he will believe it.
Why teach a child that he is limited by what happened before he was born, by something he can do nothing about? This is not education. This isn’t equipping a child. This is crippling a child.
Why do 64% of teachers think teaching this is a good idea? Why do they believe that?
One of the LGBT issues that was examined involved whether a child’s sex can be different than the sex “they were assigned at birth.” Thirty-three percent of teachers think children should be taught that it is. Fourteen percent believe that a child’s sex is biologically determined and remains the same as it was at birth. Fifty percent of teachers do not think this issue should be addressed.
This seems like it should be pretty clear-cut. There are only two sexes: you are one or the other. Right?
No.
Not according to many of the experts today who claim to have discovered that sex is not binary. Here’s one example. Four highly educated experts in their fields just wrote an article that was published in the latest issue of American Scientist, the March-April 2024 issue, titled, “Biology Is Not Binary: How scientists define sex has evolved over the centuries, and the concept is still incredibly difficult to pin down.”
The authors are:
Kate Clancy, professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University.
Agustin Fuentes, professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Fuentes received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Caroline VanSickle, associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University. VanSickle was awarded a PhD from the University of Michigan. She also is a Post Doctoral Fellow in Feminist Biology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Catherine Clune-Taylor, assistant professor of gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University. Clune-Taylor received her PhD from the University of Alberta. (As an aside, her PdD. dissertation was “From Intersex to DSD: A Foucauldian Analysis of the Science, Ethics and Politics of the Medical Production of Cisgendered Lives.” Michel Foucault was a well-known leftist French philosopher and historian who was a prolific author. After his death, it was disclosed that he was also a prolific pedophile who engaged in unusually twisted sexual activities with vulnerable pre-teen boys. Is this someone whose views will point us toward the truth?)
These authors contend that the historical evidence demonstrates that the idea of sex being binary is a very recent claim. According to them:
“Those who claim that sex is a clear binary . . . might be surprised to learn that the theory of two sexes is relatively recent.
“The prevailing theory from classical times into the 19th century was that there is only one sex. According to this model, the only true sex is male, and females are inverted, imperfect distortions of males. This hierarchical idea of sex reinforced women’s subjugation to men.
“By the 19th century, the theory of two sexes gained traction. In 1876, German Swiss microbiologist Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs introduced an account of binary sex based on gonads (reproductive organs), identifying those with testes as male and those with ovaries as female.”
Who created the “prevailing theory” that Theodor Klebs disputed in the 19th century? Where did it come from?
Anyone with a biblical worldview would have to take issue with Clancy and her colleagues’ views. The book of Genesis was written 3,500 years ago. It very clearly says we were created “male and female.”
Sounds binary to me.
Current biology sounds binary as well. Biologists have shown that there are two groups of people: one with XX chromosomes in almost every cell in their bodies and another with XY chromosomes in their cells. We call the first group female and the second group male.
I don’t know for sure, but I bet the ancient Sumerians held that view, too. Their writings date back more than 5,000 years.
Nevertheless, one-third of teachers think children should be taught that sex is not binary and that it exists on some continuum. (Personally, I think holding that view should disqualify them as teachers since it demonstrates their intellectual deficiency.)
One of the study’s most interesting findings concerns teachers’ views on parents’ ability to opt their children out of classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity. Of all teachers, 48% believe parents should be able to opt their children out, but 33% think they should not.
However, among teachers who are Republican or lean Republican, 80% think parents should be able to pull their children out of such programs, while only 8% think they shouldn’t. Teachers who are Democrats or lean Democrat have significantly different views. Only 30% think parents should be able to opt-out their children, while 50% think it should not be allowed.
Why is there such a difference, based on political party affiliation, over this?
The idea that there is a sexual continuum was “documented” by Kinsey through his research. However, his research has since been demonstrated to be fatally flawed. It did not follow approved scientific methods, so his “studies” could not be replicated.
That makes his findings false.
Moreover, it turns out Kinsey was not the paragon of virtue that he presented himself to be. He was bisexual and a pedophile. This brings into question his motivations for the study in the first place, which could explain why he fraudulently twisted his findings to show a continuum of sexuality.
Several years after Kinsey’s studies were published, John Money, another bisexual, further developed Kinsey’s original published findings on sexuality. Money theorized that while we have a binary biological sex, a person’s gender identity is malleable, particularly in the first two years of life, and he introduced the ideas of gender roles and sexual orientation. He popularized the term gender identity and further refined Kinsey’s false claims that gender is a continuum.
It’s all false.
How anyone can take Money seriously is beyond comprehension. His seminal study on the Reimer twins, which he promoted as a radiant triumph, was, in reality, a devastating, tragic failure.
Like Kinsey, he was a fraud.
The current theories involving sexual orientation and gender identity are dependent on the claims of Kinsey and Money, yet their claims are demonstrably false, discredited, fraudulent. Why would any teacher, any person, have any confidence in the claims made by these two men, or the pedophile Foucault for that matter?
My guess is the teachers who participated in the Pew Research study don’t know the facts. What they believe is based on their feelings, on a propaganda-driven agenda that was promoted by whatever party or interest group or tribe to which they belong.
The antidote to this is education based on truth. What we need is to return to beliefs based on facts and truth rather than on how we feel.
