New Presentation: “Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality”

I will be a speaker at the first annual conference of the Center for Inquiry/Chicago on Saturday, April 24th. The theme of this conference is: “Dangerous Nonsense - Exploring the Gulf between Science and its Impostors.” This theme is the perfect context for my talk entitled “Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality” that will focus on the scientific evidence on core sexuality obtained over the last fifty years and the medical profession’s treatment of intersex, homosexual, and transsexual peoples.

Here’s a conference description and schedule:

The Center For Inquiry/Chicago First Annual Spring Conference:
Dangerous Nonsense: Exploring the Gulf between

Science and its Impostors

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

8:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

111 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago 60601

26th Floor - Conference Room

Bunkum grows like a weed in American culture - whether it's climate change denial, conspiracy theories, or healing by prayer. Some ideas are not only nonsense, they are dangerous nonsense, with serious implications for our lives. In this age where misinformation can be spread more easily than ever before, understanding the role of the scientific process in human affairs is critical to our survival. This conference will present top scientists in biology, physiology, and physics, each of them gifted at explaining both the science and its impostors of their respective fields. Join us and gain valuable insight into exploring the world through science and reason.

Conference Schedule

8:30 a.m. Check-in and Registration

Optional: Set up your evening dinner reservation with a nearby restaurant

9:15 a.m. Welcome - the Center For Inquiry/Chicago Board

9:25 a.m. Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York

“Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell the Difference Between Science and Bunk”

10:25 a.m. Coffee Break

Dr. Pigliucci will also be available to autograph his new book

10:45 a.m. Dr. Veronica Drantz, Professor of Physiology at DePaul University’s College of Nursing

“Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science and Sexuality”

11:30 a.m. Dr. Michael Albrow, Nuclear Physicist at both the Tevatron (Fermilab) and the Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

“What's True and What's Untrue in Physics Today”

12:15 p.m. Announcements

12:20 p.m. Lunch on your own

(Your packet will include lunch options in the immediate vicinity)

1:40 p.m. Dr. Ron Pine, Explorer, retired biology professor, and debunker of Intelligent Design “Intelligent Design or ‘No Model’ Creationism: Why It Can't Qualify Even as Pseudo-Science”

2:25 p.m. The Mentalist “Mystopher” & Carolee

“Serving Fork-Fulls of Magic and Imagination”

3:00 p.m. Dr. Dario Maestripieri, Professor of Comparative Human Development, Neurobiology, Evolutionary Biology, and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago

“What Primatology and Evolutionary Psychology Tell Us About the Evolution of Human Behavior”

3:45 p.m. Coffee Break

Dr. Pigliucci will also be available to autograph his new book

4:05 p.m. Panel Discussion with all of our presenters

“The Future of Science and Science Education in the U.S.”

5:15 p.m. Adjourn

Post-Conference

5:30 p.m. Optional: Post-Conference discussion and drinks (cash bar) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (directions included in your packet - it’s about a block away)

6:30 p.m. Optional: Dinner (your cost) in downtown Chicago - some of these will be “hosted” by CFI/Chicago Board members (your packet will include a selection of places and cuisines)

Late Optional: Music clubs (your cost) - some of these will be “hosted” by CFI/Chicago Board members (your packet will include a selection of places and musical styles)

Learn more about the speakers here.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE

British Prime Minister Issues Posthumous Apology To Alan Turing

Alan Turing pioneered computer science, broke the Nazi Enigma code and changed the course of world history.  But he was also gay.  He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated to “cure” his homosexuality, and took his own life at only 41.

As stated in my August 17th post, there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay.  This petition has been signed by many thousands of British citizens.  Now as the list of petitioners continues to grow, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has issued a posthumous apology to Alan Turing.  Below is the text of this apology.

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

See The Alan Turing Home Page for a wealth of information about this great genius and Geoffrey Wansell's article for a good synopsis of this unsung World War II hero's life story .

Alan Turing - Gay Genius Who Changed the Course of History Was Hounded to His Death

Alan Turing, “father of computer science,” mathematician, philosopher, visionary and hero who helped win World War II by breaking the Nazi code, has been a major and positive force in shaping our modern life and the future; yet few people know of his enormous and rightful place in history. Why? Because Alan Turing was a homosexual (androphilic) man and he died young by suicide. Now there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay and that no doubt contributed to his suicide.

But Alan Turing deserves to be celebrated around the planet, not just in the United Kingdom. Alan Turing’s accomplishments as a scientist, great thinker, and military hero have benefited all of humanity; thus he is a global hero and should be known and celebrated around the world. Over the years that I have been in American academia, I have observed to my dismay that many computer science students don’t know anything about Alan Turing. This is like a physics student not knowing about Isaac Newton! American students should be taught about Alan Turing in their computer science, math, philosophy and history classes. And they should be taught how Alan Turing died and how all humanity has lost so much due to prejudice.

We will never know what other incredible achievements Alan Turing would have given the world had he been celebrated rather than persecuted for being gay. The same innate brain difference that made Alan Turing a gay man may well have been a factor leading to his genius. We suffer when we punish diversity. The world destroyed a genius and a hero. The whole world lost. Homophobia is a cultural disorder!

9 Biology Of Sexual Orientation

Part 9 of "Science & Sexuality." What determines sexual orientation? Is it learned or inborn? How does culture affect the expression and treatment of sexually different people?

9 Biology Of Sexual Orientation

View more OpenOffice presentations from drdrantz.

Heterosexuals need defense from "Gender Theories"

Pontiff equates gender theories with threat to rainforests!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/23/pope-gender-sexuality?commentid=109df3f9-2adf-443b-a94a-b0837e08b74a

This message from the Holy Roman Poop, ... er ...I mean Pope, is so stupid! As if the Catholic Church has never cared about the well-being of the planet! As a biologist, I know that the primary problem of our planet is human overpopulation. It is irresponsible reproduction by heterosexual people that has caused destruction of the rainforests and all the rest of the global ecological calamities. No other institution has fostered irresponsible reproduction as much as the Catholic Church by condemning birth control and resisting the freeing of females from male-controlled reproductive policies. Of course the truth or facts have nothing to do with religion. Religion is all about mind control and the 24/7 behavioral control of the believers to serve the agenda of the hierarchy. And the Catholic Church hierarchy is comprised of male-bodied, male-identified, misogynists with purported heterosexual orientation.

The following paragraph about the holy roman poop's xmas message concerning "queers" is from the 12/27/08 blog of the remarkable Zoe Brain: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/ (emphasis mine).
"The pope was not talking about "transgender" or even "gender theory". He was talking about the concept that gender is distinct from physical sex. He denied this concept as merely an artifact of Man's Pride (for want of a better term), the same urge that led to the Tower of Babel.Theologically speaking - and how else could the Pope speak, he professes that there are men, and women. Nothing else. Men are attracted to women, and women to men. That is the natural order of things. There is no "gender", only sex. He states that all other things that appear to contradict a strict Male/Female binary, such as Homosexuality, or "women born in a man's body", "post-operative transsexuals" or any body not obviously male or obviously female, are all against the natural order of Creation, and dangerous. All such are artefacts of Human origin, perfect Divine creations spoilt by Man. Intersexed people may be explained away as the result of Man's tampering with the environment, with chemical and possibly spiritual pollution."

So the concepts of "sexual identity" and "sexual orientation" as neurological/biological phenomena independent of the genitalia are threatening to the Church. Yippee!!! And you know what happens when a religion makes a statement about the natural world - science eventually investigates and disproves that idea. Now we all know that the earth moves around the sun; Copernicus and Galileo were right and the bible was wrong. And the biblical Adam & Eve binary sexual system is as unnatural as the sun moving around the earth. The very existence of gay people, transsexual people, and the many types of intersex people refutes the "gender binary" and this obviously threatens the Poop.

In the last twenty years or so, a lot of groundbreaking research on homosexual, transsexual, and intersexual people has been done and a compelling scientific picture of sexuality has emerged!!! There are at least three separate dimensions to sexuality: one for the body, one for sexual identity in the brain, and one for sexual orientation also in the brain. Everyone occupies a point somewhere on each of these three continuums.