{"id":67137,"date":"2023-06-05T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=67137"},"modified":"2023-06-01T15:50:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T19:50:35","slug":"monday-miscellany-6-5-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/06\/monday-miscellany-6-5-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Miscellany, 6\/5\/23"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists who hide their science; debate judges who won\u2019t allow debate; and teachers who give higher grades as their students\u2019 test scores plummet.<\/p>\n

Group Behind Transgender \u201cScience\u201d Won\u2019t Release Its Research<\/h4>\n

The allegedly science-based guidelines that many hospitals and clinics use to give \u201cgender-affirming care\u201d to children come from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).\u00a0 In Alabama, a lawsuit against that state\u2019s refusal to allow sex change procedures for minors invokes WPATH\u2019s findings.\u00a0 So a federal judge has subpoenaed the documents that are the basis of those guidelines.<\/p>\n

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Strangely, WPATH is fighting the subpoena<\/a>.\u00a0 But the scientific method requires transparency and the sharing of data, so as to allow for replicability and peer review!\u00a0 What is WPATH afraid of the public and the medical profession learning?\u00a0 Could it be that the research the guidelines are based upon is bogus and shaped by transgender ideology?<\/p>\n

An article<\/a> on the subject includes this about WPATH:<\/p>\n

\n

WPATH\u00a0recently pushed to remove any minimum age requirement to undergo sex change surgeries or cross-sex hormone therapy. Amy Tishelman, one of the authors of the 8th edition of WPATH\u2019s guidelines, said WPATH changed the guidelines so doctors wouldn\u2019t \u201cbe sued because they weren\u2019t following exactly what we said.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n

In 2022, WPATH\u00a0set standards of care\u00a0for those with a \u201ceunuch\u201d gender identity, recommending hormone suppression, orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) to stop production of testosterone, orchiectomy with or without penectomy to alter the body to match their self-image and orchiectomy followed by hormone replacement with testosterone or estrogen. WPATH even\u00a0cited information from the Eunuch Archive, an online forum\u00a0which contains stories of child castration, pedophilia and sexual torture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Debate Judges Who Won\u2019t Allow Debate<\/h4>\n

High school debate is a sort of intellectual sport, teaching young people how to make effective arguments from different points of view.\u00a0 As part of their preparation for competition, debaters can check out their judges, who post a \u201cparadigm\u201d on a website in which they tell a little about themselves and explain what they look for in a winning debate.\u00a0 For example, whether they don\u2019t like it if you talk too fast and if they are open to emotional appeals.<\/p>\n

But today, some debate judges are dictating the views that the debaters must hold.\u00a0 Never mind that debaters are supposed to prepare to speak to either side of the issue.\u00a0 They don\u2019t even know what position they will be assigned to take until the tournament.<\/p>\n

But here are some of the judges\u2019 paradigms as reported by James Fishback in his\u00a0Free Press<\/em> article At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed<\/a>, with the deck \u201cAt national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue \u2018capitalism can reduce poverty\u2019 or \u2018Israel has a right to defend itself\u2019 will lose\u2014no questions asked.\u201d\u00a0 The links will go to the actual paradigms, so you can see for yourself:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\u201cBefore anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. . . . I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I\u2019m judging. . . . I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions\/arguments. . . . Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc.\u201d\u00a0 Lila Lavender<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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\u201cIf you are discussing immigrants in a round and describe the person as \u2018illegal,\u2019 I will immediately stop the round, give you the loss with low speaks\u201d\u2014low speaker points\u2014\u201cgive you a stern lecture, and then talk to your coach. . . . I will not have you making the debate space unsafe.\u201d Shubham Gupta<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To be sure, such bias goes against the rules of the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA), most debate judges are not like this, and the organization says that the posted information can be used to weed out inappropriate judges.\u00a0 But these and others cited in the article have a lot of experience judging debates.\u00a0 That is, judging that debate must not occur.<\/div>\n

Grades Are Up As Test Scores Fall<\/h4>\n

The good news is that student grades are up.\u00a0 The bad news is that test scores are falling.<\/p>\n

In a Federalist<\/em> article entitled America\u2019s Hatred For Merit Is Leading Us To Total Incompetence<\/a>, Alexander Zubatov includes the following facts:<\/p>\n

Grades have been rising, while SAT scores have been falling. Average performance is supposed to earn C\u2019s, not A\u2019s. Even as recently as 1990, it\u00a0was still in reasonable C+\/B- territory<\/a>. But the percentage of high schoolers with an A average\u00a0went up<\/a>\u00a0from an already absurd 38.9 percent in 1998 to a still more absurd 47 percent in 2016. And this is not because kids today are wowing teachers with their stellar performance. Average SAT scores, which reveal the ignorance and incompetence that inflated grades conceal,\u00a0fell<\/a>\u00a0from 1026 to 1002 on a 1600-point scale over the same period.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some 80% of colleges and universities<\/a> no longer require the SAT or ACT for admission, choosing to rely instead on grade point averages.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists who hide their science; debate judges who won’t allow debate; and teachers who give higher grades as their students’ test scores plummet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":65538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,30,36],"tags":[643,4542,13506,12586],"class_list":["post-67137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-medicine","category-politics","tag-debate","tag-grades","tag-standardized-tests","tag-transgender-treatment-for-children"],"yoast_head":"\nMonday Miscellany, 6\/5\/23<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scientists who hide their science; debate judges who won't allow debate; and teachers who give higher grades as their students' test scores plummet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/06\/monday-miscellany-6-5-23\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Monday Miscellany, 6\/5\/23\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists who hide their science; 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