Has arguing with Flat Earthers been science's downfall?

Serious question. Scientists, and I’m talking about the ones who don’t have to tell you they’re scientists along with their pronouns, have been busy for more than two decades countering, and thus validating, the claims of flat earthers. Convinced of their exclusive access to the enlightened Word of Flat Earth, these true believers employ special Flat Earth Science, which is the only kind that exists on Flat Earth, to prove that the earth is flat. This is, of course, tin foil hat territory—one cannot talk rationally with radical ideologues—and yet it’s the way of legitimate science not to dismiss even the most florid bodily effluent out of hand. Science tries to counter the most factually impossible theories using the scientific method. Real science. Of course, real science is laborious and expensive and takes a lot of time. Whereas Flat Earth Science—working backward from the desired conclusion, no controls, no method, and conclusions that are utterly independent of the results of the “experiment”—can, by a creative person, be accomplished as fast as he can write, And therefore the earth is flat. Because flat earthers have infiltrated scientific journals, their nutty musings are published in formerly legitimate journals, and splashed across the headlines of major media. And flat earth is suddenly just as valid a theory as round earth. Maybe more so, because it is blasted by the media as New! and Improved! and proof that the average person who once flew to Bangkok (aROUND the earth) is hopelessly behind the times. Then round earth scientists spend another decade obeying the parameters of the scientific method exploring the question of whether the earth is flat. Because, no matter how insane the claim, legitimate science must always question “accepted” knowledge. Is the earth really round if The New York Times reports that it’s flat?

As it turns out, legitimate science is no match for made up bullshit. It’s nearly impossible to prove that a vividly hatched fiction is a vividly hatched fiction using legitimate science because they exist in different universes—one exists only in the fevered mind of its adherents, and the other exists in the real world. The world of gravity and the globe-shaped earth orbiting the sun.

I am, of course, talking about transgenderism. Adherents, some of who identify both as women and as scientists, claim, as it suits, that there is a third kind of human or that a woman can be born in a man’s body or that men can become women by messing with their hormones. This synaptic malfunction has come to be seen as equally as valid as the idea of two immutable sexes, which is the mechanism by which our species has reproduced for the past 8 million years, conservatively. Transgenderists are welcome to have these beliefs, but they are not equally valid.

Science is about asking questions, but the immutability of binary sex and downstream of that, sex differences that underpin women’s rights, have been answered comprehensively in theory and in practice. This is one of the most foundational truths of human life. Elevating an unverifiable belief hatched within the last 60 years to equal standing with a fact that is scientifically and empirically verified every time a baby is born has not advanced science. Quite the opposite. Treating transgenderism as a valid theory has validated fake science and destroyed trust in legitimate science. It has the surface appearance of science to the untrained eye. It identifies as science, but it is not science. It has had disastrous effect on our society—eroding trust in foundational shared truths. It’s not that most people believe men are or can become women, or some third sex—they don’t—but rather that they don’t believe anything. Erosion of shared truths is profoundly destabilizing. It’s as if, suddenly, some people declare that a red light meant go, not stop. That is their truth. And if traffic laws are not to be believed, what else is up for grabs? It is not hyperbole to say this is civilization ending stuff.

I’ve veered from sports. Let’s have a look at some Flat Earth Science that, after being recently published in the prestigious British Journal of Sports Medicine, was splashed across the pages of nearly every mainstream media outlet you can think of. It’s a systematic review, meaning it’s not new data but rather a mashup of a number of studies that reaches an amalgamated conclusion, and that conclusion was that “trans women” who had suppressed their testosterone had no sports advantage over “cis women.” New! Improved! Shocking! And not science! Just as only Flat Earth Science can support flat earth theory, this review and the studies it included employed something that identified as science, something that gave the appearance of science, but was not in fact legitimate science to arrive at that conclusion.

A number of scientists, people who are on a first name basis with the scientific method, have revealed the flaws in this WIDELY publicized paper, one of the most comprehensive rebuttals on a substack called Void If Removed. (Let it not escape our attention that actual scientists are having to use substack and X to self-publish actual science). The author goes into great detail explaining the review’s legion shortcomings, but the short version is:

On even a cursory inspection of the paper it turns out this whole thing is a mixture of linguistic sleight-of-hand and the mixing of quite different studies into a meaningless result. This is long and detailed and covers multiple issues but the tl;dr version is: these findings are almost entirely down to one paper by another group of researchers at São Paulo University which compared weak men to national-level female athletes.

Sports policy researcher Cathy Devine also pointed out on X how the review fell short of real science:

'A team of researchers at São Paulo University conducted research at the request of men with a vested interest in being included in female sports, which compared below-average men with low grip strength to national-level female athletes in the top 1% of female performance.”

“Another team ...included this in a systematic review ..- instead of dropping it because of the clear methodological issues and confounding factors - combined it with multiple other studies that can’t be directly compared, and produced a result so incoherent as to be meaningless'

“They declared in their conclusion that because they had a meaningless result they had found an “absence of strength disparities”, while arguing their research was evidence against “blanket bans”.”

'This was immediately picked up and circulated widely - from news outlets to Wikipedia - as clear evidence that male athletes given cross-sex hormones do not have a performance advantage against female athletes, and thus should not be subject to blanket bans.'

In all comparisons of “trans women’s” performance with women’s performance, the males are aware that they “should” have lost strength and ability, so there is every incentive for them to underperform. Though there are methods that can control for underperformance, in most cases, these protocols were not followed. Flat Earth/Transgender Science, my friends.

Joanna Harper, a man who identifies as a woman, famously paid to have his collection of self-reported running times from seven other rans-identified male runners, and his own, published as a “study.” This unscientific personal observation of eight subjects (!) was latched onto by the International Olympic Committee as the basis for its 2015 policy of including males in all female sports. That Harper was and still is (“it’s the hill I will die on,” he said) personally invested in male inclusion made him an “expert” in Transgender Science. In legitimate science, he is so compromised as to be a disqualifying conflict of interest.

Even jerryrigging the data for more than a decade, Harper has found male advantage remains after three years of testosterone suppression, but instead of admitting this fact, he stated that “trans women” could compete in women’s sports “meaningfully.” Meaningful competition is not the same as fair competition, but Harper has never defined what that difference is, nor has he defined “meaningful.” Invented, undefined language is part and parcel of Transgender Science; it is the antithesis of legitimate science.

In a 2025 Play The Game conference, Harper tore off the facade of science and went full Flat Earth. Desperately, vehemently rejecting the idea that males who identified as women could compete in an Open category, he sputtered:

“Trans women aren’t men. They don’t compete like men, don’t look like men…”

Read that again. Harper, who identifies as a scientist, claims trans women aren’t men, relying on the height of sexist nonscience—they don’t look like men. Would that be long hair? Fake breasts? What about women who have short hair? Should they compete in the male category? In what world would someone who has been paid handsomely by the IOC as a “scientist” utter this embarrassing admission of incompetence? This is not valid and it’s not science. It’s Flat Earth Science, and yet, Harper was an invited speaker at this prestigious conference where his “argument”—trans women are not men because they don’t look like men—was counted as equally valid as Jon Pike’s, that since sex is immutable and the female category is designed to exclude male advantage, “trans women” can compete fairly in an Open category. Platforming these two arguments as equally valid made a mockery of science. It did not advance knowledge, it destroyed trust.

That “trans women” are not biological men at all is a favored claim of Transgender Science. That' wass the New and Improved Transgender Science! takeaway in a 2024 article in The New York Times.

The very vulnerable Jere Longman wrote breathlessly: “The study’s most important finding, according to one of its authors, Yannis Pitsiladis, a member of the I.O.C.’s medical and scientific commission, was that, given physiological differences, ‘Trans women are not biological men.’”

I emailed Pitsiladis just last week for clarification on this bombshell, asking: In what way are trans women not biological men? If they were born with a penis and testicles, how are they not men? If they are not biological men, are they female? Are trans women a third sex?

Pitsiladis replied: To clarify what I meant: trans women remain chromosomally male—that does not change. My point was about biology beyond chromosomes. Once someone transitions, their biology changes in meaningful ways that make them no longer “male” in the physiological sense relevant to sport.

He went on to mention malleable physiological measurements that are all downstream of chromosomes, measurements that do not determine or change sex, as any legitimate sport scientist knows:

With hormone therapy, trans women experience substantial shifts in circulating testosterone, muscle mass, strength, hemoglobin, and other physiological parameters. Over time, these changes mean that their functional biology—their hormones, muscle characteristics, and other performance-related traits—is no longer the same as that of typical males who have gone through male puberty without suppression. That was the distinction I was trying to communicate.

If this is still unclear or if you’d like to explore the topic in more detail, I’m happy to arrange a call.

I followed up: From what you’ve described, trans women are males who have reduced their physical/sports capabilities. They are men who’ve made themselves weaker. Women are generally weaker than men, but they are not weak men. They are a unique sex. Would you agree with that?

I got no response, so I emailed again: Maybe I’m not understanding you. Can we arrange a phone call?

Answer came there none. What The New York Times published as a quote from Pitsiladis—trans women are not biological men—is, even by his own admission, a lie. Their chromosomes do not change. They are still males. Other biological metrics can be fiddled with but Pitsiladis knows, these metrics do not change one’s sex. Longman, to his credit, did reach out to a legitimate scientist, Dr. Michael Joyner at the Mayo Clinic who focuses on sex differences in sports. Joyner said:

“We know testosterone is performance enhancing, And we know testosterone has residual effects.” Additionally, he added, declines in performance by trans women after taking drugs to suppress their testosterone levels do not fully reduce the typical differences in athletic performance between men and women.”

Pitsiladis’ Transgender Science lie, positioned as as valid, if not more so, than Joyner’s foundational truth sets science back. Entertaining the idea that men can somehow become not men validates Flat Earth Science. Transgender Science simply is not worthy of consideration. It makes a mockery of science, it’s regression, it does not advance knowledge, and it erodes trust in the protocols of legitimate science. Transgender Science, like Flat Earth Science, has a right to exist, but it has been extremely destructive to society as a whole to treat these nonscience, fantastical musings as valid challenges to the most foundational truths of human life.