The conversation between comedian Bill Maher and research commentator Neil deGrasse Tyson about male-female “inequity” in sports highlights how scientific scientists can be when sucked into a “woke” plan. Taylor has ignored the dangers of women in secret spaces, minors who receive chemical circumcision, and free speech while using his scientist credentials to spout ironic views about everyday changes in sex identity. Although the conflict between Maher and Tyson may be a one-timer, the problems at issue are significant. This includes protecting” transgender ladies” from the encroachment of women’s sports.
The Maher and Tyson Conversation
Maher began by asking Tyson about the resignation of Scientific American editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth, who, after the vote, attacked Trump supporters as “fascists” and the “meanest, dumbest, most racist” party.
The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong” ( Nov. 1, 2023 ), in which the female authors ( one a biologist and the other a biological anthropologist ), stated that” Inequality between male and female athletes is a result of biases in how they are treated in sports.” Maher then pointed out that last year Scientific American published an article entitled” The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved Maher commented,” That’s beans, and it certainly ain’t medical … Scientific American is saying generally that the reason why a WNBA team doesn’t hit the Lakers is because of political biases”.
Tyson dismissed Maher’s issue, claiming falsely that the remark was just a post from the withdrew editor-in-chief. Additionally, he was unwilling to instantly refute the claim that bias and not biology were to blame for women’s sports inequity. Otherwise, he attempted to rescue some fact from the declaration, claiming:” Long range swimming, women may actually have the advantage, you may look into that”. To this Maher retorted:” Yeah, probably long-distance floating … Well, I’m gonna document you under’ part of the problem.'”
The Contradiction Between the Scientific American Proposition and Their Consensus
As “nuts” as the phrase from Scientific American was, the article’s writers acknowledged that there are biological differences between men and women that have an impact on sport achievement, though not completely in the male’s favor:
Nevertheless, females are biologically better suited for energy activities, whereas men excel at quick, powerful burst-type activities. You can think of it as marathoners ( females ) versus powerlifters ( males ). The effects of the hormone progesterone appear to be a major factor in this change.
One can’t get “marathoners” actually, though, because the fastest children’s workout time relationships for 1465th fastest among all athletes.
The article makes some intriguing measurements, such as that, in the same amount of practice, women “have less strength break than males” and that they can do considerably more weight-lifting repetitions than males at the same percentages of their maximum strength.
The writers come to the conclusion that, in contrast to men, women should be able to run longer distances with less stress if they are better able to use fat for sustained energy and maintain their muscles in better shape during training. They recognize that a counter-response would be:” Wait — males are outperforming females in endurance events”!
Their rejoinder:” But this is only sometimes the case. Female athletes regularly take the lead in ultraendurance competitions, including the 4, 300-mile Trans Am cycling race across the U.S. and the more than 260-mile Montane Spine foot race through England and Scotland, the 21-mile swim across the English Channel, and the more than 260-mile Montane Spine foot race through England and Scotland. S”.
Even if this assertion about female athletes “dominating ultraendurance events” were accurate, it wouldn’t back up their subsequent assertion that male-female athletic inequalities are caused by bias rather than biology. In all other sports “males have inherent biological advantages, such as taller body height, … more muscle mass, greater muscle strength, larger hearts and lungs, higher maximal oxygen consumption, and stronger bones than similarly aged, gifted, and trained females”.
Records in Ultraendurance Events
Even their flimsy claim to be advantageous to women is inaccurate. The best we can say is that there aren’t as many women and men in ultraendurance events.  ,
Take the 21-mile swim across the English Channel. The record is held by a male ( 6: 45 ), with the female record ( 7: 25 ) 40 minutes slower. The time gap between the female record and overall record for two-way ( 16 hours 10 minutes ) and three-way ( 28 hours 21 minutes ) swims across the Channel are 1 hour 4 minutes and 6 hours 19 minutes, respectively. The longest distance ocean swim ( 155 miles ) is held by a man ( Pablo Fernandez of Spain ), as also the longest river swim ( 299 miles, Ricardo Hoffmann of Argentina ).
This doesn’t mean that women don’t shine in ultra-long swimming events. As regards current-neutral swimming, American Sarah Thomas holds the world record for the swims that are the longest ( 2017, Lake Champlain, 104.6 miles, over 67 hours ), second-longest ( 2019, four-way cross of the English Channel, 84 miles, over 56 hours ), and third-longest ( 2016, Lake Powell, 80 miles, over 56 hours ). Penny Lee Dean held the English Channel world record ( 7: 40 ) for 17 years ( 1978 till 1995 ). She still holds the world record in swimming from Catalina to California, a mark she set in 1976 ( 7: 15: 55 ).
The 260-mile Montane Spine foot race is dominated by men, but women have won two of the 34 events that have taken place since 2012. With respect to the 4, 300-mile Trans Am cycling race across the U. S., since 2014 there were 32 top-three finishers, of which two were women ( with one finishing in first place in 2016, the 10th fastest all-time ). A 2020 study found that “female ultra runners are ]0.6 % ] faster than male ultra runners” after the 195th mile.
In sum, although women have achieved notable successes in ultraendurance events ( swimming, footrace, bicycling ), even in these events men still dominate. According to a 2018 study,” sex differences between the world’s best athletes in most events have remained relatively stable at approximately 8 to 12 % since the 1990s.” The exceptions are events in which upper-body power is a major contributor, where this difference is more than 12 %, and ultraendurance swimming, where the gap is now less than 5 %”.
Of course, this does not imply that exceptional female athletes are inferior to the majority of men. However, it does indicate that the best men prevail over the best women.
Why This Matters
The assertion made in Scientific American that “inequity between male and female athletes” is due to bias rather than biology is untrue. In sport after sport, males have a decided advantage over females: boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, football, soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, track, tennis, swimming, rowing, volleyball, skiing, skating, archery, squash, bicycling, judo, karate, lacrosse, etc. A partial exception is shooting. According to one study, women can shoot as well as men can as long as the target is stationary.
Why does this matter? It matters because we live in a day and age of craziness, where nonsense claims about “inequity between males and female athletes” being due to bias, not biology, go hand in hand with support for female-identifying males in female sports. Even when” transgender females” undergo hormone therapy, they still have a significant advantage. Men only lose 0 to 9 percent of their muscle mass when they are subjected to testosterone suppression, which results in 30 to 60 % more muscle strength than women. This puts real women at a major disadvantage. In contact sports, it also puts them in harm’s way.
It is not anti-feminism to acknowledge this glaring reality. It is a pro-woman view because it preserves the integrity of female sports from unwanted, unfair, and unsafe male intrusion.
Robert A. J. Gagnon is a visiting scholar at Wesley Biblical Seminary and the author of” The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics”.
