🧵A few thoughts on this column by @asymmetricinfo on trans athletes . . . To start, I 100% agree with her central point on questions surrounding trans athletes:
"will have to be asked and answered — out loud, where everyone can hear it"
Issues surrounding trans athletes in sport typically find their way onto the pages of the Wash Post & similar when a trans athlete makes news for some reason, typically athletic success
I get how the media works
But unique cases typically make for bad policy discussions
The world of sport governance is complex and regulations surrounding trans athlete participation will necessarily differ based on setting and sport pewtrusts.org/en/research-an…
There is not going to be a single "answer" to the issue, even for elite sport
Complex? Yes, buckle up
"First question, then: Do trans-female athletes really have an advantage?"
An incomplete Q
Our recent short review concluded that "advantage" is necessarily sport specific & in varying degree bases.org.uk/imgs/8931_bas_…
Equestrian? No
Boxing? Sure
Women's gymnastics? Probably not
"But with even a small percentage of elite athletes transitioning after puberty, trans women could conceivably dominate many women’s sports to the point of unavoidable controversy"
I see claims like this all the time, never any evidence or numbers (except from @KirstiMiller30)
But for argument sake, let's say that a lot of excellent male athletes transition and then as women start dominating women's sport
A regulatory approach here would be to implement a "cap-tie" rule (which IMO makes sense anyway)
"we didn’t create separate leagues to reinforce the special feminine identity of female athletes; if anything, women’s athletics was supposed to break down such divisions. The separation is a nod to biology"
Only indirectly . . .
Most of modern sport was invented a century+ ago to celebrate masculinity & to exclude women
Sure biology is there
But we have women's categories in sport not merely because of biology but because women fought for the right to participate 100+ yrs ago michaelmessner.org/wp-content/upl…
The main sports we have (though this is slowly changing) were invented to feature male athleticism (American football the most obvious)
But we can imagine sports that feature female athleticism (women's gymnastics obviously)
"we’ll need to settle whether we still think it’s important for cisgender women to have a place where at least a few of us can experience the thrill of victory"
How many Olympic medal have been awarded to trans athletes since trans inclusion first allowed? How many NCAA titles?
Finally the recent IOC Framework is an excellent starting for for thinking abt and discussing regulations for trans athletes
At the level of Olympic sport at least, it appears that the idea of outright ban or anything goes have been superseded by inclusive pragmatism - Good
/END
A well-regarded scientist, now a senior official at OSTP, violated PNAS peer review procedures as an editor so egregiously that it led to the paper she oversaw being retracted
The official is also leading the Biden Admin Science Integrity Task Force
Not a great look...
Today, @axios reports the following about the retraction and the officials role on the Science Integrity Task Force axios.com/white-house-sc…
🧵
Interesting detail in Supreme Court ruling striking down the Biden Administration's vaccine mandate for employers . . . supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…
The majority argue that Congress never gave OSHA authority to regulate public health in workplaces
A reaction might be for the Biden Admin to propose new legislation granting OSHA that authority
After all, Ds control House and Senate
But . . .
There is no chance of legislation passing that would expand OSHA regulatory authority
How do we know this?
The Senate voted last month to express disapproval of the OSHA vaccine mandate
It was party-line, except for two
Tester (D-MT)
Manchin (D-WV)
Quiet, uncritical, obedient: how the UK’s scientists failed the pandemic test
Throughout the pandemic, senior advisers and institutions have failed to challenge a post-truth government. newstatesman.com/health-science…
🧵Some quick comments on the @WHOSTP science integrity report released today (just in time for my first grad seminar meeting of the semester, so thanks for that!) . . .
1⃣ The report does not define "scientific integrity" -- which is a problem because you cannot regulate that which is undefined ... and Potter Stewart imprecision won't do ... the report does say that future work of the Task Force will come up with a definition
2⃣ Notably missing is any discussion of congressional scientific integrity legislation, notable legislation introduced by @PaulTonko w/ 140+ bipartisan co-sponsors tonko.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
Reason is likely that Biden Admin doesn't want to cede any oversight power to Congress
🧵 @MunichRe today published their estimates for natural disaster losses in 2021, allowing me to update the time series of global disaster losses as a proportion of global GDP
This thread reports and discusses this update
TL;DR --> Figure below
Munich Re reports ~$270B in total weather and climate disasters losses for 2021, which is 0.28% global GDP
"Spotting is an influential form of wildfire spread whereby firebrands (i.e. burning pieces of vegetation or other combustible materials) are blown into unburnt fuels and ignite separate new ‘spot fire'"
Storey et al. 2020 publish.csiro.au/WF/pdf/WF19124
Albini, F. A. (1983). Potential spotting distance from wind-driven surface fires (Vol. 309). US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. frames.gov/documents/beha…
This is an incredibly interesting paper:
Pitts, W. M. (1991). Wind effects on fires. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 17(2), 83-134. doi.org/10.1016/0360-1…