The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Karleen Gribble | The War on Science Interviews | Day 20

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel – July 30Elizabeth Weiss – July 31Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1Frances Widdowson – August 2Carole Hooven – August 3Janice Fiamengo – August 4Geoff Horsman – August 5Alessandro Strumia – August 6Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7Peter Boghossian – August 8Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11Dorian Abbot – August 12Karleen Gribble – August 13The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. As many of you know, my new book, The War on Science, is appearing July 29th of this year in the United States and Canada. And to celebrate that, we've interviewed many of the authors of the 39 authors who have contributed to this volume, and we have 20 separate podcast interviews

that will be airing over the next 20 days, starting July 22nd, before and after the last. the book first appears with many of the authors in the book on a host of different subjects. The authors we will have interviews with in order of appearance over the next 20 days are Richard Dawkins, Neil Ferguson, Nicholas Christakis, Martin Budry, Abigail Thompson, John Armstrong, Sally Sattel, Solveig Gold, and Joshua Katz, Francis Wooderson, Carol Hoven, Janice Fiamengo, Jeff Horsman, Alessandro Strumia, Roger Cohen and Amy Wax, Peter Bogosian, Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau, Alex

Byrne and Modi Goren, Judith Sisa, and Alice Sullivan, Carleen Gribble, and finally Dorian Abbott. The topics that will be discussed will range over the need for free speech and open inquiry and science and the need to preserve scientific integrity stressed by our first podcast interviewer Richard Dawkins and will once again go. over historical examples of how academia has been hijacked by ideology in the past and the negative consequences that have come from that to issues of how specific disciplines, including mathematics, have been distorted, and how certain departments at universities now specifically claim that they

are social activists and a degree in their field is a degree in either critical social justice or social activism, not a degree in a specific area of scholarship, how ideology has permeated universities. We'll proceed also to discuss issues in medicine. Sally Settel will talk about how social justice is hijacked medicine. And also when it comes to issues of gender affirming care, we have a variety of authors who are going to speak about the issues there and how too often gender affirming care claims are made that are not based on empirical evidence. In fact, falsely discuss the literature in ways that are harmful to young people. We will talk to several people who, for one reason, another, have been canceled for saying

things. Francis Whittleson at Mount Royal University in Canada and Carol Hoeven from Harvard, who eventually had to leave Harvard after saying on television that sex is binary in biology. We'll be talking to people who've looking at the impact of diversity, inclusion in academia and how it's restricting free inquiry and also restricting in many ways scientific merit at those universities. And finally, Dorian Abbott, the last contributor to our series, we'll be talking about three principles he believes are essential to separate science and politics and keep academia free from ideology and more for open questioning

and progress and to make sure that science is based on empirical evidence, and where we go where the evidence is, whether it's convenient or not, whether it's politically correct or not, and we're willing to debate all ideas that nothing is sacred, a central feature of what science should be about and what, in some sense, this podcast is about. So I hope you really enjoy the next 20 days, and we've enjoyed bringing it to you.

So with no further ado, the war on science, the interviews. Well, Carleen Gribble, thanks for joining me to discuss your article in the book The War and Science. And the title of your article

is the De-Sexing of Language in Women's Health Research and Care, a story of marginalization of science, cultural imperialism, and abuse of power. Wow.

Okay. Before we get there, though, I wanted to, this is an origins podcast and I like to find out how people got to the point where we begin to talk

about what they're doing and I wanted to talk about that with you. You went into nursing. You were a student at the School of Nursing in Western Sydney, right? Western Sydney University. Well, I'm at Western Sydney University, but I'm not a nurse. So I actually started out in agriculture. You started?

Okay, good. I was going to ask how you got to nursing, but let's talk about how you got to nursing through agriculture. Your family come from a farm, perhaps? No, they don't. that I studied agriculture at school, and I thought it was really interesting. And so when I from school, I went away to a country university, and I did a Bachelor of Rural Science.

Okay. But if you weren't from farm, what was it about agriculture that captured you? It was just really interesting. I think that I've always been interested, well, just interested in lots of things, generally speaking. and agriculture is really you've got to consider a lot of things to do farming well. So you've got to be putting together pieces of puzzles to get a whole picture. And I think that that was perhaps something that attracted me to that area of work.

Well, you're obviously interested in biology. What's it biology? I mean, understanding animals that also got you started in agriculture? Yeah, it was actually more plants. So I was interested, I was really interested in plants. Oh, plants, okay. Either your parents, either your parents have any background in that, no? No, no, no, I was the first in my family to go to university.

My parents had left school at 14 and 15 and, you know, I grew up on welfare. Like there was no expectation that I was going to be able to go to university. And it all just happened really by accident more than by any great. plan, but I think it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I mean, if you study agriculture, you do all of the sciences pretty much. Including physics? Just checking. Including physics? Yes, no, including physics. Yeah, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, even a bit of economics. You don't do any psychology or sociology, so those are things that you don't do, but you really do get a very broad understanding of science and how things fit together.

And so, yeah. And then was that also at Western Sydney? Where do you study agriculture? So that was at the University of New England, which is a rural university in New South Wales, where I live. It's a city of about 30,000 people. Yeah. Okay, well, yes, and the University of New England sounds like something in the northeastern

of the United States, so it's good to learn. There's one there as well. Okay, now, how did you take the long and winding road from agriculture for nursing then? Well, after I finished my undergrad, I started a PhD, which was in plant physiology. And then a couple of years into that, I had a baby. And all of a sudden, plants weren't so interesting anymore. And I got really interested in breastfeeding. was the subject that really

I just, I hadn't, I'd studied lactation, of course, when I did agriculture. But in terms of human lactation and breastfeeding and everything associated with that, that was quite new to me. And I was just fascinated by it. So I had to finish the PhD in Phythiology,

which I did. And then when I finished that, I was like, right, okay, so how can I get him to do breast surgery? feeding research. So that's how I ended up in the school of nursing and the periphery. Okay. So your PhDs in plant physiology, but you started to do research in breastfeeding. And that ended up there for being in a school of nursing. But you actually don't have a nursing degree then or anything like that. No, no. I'm not a health professional of any kind.

Okay. It's all right. I taught astronomy for 30 years, but I never taught, I'd never had taken an astronomy course in my life. I mean, I was in the physics and astronomy department. So I think it's important to realize you for people that you you can um life long learning you know what you're doing school and that you know is not when you stop learning and and and so you have basically most of your career has been involved looking at the research and breastfeeding and and primarily as a global health and in western high income areas is that that that right basically uh so some of it's been in in high income country context a lot of it's actually a lot of it's been in emergency context, which had been really more focused on low and middle income countries.

So I do a lot of work globally with an organisation called the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies Core Group, which is a very long name. But we really work to develop guidance to help governments and humanitarian organisations to support the needs of very young children in disasters so they survive. really. And that's mostly focused around ensuring that their feeding needs are met. So supporting their mothers or caregivers to breastfeed them. And if they can't be breastfed, then ensuring that their caregivers receive appropriate support to formula feed them, which can be very difficult. Yeah. But, okay. But now, but you become concerned in the reason

you wrote in the, in, in the book is about this effort to the, to de-sex language in, maternity and obviously you feel it's important. And I'll read something you wrote and ask you to comment. It's been long understood that the sex of individuals should be made visible when sex is relevant to ensure sex-based needs and rights are not overlooked. Thus, the sex terms of women, meaning adult, female people, and mothers, meaning female parents, have been central to research policy, advocacy, and communication regarding female reproduction. However, in recent years, those, those were working in maternal and child health have experienced pressure to avoid these terms and desex our language. And that's something that is of great concern to you. And as you point out,

I think, this is kind of recent, this, this, this, this, this, this effort to switch from tech, sorry, from sex to, um, uh, gender identity. And, um, and when we talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I first started to notice this becoming. an issue around 2015, 2016, but it was really only predominantly in the US and Canada that I was seeing people talking about this and wanting to change language. And at the time I was like, oh, this is interesting. I wonder what the solution to this might be. And so I sort of, you know, talk to people, read things, tried to find out what the solution

might be and actually realised eventually that there wasn't really one. And then it was during a COVID-19 pandemic because, as I mentioned, a lot of my work is in emergencies. You know, it was a very large emergency. And the difficult that you have in infectious disease emergencies when it comes to breastfeeding is that the normal action that you take when there's a disease epidemic and somebody is infected and you want to prevent them from infecting somebody who's not infected is that you separate them. But that's a very weighty thing to do if the infected person you're speaking about is a new mother and the uninfected person is her newborn baby. You've got to work out, you know, is the risk of separation and preventing breastfeeding greater than the risk that the disease might pose to the baby or the infection risk to the baby?

And we've gotten this terribly wrong in the past before the HIV pandemic, you know, Breastfeeding can transmit HIV, but not easily and really, really quite, really not easily if the mother is exclusively breastfeeding. But recommendations for a number of years were that women who had HIV not breastfeed, and the result of that was deaths all over numerous countries in Africa. You know, the risk of not breastfeeding was much greater than the risk of HIV. So when we had this new infection come, everything was up in the air. What do we actually do about a situation where a mother is infected with SARS-CoV-2 and her baby is not?

Do we separate them or not? Do we support breastfeeding or not? And so there was a lot of work going in that area to work out what to do. And fortunately, it was clear pretty early from the pandemic that this disease did not cause serious illness. in babies. Like it was very rare for that to be a serious problem. And so WHO recommendations early on were not to separate mothers and babies for standard care to continue and mothers to continue breastfeeding. But unfortunately the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with a different recommendation and which was to separate mothers and babies

if possible. If the mother had COVID. And that recommended. spread all around the world in two low and middle-income countries where infant mortality rates were, you know, obviously much higher than in the US. And so we had this situation where we're getting mothers and babies separated in numbers never seen before in the world. And at the same time, we had organisations, including international organisations, moving from rather than talking about mothers to talking about parents and saying things like babies and parents shouldn't be separated from one mother,

when actually it doesn't matter for a baby if they're separated from their father. They don't actually need their father when they're newborns. But they do need their mother. Yeah, there's a vast difference between a mother and a father to a newborn baby. And so we're having these two things coming from the US. It all came from the US, the source of all, guess, anyway. Well, it's something they need, and many others very angry. We were seeing these two things coming from the same place.

And it was at that point that I was just like, no, this is, this has to, this is not okay. It is not okay for this to be happening. It's really important for the rights of children. And my work very much does come from a child rights perspective. It's very important for the rights of children. to be able to name this person who is most important to them when they're first born. Okay, well, we'll get there. But I do have one question, by the way, do mothers, this is just a scientific question.

Do mothers pass antibodies for COVID in the breast milk as well or no? They do, yes. They took us a while to find that out. And if they're vaccinated, they also. So if they've been infected or if they've been vaccinated, yes, they'll be getting. Okay, so you'd think that breastfeeding would be good then, I would have thought. But anyway. Yeah, no.

We got there eventually. Now, but anyway, let's go back to this effort which led to changing mothers to people. And as you talk about the damage in health care. But the first thing to realize is that even the term gender identity has changed. It used to be, you know, how their knowledge of their own sex. And then it changed, you argue as early as 1994 that it changed. So gender identity had delineated an internal sense of oneself as living in the social role of man or woman. So biology got removed.

Gender is just one sense of whether one's a man or a woman. And, you know, and there are, and of course, gender and sex are different. But the question, but they are different and, and the problem that you argue is replacing one with the other. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, you raise, I think, what's quite important here, a lot of the issues around the conflict between gender identity and sex is about language. And one of the differences that we have is this, this word gender,

gender has several different meanings. And sometimes people, same word, with two different meanings in the same sentence. And I think it's particularly difficult in the US because it's been very well established, I think, that gender means sex in the US. And so a lot of people use it as a synonym. So sometimes you can't tell what they're speaking about. And then, of course, there's the feminist conceptualisation of gender as meaning the social construction of the sexes.

So stuff about, you know, sex stereotypes and what we expect are girls and boys, men and women. And that's also gender, also called gender. So sometimes it can be very difficult to work out what people are meaning. But this concept of gender identity, as it's used now, is so new. Like, it's really, you know, we're looking at, you know, 50, 60 years maximum, really. and it's not just in relation to language that people are wanting to prioritize gender identity. They're also wanting to prioritize it in terms of things like data collection. Well, that's, you just went to where I was thinking of going based on your article.

You know, one can say language is language, but you point out that there's organizational efforts to replace sex with gender identity in policy, and data collection, which of course is antithetical to science. Sex is a biological fact. And if in data collection you conflate it with something which isn't equivalent, then you're obscuring the data in science, and then it's very difficult to not only come up with scientific results that make sense, but then with policy results that are based on that science. Well, and, you know, in my own work, like the female data,

gap is a massive problem. And so various organisations for the last several decades have been saying, we must collect data on sex. We must disaggregate data by sex in terms of human research. Because if we don't do that, then we actually can't get a good picture of what is going on because the experiences of males and female people are different. The ways our body works are different. And if you don't do that, then you're missing a big part of the picture. And we still have areas of science and areas of research where men predominate in the research. And we know so little then about, you know, well, this drug might work well for men, but it might not work well at all for women.

Or they might need to have a different dose. And if you haven't included them in the research, then you just don't know. Or if you've included them in the research and you haven't disaggregated, then you just don't know. And so there has been this big push to collect data on sex. But now we're just, and it cuts across to social stuff too, so it's not just about medical concerns. But now we've got, you know, scientists and governments and different organisations who are no longer collecting data on sex.

They're just collecting data on gender identity. And this, I guess it depends upon the situation how significant that's going to be, how many people there might be who give an answer to a question about gender identity that isn't connected to their sex. Or how many people don't ask the question or they don't participate in the research because they object to the question being asked. those are things that we don't really have the answer to but there was a recent piece of work done in the UK

that looked at government surveys over the last 80 years, I think it was, and showed a really clear progression from collecting data on sex with a simple male and female answer to collecting data on sex but using the word gender when the question was asked, to then actually switching to collecting data on gender identity. And so it's called the Sullivan Report. It was really, I think, showed what many people like myself

had been noticing was happening over time and confirmed that this is actually really a problem. But yeah, I mean, it seems strange to replace sex, which is very concrete and we know how it affects people's lives very significantly to this concept of gender identity that we don't even have a great definition for. We don't really know what it is, but we do know it's changeable. Yeah. We don't really know how it's connected to very much at all, really.

Yeah, exactly. It's a clearly malleable word, malleable term, and gender means many different things. things, but as we say in science, sex is well defined. But you also argue that it's not just, well, not just, and we'll talk about this, dangerous for health care in general to not treat scientifically things correctly, but it also dehumanizing. I mean, you talk about the replacement of words, you know, placement of women and pregnant women and things with like, instead of women like menstruators and vagina owners and chest feeding,

it all sounds very dehumanizing and rather ridiculous. Do you want to come in on that? Yeah, I mean, perhaps should actually say why this is, you know, why these language changes and how they're happening. And nothing to do with female reproduction really is the focus of this. And it's because you can't get it. There's not an area of human experience that is where sex is more important than female reproduction. Yeah.

And so in terms of trying to downgrade the importance of sex, using language that makes sex that obscures sex or makes sex less visible. And this is ostensibly to provide for. the needs of people who have this sense of gender identity that they feel is in conflict with their sex, people who are described as being transgender or gender diverse, that get upset if their sex is referred to. Advocates are saying, well, we shouldn't, in order for these people to feel comfortable and not to feel distress, we should use language that for everybody that doesn't reference sex so that this group can be okay.

But it does mean sometimes, sometimes it will mean just replacing the word woman or women with people. Other times though, it will mean referencing female reproductive anatomy or physiological processes. So you get the word woman replaced by a person with a cervix or a uterus have a, or a vagina owner or sometimes even we go back to the you know to these old concept of women as non-men so we'll talk about men as non-men or non-mails

or these physiological processes so like berthers, menstruators yeah and the same it's very noticeable that the same sorts of terms of are really being applied to men. Well, you know, and you point out, as you say, this is not just colloquial. It's in the, it's becomes, it's becoming part of the, of the peer-reviewed literature, the peer-reviewed journals using, replacing, you know, birthing people instead of women.

You know, I was amazed you did a Google Scholar search. And, you know, over this period from, from, I think, 2018 to 2023, you got a, of, of, an increase in references to birthing people from 23 to over a thousand publications. And it's a 52-fold increase. I mean, it's just becoming. And even Lancet, which surprised me, Lancet is, I mean, it was famous, this famous paper describing women as bodies with vaginas. And when the organizations begin to do that, of course,

there's a great deal of pressure on individuals to start doing. it as well. Yeah, and I mean, last year I had a really shocking experience with the Lancet Global Health with some colleagues. We'd written a letter to the editor about MPOCs and breastfeeding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And the letter was accepted and at proofing the editor asked for us to if we could perhaps refer to chest feeding parents. And I think what was so offensive about that is that there would not be a single woman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

who would call herself a chest feeding parent. So it was not about related to any concern about these women who were in, extremely difficult circumstances and who we were calling for WHO to assist that they were, you know, and that they were asking for this.

Yeah, they're not there. That kind of Western cultural, you know, new, new, I was going to say norm, but hopefully this, maybe it is, but this Western cultural obscure notion of it is not, it's not, is not related to what's happening in the Congo or anywhere else. No, no.

And it's just like it is, it's cultural imperialism. Like it really, really is. And it is an abuse of power. And journals are doing this to authors all over the world, whether it's reviewers or its editors. It really is an abuse of power. And a lot of authors don't feel that they can push back. Well, let's talk about that, the pushback.

One of the things you talk about is University Ethics Committee. The case of Natalie Dinsdale was repeatedly questioned by the University Ethics Committee to dissect the language of her study on female reproductive anatomy and function. Over three rounds of revisions, the Ethics Committee questioned the use of women and female and study materials. She defended her use of sex language. But, I mean, the fact that the ethics committees are pressuring researchers, when you talking about female reproductive anatomy and function, you'd think sex is an important issue.

You want to comment? Yeah, I mean, she's in Canada. So I think things are quite, you know, there are parts of the world where it's more difficult than others. And, you know, she was prepared to defend her position. But other people, you know, not necessarily feel able to do that. or the time delay that that can cause can cause, you know, quite a problem for them. And so, you know, so again, they're not willing to do it or they feel like they might end up in a position where they might not even get ethics approval if they don't do what they're told. And if it's a problem for researchers, sorry, did you want to go ahead and let me interrupt you? Oh, I was going to say, I mean, I have heard anecdotally, and I think it may be mentioned there in the chapter, you know, where people, People have used language like birthing people or pregnant person in study recruitment materials.

And women have just refused to, you know, they just don't want to participate. And recruitment just has not gone well. And they've had to go back and actually get an ethics variation and change the language. So I think it's certainly not from respect. I mean, I think it's disrespectful of study participants to use. It's also not just disrespectful. It's not just disrespectful, but as you point out, I mean, introducing errors in communication can be bad for public health.

For example, a simple find and replace of women with people made statistics on the increasing severity of COVID during pregnancy incorrect. It began, the UK's National Health Service included the statement, eight in 10 people under 40 will get pregnant within one year of having regular sex without contraception. And that's not quite true. Yeah. And then another claim, you know, against the Canadian Cancer Society said,

if you've ever been sexually active, you should start having regular pap tests by the time you're 21. Again, clearly a recommendation for women, but not men. And for females and not males. So I now try to use female and male for sex, and so I think I'll try and be consistent there. And that's dangerous. That can be dangerous if people get the wrong information. As you point out, desex language and policy is particularly, this is from your quote, is particularly concerning as it might skew health priorities and resourcing,

thus pushing the envelope from language to practice. including women's health strategies, which now use the term women to refer to gender identity rather than female sex. Women's and girls' health strategy for the state of Queensland, Australia, defines women and girls as all people who identify as women are men. And in that case, males with gender identity are included in those kind of studies and those kind of recommendations for what should be done. And you want, I mean, you argue, you know, obviously this is this is, this is, this is, this is. is bad. You want to elaborate on why? What, which particular ask? Well, I mean, I mean using, oh, sorry, I want to take that back. Let's start that one again, Corey. You've said that there are numerous arguments against using sex language that are used for why sex language should be

removed. Do you want to give the main reasons that people give? for that? Well, I say it's more inclusive if you use the sex language. And they're considering, you know, this group of people that would prefer that their sex not be referred to, that, you know, it makes them uncomfortable and they won't engage with health services or health education materials that call them women if they don't see themselves as women. And that may absolutely be true. But what needs to happen for that particular group is, in fact, what we do for all groups who have particular needs that are different from the needs of the border population.

And so in any health service in a place like the US or Australia, they produce health education materials in different languages. Because they know not everybody is going to be able to read and understand English. sometimes they'll produce materials in Braille. They'll have materials that you can listen to if you can't, you know, if your vision impaired and you can't read. They'll have materials in terms of maternity care. They'll have particular materials regarding multiple pregnancies or regarding pregnancies where the fetus has Down syndrome

or where the baby has a cleft palate or, you know, same-sex parents. You know, there's all sorts of different groups that have specialist needs that they produce specialist materials for. And that's really what needs to happen with this group. So, for example, trans men, so women who have a gender identity of man, they have low rates of engagement with cervical cancer screening. They need to have, you know, that is a health issue that needs to be addressed. They should be receiving specialist education and health promotion materials that, they will engage with that meets their needs that tells them what they need to do. That's helpful to them and services that will engage with them sensitively.

But if you try and take the needs of one particular group and put it across the whole population, you don't meet anyone's needs. It just doesn't work for anyone. It's bad for everyone. I mean, you know, trans men are different than men and trans women are different than women in terms of their health needs. they may effectively be treated as women and that's fine but in terms of their health needs is different. Now you wrote a paper in 2022

on the importance of why sex language should be continued and you said it risks decreasing overall inclusivity, dehumanizes women, includes people who should be excluded, introduces inaccuracies, includes precision, creates confusion, undermines breastfeeding and works against recognition of mother infant relationships. And you've argued that those are real dangers

and there should be more research, but there isn't any research being done in... No. No, there's been very little research. There's one small study that was done in the US with 16 participants, I think, 16 women, low-income women, found they really hated terms like chest feeding and body feeding and they said, you know, I'd throw away a survey that had that word on it.

There's a bit of research that's being done in Uganda that found that people found the terms confusing. So, for example, they sought that birthing parents referred to both mothers and fathers, but they also found many of these words to be ridiculous and offensive and, you know, that They really did see them as cultural imperialism. And then there's been one bit of market research that was done in the US with black Americans that found that people, if their health provider used a term like birthing parent for them, that they would hold them in less regard.

So they found that use of that sort of term would actually undermine confidence in health providers. But that's really all what there is. It's quite remarkable that these large changes that work against really well-established principles of health communication have been made in so many different places without any evidence to underpity. Without any evidence, which is the key thing that should be the basis of science. Yeah.

Well, you conclude with talking about ways to uphold the science, working with colleagues on journals, getting ethics committees not to be outsourced to people who are not scientists, but are people who are social activists. And also finally increasing data collection for for for, for on the nature of sex and health, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I do you think that things, I think it's getting. a bit easier for conversations to be had. I think that more people are getting braver. There's been more publications talking about these issues and people have got more confidence to actually say, no, I don't think that that's okay. But, yeah, I mean, I guess it's different in different parts of the world and it's still,

and we're still getting it come through. It's quite, it feels like bureaucrats are within ministries of hell. really some of them are quite keen on this and they're quite influential. Well, look, I think your arguments are important to hear, and I'm glad you've written them down. I'm glad you've written them, included them in the book here and our discussion. And I think I want to end with your last statement, which I think is the key one. We must act with integrity to advocate for a reinstatement of evidence over ideology in science and public health.

And that's the key point. really, this is all about, let's, when it comes to health care and science, we should base it on evidence over ideology. And that's one of the points of the book and really certainly a important point of your contribution. I really want to thank you for the work you're doing and for being here and for writing. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'd add just one more thing, I think, to that. And that's, and be brave. And when you do, when you are, you find there are other good people out there. And I've got to say, like, it's not always been easy to be having these discussions and arguments.

And certainly there's been plenty of bridges, but various cancellation attempts and all of that sort of thing that makes people apart. And as we talk about in a number of places in this, in the book and the other thing, the people that, unfortunately, the people that really need to be brave are the ones who don't have spine who are the heads of these organizations. And if the heads of these organizations don't aren't brave, then it's hard for. people were just worried about getting their paychecks to be brave. And so there's a lot of, you know, work needs to be done. Let's put it that way. Yeah, definitely. Well, thanks again.

It's been a pleasure talking you across the world with the wonders of science that have allowed us to do this and let's keep science going. Thanks again. It's a pleasure. Wonderful. Thanks so much, Lawrence. Hi, it's Lawrence again. As the Origins podcast continues to reach millions of people around the world,

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