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The double-slit experiment is one of those scientific ideas people love to borrow badly. It is strange, genuinely humbling, and easy to misuse. That makes it perfect material for people who want reality to be less stubborn than it is.
The basic version is simple enough. Fire particles through two slits without measuring which slit they pass through, and over time they produce an interference pattern, the kind of pattern we associate with waves. Try to measure which slit they go through, and that pattern changes. The system no longer behaves the same way.
That is the part people remember. Unfortunately, they often remember it badly.
The experiment does not show that human consciousness creates reality. It does not show that the universe waits around for a person to notice it before deciding what it is. “Observation” in this context does not mean vibes, attention, social agreement, or someone staring meaningfully at an electron. It means measurement. It means physical interaction with the system. The apparatus matters because the apparatus is part of the situation being tested.
That is weird enough. We do not need to add incense.
There are still serious debates in the foundations of quantum mechanics about how best to interpret what is happening. That is worth admitting. But those debates do not rescue the popular abuse of the experiment. Consciousness is not required, politics does not select the result, and social approval does not decide whether the interference pattern appears.
The real lesson is more disciplined and more interesting. Reality is not always available to common sense. How we investigate can affect what we are able to detect. At quantum scales, measurement is not a passive act, like glancing at a chair from across the room. It changes the conditions under which the result appears.
That should make people humble about truth-finding. It should not make them casual about reality.
This is where social constructivist thinking often slips in through the side door. It does not usually announce itself by saying, “Nothing is real.” That would be too crude, and too easy to reject. Instead, it emphasizes language, framing, power, interpretation, categories, and social meaning until the reader quietly stops treating reality as a constraint and starts treating it as a negotiation.
Reality is real, but not always simple. Because it is not simple, we need better methods, not ideological shortcuts.
Some things really are socially constructed. Money depends on shared agreement. Borders depend on law, force, recognition, and maps. Job titles, academic credentials, citizenship categories, and institutional rituals all rely on human systems to maintain them. That is not a trivial point. Human beings create layers of social meaning that shape how we live, distribute status, enforce rules, and decide what counts inside institutions.
But the fact that some realities are socially maintained does not mean all realities are socially produced. The category “doctor” is socially regulated. The body on the operating table is not. A passport is a legal object. A kidney is not. A government can change language around inflation, housing, crime, or sex, but the material world does not become more cooperative because the terminology became more fashionable.
This is the tell to watch for. A valid insight about interpretation gets stretched until it weakens contact with reality. “Categories have social meaning” becomes “categories are merely imposed.” “Observation matters” becomes “truth depends on standpoint.” “Language shapes perception” becomes “language can rearrange the world.” Each step sounds sophisticated enough in isolation. Put them together, and ordinary reality gets escorted out of the room by people who insist they are only asking questions.
The double-slit experiment does not support that move. If anything, it rebukes it. The experiment is repeatable. The results are disciplined. The mathematics is unforgiving. You do not get a different interference pattern because your politics require one. You do not get to vote on the apparatus. The whole point of the experiment is that reality answers back, though not always in the form our intuitions expected.
That distinction matters far beyond physics. Bad theories of reality do not stay in seminar rooms. They eventually show up in schools, medicine, law, media, and public policy, often wearing the language of compassion or sophistication. If institutions lose the ability to distinguish between social meaning and material constraint, they do not become more humane. They become easier to fool.
Quantum weirdness should not become a permission slip for intellectual fog. It should remind us that careful methods are necessary precisely because reality can be subtle. The world is not always obvious, but it is also not waiting for our preferred theory to grant it permission to exist.
The better response to mystery is not social construction all the way down. It is patience, precision, and less eagerness to turn every difficulty in knowing into an excuse for pretending the thing known has disappeared.
These principles seem to be formed on the objective material we all share. They are a step in the right direction.
Statement of Principles – The September Declaration
This document is intended to be a minimal set of principles that are commonly agreed to by all individuals and organizations participating in the Parents Rights Coalition of Canada.
While the interests of various participants may be broad, the coalition’s focus is on the rights and responsibilities of parents and legal guardians with respect to their children who are below the age of majority. We believe that parents and legal guardians have a responsibility to their children to be faithful stewards of their best interests, and “parental rights” are the basis for them to exercise this responsibility.
We regard “gender ideology” to be a set of highly controversial beliefs and values rooted in academic fields such as “queer theory”, “gender studies”, postmodernism, and neo-Marxism. The tenets of gender ideology are unscientific and antithetical to the beliefs and values of most Canadians. These include the ideas that children can be “born into the wrong body”, that there are more than two “genders”, that gender is “fluid”, that gender is a “social construct” unrelated to sex, that traditional values concerning sexual propriety are “oppressive”, and so forth. We reject all core tenets of “gender ideology”. These include the following:
We reject that “gender” is a set of socially constructed behaviours and is independent of sex.
Note: Our position is that stereotypical behavioural differences between men and women are simply the cultural manifestations of deeply rooted biological and neurological differences between the two sexes. These concepts are not independent of each other. Accordingly, we make no distinction between “gender” and “sex. We propose to eliminate the use of the word “gender” to avoid confusion.
We reject the assertion that there are more than two sexes, that “gender” is separate from sex, and related concepts such as “gender spectrum”, “non-binary genders”, “transgender”, etc. Note: Our position is that there are only two sexes defined as follows: Man/Male = Adult Human Male and Woman/Female = Adult Human Female.
Accordingly, we call for the removal of all references to “gender identity” and “gender expression” from all provincial and federal diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and wherever it may be present, from the official K-12 educational curriculum as well.
Principle 1: “No government has ever proven itself a capable parent.”
Parents have the right to raise their children in accordance with their own traditional cultural, religious, or secular moral codes. Publicly funded schools have no authority to overrule parents’ rights in this regard. This means that parents must give permission for their children to participate in any contentious political, social, or cultural subject matter at any time. The default position for this type of participation for students must be “opt-in”.
Principle 2: “No secrets, parental consent is mandatory.”
We demand that schools adopt and vigorously enforce a “no secrets from parents” policy. Gender social affirmation at school is a serious psychotherapeutic intervention. It must never be conducted without parental approval. The provincial Ministries of Education must enforce this policy within the school system.
Principle 3: “We demand protection for girls’ sports.”
Boys must not be permitted to compete in competitive sports intended for females where male-specific physical advantages (strength, muscle mass, fast-twitch muscle fiber, bone density, etc.) result in an unfair competitive advantage and increased safety risks for female participants at the grade school and high school level.
Principle 4: “Affirmation cannot be dictated under penalty of law.”
We acknowledge that a small minority choose to present themselves as the opposite sex in terms of stereotypical dress and deportment. In a free country, they have the option to do so. This does not obligate the rest of society to affirm their choice. One’s self-proclaimed identity is a continuous negotiation with broader society which all Canadians must be free to accept or reject as they choose. Forced affirmation, including compelled or coerced speech, must not be dictated in our public schools. We likewise reject any attempt to force our children to use preferred pronouns or names they (or their parents) do not agree to.
Principle 5: “Public schools must be ideologically neutral.”
We call for an embrace of freedom of thought, respect for diversity of opinion, and principles of religious tolerance in public education. Schools must not promote, nor denounce, any religion(s) or secular ideological belief systems. We call for the removal of ideological symbols and forced celebration of days dedicated to various ideological social causes. On the matter of flags, we ask that only national flags and provincial or territorial flags be flown in our public schools anywhere on the school property.
Principle 6: “Sex-based rights must be respected.”
We demand that both sexes be prohibited from accessing spaces designated for the privacy and protection of the opposite sex regardless of how they self-identify. This includes all Canadian K-12 schools bathrooms/showers/changerooms, children’s camps, and overnight school trip accommodations, etc. Furthermore, we demand that all public schools and other public facilities have sex-based washroom options: girl’s washrooms, and separate boy’s washrooms. Sex-neutral washrooms as the only option, are not acceptable.
Principle 7: “There is no such thing as a transgender child.”
Teaching the idea that children are ever born in the wrong body (i.e.: one not matching their sex) is a blatant form of mental child abuse and a flagrant violation of the duty of fiduciary care schools have to all our children. We acknowledge that some children deal with gender dysphoria, and this must be addressed with compassion and the involvement of parents.
Principle 8: “Opt-out default for Comprehensive Sexuality Education programs.”
Some school boards and educators embed the core tenets of “gender ideology” into “anti bullying”, “DEI training”, and what is deemed “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” which differs from traditional sex education programs. This includes teaching “gender identity” and “gender expression” without presenting dissenting “gender critical” perspectives. As such, we demand that parental consent be required for all Comprehensive Sexuality Education and that it should be taught on an opt-in basis only where the opt-out option is the default choice.
Furthermore, no tenets of gender ideology should ever be shoehorned into classroom instruction, extracurricular activities, school posters/displays, or introduced by third-party trainers under any circumstance.
We demand that all school boards list all related training topics and provide electronic copies of all training materials pertaining to any “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” programs on their official websites so as to allow all these materials to be reviewed online by parents at any time.
Principle 9: “A moratorium on ‘gender-affirming medical care’ for minors.”
We call for an immediate moratorium on both “social gender transition” and so-called “gender-affirming medical care” for minors until such time as an impartial evidence-based review of gender medical practices (puberty blockers, hormones, surgery) similar to the UK “Cass Review” can be completed in Canada. Children do not have the brain development, maturity, wisdom, or life experience to fully appreciate the long-term consequences of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures designed to emulate the appearance of the opposite sex. Social gender transition is the first step on the path toward medical transition for children and must be treated as a form of child abuse. Accordingly, we also call for the removal of “gender expression” and “gender identity” from the definition of “conversion therapy” under the criminal code of Canada given the impact on children.
September 28, 2023 Revision
The problem with making a reasonable argument is that it takes time and patience to construct properly. Nonstampcollector makes a great video showing exactly how unonbjective the christian god actually is. Guaranteed to make the religious cringe as they face contradiction after contradiction, and precisely why the video appears on this blog.
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