Rationality Rules

   

Rationality Rules
YouTuber Information
Profile	Rationality Rules
Style	Commentary
Date joined	March 15, 2017
Twitter / X	@RationalityRule
Other media	Patreon Patreon (2) PayPal Debunked Website Merchandise
Videos	134+
Status	Active
Associates	Counter Arguments
Username
Personal information
Full name	Stephen Woodford
Nationality	English
Channel trailer
Questions No Atheist Can Answer – Debunked
Most viewed video
Questions No Atheist Can Answer – Debunked
First video
Pascal's Wager - Debunked (Blaise Pascal Refuted)

Casually Debunked
YouTuber Information
Profile	Casually Debunked
Style	Commentary
Date joined	March 22, 2020
Videos	6+
Status	Active
Username
Most viewed video
The Watchmaker Analogy DEBUNKED
First video
The Watchmaker Analogy DEBUNKED

Stephen Woodford^{[citation needed]}, better known online as Rationality Rules, is an English^{[citation needed]} YouTuber who responds to religious arguments.

Personal life

Steve is originally from the Isle of Wight. Growing up, he was in foster care, and his mother was an alcoholic. His little sister died before her first birthday.Around the age of eight, he became an atheist, after a Catholic priest told him that God was “all-powerful, all-loving, everywhere at once, and all-knowing”, and Steve asked why there was evil. He later described the priest’s answer as a “word salad”. He learned about evolution at the age of sixteen, and described it as “probably the most profound experience I’ve ever had”. He left school without a single GCSE. He then went to college and studied art and design, then art and design history (which he described as “boring”.) Steve then studied graphic design. He studied advertising at university. Steve is dyslexic. He is a vegetarian. In April 2020, his father died of COVID-19.

Projects

The Here and How Podcast

The Here and How Podcast was a weekly podcast that discussed philosophical and scientific questions, such as Is Abortion OK?, and What do we know?. It was hosted by Stephen, Thomas Westbrook (Holy Koolaid), and Rachel Oates. The last episode, discussing virtual reality, was uploaded to YouTube on February 9, 2019.

Debunked

Debunked is a Kickstarter funded card game created by Steve, which is based on philosophical arguments. There are two decks of cards - one with arguments, and one with everything else. Each Argument card has a number of fallacy icons on it, and each Argument is Debunked when all corresponding Fallacy cards have been successfully played against it, in any order. Once Debunked, each player claims as points the Fallacy cards that they successfully played. Players should set these aside to count up later. The player who laid the final Fallacy card also claims the Argument card itself as a point. On a player’s turn, once an Argument has been Debunked or Removed, if there are no other active Arguments (Arguments in play), that player draws a new Argument and continues their turn. The winner is the player with the most points once all of the Arguments have been Debunked or Removed. If there is a tie, the winner is the player who has the most Argument cards. And if there is yet still a tie, the winner is the player who has the “Hitchslap” card (as a point). There are Action (blue cards) and Reaction (red cards). Each game lasts between 10 and 20 minutes. Mechanically, the game is suitable for ages 7 and up, but due to some of the art being potentially offensive, the game’s website recommends PG13.

Steve got permission from the widow of Christopher Hitchens to have a Hitchens themed card.

The Christopher Hitchens card

Debunked boxes

Controversy

Transgender athletes

On March 29, 2019, Stephen uploaded a video about transgender athletes, in which he stated that he believed male to female trans athletes had an advantage in many sports, and should not compete against biological women. Shortly after releasing the video, Steve went to Texas for two weeks for Faithless Forum, an atheist convention. The Atheist Community Of Austin (ACA) released a statement criticising Steve for transphobic content, but this was later retracted. After the ACA’s statement, Stephen apologised and stated that “I made mistakes in my video, but they were born of ignorance, not “fear””. He also uploaded this video addressing the situation.

Steve uploaded this video as an apology. He demonetised the original video, updated the title, pinned a comment, and donated all the ad revenue it made to the transgender charity Sparkle. He also donated the money made from the apology video. This is the comment that was pinned on the original video:

Hey all. I want to make very clear that I made a few major mistakes within this video, and that due to this I've demonetized it and have added to the title "Please Note That This Video Contains Errors". I'll be publishing a new video relatively soon in which I correct these mistakes and express my altered views. To be clear, I haven’t done a complete u-turn, but my views have indeed changed in very important ways.

FYI: Some have suggested that I delete this video, but for the sake of transparency (I make mistakes), honest representation (as opposed to the chopped and uncontextualised versions that some critics have made), and as an example to be learned from, I doubt I’ll opt for this option.

Kind regards,

- Steve

Video remake

Steve later remade the video and unlisted the original, and posted the following comment on the new version:

The most astute among you might be thinking “Wait… didn’t Steve make this video a month or so ago?” and the answer is “Yes.” However, it’s since been delisted due to primarily the narrative being too easily leveraged by some people who were (and still are) attacking trans people. This video can be considered the remake, and I’ve done my utmost best to illustrate that this is not about people’s rights, it’s about *what constitutes fairness in sport*. You, me and everyone else have the right to compete in sports, but that doesn’t mean that we have the right to compete in any division we want.

The “women’s category” is, in my opinion, poorly named given our current climate, and so I’d elect a name more along the lines of the “Under 5 nmol/l category” (as in, under 5 nanomoles of testosterone per litre), but make no mistake about it, the “woman’s category” is not based on gender or identity, or even genitalia or chromosomes... it’s based on hormone levels and the absence of male puberty.

Whatever your views on this topic, please don’t be a dick. I get that it’s an emotional topic, but don’t attack trans people for who they are, and don’t call everyone a transphobe – such conduct is unacceptable.

It helps no one.

Steve stated that he did not believe that trans men had an unfair advantage, and that in fact they were typically at a disadvantage. He also stated that trans women who have not experienced male puberty did not have an advantage, but that trans women who have experienced male puberty had an advantage in some sports, but not in others.

Response by EssenceOfThought

On April 6, 2019, Ethel from the commentary channel EssenceOfThought uploaded a response to Steve titled Refuting The Anti-Trans Pseudoscience On Trans Athletes RE: Rationality Rules, which refuted his arguments. In the video, Ethel argued that Woodford either did not do proper research, or actively omitted information.

On May 28, 2019, Woodford uploaded The Mistakes of Many on Transgender Athletes (a Reply to Essence of Thought). This video reflected on his own mistakes surrounding the topic, and also criticised Ethel’s video. Steve pointed out that Ethel took the view that his comments were a result of malice and transphobia, and that his real motive was to address the question of what constitutes fairness in sport. Steve stated that he accepted her intellectual criticisms. On May 28, Rachel Oates uploaded this video, which is now unlisted, discussing the situation, and criticising the actions of some of the people involved. Rachel also alleged that Ethel deleted or hid comments on one of her videos, and did not allow Rachel to comment.

On May 15, 2019, Ethel uploaded another video, this one arguing that Steve was transphobic, and addressing The Atheist Community Of Austin’s public condemnation of Steve’s video. They also had a discussion of the issues involved, in which Ethel accused Steve of gaslighting, acting without basis, and using emotional appeals. Ethel uploaded another video on May 25, 2019, titled Rationality Rules Non-Apology & Tone Policing - A Critical Response, and another on June 5, titled Rationality Rules Screws Up The Science On Trans Athletes, Again. The second part of this video was uploaded on June 8, and is titled Rationality Rules Is No Ally To The Trans Community. On July 14, she uploaded another video on the topic, A Timeline Of Rationality Rules' Transphobic Meltdown & ACA Fallout. On June 22, 2019, she uploaded a video titled Rationality Rules Proves Himself A Transphobic Hack - RE: Trans Athletes. In this video, she accused Steve of plagiarising Wikipedia, actively lying about the content of studies, having an availability bias, “Alt-Light” panderings to (Ben) Shapiro, (Stefan) Molyneux, and (Jordan) Peterson, strawmanning, and pushing for the withholding of trans women’s rights. She also criticised him for referring to cisgender women as ‘biologically female’.

On September 15, Steve uploaded Reflections on the Essence of Drama. He opened the video with a discussion of Ethel bullying Rachel Oates. This was a result of Rachel refusing to denounce Steve, and stating that she wanted to be left alone, and had no interest in sport. Suris discussed Ethel’s tweets in a video called This is Not Ok., including one where she referred to Steve as “a violent transphobe”, and told someone to “Do the world a favor and exit it”. Suris stated in the video description “I don't like making a video like this but here we are. I don't dislike Essence of Thought, I've been friendly with them in the past, but this is behavior I can't condone.”