Comment on Denying the Human Sex Binary Turns Biology into Nonsense
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 1 week agoThank you for being aware of the sex binary. In incredibly rare cases (as in you can count them on the fingers of one hand), there may have been cases where humans produced both gametes, likely due to chimerism. But just as you say, it’s both gametes, because sex is binary. They’re producing both of the two binary options.
Yes, or none, which makes it not as simple as a binary. You’ve already admitted even if you disagree about it being a spectrum, that it isn’t a binary. I disagree that the only way to determine the sex of an individual is gamete size, but even if you run with that definition, you end up with exceptions.
Besides the given example in the article and directly given to you already where an academic is trying to push for a bad definition of sex (in Scientific American, not just some random podunk journal), here’s one example[1]:
That link doesn’t even resemble what I asked for, and that example in the article is people expressing legitimate desire to improve the definitions and move the field forward, this is not somebody injecting things for no reason, like you claim. Is discussing the topic not allowed in your eyes? Is literally any discussion or debate on the topic inappropriate?
Producing neither gamete is a silly point to bring up. Your sex is the size of the gametes you do or would produce. It’s also not a new sex to produce neither of the two gametes.
There are many cases where it is impossible to know which you would produce. This means it’s not as simple as a binary, in these cases, the gamete option is not a viable way to determine sex.
It’s less accurate. You responded to me with “whoa what about intersex people”, because you were working off of a bad and unclear definition. If you had read the article, you would have known this. Reminder that the article is titled “Denying the Human Sex Binary Turns Biology into Nonsense”, written by a PhD in evolutionary biology. He’s addressing your exact points.
He failed to address them, none of my points make any of what i’m saying any harder to understand, nor do they cause any actual crisis.
tahira@hilariouschaos.com 1 week ago
Gender is appropriate for sociology. Biology doesn’t give a shit what you identify as. It has no place in a biology textbook. It’s not moving the field forward, it’s trying to push a worse and irrelevant definition.
Bully for you, but your opinion is irrelevant to the scientific consensus.
The author also wrote an article that is addressing your exact questions: realityslaststand.com/…/how-our-shoes-can-help-ex…
Again, this is not just some random opinion. This is is not equal to your opinion. This is a PhD in evolutionary biology writing about the scientific consensus. You’re free to disagree with the scientific consensus, but you should admit you’re no better than a creationist spouting off “god did it”.
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 1 week ago
As discussed, the intersex debate has pushed forward talks about biological precision in terminology, and ways to properly define such things. These are worthwhile discussions that are harming nobody.
It is in fact not. You’re confusing “determining” and “defining”
here’s an article on the matter: theparadoxinstitute.com/…/defining-sex-vs-determi…
I control f’d for intersex, didn’t mention it, i expect he’d give an opinion that intersex doesn’t count as a sex even if the produce both gametes baselessly, like he did in the above article, making it a matter of his opinion, and having nothing to do with either scientific consensus or facts.
You don’t know who I am hahaha. My opinion that intersex individuals are a special exception is a common one amongst PHD’s in biology, this particular guy just doesn’t agree with that.
This has nothing to do with scientific consensus, and everything to do with the opinion of ONE PHD.
here’s a few PHD’s who would likely disagree with him:
…brown.edu/…/sex-binarism-and-the-intersex-pediat…
search.worldcat.org/title/861528157
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/…/0e9ed3d69747f048cda5a6…
tahira@hilariouschaos.com 4 days ago
No. You’re once again confusing sex with phenotype an/d genotype. The only thing that unites a large swathe of the animal kingdom in regards to sex is gamete size. If we toss that out, we lose precision
No, that is precisely my point. Sex is determined by many different factors especially across species. Sex is defined as gamete size because there’s no other coherent definition.
You really pick bad citations. Citing someone who says “oh i was just being ironic!” is laughable.
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She also confuses sex and phenotypes as you have been and those other citations do.
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 4 days ago
The point of the discussion is to figure out if there’s a better way to determine this, a more precise way, the point of such discussions are to move the field forward, all things in science should be questioned, and that is the way of science.
Can you not imagine the possibility that it isn’t the best way to determine it?
That still leaves my other citations in tact, and I could have much more, the point was that many people in the field agree with what i’m saying.
We aren’t confused, again, this is the difference between determining and defining sex.
Chucklestheclown@hilariouschaos.com 1 week ago
When I did my biology courses there was a debate about intersex. That was 30 years ago. I personally believe there are two sexes and anything outside of that is a defect or deviant.
I can accept three when used to classify a few edge cases for intersex but that’s where I draw the line.