Comment on OnLy tWo eLemEnTs
Lumidaub@feddit.org 18 hours agoYou mean well but even in humans it’s not that simple (not to mention non-humans who might produce both sizes or switch). People who are identified as female at birth because they have a vulva may lack ovaries (or even the entire reproductive tract). They don’t have any gametes but because of their outer appearance they’re usually socialised as girls and only notice when they don’t start menstruating at some point. I assume it’s similarly possible to be born with a scrotum (and penis) but no testicles.
Not producing any gametes doesn’t confuse things. Even if you don’t produce any gametes, your body is organized around producing one or the other of two sizes.
Things get more interesting in other animals, though anything anywhere near us is still either male, female, or hermaphroditic. When you get down into fungi, you get gametes that are the same size and instead of sex you have mating types, where a single species can have tens of thousands of options.
No ovaries, no uterus, no vagina, just some flabby bits between the legs (that may make tummy feel funny when touched gently) - what size is this body organised around?
You get both sizes of gametes with all kinds of bodies. It’s only the testes/ovaries that are reliably correlated with gamete size, and anything further away from their production than that has about the same chance of not being the style you’d expect as an atom has of not being hydrogen or helium, just like the original meme alludes to.
davidagain@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
powerstruggle does not mean well and is trolling up and down the whole thread.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 14 hours ago
It seems like it.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Unfortunately I mean well. Sometimes people need to hear things they don’t really want to hear. I’m sick of seeing people that should know better spout off unscientific nonsense because it makes them feel good. There’s too much of that on Lemmy
toomanypancakes@piefed.world 12 hours ago
No you don't. You're lying through your teeth as a multitude of people explain how counting works to you. Stop it.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 13 hours ago
Are you then going to answer my question and tell me what size gamete a body without either ovaries, uterus, and vagina, but a vulva, is “organised” around? Or are you going to shift the goalposts further? First it was “size of gametes”, now its “organised around a size” and I still don’t know what that even means.