Binette
@Binette@lemmy.ml
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 3 days ago:
Funny thing: 1 + 1 = 2 isn’t material, it’s derived of axioms. You don’t know what you’re talking about
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 3 days ago:
My point is that biologists use the binary to simplify explanations of reality. In reality, what we call “sex” is just an observable variable trait. The question of “what is sex” is just philosophical.
Also, you say that despite what she says, that people will interpret this as “there are five sexes”, when the paragraph that DOES reference her doesn’t say so in the slightest.
You’d have to only read the title of her work to get this conclusion. Quite reactionary, but not unnexpected from a guy who did a video in PragerU of all fucking places lol.
For biologically speaking, there are many gradations running from female to male;
This is what she believes . It was so easy to spot even when reading diagonaly. The next sentence is an observation on the subject.
[…] and depending on how one calls the shots, one can argue that along that spectrum lie at least five sexes-and perhaps even more.
Here, she is saying that sex can be defined alongside this spectrum, depending on how you see things. You can split it up as as many subjective categories as you want. That is her point. To suggest otherwise is pretty disingenuous.
Speaking of disingenuous, I’m not saying your argument, as in you’re the only one making it. No fucking shit. I’m talking about your argument in the context of this conversation (honestly, I can barely call it that). You ignore the points I made below and just slap a definition, answering none of them. What do you mean “immaterial”??? It is by definition material. It has direct consequences on the material realities of these people. Who do you think is doing the corrective surgeries? Randoes on the street? No, it is doctors that use this definition to justify what they do.
Your biologist guy left academia a while ago. His PhD is honestly irrelevant, especialy since he’s a grifter. The fact that you cite a person that is clearly against trans people and that has to grift because he left academia makes me wonder if you actually take trans people and their struggles seriously: www.transgendermap.com/issues/…/colin-wright/
Honestly I should’ve ended this convo the more I read about this guy. The fact that you take a transphobic grifter seriously, as your evidence, and don’t cite anyone else should’ve been the end of that conversation. Not just on the definition of sex, but on disregarding another academic’s text based on only the title at worse, or on the fact that he can’t read at best. If you want an example of how that definition is used to harm people, look no further than the person you are citing. I’m honestly done with your bullshit
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 4 days ago:
The first article is specifically talking about gender AND sex, and to reconsider our conception of both. It is quite relevant. You are technically turning phenotypes into binary. Again, look at your model and ask “Who is this helping?”. It’s helpful to those that want to impose a strict binary, not those that require nuance. Also, Zachary dubois has a PHD in biological anthropology: cas.uoregon.edu/directory/…/zdubois. You’re straight up lying now
Do you know what your binary definition has been usefull for? Imposing a binary on other people, especially children. “Your body is organized around producing small/large gametes, but it is not functional, so we’ll fix you by making you closer to something that works, whether you like the side-effects or not”. It wasn’t usefull for me, wasn’t usefull for intersex people, and will not be usefull for others in the future.
Again for the hyenas, that is not the point of the author. Plus definitions can be expanded, not just overwritten.
The people in that comitee are people that have worked in the medical field, including a medical doctor, a sociologist and a psychiatrist. The ASRM has reason to believe it is accurate as well, and should consider it.
That takedown of Fausto-Sterrling is arleady bogus. It calls LOCAH a non ambiguous sexual condition even though it affects hormones to an abnormal degree. Speaking again on intersex rights, the usefulness of treating LOCAH as intersex would be to let the children decide what treatments and effects on their body they want. When it comes to hormones even, it is assumed that the child wants effects alligned with their ASAB without asking them about it or by presure. Been through that myself. It is therefore useful to consider LOCAH as an intersex condition.
Not only that, yeah her claim about 5 sexes is tongue and cheek. It was meant to disprove a model. You gotta show contradictions in order to disprove it. So yeah, absurd claim are gonna come out. Like “therefore, there are 5 sexes”. It’s a critique of the current model, not her actual beliefs. The text is more about how intersex people are fit into these boxes without considering their opinion on how should they keep it. Anyone framing it as “she believes there are 5 sexes” is caricaturising what she is trying to say, and extremely bad faith for a scientist to do.
The guy responding to her work has also a pretty interesting track record in academia himself. He’s also a TERF. Makes you wonder why he would take such position… Are you gonna argue that there is an academic conspiracy to cancel him or something? Again, this is a tongue in cheek question, and I assume the aswer is “no”. en.everybodywiki.com/Colin_Wright#Leaving_academi…
Again, with the organs that appear in one sex or the other, your own definition contradicts that. Since again, someone that is “organised around producing large/small gametes” CAN and HAVE HAD organs and traits from the opposite sex (ie MGD and other intersex hormonal conditions). Therefore, all sexual organs are able to appear in one sex and not the other.
I know that ovotesticular syndrome isn’t that. I’m just saying if both gonads don’t work, which sex should this person be? If you base yourself of of other sex characteristics, then your point is mute, per the last paragraph.
- Comment on I took a picture of the back of my pizza box for you guys just in case you were stuck home because of the snow and needed something to do. 5 days ago:
The mozzarella’s on the fucking floor
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 5 days ago:
Yeah I kinda forgot the whole “model” aspect of it. Models are still useful, but they’re just that: models. If it’s not helping the current context, then it’s just useless.
- Comment on Black Influencer says Black People Deserved To Be Called What They Are, thoughts? 5 days ago:
You can be black and racist. He’s generalising a group of people based on race, so yeah, he’s racist. Simple as.
Guy’s a conservative US vet and black like pick a stuggle 😭
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 5 days ago:
For the first link i am sorry, i confused my pubmed links in my copy tray: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096131/
I read the text debunking second link. The author writing this is more concerned with the usefullness of the gamete size definition for us than the actual definition of it.
As I’ve mentioned before, the recognition of the gamete size binary—the so-called “flattening”, has in fact been enormously productive in biology, for it’s given us not only an explanatory basis for sexual selection (which itself explains a ton of biological phenomena), but also enables us to make predictions about how parental investment affects behavior (e.g., why female seahorsea rather than males are members of the sex with colorful adornments).
Flattening it has never been useful to this. Knowing people’s sexual characteristics as a whole instead of just figuring out which gametes should be produced is more helpful
Another case of semantics vs actually understanding what the authors are saying. They argue that since they acknowledge that they called the hyena “female” that they recognise the sex binary. They were actually calling the hyena female because the wider scientific community calls them that, not because they believe it is. It’s a bad faith argument.
The author keeps also talking about ideology and, in tfe end, mentions how the paper got through because of DEI. Like seriously??? That’s not how DEI works 😭
Your claim about ASRM is quite disengenuons i feel. Saying that medical doctors are “non-biologists” disregards their education in biology and anthropology.
Either way, my point is that there are biologist that have contested it.
Then if you were talking beforhand about the sex determination mechanism, then you’d be off topic. My argument has nothing to do with how the body determines it’s sexual function, but simply the end result, as you say it. The sex determination process is a process that, again, doesn’t have a strict set of rules, other than, at best, the patterns that we observed and used as norms. Sex determination doesn’t “fail” because, on it’s own, it doesn’t have any goals. We only say it has a goal to explain things easily, but concretely, it just does stuff
For the havard link, I want to empasise: you say that it wants to dispute the terms “disorder” and “difference”. But this is exactly what we’re arguing about. Just put in another context.
The paragraph on Fausto-Sterling is also not helpful. You didn’t even reply with what she said, so why can’t I asume she was just being ironic about it? Like what are you even talking about?
You’re confusing the natural extention of the thesis of the author for their thesis: sex is not binary. I want you to not only undrestand their argument as to why it isn’t, but also recognise that a significant amount of biologists are against your claims. Here is the paragraph directly against what you’re saying:
Sun finds Geoff Parker’s gametic explanation of biological sex, published in 1972, to be the most useful—yet it too is incomplete. Parker suggested that sex is defined by the size of the reproductive cells present in each individual. That is, males produce smaller gametes (sperm) while females produce larger gametes (eggs). However, Sun emphasizes that this definition does not account for individuals that produce no gametes at all or those that produce gametes that are not fully viable—that is, intersex individuals.
My point isn’t that humans are defined this way by the general population. But if they were the fact that people without feet at the end of their legs would be proof that humans cannot be defined with that, the same way that sex can’t.
Your teleological definition is slightly beter at explaining what you’re getting at, but contains quite the contradiction.
If by “stucture”, you mean everything that is directly invoved in the creation of the gametes, then I can just show someone that doesn’t have ovaries or testes. No organs in their body are creating them, so that person has no sex?
If by “stucture”, you mean that including the rest of the sexual characteristics, then someone that has traits of two different structures is both sexes? Since I can just say that someone with Swyer syndrome was trying to make a structure organised around making small gametes, but failed, because the SRY didn’t activate.
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 6 days ago:
Few examples of biologists arguing against it:
www.asrm.org/…/just-the-facts-biological-sex/ www.biorxiv.org/content/…/2023.01.26.525769v1
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40199245/
radcliffe.harvard.edu/…/ideology-versus-biology
By the way, when I look towards more sources for your claims, I often find christian institutions and TERF adgacent sources. Some even argue for teleology. This, again, contredicts the theory of evolution, which we are still abiding by, correct?
Also, your section on determination vs. definition (in your last message) is cyclical. People determine based on definition. To say the opposite would beg the question: “determined based on what?”, and the answer will be a definition, right or wrong.
I’m not the one saying “it could be a baboon, who knows”. You are lol. I’m saying that there is no such thing as a “could be” in concrete empirical analysis of nature, just a “be”. We can make educated guesses based on the empirical data, but they’re just that: guesses. We can say “they are missing a foot”, but it is a shorthand for “this person has no foot. Usually, people have a foot there. It might allow them to walk more stabily, so let’s try sollutions that mimic the structure of a foot”.
Because how can they be lierally “missing a foot” if they never had one in the first place? The supposition that something is “supposed to be there” is a cognitive shortcut, but nothing is supposed.
It is teleological, because there are two options in interpreting this sentence:
A human body tries to build a foot at the end of the leg.
- The empirical one, which, as you should know, is a concrete observation of what is going on. You’d rephrase the sentence as:
This person has no foot at the end of their leg. Typically, humans have feet at the of their leg.
Using this interpretation, it would be ridiculous to define a human empiricaly around the fact that they have 2 legs. Remember, right now we are using terms in order to explain something more concrete.
- The human body actually tries to make a foot at the end of the leg -> same teleological argument as I explained in my previous reply.
The “stable, iherited body plan” is still a teleological sentence lmfao. You’re basically disaproving my argument on the basis of it not being teleological.
Since you’re arguing for teleology, I suppose that you have a fickle understanding of evolutionary biology. Tne human body doesn’t “try to do something”. It either doesn’t or it does. Ascribing a certain attempt or will to the body is a shorthand, like i’ve said several times, but it is not accurately depecting the experience.
As a thought exercise, can you describe your definition of sex without using teleological language? But then again, your reply shows a lack of understanding on what teleology is, so if you reply with anothe misunderstanding of the concept, I’ll just move on from this.
You also stated that you’re autistic in your bio. As someone that is also autistic, you might want to reflect if you’re actually arguing for science, or rather for a more rigid worldview that you want to stay the same. This argument of yours seems repetitive and circular, so I’d suggest reflecting on
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 1 week ago:
No it is still not empirical. The definition of sex is difficult to set in stone, and yours fails to argue for itself on the basis of a result that is just a stretch of the empirical truth. In fact, you saying that it is a consensus in the field of biology when a notable amount of biologists argue against this is very far-fetched.
Again, take someone with Swyer syndrome that don’t have the ability to produce any large gametes. By saying it is “organized around the production of large gametes”, you are extending that empirical fact related to that person, and ascribing them an alternate reality where there can produce large gametes. You’re defining someone around something that they cannot do.
Concretely, this means that sex is way more complicated than just “revolving around the production of gametes”. I am not an expert in biology, and will not be able to tell you exactly what it is without not considering all of the edge-cases of it’s definition. But there are too many contradictions with saying that it’s binary because XYZ.
I am of the opinion that our society’s obsession with figuring out someone’s sex, if it is assigned by birth by a doctor, determined by an onlooker, etc. is in it of itself harmful. Not that there’s anything wrong with knowing about your body, but the way it’s been morphed into these essential classes is harmful for those that defy said class, intentionally or not.
That said, I hope you look at more examples of teleology in biology. In fact, what I explained should be understandable if you have a look at the wikipedia article. If you do not mean “organized around” in a teleological sense, then what do you mean? Also, you failed to address my previous analogies in your response. If it’s because you feel like it’s fallacious, or that it’s simply wrong, then why not respond accordingly? I’m starting to suspect the use of AI…
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 1 week ago:
Except this isn’t “biology being real”. It’s non empirical. If you abide by the theory of evolution (which I assume you do), then you should be against teleology in biology, since there is no such thing, concretely, as a “body that’s supposed to do things”. It’s just layman speech to inform those that aren’t that far in biology, or a short version of “this is one of the possible things that a being (or its system) does in order to survive/reproduce”, not that it is necessary. To imply that it’s necessary would be to imply that nature has a will, or that there is some sort of supernatural will Teleology in biology
- Comment on That's a whole lotta hydrogen! 1 week ago:
The issue with your argument is that you’re ascribing a simple explanation how biology works to the actual reality of things. When doctors or evolutionary biologist say that something was “supposed to be done”, in the context of biology, they usually mean “this is what the being (as in, its system) does for the possible outcome of reproduction or survival, but there are other possibilities”. They don’t actually mean that this is what is supposed to be done. It’s a way for people to understand it more simply, and is implied.
You should read the Wikipedia article on Teleology in biology. But this paragraph is the most central part of the argument against your point. Teleology means a certain “goal-oriented”-ness.
Statements which imply that nature has goals, for example where a species is said to do something “in order to” achieve survival, appear teleological, and therefore invalid to evolutionary biologists. It is however usually possible to rewrite such sentences to avoid the apparent teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically. Nevertheless, biologists still frequently write in a way which can be read as implying teleology, even though that is not their intention.
As an example, take a meteorologist providing forecast for tomorrow’s weather. With whatever means they collected data, they assert: “it will rain tomorrow”. Tomorrow comes, and it is sunnier than ever. Scientifically speaking, the meteorologist cannot say “the atmosphere failed to make it rain, even though it tried to”. If this seems absurd, it’s because it is. In that case, the meteorologist is supposed to adapt their model into something that more accurately reflects the data given.
The problem is even more visible once you take the example of an intersex person, born with XY chromosomes, but with a uterus (Swyer’s Syndrome). One person could base themselves on the XY chromosomes to say that the person was “supposed to produce small gametes”, as you put it. Another person could base themselves on the fact that (with medical intervention) the person can produce large gametes, therefore, that the person was “supposed to produce large gametes”. Either answer is wrong, since the body isn’t actually “supposed” to do something. It just does what it does, regardless of what you think it is supposed to do. The correct thing to do would be to say: “They aren’t supposed to do something. If our model is to be empirical, it should be supposed to reflect what is actually going on with their body, not ascribe a will to it. We should rethink how we see the definition of sex”
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Bunni bunni bunni bunni bunni
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I have neither a good posture or good hydration, so that’s a great start lol.
But I read about it and it’s quite reasuring that it’s nothing serious. Thanks!
- Comment on It's nothing 1 month ago:
Seriously though, what are these? I’ve had them for years and I’ve tried to ask my doctor about it, but I had too many issues to deal with or they didn’ believe me idk
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post about women’s only space 150+ comments, 50 downvotes
Close enough. Welcome back reddit
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Arch lemmemey
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I’m gritting my teeth hard I can’t be laughing at this
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Do you know about revanced? It also has cool features, like disabling autodubbing: github.com/NoName-exe/revanced-extended
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Is this the fabled old man yaoi I’ve been hearing about?
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Arianna the Grande
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first video I see embeded in the jerboa app
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I don’t think schizoid is the best word to describe this behaviour
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the top left image look like lambda diagrams and that scared the shit out of me 😭
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a woman is not a “not man” ☝️🤓
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do we have lemmy posters (as in the paper kind?)
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In french, it’s skmilar: “mauvaises herbes”
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“glazing” is a sexual term?
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jojo after part 3
