Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")

d4m10n said:
Contact info here:

https://evolution.unibas.ch/scharer/research/group_members/jussi_lehtonen.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234824677_Polyandry_The_history_of_a_revolution
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Thanks, though I didn't see any actual contact information for Parker - apart from "University of Liverpool". But, given that the guy is 78 years old, I expect he's retired or emeritus - and probably not much interested in any philosophical ramifications of his definitions.

However, Lehtonen looks like a good bet; may contact him myself although Rolfe's credentials would probably carry more weight.

Somewhat in passing, contact information for Griffiths who I may also send an email to:

https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/paul.griffiths.html

Although I think he was pretty clear on what he thought were the logical consequences of those biological definitions:

Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless].
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https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity

Even if he was maybe not quite as forthright on the specifics as I think he should have been.

But one of the major problems or sticking points has been the desperate insistence that every member of every sexually-reproducing species has to be of one sex or another. "The politicisation of the definition of sex", indeed:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13029
 
Rolfe said:
You know, if that's a sample of your discourse, I'm not all that surprised if Emma Hilton has stopped engaging constructively with you.
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"one swallow does not a summer make". Nor one peevish response an ogre beyond the pale.

Rather a large number of people who think that simply being offended qualifies as an argument. Happens mostly on the woke and transgendered side - Helen Joyce had some choice tweets on the prevalence there:

https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1411965894805360640

But the GC side are hardly immune to that failing either - mostly women who get rather "peeved" with the argument that sex is anything but immutable, that some third of us at any one time are sexless. Been "blocked and reported" - one assumes - on Twitter by some of the best - Maya Forstater and Kathleen Stock in particular; kind of expected better of the latter, the commitment to dispassionate argument by philosophers and all that.

See below; see basically wants to define the sexes as a polythetic cluster. Which boils down into a spectrum.

Rolfe said:
Condescension and argument from authority in the one package are not a good look.
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When you're perfect, it's hard to be humble ... ;)

I'm really not cutting any of my arguments from whole cloth. They all have more or less solid antecedents - which you're welcome to challenge as you wish. I'm not saying they're gospel truth or anything of the sort; only saying here are the premises and those are the logical conclusions.
 

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d4m10n said:
Keep looking, it's on there under "Author for correspondence."
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All I saw were some very old - 2012 - articles with Parker's name on them. I did find one that gave an email address but it doesn't match the (presumably) current one for the lab at the Liverpool university that he was the head of.
 
theprestige said:
There are no horns. There is no dilemma. The current policy works just fine. Everyone knows what is meant by male and female in mammals.
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You might try reading the Quackometer critique of Novella's "thesis" - and the comments at both - which shows that many people haven't an effen clue:

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-muddling-of-the-american-mind

theprestige said:
The only ones who don't are being disingenuous or willfully obtuse. Forcing a quibble on definitions solves no problems anyone actually has. It advances no discussion on topics of interest here.
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Hardly a "quibble" when every man and his dog has a different set of definitions:

Sex: Binary, Spectrum or “Socially Constructed”?

More particularly and to begin with, there are the various “theories” about sex itself, about whether it’s a spectrum, or a binary; about whether the binary is to be based on structure-absent-function or function-only; about whether it is - gawd help us all - merely a “social construction”. For instance, both Nature and Scientific American - supposedly credible and authoritative journals - seriously beclowned themselves by endorsing the position that “The idea of two sexes is simplistic”. Which was particularly amusing, in a gallows-humor sort of way, in light of the fact that the author, biologist Claire Ainsworth, subsequently repudiated that suggestion and headline.
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https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/welcome

As Voltaire put it, “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.”

theprestige said:
If you simply must have a definition of male and female that satisfies some perfect system of formal logic, please start a thread about it, and stop jamming up this one with repeats of an argument we've all already grokked and dismissed.
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:rolleyes: Being something of a stranger in a strange land in this neck of the woods you'll have to give me some evidence of that ...
 
Rolfe said:
Hard to say. There have been some statements in this thread (or maybe another one, I'm getting them a bit mixed up) that suggest a genuine lack of understanding of the present habitual tense.
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Pretty much the same as "present tense indefinite":

We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why it’s sometimes called present indefinite).
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https://www.grammarly.com/blog/simple-present/

In English grammar, the habitual present is a verb in the present tense used to indicate an action that occurs regularly or repeatedly. It's also known as the present habitual.
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https://www.thoughtco.com/habitual-present-grammar-1690830

The former of which I've used frequently, including once here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13867466#post13867466

Rolfe said:
And if someone doesn't understand the present habitual tense, then I'm not sure whether understanding categories is going to be easy.
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Not quite sure how you think that necessarily follows ...
 
Steersman said:
I know. That's why I find it rather amusing and quite ironic that he's been championing that paper of Parker's & Lehtonen's.

Rather doubt he ever got as far into it as the Glossary and its definitions for "male" and "female". Or thought closely about their logical consequences.

Been meaning to go over to his blog and pour a bit of salt on his tail. Although I see now that his recent post - January this year - quotes those same definitions - he can't have much of a clue about the logical and epistemological principles behind such definitions:

https://theparadoxinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/15/defining-sex-vs-determining-sex/

If you're on Twitter then you might ask him about that "discrepancy" ... ;)
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Again, your inferences are incorrect.

While Elliot does reference a definition that uses the term "adult", it also defines sex based on the PHENOTYPE, and whether that PHENOTYPE is the kind that produces ova or sperm.

The PHENOTYPE being referred to is the reproductive anatomy.

Here's the deal: If a person has the male phenotype for reproductive anatomy, they may or may not actively produce sperm. But they 100% cannot produce eggs.
 
Steersman said:
What horse crap. That karyotype-height example I gave was a case of a joint probability distribution - heights on the X-axis (to the right), karyotypes on the Y-axis (to the left):
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My MS in Applied Mathematics with a BS in Applied Statistics, as well as 20+ years as a practicing actuary trumps your "able to read wikipedia"

Karotypes are not ordinal; they are categorical. You cannot get a bimodal distribution from categorical data. End of.
 
Rolfe said:
And we end up with people who really should have better things to do with their time actually assisting the agenda of the vested interests that are trying to muddy the waters by claiming that only a tiny proportion of mammals are actually male or female. As opposed to, you know, all of them.
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Excellent post :)

I think this is the very first time that I've ever seen someone actually arguing that the strawman is real, from the perspective of the strawman. I don't even have a word for it, really.
 
Rolfe said:
Oh, and another thing. We already have way too much "argument from authority" going on in this general area of discussion - to the point where Emily's Cat is complaining about the fallacy of sophisticated theology.

In my opinion we do not need any more of that. "I have found this guy with an impressive-looking degree or academic appointment, are you really disagreeing with him?" Well, yes actually. I've got a reasonably impressive degree or two myself, and did have reasonably impressive academic appointments, and these things don't cause me to genuflect. I've seen my share of absolute idiots spouting nonsense who have been able to put the title "Professor" in front of their names. Sheesh. I have also been a scrutineer for academic journals, and the amount of utter dreck that has got past the peer-review process pretty much bends space.

This is a sceptics forum. We make our own arguments.
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No kidding. This forum is chocker-block full of impressive degrees.
 
Emily's Cat said:
My MS in Applied Mathematics with a BS in Applied Statistics, as well as 20+ years as a practicing actuary trumps your "able to read wikipedia"
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I'm suitably impressed. Though I might tender my own credentials as an electronics technologist specializing in control systems (cybernetics) with some 30 "years before the mast" designing, building, and repairing various electronic systems for use in marine, automotive, and industrial applications.

Though I'll concede that my knowledge of statistics is a bit rough around the edges - a deficiency that I'm trying rectify.

Emily's Cat said:
Karotypes are not ordinal; they are categorical. You cannot get a bimodal distribution from categorical data. End of.
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I'm still waiting for your citations of the statistics literature as to why that can't be done.

I'm also waiting for you to actually look at and think about that joint-probability distribution I've posted before of karyotypes & heights. You might reasonably quibble about the order, but don't see how you reasonably deny that there IS a family of probability distributions for heights for EACH of the karyotypes listed. All of which might reasonably be put into the joint probability distribution shown.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Again, your inferences are incorrect.
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Which "inferences"? To which conclusions? Show your work ...

Emily's Cat said:
While Elliot does reference a definition that uses the term "adult", it also defines sex based on the PHENOTYPE, and whether that PHENOTYPE is the kind that produces ova or sperm.

The PHENOTYPE being referred to is the reproductive anatomy.
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So? What's your point?

His very first JPG is from Parker's and Lehtonen's article on gamete dimorphism. Which explicitly includes the phrases "produces (habitually) large gametes" and "produces (habitually) small gametes". Those ARE the necessary and sufficient conditions for sex category membership. No gametes, no sex.

Emily's Cat said:
Here's the deal: If a person has the male phenotype for reproductive anatomy, they may or may not actively produce sperm. But they 100% cannot produce eggs.
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Pray tell, where have I EVER said that if a person can't produce one type of gamete that it necessarily follows that they have to produce the other type?

Too many - you included - seem fixated on that argument. But that is not at all what many, including Paul Griffiths have been saying for years:

Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless].
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https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
 
I confess to having skipped some recent bits of this latest debate, but this whole argument about what does or doesn't constitute a this or a that reminds me of a famous (though unfortunately spurious and fictional) legal case sometimes called "Regina Vs. Saskatchewan," in which using impeccable logic, a man who shot a pony with a feather pillow for a saddle was charged under the Small Birds Act.
 
Rolfe said:
No doubt someone can do better. But I do not think either society or biology has moved from the concept of there being two sexes (even the idiots who try to maintain it's a "spectrum" haven't postulated a third sex), and I think biology is getting better at diagnosing the edge cases correctly, to the point where I don't actually think there are any genuine edge cases in purely biological terms. (What you do with a boy who has 5ARD who was mistakenly brought up as a girl is a social problem. He's a boy and he will grow up into a man, even if you called him Caster when he was a baby.)
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There was a post on twitter some time back that I thought made a really good point regarding edge cases: You only know they're edge cases... because you know where the edge is.
 
Steersman said:
I'm actually quite impressed and supportive of much of what she's said. Just a bit disappointed that she's now peddling quite unscientific claptrap.
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Seriously, you keep asserting that scientists are "unscientific" because they don't use your definition.

By what authority and expertise do you demand that YOUR definition is the one that should be adopted? What relevant background and experience do you have that would convince anyone at all to take your word for it?
 
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