Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")

[porch]

I did ask Steersman about his endgame, and what I could glean is that his goal is to clear up the confusion that everyone else has when it comes to defining sex! This, in turn, will stop "nutjobs" from defining sex however they want. At the same time, he insists that his definition is the wrong definition when it comes to social policy.

That may seem inconsistent, but inconsistency is his one true constant:

-A sufficient condition can also be insufficient within the same definition of a word.

-We should all catch up with the science, because everyone in the scientific community uses his definition already, except none of them do because they don't have the right philosophy background, etc.

-The dictionary definition agrees with him, except the part that disagrees with him, so the dictionary agrees with him.

The light of his clarifications is so blinding, it's like staring into the sun. Forever.

 

[theprestige]

As I've said before, I think the existence of intersex people is basically orthogonal to any given trans debate.

I'd agree, if only we could convince the trans-rights trolls to stop bringing it up every time they think it'll give them some sort of rhetorical advantage, or to distract from questions like "why should transwomen be housed in women's prisons?"

 

[theprestige]

The light of his clarifications is so blinding, it's like staring into the sun. Forever.

Have you seen The Lighthouse (2019)? This conversation about definitions is starting to feel like that movie. I'm expecting that any moment now,

Steersman is going to launch into a "Heark! Heark!" soliloquy, then tell me I liked his lobster, and then I'm going to wake up to seagulls tearing at my innards.

 

[porch]

How could I forget?!

"Was that instant of literal sex good for you, too?"

And another logical conclusion: There are no homosexuals.

 

[Rolfe]

People with undescended atrophic testicles, no uterus at birth, and a normal female body habitus are not easily classified in my view; they will not produce either form of gamete at any point in their lives and do not clearly lie on one developmental pathway or the other. You would presumably classify them as female, based on your broad SRY criteria, but I'm not adopting that approach myself.

I think there is reasonable disagreement to be had on that point. I did at one stage consider such individuals to be biologically male rather than neither, but males who should unquestionably be accepted by society as women and indeed female. However my thinking developed as I thought more carefully about what "functional" meant in relation to an SRY gene.

Considering the situation of freemartins clarified this to an extent, although of course the situations are very different. Nevertheless a freemartin has loads of entirely normal-in-structure SRY genes, despite being unquestionably female. Her SRY genes, in a male, would do the job they're supposed to do - in fact, in her brother they are doing exactly that. So you can't simply say that a normal-in-structure SRY in the body is sufficient to categorise a chimera as a male. You need the entire system of gene expression and enzyme and hormone systems to make a male body. The freemartin doesn't have that for one reason, the CAIS woman doesn't have that for a different reason. The situations are comparable though.

I like the "functional SRY gene expression system" definition because it gets us pretty much to the normal definition as it is applied by society to birth certificates and passports. We still have to deal with mistakes, but mistakes that can be discussed in terms of "which box", not mistakes left outside completely.

As I've said before, I think the existence of intersex people is basically orthogonal to any given trans debate.

I entirely agree, but we are where we are. What ThePrestige said, really.

 

[Rolfe]

And another logical conclusion: There are no homosexuals.

 

[Rolfe]

Have you seen The Lighthouse (2019)? This conversation about definitions is starting to feel like that movie. I'm expecting that any moment now,

Steersman is going to launch into a "Heark! Heark!" soliloquy, then tell me I liked his lobster, and then I'm going to wake up to seagulls tearing at my innards.

I think I preferred the "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" analogy better.

 

[theprestige]

And another logical conclusion: There are no homosexuals.

What is so difficult to grasp about the concept of being sexlessly attracted to people who have the same unsexed organs of habitual non-reproduction as yourself?

ETA: Not literally the same organs as yourself, obviously. I mean very similar organs arising from very similar genetic codes and biological processes, but necessarily attached to their sexless bodies, not yours.

 

[porch]

Have you seen The Lighthouse (2019)? This conversation about definitions is starting to feel like that movie. I'm expecting that any moment now,

Steersman is going to launch into a "Heark! Heark!" soliloquy, then tell me I liked his lobster, and then I'm going to wake up to seagulls tearing at my innards.

Haha! Good comparison, but I think The Lighthouse was less open to interpretation.

 

[Elaedith]

If a man donates sperm which is stored for potential use, then undergoes a vasectomy, is he still male as long as the stored sperm remains viable?

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, another good queston.

 

[theprestige]

If a man donates sperm which is stored for potential use, then undergoes a vasectomy, is he still male as long as the stored sperm remains viable?

A man donates sperm to a sperm bank, and gets a vasectomy. Six years later, he startles awake in the middle of the night. Awakened herself by her husband's commotion, his wife asks him what's wrong.

"For a moment, there, I felt like I was actually male," he says.

"Nice! Wanna bang?"

"Nah. The moment passed. And you know sexless coupling doesn't do it for me."

 

[Myriad]

Here's some Biblical support for Steersman's position in Deuteronomy 23:1

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD MALES.

 

[porch]

Here is another case of scientific illiteracy. Brute fact, there are no male brown widow spiders. Some brown widows do contribute the male gamete, but at the point of fertilization, they are no longer producing gametes because they are dead.

Sexual cannibalism may represent an extreme form of male monogamy. According to this view, males gain reproductive success by sacrificing themselves to females. We studied the occurrence and timing of sexual cannibalism in the brown widow spider Latrodectus geometricus and compared male courtship and mating behavior with virgin and with previously mated females. We found that events of sexual cannibalism are frequent, that they occur during copulation and that males initiate cannibalism by placing the abdomen in front of the female’s mouth-parts during copulation (somersault behavior). Both the somersaults and mating occurred more frequently with virgins than with previously mated females. Our results support the hypothesis that sexual cannibalism is a male strategy in this species. The somersault behavior was previously known only from the redback spider, Latrodectus hasselti. It is as yet unknown whether self-sacrifice has evolved more than once in this genus.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2007.01462.x



Why is it that I can't picture the sex death somersault in my head without hearing the acrobat going "Wheeee!"?

 

[Steersman]

Not sure what you mean by "public" here. If you mean the general public, I doubt they could either understand the discourse or even care.

Clearly, since their own oxen are getting "gored", more of the "public" are starting to take notice - Tavistock & Lia Thomas for examples.

The general public will use the words male and female anyway and they will continue to use those words as defined by the various dictionaries available.

So what? As I've noted several times before, sloppy language is often a trap for the unwary and a pretext for equivocation, an opportunity for grifters and charlatans to engage in some bait-and-switch. As I mentioned, Francis Bacon noted those problems centuries ago:

"Therefore shoddy and inept application of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum

The whole point of the "discussion" is to hammer out a concrete definition of male and female. You appear to have chosen one involving karyotyping and the SRY (or not) gene.

Yes, quite agree on the need for that "concrete definition. Though I'm most certainly NOT, in any way shape or form, "choosing one based karyotyping". I've explicitly championed and quoted, until I'm blue in the face, the standard biological ones of Parker, Lehtonen, Lexico, Wikipedia, Google/OED and raft of other equally credible sources. For example:

male (adjective): Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/male

You see ANYTHING at all there about karyotypes or SRY genes?

<snip>

Far more important is to get a concrete definition into the dictionaries and that means convincing the lexicographers. How you can achieve that I have no idea, but beating others over the head because your definition doesn't use the same approach as theirs is likely to be counterproductive.

"Lexicographers" have already done; it's there in black and white - see the above quoted definition from Lexico.

You can lead some people - large percentages of the "public" in fact, and even those who should know better - to syllogisms, but it's often rather difficult to get them to actually think. Particularly when they're ideologically committed to various untenable premises.

In which case I would suggest the "scientific" community gets its house in order and stops arguing over what the general public would consider to be minutiae.

If much of the public have their heads up their arses - as is clearly the case - then what they consider "minutiae" really shouldn't carry a lot of weight.

Whilst illuminating, I would need to read it many more times before I could even consider pronouncing on the details.

Regenmortel's article? Much of it is related to the finer details of virus classification which is largely irrelevant to the matter at hand - defining and naming and quantifying categories.

On which his discussion of the differences between monothetic and polythetic categories has a great deal of relevance. You may wish to focus on that aspect:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...n-the-case-of-8-individuals-18_fig1_309889266

Yes I did check your response as requested. Without seeing the article itself I can't really comment. But given that passage you quote, I would think that continuing to argue over the minutiae (to the public at least) of counter definitions is just wasting time.

I only linked to my comment as the "biggest bang for the buck"; there are links to go up a level or two to the article itself although those are as evident as they should maybe be. Here's a link to the article itself; not currently paywalled:

https://michaelshermer.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman-anyway

As for "wasting time", see Bacon's aphorism ...

 

[Steersman]

Here's some Biblical support for Steersman's position in Deuteronomy 23:1

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD MALES.

Amen to that! Let us pray ...

 

[Steersman]

To the extent that they imply puppies are neither male nor female, they are yours and yours alone. No one else is taking this step, they know that some puppies need to be neutered and others spayed.

You seem unwilling or incapable of dealing with the concept of extensional and intensional definitions:

An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_and_intensional_definitions

IF we define the sexes such that producing gametes of either of two types are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" for sex category membership - as is clearly the case - THEN it necessarily follows that those who can produce neither are, ipso facto, sexless. Q.E.D.

You are confusing me with someone else; I've already said that some individuals are neither female nor male but rather intersex, that is, born with a mix of male and female characteristics and unable to ever produce viable gametes as a result.

If neither male nor female then what you're saying is that sex is spectrum. You and PZ - politics, strange bedfellows and all that ....

 

[Lplus]

Clearly, since their own oxen are getting "gored", more of the "public" are starting to take notice - Tavistock & Lia Thomas for examples.



So what? As I've noted several times before, sloppy language is often a trap for the unwary and a pretext for equivocation, an opportunity for grifters and charlatans to engage in some bait-and-switch. As I mentioned, Francis Bacon noted those problems centuries ago:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum



Yes, quite agree on the need for that "concrete definition. Though I'm most certainly NOT, in any way shape or form, "choosing one based karyotyping". I've explicitly championed and quoted, until I'm blue in the face, the standard biological ones of Parker, Lehtonen, Lexico, Wikipedia, Google/OED and raft of other equally credible sources. For example:



https://www.lexico.com/definition/male

You see ANYTHING at all there about karyotypes or SRY genes?



"Lexicographers" have already done; it's there in black and white - see the above quoted definition from Lexico.

You can lead some people - large percentages of the "public" in fact, and even those who should know better - to syllogisms, but it's often rather difficult to get them to actually think. Particularly when they're ideologically committed to various untenable premises.



If much of the public have their heads up their arses - as is clearly the case - then what they consider "minutiae" really shouldn't carry a lot of weight.



Regenmortel's article? Much of it is related to the finer details of virus classification which is largely irrelevant to the matter at hand - defining and naming and quantifying categories.

On which his discussion of the differences between monothetic and polythetic categories has a great deal of relevance. You may wish to focus on that aspect:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...n-the-case-of-8-individuals-18_fig1_309889266



I only linked to my comment as the "biggest bang for the buck"; there are links to go up a level or two to the article itself although those are as evident as they should maybe be. Here's a link to the article itself; not currently paywalled:

https://michaelshermer.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman-anyway

As for "wasting time", see Bacon's aphorism ...

Okay, so your previous comments regarding the use of karyotyping were just sarcasm. More fool me for taking you seriously.

If you still go with a definition that is technically "correct" but useless in the real world, you're more of a fool than I. The public will ever accept a definition that renders a significant proportion of the population neither male nor female and however much you rail at their obtuseness they are the people who need to be satified in the end. You can yell from your ivory tower as loud as you like, but your so high up, no one can hear you.

 

[Steersman]

Okay, so your previous comments regarding the use of karyotyping were just sarcasm. More fool me for taking you seriously.

Which comments about karyotyping? Show your work. Think you need to pay a bit more attention to what I'm saying.

My suggestion to use karyotypes in place of sex on passports and similar documents - if that's what you were referring to; not at all a case of "sarcasm" - was to "cut the Gordian Knot", to get off the horns of a dilemma caused by a conflict between, on the one hand, the biological definitions - which, mirabile dictu, have a great deal of relevance and utility in - zounds and gadzooks - actual biology and, on the other hand, the structure-absent-function definitions of Hilton and Company, of various so-called social scientists, which are largely useless and cause any number of quite serious conflicts and inconsistencies in actual biology.

If you still go with a definition that is technically "correct" but useless in the real world, you're more of a fool than I. The public will ever accept a definition that renders a significant proportion of the population neither male nor female and however much you rail at their obtuseness they are the people who need to be satisfied in the end. You can yell from your ivory tower as loud as you like, but your so high up, no one can hear you.

Tell that to the editors of Lexico, OED, the Journals of Theoretical Biology and Molecular Human Reproduction, and vast non-benighted swaths of the biological community that the biological definitions are "useless in the real world" ...

 

[Rolfe]

If you still go with a definition that is technically "correct" but useless in the real world, you're more of a fool than I. The public will ever accept a definition that renders a significant proportion of the population neither male nor female and however much you rail at their obtuseness they are the people who need to be satified in the end. You can yell from your ivory tower as loud as you like, but your so high up, no one can hear you.

It's not even technically correct. There isn't a single actual biologist (as opposed to philosophers playing at biology) who would use Steersman's definition in a technical sense. It's all based on a misunderstanding/misinterpretation.

ETA. Someone (who appears to be having a laugh) doesn't realise that freemartinism doesn't occur in horses.