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Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female

Right? It's like they are trying to be fractally incorrect.

I'm going to take a crack at this since Bob D. evidently won't do so: HRT for CAIS.

Estrogen replacement helps along female puberty, secondary sexual characteristics, and promotes bone mass.
I don't see how sex as a spectrum improves our understanding of CAIS and how to treat it. Your example makes perfect sense to me in a binary sex paradigm.
 
While I'm having a go at SGU, here is the relevant transcript excerpt:

Emphasis mine.
Couple of things, they seem to be saying biological sex is pretty much the entirety of how sex is expressed in humans. Its not just what gametes you have apparently, its also how your brain functions, your gender identity, and who you are attracted to. It used to be the progressive notion to think of gender and sex as different things, I thought.
─of course the brain is a sexual organ as well. And there are features of you know in terms of sexual attraction and also gender identity that are developmental, that and along this you know sexually dimorphic system in the brain. And so that's part of sex too you know, part of biological sex is your sexual orientation and your gender identity.
Seems to me that they've redefined biological sex in order to make it a spectrum. They even note that the human brain is sexually dimorphic.
So when we talk about something being bimodal, it literally looks like a normal curve, except it has two bumps instead of one.
This seems to be saying, any to overlapping bell curves constitutes a bimodal distribution therefore the characteristic being measured is on a spectrum. I respectfully disagree.

ETA: It really seems to be arguing that because some men are not as strong as some women we all exist on a spectrum. My nearest analogy, some planets are more massive than some stars therefor stars and planets exist on a spectrum?
 
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Which half of the binary paradigm applies here?
Both. You said it yourself: half and half.

Furthermore, you've given no evidence that medical science was struggling to understand and treat this condition, without a spectrum view of biological sex.

I'm not interested in "if you squint you can kinda see a way to describe it in terms of some kind of spectrum". I'm interested in practical applications arising from taking a spectrum viewpoint with eyes wide open.
 
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More on the Big KerFFRFle. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has quietly dissolved its Honorary Board following the high-profile resignations of three of its most prominent members: Jerry Coyne, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins. No reason for the move was stated, but Jerry speculates,

The conclusion, of course, is that the FFRF does not WANT an honorary board at all. Why? The only conclusion I can reach is that other honorary-board members could, in the future, cause “trouble” in the way that the three of us did, publicly criticizing the organization for its mission creep and adherence to woke gender ideology.​

Colin Wright, also a biologist, agreed, saying, "When your organization has abandoned its core principled, maintaining a Board of principled intellectuals becomes a liability."

 
Taking mode in the strict mathematical sense and taking "sex at birth" as a nominal distribution would result in a unimodal distribution, since most newborns are male. Once again, claims of bimodality just won't work.
Outside the walls of mathematical statistics classes, statisticians refer to distributions with two unequal peaks as "bimodal," and the term succinctly describes the kind of distribution that Jerry is talking about, one with two categories, nearly equal in size that contain nearly all cases in the population.
That said, the claims being made by the "sex is bimodal" crowd is not that sex is a nominal categorical variable but rather a continuous spectrum, as illustrated here.
Jerry is not a member of that crowd.
 
Sad to see that the once-respected Steven Novella has fallen into the trap of placing ideology ahead of objective, observable scientific truth.

Thank goodness for people like Dr. Colin Wright and Dr. Emma Hilton for always placing scientific truth at the forefront of this discussion.

IMO, anyone who thinks sex is a spectrum and not binary is every bit as much an evolution-denier as a Young Earth Creationist even if they deny it for different reasons.
There are others who have spoken out - Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins are prominent examples. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, renowned developmental biologist (& Nobel laureate), has publicly noted that sex is binary - see summary via Hilton here & interview translated from Deutsch here. Some may be wondering why more people don't speak out. One answer is fear and the ramifications. I spoke out on Twitter a bit, and suspect it cost me a job. I think some of the older biologists may not know about the "controversy", may not care enough, and/or may think it's unkind to point this out in the current climate.
 
I don't see how sex as a spectrum improves our understanding of CAIS and how to treat it. Your example makes perfect sense to me in a binary sex paradigm.
Agree. In fact, you need to know they are male (i.e. have testes) to monitor for their increased risk of gonadal tumorigenesis. That was the circumstance in the one case I've seen presented in my current gig (assessing genetic causes of pediatric disease at a large hospital) - the initial thought was to do androgen injections, but the testes were already revealed to be cancerous (and hence removed).
 
Outside the walls of mathematical statistics classes, statisticians refer to distributions with two unequal peaks as "bimodal," and the term succinctly describes the kind of distribution that Jerry is talking about, one with two categories, nearly equal in size that contain nearly all cases in the population.
Jerry is talking about a distribution with three categories, two of which are nearly equal in size and dwarf the third. I agree that it makes more sense to call this discrete distribution bimodal than binary, but I don't think that's going to dispel any confusion until we see an actual histogram making the rounds.
 
Jerry is talking about a distribution with three categories, two of which are nearly equal in size and dwarf the third. I agree that it makes more sense to call this discrete distribution bimodal than binary, but I don't think that's going to dispel any confusion until we see an actual histogram making the rounds.
"Ask and it shall be given ..." ;):)

Mathematica_Histogram_ReproductiveFunctions1A.jpg

What is illustrated there is 48% males, 47% females, and 5% intersex/sexless. And it's more or less based on the standard definition for sex:

Oxford_Dictionaries_Sex1B.jpg


As indicated, males and females have a reproductive function because they can reproduce, because they produce small or large gametes. The other category -- the one outside of those "two main" ones -- don't have any such reproductive function, and can reasonably, if unpopularly, be called sexless.

If Jerry -- et al -- want to say that the intersex are a sex then he's making sex into a spectrum of three which is basically what he is at least implying. Or he's waffling, clueless, or talking out of both sides of his mouth about what it takes to qualify as male or female.

And, as suggested, that "Reproductive Function" graph -- including the sexed and the sexless -- might, at a stretch, be called bimodal. But there really aren't any intervening "sexes" between "male" and "female" so apparently not consistent with mathematics terminology about peaks, about values on either side that are of lower frequency.

ETA: Jerry has apparently crossed the Rubicon here by explicitly asserting that the intersex are neither male nor female, i.e., they're sexless:

In fact, you don’t seem to understand the issue under discussion. Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female. They are almost never fertile (two hermaphrodites in history are known to have produced either eggs or sperm but never both) and they are NOT a third sex.

Though he still seems somewhat unclear on the concept -- many of the intersex are sexless BECAUSE they don't have functioning gonads of either type -- ergo, infertile.
 
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Okay, then can you list a specific right or rights which you feel trans people should be given, which would require defining biological sex as a spectrum rather than a binary? I don't mean something general like 'to be able to live as their authentic selves' or the like. But at least one specific 'should be allowed to ____' right which would not be possible if biological sex were binary, but would if it were a spectrum?

I realize it's a total twat move to quote myself, but I - and apparently a few others - are still keen on an answer to this. What specific rights and/or proper medical treatments are only available if sex is treated as a spectrum, and which would be impossible/denied if it were treated as a binary ?
 
What specific rights and/or proper medical treatments are only available if sex is treated as a spectrum, and which would be impossible/denied if it were treated as a binary?
That depends on what you mean by treating sex as a spectrum. The example I provided involves giving genetically male patients the sort of female hormones they cannot possibly produce on their own, thereby nudging them towards more female appearance (in terms of secondary characteristics) along with other health benefits. The idea of moving someone genetically male towards a more female body strikes me as dabbling with a morphological spectrum, if not a strict categorical one.
 
There are others who have spoken out - Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins are prominent examples. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, renowned developmental biologist (& Nobel laureate), has publicly noted that sex is binary - see summary via Hilton here & interview translated from Deutsch here. Some may be wondering why more people don't speak out. One answer is fear and the ramifications. I spoke out on Twitter a bit, and suspect it cost me a job. I think some of the older biologists may not know about the "controversy", may not care enough, and/or may think it's unkind to point this out in the current climate.

Indeed.... Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying. Its worth noting how they were treated for daring to speak objective, scientific truth


and Georgi K. Marinov published despite his fears


A disclaimer: I am not a tenured faculty member and have no job security; I am well aware that my career prospects could be jeopardized by this essay. I also write from a perspective—not widely shared—that anyone who pledges allegiance to any political party or ideology cannot rightly call himself a scientist. Political and ideological loyalties, in my view, violate the epistemic practices scientists are supposed to follow.
Its also worth noting that the cancelling, disgusting rhetoric and threats of violence always come from the pro-spectrum side of the debate, and never from the pro-binary side. You never see people like Novella being driven out of academia the way Dr. Colin Wright, Heather Heying, Brett Weinstein, Dr. Kathleen Stock, Prof. Selina Todd, Prof. Nate Hiers, Prof. Kathleen Lowery, Laura Tanner, Stephen Gliske, Linda Gottfreidson, and Lisa Littman were!

People who support and participate in the ideologically-driven "sex is a spectrum" crowd are the intellectual hand-puppets of the TRA crowd.
 
And you claim to be formally trained as a biologist?


Y-chromosomes contain the master-switch gene for sex determination, called the sex-determining region Y, or the SRY gene in humans. In most normal cases, if a fertilized egg cell has the SRY gene, it develops into an embryo that has male sex traits. If the zygote lacks the SRY gene or if the SRY gene is defective, the zygote develops into an embryo that has female sex traits.

FFS, I learned this in high school. As a claimed formally trained biologist, there is no question you should already know this.
Where did I claim to be a formally trained biologist, I only claimed to have taken a college level biology class, the one biology majors are required to take.

And I see your cite supports my claim that sex is determined, not defined.

Thanks for seeing it the way I do, thanks for playing.
 
Its certainly not the first time
Lumpers and splitters:

Lumpers and splitters are opposing factions in any academic discipline that has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper–splitter problem occurs when there is the desire to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example, schools of literature, biological taxa, and so on. A "lumper" is a person who assigns examples broadly, judging that differences are not as important as signature similarities. A "splitter" makes precise definitions, and creates new categories to classify samples that differ in key ways.

Different philosophical perspectives.

Most scientific disciplines worthy of the name tend to be based on the concept of natural kinds, something that Novella clearly hasn't a flaming clue about, though many others are rather too quick to dismiss insights from that field:

Scientific disciplines frequently divide the particulars they study into kinds and theorize about those kinds. To say that a kind is natural is to say that it corresponds to a grouping that reflects the structure of the natural world rather than the interests and actions of human beings.

Fairly large body of work that views the sexes as such "natural kinds".
 
Indeed.... Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying. Its worth noting how they were treated for daring to speak objective, scientific truth

Total nonsense. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying were not “daring to speak objective, scientific truth”.

The whole Evergreen kerfuffle was entirely unrelated to sex and gender.

Besides, during the Covid pandemic, they turned from mild cranks to completely insane quacks with their promotion of ivermectin, fear-mongering about Covid vaccines which morphed into a general anti-vaxx tendency, promotion of RFK Jr, promotion of the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS and practically every conspiracy theory you can think of and more that you have probably never heard of.
 
Total nonsense. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying were not “daring to speak objective, scientific truth”.

The whole Evergreen kerfuffle was entirely unrelated to sex and gender.

Besides, during the Covid pandemic, they turned from mild cranks to completely insane quacks with their promotion of ivermectin, fear-mongering about Covid vaccines which morphed into a general anti-vaxx tendency, promotion of RFK Jr, promotion of the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS and practically every conspiracy theory you can think of and more that you have probably never heard of.
I listened to them a bit at the start of covid, based on that, wouldn't shock me if everything you said there was true. They were definitely on that trajectory when I last heard them.
 
Any chance someone could move on from admiring the problem, to offering practical applications of the spectrum paradigm?
The spectrum paradigm means there's no reason to prevent any women from competing in women's sports, or keep them from women's restrooms, or prevent them from being rape counselors, or keep them out of women's shelters due to the gametes they produce.
 
There are probably dozens of definitions that have defined the sex categories, some that are more or less standard and well regarded by most biologists worth their salt. See:

View attachment 58384
The problem is generally that too many people get their knickers in twist over them largely because they "think" it deprives them of their "humanity" :rolleyes:. Many of them, like most of the transloonies, have turned the sexes into "immutable identities" based on some "mythic essences" instead of recognizing them as labels for transitory reproductive abilities.
I don't know how many times we've been through this, but your entire premise is based on a lack of reading comrehension with respect to these definitions.

I'll give it one more go.

With emphasis...
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult PHENOTYPE that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.

You keep misrepresenting this as if it says:
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as individuals that PRODUCE larger gametes in anisogamous systems.

The definition is based on the phenotype - and in this context, it means the phenotype of the reproductive system. Actual production of gametes isn't required. A male who's had an orchiectomy cannot produce sperm, but still has the PHENOTYPE that produces smaller gametes within the human anisogamous system.
 
Any chance someone could move on from admiring the problem, to offering practical applications of the spectrum paradigm?
Are we talking about toilets?

Judging by the description of the condition Steve Novella (and Louden White) gives regarding CAIS, it would appear that this is an example of someone who is biologically male and yet is likely to appear female in outward appearance, and perhaps even more so if female hormones are recommended for medical treatment as well as removal of male sex organs to the extent the person has them. It makes every sense that they are permitted into women’s toilets in any sane society.

But this is why I suspect that Novella is suggesting a motte-and-bailey. We can easily acknowledge that there are edge cases where even strict biological definitions have to meet a social reality, but that the chances are that they make up about 0% of the trans rights lobby, so they seem to be used as strategic minorities within a minority.
 
The spectrum paradigm means there's no reason to prevent any women from competing in women's sports, or keep them from women's restrooms, or prevent them from being rape counselors, or keep them out of women's shelters due to the gametes they produce.
I don't buy it. Steersman has come out vehemently against this. Bobby D has certainly not come out for it. So I'm still waiting for the thing.
 
Are we talking about toilets?
I have no idea what we're talking about, in terms of practical applications. Steersman's proposals seem absurdly counter productive. @bobdroege7 hasn't made any specific proposals at all, so far. Just some vague handwaving towards medical outcomes, upon which he refuses to elaborate.

It's almost like sex as a spectrum has no practical applications.
 
I have no idea what we're talking about, in terms of practical applications. Steersman's proposals seem absurdly counter productive. @bobdroege7 hasn't made any specific proposals at all, so far. Just some vague handwaving towards medical outcomes, upon which he refuses to elaborate.

It's almost like sex as a spectrum has no practical applications.
Yeah, me neither. But I am proposing that this may be one area.

We can say, "look biological sex is important and that has social implications."
Someone else might say, "Ah, but biology creates some complications."
To which we might ask, "Oh really? Can you give me an example?"
They reply, "This specific example."
We respond, "Oh, okay. Yep, that does seem to be a case where the line is blurred. Very well, we can accommodate that easily enough by agreeing to..."

But again, it seems that we don't really have a lot of issues unless someone tries to motte-and-baily it.
 
It is still determined by genes, chromosomes, and hormones, not defined by words.
How else do you think the sex categories are going to be defined? Smoke signals?

Don't think you quite understand how definitions work and the reasons for them. You might try reading, and thinking about, this article:

A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitions (which try to list the objects that a term describes) ....

In modern usage, a definition is something, typically expressed in words, that attaches a meaning to a word or group of words. The word or group of words that is to be defined is called the definiendum, and the word, group of words, or action that defines it is called the definiens. For example, in the definition "An elephant is a large gray animal native to Asia and Africa", the word "elephant" is the definiendum, and everything after the word "is" is the definiens.


In the case of the sex categories, reputable biologists, and reputable biological journals, dictionaries, and encyclopedias are SAYING that "male" and "female" are the definiendums and that "produces small gametes" and "produces large gametes", respectively, are corresponding definiens. Those reputable sources are saying that those definiens are what they MEAN when they use those words, that that is what the terms DENOTE:

Oxford_Dictionaries_Female1A.jpg
Oxford_Dictionaries_Male1A.jpg

"All" that your "hormones, chromosomes, and genes" are doing is providing the mechanism, the "recipe" for the creation of organisms that produce either small or large gametes -- which are DEFINED as males and females, respectively. Entirely different kettles of fish.
 
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I don't know how many times we've been through this ...
And you still get it wrong ... 😉🙂

Though your acceptance that human embryos before some 6 weeks don't have a sex is maybe a hopeful sign. Don't think you quite understand or appreciate, or want to get, that the "phenotype" changes substantially over the course of our lives, and that Parker's & Lehtonen's definitions are specifying that it is ONLY the stage, the specific and current phenotype, that is currently producing gametes that can "count as referents of the terms 'male' and 'female':

ParkerLehtonenDefinitions1A.jpg

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.


That definition is saying that the "necessary and sufficient condition" that an organism MUST have to be counted as a referent of the terms "male" and "female" is to actually have the property of producing gametes -- not last year or next month but right now.

The definition is based on the phenotype - and in this context, it means the phenotype of the reproductive system. Actual production of gametes isn't required. A male who's had an orchiectomy cannot produce sperm, but still has the PHENOTYPE that produces smaller gametes within the human anisogamous system.
Yeah, actual production IS required. Your male with the orchiectomy once had a phenotype that actually produced small gametes, but now he only has a phenotype that is similar to his previous one. You may wish to reflect on this article:

In genetics, the phenotype (from Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) 'to appear, show' and τύπος (túpos) 'mark, type') is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism.

Though "observable characteristics" is somewhat subjective or contingent on methods of observation.

But that male of yours once had the phenotype of "has testicles"; he once had the set of "observable traits" that included "has testicles", but now he doesn't so he can't very well be producing any small gametes. Ergo, sexless. HTH ... 😉🙂
 
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Are we talking about toilets?

Judging by the description of the condition Steve Novella (and Louden White) gives regarding CAIS, it would appear that this is an example of someone who is biologically male and yet is likely to appear female in outward appearance ...
CAIS people are most certainly not "biologically male" -- they're phenotypically female, genotypically and "gonadally" male, but they're lacking the sine qua non for "male" --, i.e., functional testicles, the actual ability to produce sperm -- ergo, sexless, neither male nor female:

Persons with a complete androgen insensitivity have a typical female external phenotype, despite having a 46,XY karyotype.

.... We can easily acknowledge that there are edge cases where even strict biological definitions have to meet a social reality ...
Why? You think Galileo should have agreed with the "social reality" of the Church that the Earth was the center of the universe? Darwin likewise?
 
CAIS people are most certainly not "biologically male" -- they're phenotypically female, genotypically and "gonadally" male, but they're lacking the sine qua non for "male" --, i.e., functional testicles, the actual ability to produce sperm -- ergo, sexless, neither male nor female:




Why? You think Galileo should have agreed with the "social reality" of the Church that the Earth was the center of the universe? Darwin likewise?
The social reality is that we have sex-segregated toilets. You say that CAIS people are neither male nor female. So does that mean they don't get to use either toilet?
 
I have no idea what we're talking about, in terms of practical applications. Steersman's proposals seem absurdly counter productive. @bobdroege7 hasn't made any specific proposals at all, so far. Just some vague handwaving towards medical outcomes, upon which he refuses to elaborate.

It's almost like sex as a spectrum has no practical applications.
It doesn't, but what it DOES have is ideological applications, which is exactly why bobdroege7, people like Novella and most TRAs argue in favour. They ignore objective, observable, scientific reality in order to further their ideologically-driven narratives and agendas.
 
I don't know how many times we've been through this, but your entire premise is based on a lack of reading comrehension with respect to these definitions.

I'll give it one more go.
With emphasis...
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult PHENOTYPE that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.

You keep misrepresenting this as if it says:
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as individuals that PRODUCE larger gametes in anisogamous systems.

The definition is based on the phenotype - and in this context, it means the phenotype of the reproductive system. Actual production of gametes isn't required. A male who's had an orchiectomy cannot produce sperm, but still has the PHENOTYPE that produces smaller gametes within the human anisogamous system.
You're wasting your time and effort. Steersman will never, ever stop clinging to his flawed, unique-to-him understanding of the English language regardless of what anyone says. This became apparent to me after I read some of the misogyny-driven claptrap he posted on his substack. This is why I don't read anything he posts here and no longer engage with him at all. Its the same old, tired, routine from him - copious link-spamming to the same old spurious sources, demeaning comments towards posters for their opinions, calling everything he doesn't agree with "horse-feathers". It just isn't worth the effort!
 
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The social reality is that we have sex-segregated toilets. You say that CAIS people are neither male nor female. So does that mean they don't get to use either toilet?
We don't really have sex-segregated toilets -- no one is checking for ovaries and testicles which is what, to a first approximation, the sexes really are or denote

What we have is genitalia-segregated toilets and change rooms. We might so specify.

But how we deal with that problem is somewhat secondary to the issue of what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place -- Novella and Company being a case in point. And the only definition that holds any water is the strict biological one.

And, I think, the only one able to resolve the transgender issue -- it's not just the transloonies who have made the sexes into identities tied to "muh humanity" 🙄 for too many people.
 
We don't really have sex-segregated toilets -- no one is checking for ovaries and testicles which is what, to a first approximation, the sexes really are or denote

What we have is genitalia-segregated toilets and change rooms. We might so specify.

But how we deal with that problem is somewhat secondary to the issue of what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place -- Novella and Company being a case in point. And the only definition that holds any water is the strict biological one.

And, I think, the only one able to resolve the transgender issue -- it's not just the transloonies who have made the sexes into identities tied to "muh humanity" 🙄 for too many people.
Errrmm...what?
 
You're wasting your time and effort. Steersman will never, ever stop clinging to his flawed, unique-to-him understanding of the English language regardless of what anyone says. .... It just isn't worth the effort!
🙄 What a great steaming pile of ... horse feathers.

I've pointed out, probably dozens of times, several more or less reputable biologists who say the same thing. A trio of biologists writing in the Wiley Online Library -- not exactly chopped liver -- for example:

Another reason for the wide-spread misconception about the biological sex is the notion that it is a condition, while in reality it may be a life-history stage.[33] For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, yet.

And PZ Myers has reasonably argued that many "ciswomen" are not females. And Jerry Coyne -- subject of recent discussions -- has argued that many if not most of the intersex are neither male nor female. Because, in both cases, they don't have any functional gonads.
 
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