Rolfe
Adult human female
I think weight and punching power are likely to show a double peak. I'd be interested to see if height did. It makes the point though. Two peaks, two populations.
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Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female
- Thread starter d4m10n
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I think weight and punching power are likely to show a double peak. I'd be interested to see if height did. It makes the point though. Two peaks, two populations.
jt512
Philosopher
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Why do you say that (at all, much less with an exclamation mark)?
Rolfe
Adult human female
A strict binary is not a "trait".
jt512
Philosopher
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Says who?
Louden Wilde
Muse
it's not a quantitative trait. Please no derails.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Well yes, scientifically speaking, sex is a biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. However, this is NOT what Rolfe is talking about. She was talking about physical traits in humans, i.e. the characteristics of males v the characteristics of females. The sex of a mammal is binary, the secondary characteristics of those sexes can be bimodal.
And I think you knew exactly what she was talking about - you were just being a contrarian, argumentative cuss for the sake if it.
jt512
Philosopher
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Actually, ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, I simply misunderstood her, like I said.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I wouldn't call a binary property like sex a trait, but that's simply semantics. At no point did I say that I was talking about sex itself being bimodal. I think I was quite clear that I was talking about various traits which do demonstrate a bimodal pattern being good evidence of two distinct populations being included in the data.
bobdroege7
Illuminator
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Can I draw all y'all into the 21st century.
Sex is not binary, it is a spectrum, with male, female, and intersex.
If a bimodal distribution can be mathematically resolved into something binary, then the distribution is binary. If there is too much overlap, as occurs in human traits like height and weight, then it is not binary, especially if the valley between the two bimodal peaks does not reach 50% of the two peak heights. You can use an equation to determine if the populations of the two peaks in a bimodal distribution are two different things or one same thing.
For height you would then be able to determine a person's sex by their height, but since the distribution is bimodal but not resolvable, then you can't determine sex by height in humans.
A lot of this is new research, lots of things have changed since I took college level biology.
Sex is not binary, it is a spectrum, with male, female, and intersex.
If a bimodal distribution can be mathematically resolved into something binary, then the distribution is binary. If there is too much overlap, as occurs in human traits like height and weight, then it is not binary, especially if the valley between the two bimodal peaks does not reach 50% of the two peak heights. You can use an equation to determine if the populations of the two peaks in a bimodal distribution are two different things or one same thing.
For height you would then be able to determine a person's sex by their height, but since the distribution is bimodal but not resolvable, then you can't determine sex by height in humans.
A lot of this is new research, lots of things have changed since I took college level biology.
jt512
Philosopher
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You think you were clear and I think you were ambiguous. I suggest we leave it there.
Intersex (not a preferred term for many, it's DSD), is not a third or an inbetween sex. People with DSDs are still eithwr male or female. Sex is binary.
Rolfe
Adult human female
What Agatha said.
Louden Wilde
Muse
No - see my long post upthread. FWIW, what's changed since you took undergrad biology is that we understand the molecular mechanisms and tissue morphogenesis underlying development more thoroughly. However, we knew decades ago that were only two reproductive classes and discovered that a definition involving gonad/gamete type was the only definition that worked. Also, we no longer refer to disorders of sexual development as "intersex", because it's a misnomer. Any and all features can be altered by genetic defects and/or environmental insults.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Can I draw you into scientific reality
That is utter poppycock
1. A spectrum implies gradual change across the extreme ends of the scale.
This is a spectrum...
This is not....
The grey sliver in the middle is an over-representation of those with DSD's (over-represented because a truly representative line would be less than one pixel wide on this scale, and would not even be visible).
2. The vast majority of people with DSD are still determineably either male or female...
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bobdroege7
Illuminator
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Still not binary.
www.psychologytoday.com
stanmed.stanford.edu
Just because the intermediate data points are rare, does not invalidate the concept of a spectrum.
Is Sex Definitely (Not) Binary? It's Complicated
Some people say that sex is binary, you are either male or female. Other people say sex is a nonbinary continuum. Most are pretty confident. And most of them are wrong.
www.psychologytoday.com
How men's and women's brains are different
The cognitive differences between men and women
stanmed.stanford.edu
That's poppycock, a spectrum does not imply a gradual change across th extreme ends of the scale, your use of the light spectrum proves this false as different materials have different spectrums that are not gradual changes across the extreme ends of the scale. Compare any real spectrum against the entire scale that you posted.Can I draw you into scientific reality
That is utter poppycock
1. A spectrum implies gradual change across the extreme ends of the scale.
This is a spectrum...
This is not....
The grey sliver in the middle is an over-representation of those with DSD's (over-represented because a truly representative line would be less than one pixel wide on this scale, and would not even be visible).
2. The vast majority of people with DSD are still determineably either male or female...
Just because the intermediate data points are rare, does not invalidate the concept of a spectrum.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
OK then, you claim that sex is a spectrum. "Male" and "Female" are two points we know of. Those with DSD are another very tiny point (less than 0.2% of the population. So what are all the other points called?Still not binary.
Is Sex Definitely (Not) Binary? It's Complicated
Some people say that sex is binary, you are either male or female. Other people say sex is a nonbinary continuum. Most are pretty confident. And most of them are wrong.
How men's and women's brains are different
The cognitive differences between men and women
That's poppycock, a spectrum does not imply a gradual change across th extreme ends of the scale, your use of the light spectrum proves this false as different materials have different spectrums that are not gradual changes across the extreme ends of the scale. Compare any real spectrum against the entire scale that you posted.
Just because the intermediate data points are rare, does not invalidate the concept of a spectrum.
Furthermore, if sex is a spectrum, then every individual human must have a place on this spectrum on which they belong. Please explain how you are going to determine that any given individual is more, or less, male, or female than any other given individual? What criteria are you going to use to justify the position you place each individual on this so-salled "sex spectrum"?
Place these 10 individuals on your claimed "sex spectrum". Taking for granted that they are all cis adults, justify why, for example, E would be more or less male than A, B, C or D or why J would be more, or less, female than F, G , H or I? What would be your criteria? Hair colour perhaps? Skin colour? Eye colour? Size of the nose? Shape of the ears? Height? Weight? Marital status? Please explain this.... inquring minds want to know.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
The first link is to a psychology website, and is therefore irrelevant to a discussion about biology, and it makes no mention of "spectrum". Well at least its not a philosophy website.
The second link actually supports the idea that sex is in fact binary by pointing out the differences in cognition between males and females... and its only mention of "spectrum" is in relation to autism
Its almost as if, and stay with me here, he linked them without reading them first
Rolfe
Adult human female
Point of information. The percentage of human beings who cannot be correctly sexed at birth by the normal eyeball method is less than 0.02% of the population, an order of magnitude less than you stated. However, even most of these are not difficult to work out with the correct tests, for example nobody actually seriously contends that boys with 5ARD aren't actually male, whatever mistakes poorly educated midwives might have made.
The number of human beings whose sex cannot be shown to be male or female even with proper testing is approaching zero.
While it's not really suitable as a definition of sex, we can say with confidence that the people who are male (that is with the bodies organised around the production of small motile gametes) are the ones with a functional SRY gene and functioning androgen receptors, and the people who are female (that is the ones with the bodies organised around the production of large gametes) are the ones without a functional SRY gene (typically) or (rarely) without functioning androgen receptors.
Where there is ambiguity, it is ambiguity about which box an individual should be in, not about where they are on some mythical "spectrum". There are only two boxes.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Oh, I know that. I'm simply making a point about bobdroedge7's imaginary sex spectrum, which does not exist.