Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 182 posts

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#61

Post by fauxpause_ »

giantg2 wrote: post #11

"(a system that’s distinct from our diverse gender identities)" Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question. Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

Humans are relatively unique when it comes to sexual relationships. We’re very developed and our social roles are hugely important. It’s not crazy to think that there are aspects of our sexual identities that don’t appear in other animals. We’re not unique in being unique. Consider our relatively close relative, the bonobos, in which they’re all bisexual sluts.

Gender is sort of a natural thing in human identities, even if it is a social construct. Intersex individuals are a pretty good piece of evidence of this. People born with ambiguous genitalia. Doctors often pick which one to go with and will do surgery to make it so. They often “get it wrong” and the individual will later feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT necessarily knowing they were intersex at birth.

Gender can be a social construct and still have biological intrinsic factors behind it. It doesn’t need to arise from a purpose per se. it doesn’t NEED to have biological intrinsic factors either.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#62

Post by coldtea »

giantg2 wrote: post #11

"(a system that’s distinct from our diverse gender identities)" Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question. Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

>Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

In a modern society where food comes prepackaged in supermarkets (or delivered), there is police on tap, and the most hostile thing is perhaps somebody swearing at you from road rage, maybe not.

In historical societies up to very recently it played a huge role in lots of post-reproduction things, considering how raw physical force, stamina, stature, etc. is a huge advantage in battle, hunting, threat avoidance outside the house, law enforcement, demanding manual labor, etc.

This means that sex automatically leaks into societal roles. Doesn't matter is some societies, out of some historical peculiarity or out of necessity used women instead, or both men and women, for some of these roles, as the physiological tendency pushed towards the conventional setup as having an advantage (an army of women would be trivially defeated in hand battle by an army of men, for example), and so the general trends seen globally, in thousands of unrelated cultures followed it.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#63

Post by seti0Cha »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #49
psychphysic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this reasoning often but never see it being applied in practice. For starters why are single sex sports and single sex changing rooms so controversial? Similarly if gender and sex are entirely distinct. Does that not mean that the trans community is the strongest supporter of traditional gender roles? Afterall what does it mean to change gender if differing social attitudes to gender ought be extinguished?

Locker rooms? You see these exact talking points copy and pasted a lot, do they relate to this specific article?

Please stop using the "that's a talking point of the enemy" dismissal tactic. It's lazy and harmful to actual discussion.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#64

Post by cantSpellSober »

psychphysic wrote: post #56
cantSpellSober wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locker rooms? You see these exact talking points copy and pasted a lot, do they relate to this specific article?

The article brings it up quite early on. It's introduction and parallel with sex means the article makes a wider point about a difference between sex and gender. I agree this article could have been written better without any mention of gender so as to avoid making an out of scope claim in a pop sci article.

Where does it mention locker rooms or "the trans community is the strongest supporter of traditional gender roles?" Did you read the article?

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#65

Post by circlefavshape »

ben_w wrote: post #13
kleiba wrote: post #9

Biologists use the word “female” to describe organs or organisms that produce eggs, and “male” for those that produce sperm; animals do not have socially constructed genders. Sad times when such disclaimers are necessary.

Sad? No, it is just a consequence of complex reality butting up against a "common sense" (including the quote marks) derived from incorrectly assuming that words accurately and unambiguously carve up reality. If biologists instead used a different common definition such as "female == able to get pregnant, otherwise male" then birds would be all be male, and seahorses wouldn't be associated with the sentence "weird bi…

> If biologists instead used a different common definition such as "female == able to get pregnant, otherwise male" then birds would be all be male, and seahorses wouldn't be associated with the sentence "weird biology fact: the males get pregnant!"

"Common definition"? I don't think so. If it was my post-menopausal wife would now be a man

I very much doubt that common-sense folks "assum[e] that words accurately and unambiguously carve up reality" either. Is it likely that a grown-up has never had a discussion about whether something was blue or green, or whether something is a fruit or vegetable?

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#66

Post by cantSpellSober »

seti0Cha wrote: post #63
cantSpellSober wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locker rooms? You see these exact talking points copy and pasted a lot, do they relate to this specific article?

Please stop using the "that's a talking point of the enemy" dismissal tactic. It's lazy and harmful to actual discussion.

Stop paraphrasing me, it's lazy and harmful to actual discussion. I pointed out why it's irrelevant.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#67

Post by thejackgoode »

giantg2 wrote: post #11

"(a system that’s distinct from our diverse gender identities)" Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question. Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

Sexual dimorphism exists to split evolutionary pressure and allow a species to both survive (conservative) and adapt to (risky) a changing environment.

Human gender identities are several layers on top of this evolutionary foundation. In theory, they are needed to help socially indoctrinate people to what is now a successful meta model of behavior.

They are progressively converging in terms of gender roles difference, not only because of societal and ideological changes of the last century, but as well because there are less severe crises, so that less of adaptive behavior is required.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#68

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

rsynnott wrote: post #50
krisoft wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no exceptions to it if you make it the definition. Which is what the comment of BuyMyBitcoins says was taught to them.

Yep, fair enough, if it's a strict definition. You could potentially then have weird edge cases in the other direction, though; if the same sex chromosome layout in related species X and Y leads to different sexes due to the size of the gametes (especially if the size of the gametes was pretty similar to start with), that seems very odd/confusing.

It looks like there are cases where the size of the gametes are identical. But when this happens they don’t refer the organism’s sex as “male/female” and instead use “+/-“. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogamy

Going a step further I found this: >Depending on the group, different mating types are often referred to by numbers, letters, or simply "+" and "−" instead of "male" and "female", which refer to "sexes" or differences in size between gametes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating_type

So it does seem to be a strict definition and anything outside of the strict definition is given an alternate identification scheme.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#69

Post by bell-cot »

coldtea wrote: post #62
giantg2 wrote: post #11

"(a system that’s distinct from our diverse gender identities)" Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question. Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

> Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything. In a modern society where food comes prepackaged in supermarkets (or delivered), there is police on tap, and the most hostile thing is perhaps somebody swearing at you from road rage, maybe not. In historical societies up to very recently it played a huge role in lots of post-reproduction things, considering how raw physical force, sta…

> In a modern society ... maybe not.

True in a way...but I fear that your outlook on modern society is far more flattering than the reality. Even in the "best" little niches of modern human society.

Re: Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think

#70

Post by [deleted] »

thejackgoode wrote: post #67
giantg2 wrote: post #11

"(a system that’s distinct from our diverse gender identities)" Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question. Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how gender would really influence anything.

Sexual dimorphism exists to split evolutionary pressure and allow a species to both survive (conservative) and adapt to (risky) a changing environment. Human gender identities are several layers on top of this evolutionary foundation. In theory, they are needed to help socially indoctrinate people to what is now a successful meta model of behavior. They are progressively converging in terms of gender roles difference…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN