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Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

nature.com

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Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#41

Post by errrrttt »

simon_ wrote: post #8

"Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of [atypical sex]." If the "simplistic" male/female binary explains >99% of observations, there does not seem to be a strong case for describing biological sex as a "spectrum"... I am 10,000% behind tolerance and acceptance for people of all genders and sexes and orientations, and it's very useful to understand how much biological complexity and…

> I am 10,000% behind tolerance and acceptance for people of all genders and sexes and

Really?

Would you suppport former man who legaly (no operation or hormones) changes his gender, to avoid military service or to study for free?

Would you support woman who becomes lesbian just to get attention?

Or how about men who becomes gay just to adopt a kid.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#42

Post by haberman »

moomin wrote: post #2

This is a fascinating article, and stands on its own merits. Go read it. The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance, and time and again the science has caught up with what people have reported as their own life experience.

> The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance

What? How can discovering the natural laws of the universe be a justification for intolerance?

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#43

Post by coldtea »

copsarebastards wrote: post #27
simon_ wrote: post #8

"Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of [atypical sex]." If the "simplistic" male/female binary explains >99% of observations, there does not seem to be a strong case for describing biological sex as a "spectrum"... I am 10,000% behind tolerance and acceptance for people of all genders and sexes and orientations, and it's very useful to understand how much biological complexity and…

1% of the world's 7 billion people[1] is 70 million people. That's a little less than the population of Congo, a little more than the population of France. [2] I'll admit that what you're willing to call a "highly accurate approximation" is pretty arbitrary. There are some systems where I would call an approximation with a 1% margin of error a highly accurate approximation. But it's a pointless argument to make when…

>But it's a pointless argument to make when your 1% margin of error includes 70 million people.

You say that like it's some huge number. 70 million or not, it's still 1%. Numbers get their significance relatively, not in themselves.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#44

Post by Retra »

sbergot wrote: post #21
ahelwer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're saying. If your model does not accurately reflect observations, your model is wrong. That's not to say it isn't useful - we still teach Newtonian mechanics, after all - but you wouldn't use it in any serious discussion of the topic.

You wouldn't use Newtonian mechanics in any serious discussion? This is a strange claim.

They probably meant 'serious discussion' as a proxy for 'discussion demanding the highest available accuracy.'

But that doesn't really work in this analogy because quantum physics essentially assumes Newtonian physics as axiomatic, so there is no way to avoid it no matter how 'serious' you're trying to be.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#45

Post by haberman »

simon_ wrote: post #8

"Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of [atypical sex]." If the "simplistic" male/female binary explains >99% of observations, there does not seem to be a strong case for describing biological sex as a "spectrum"... I am 10,000% behind tolerance and acceptance for people of all genders and sexes and orientations, and it's very useful to understand how much biological complexity and…

> highly accurate approximation

An approximation, by its nature, is simplistic compared to reality. That's what makes it an approximation.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#46

Post by bennettfeely »

haberman wrote: post #42
moomin wrote: post #2

This is a fascinating article, and stands on its own merits. Go read it. The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance, and time and again the science has caught up with what people have reported as their own life experience.

> The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance What? How can discovering the natural laws of the universe be a justification for intolerance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#47

Post by Jach »

PinnBrain wrote: post #13

One of the predicted outcomes of the Singularity is the removal of sex as a characteristic. Note that race would be removed as well. A posthuman (of whatever form) would be free of both sex and race.

It's hard to predict what beings more intelligent than us will do. Yes sex and race cease to become very valuable concepts when people can configure their bodies to be whatever they like in any mix at any time. But we can also consider that having machine-memory allows us to be very specific with the characteristics we want to advertise. e.g. from one of my favorite sci-fi books The Golden Age, the main character's full name is "Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconsciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043". We won't lose labels, and objective superiority in certain areas won't go away. (A singular human-sized machine can't hope to compete intellectually with a Jupiter Brain. A machine made of bark will be physically weaker than a machine made of diamond.) But the negative associations could go away, which would largely end racism/sexism, the thing we really care about.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#48

Post by Crito »

ars wrote: post #31
PinnBrain wrote: post #13

One of the predicted outcomes of the Singularity is the removal of sex as a characteristic. Note that race would be removed as well. A posthuman (of whatever form) would be free of both sex and race.

That would only happen if you removed human bodies altogether.

And for that matter, bodiless posthumans could still chose to exhibit whichever characteristics they please. I'd wager that most people on second life, given the freedom to portray themselves however they wish, choose to portray themselves as humanoid with apparent gender.

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#49

Post by Reebles »

nickff wrote: post #34

The 'two-sexes approximation' is boolean, not binary. Boolean involves two possible values; binary involves an infinite number of possible values, represented in base-2.[1][2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary note: this is a re-post of a comment made on a child of the OP.

No we are talking about binary.

In the very link you provided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_binary

Re: Sex redefined: the idea of two sexes is simplistic

#50

Post by Torgo »

There is a spectrum of how many legs a human is born with. Some people are born with two, some with none, some one, some with three. Some people are born with between one and two legs that enable them to walk upright on the side of a slope. The idea of two legs is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that. What I am getting at is, there is science and then there is the social context for a scientific fact. Some may be more useful than others in various contexts, but the pure scientific fact may not be useful at all, or actually confound your ability to understand things.
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