Avocados this and clownfish that, therefore human beings what? Forming conclusions based on ideology isn’t scientific, it’s not even philosophical, it’s just rubbish. I always thought PopSci was kind of lightweight anyway, I’ve read better stuff in Reader’s Digest. I’d like to see them try to describe “transphobic” scientifically.
Sequential hermaphrodite species don’t exhibit a third (or fourth or …) sex, they switch from one to the other. Still binary. I don’t understand why this is so difficult.
“There are two paint colors used in the offices, beige and blue. But if you don’t like your office color, you can repaint with the other one. So it’s not really binary.”
“But when I walk down the hall I see offices in two colors, so it’s binary.”
Some species, all of them evolutionarily far removed from humans, are sequential hermaphrodites. I would argue that they are nonetheless sexually binary—like the overwhelming majority of anisogamous species, they have exactly two mating types. The game Othello is a useful analogy here: stones have a black side and a white side and can be flipped from one to the other, but there is no third color that exists within the context of gameplay.
“Sex isn’t nearly as binary as you think it is.” Who, me? Of course we are all too stupid to know about the fantastical “gender spectrum” of which only the profound and illuminated are privy. :P
I find the sexual lifecycle of coral to be fascinating. It’s nothing like the old fashioned missionary position, or the jabbing of a sperm packet by an octopus.
I still can’t find the connection between variations of sex and the claim that humans can take some drugs and cut off healthy body parts to match their body to a gender soul in affirmation of a mismatch between genderfeel and physical body.
I STRONGLY recommend everyone read this (it’s brief!), from evolutionary biologist Emma Hilton: From Humans To Asparagus, Females Re Females. It’s an entertaining response to this nonsense. No avacados, but clownfish get a mention.
But Rob, you were talking about guacamole, in which the avocados are mashed up into an asexual or pansexual mess, so you wouldn’t be able to distinguish which bit is what or whose. I wonder if guacamole might not prove to be a good metaphor for certain aspects of our present culture, or for what certain people would like that that culture to be – the sort of culture in which you simply don’t know what mole you might be guaccing, if you are in to guaccing moles at all.
@16 Reminds me of the periodic uproar about the safety of hamburger meat being processed from parts of different animals, or pink slime, or horse meat. I guess if you want to make a hamberder, you have to break a few cattle, or something like that. It’s not less safe than any other meat.
Is there any species that can change sex that actually lays fertilized eggs? I’ve gotten the impression that the only ones that can squirt genetic material into the water and male/female reproductive organs are quite similar in function.
The Pop-Sci article reminded me of an article I read at Science Based Medicine. I had been hoping for better from them. Was wondering if others saw this and what you thought.
Re the SBM article, as far as I can tell (I didn’t read all the way to the end) the argument goes something like this:
A) Sex is bimodal, not binary, because genes and gene expression aren’t 100% A or B.
B) Secondary sexual attributes are even more bimodal (there are hairy, strong women!).
C) Sexual attraction is in the brain, and is part of sex.
D) Sex is assigned at birth subjectively because you can’t be 100% sure.
E) Gender identity is in the brain, and is even less bimodal than secondary sexual attributes. Therefore, gender assignment at birth is subjective, and we have to believe what people say about themselves.
I’ve left out a lot of details, but I think I’ve represented the argument fairly. So, regarding A and B, yes, there is some overlap, enough that you can call it bimodal, but so what?
Regarding C, yes, sexual attraction is in the brain (where else would it be?), but then he makes a nice sleight of hand, conflating sexual attraction with biological sex. I don’t think that holds. Being able to distinguish between red and green isn’t the same as preferring green over red; one is a function largely of the eyes, while the other is a function of the brain. One is a necessary condition for the other, but it doesn’t make them the same thing. (And for the record, from a moral perspective it doesn’t matter if sexual attraction is innate and fixed or not; as long as there’s mutual consent it’s no one else’s business.)
Regarding D, as the author himself admits, in the vast majority of cases the doctor’s or midwife’s observation is accurate. It is an objective observation, but even objective observations can occasionally go wrong.
And then we get to E. Notice first that the author switches from “sex assigned at birth” to “gender assigned at birth”. If you think those two are synonymous, then that doesn’t matter, but I don’t think so, and more importantly, I don’t think the author thinks so. As far as I can tell, the author thinks that gender identity is the state of feeling that your outward biology matches your inner sense of self. That implies that they are two different things. Moreover, the author seems to be saying that that inner sense lives in the brain (again, where else would it live?) and that therefore it is innate. But that doesn’t follow–the brain is a malleable organ, and our sense of who and what we are is in flux. That mismatch between what our body is and what our brain thinks we are could well arise from psychological conditions that call for treatment–the fault lies not in our bodies, but in our heads.
Well, the avocado thing is simply called ‘dichogamy’, i.e. the temporal difference in gamete maturation within an individual, and it evolved to get something as close as full separation of sexes like we have. It’s an hermaphrodite trick to prevent self mating. Simply because self sex can be bad, depending on the mutation load in the population (i.e. it’s only good enough once you’ve purged deleterious mutations from the pool, and most of the time it becomes a either or situation, that is if you tend to outcross you’d better avoid selfing, but if most peers are selfing often enough it doesn’t matter much).
In avocado you have herms that are male in the morning and female in the afternoon, and individuals who are doing the reverse, and I keep telling my colleagues that having one of each is a game changer in terms of harvest. I have six trees in the garden and each will bear one or two hundred fruits, because I have a good mix (both individuals), but I don’t know which is which and it doesn’t matter as long as I don’t cut any. Single trees that are enforced into quasi selfing (bees taking pollen late in the morning and depositting on early female flowers; or the reverse), will bear a dozen or two at best.
@Micheal Houbrich #10:
Coral sex is gross, when you bath in the sea in August here, the swim is oily and that’s because you contribute to spreading coral gametes. Sticky oily. If you wear a mask you can even see the sea like a milky way.
That explains the pit in my stomach when my girlfriend leaves!
At least clownfish are part of the same kingdom; avocados aren’t! We’ve gone from ridiculous (clownfish) to utterly fucked up (avocado).
So is eating guacamole transphobic?
Avocados this and clownfish that, therefore human beings what? Forming conclusions based on ideology isn’t scientific, it’s not even philosophical, it’s just rubbish. I always thought PopSci was kind of lightweight anyway, I’ve read better stuff in Reader’s Digest. I’d like to see them try to describe “transphobic” scientifically.
Clownfish are actually in the same phylum (chordata) as we are.
Sequential hermaphrodite species don’t exhibit a third (or fourth or …) sex, they switch from one to the other. Still binary. I don’t understand why this is so difficult.
“There are two paint colors used in the offices, beige and blue. But if you don’t like your office color, you can repaint with the other one. So it’s not really binary.”
“But when I walk down the hall I see offices in two colors, so it’s binary.”
“But you can change it.”
“But it’s still only two colors.”
Some species, all of them evolutionarily far removed from humans, are sequential hermaphrodites. I would argue that they are nonetheless sexually binary—like the overwhelming majority of anisogamous species, they have exactly two mating types. The game Othello is a useful analogy here: stones have a black side and a white side and can be flipped from one to the other, but there is no third color that exists within the context of gameplay.
True. They aren’t as far away from us evolutionarily as a sponge, certainly not as far as an avocado. But we still are not clownfish.
“Sex isn’t nearly as binary as you think it is.” Who, me? Of course we are all too stupid to know about the fantastical “gender spectrum” of which only the profound and illuminated are privy. :P
These fabulists are pretty insulting.
I find the sexual lifecycle of coral to be fascinating. It’s nothing like the old fashioned missionary position, or the jabbing of a sperm packet by an octopus.
I still can’t find the connection between variations of sex and the claim that humans can take some drugs and cut off healthy body parts to match their body to a gender soul in affirmation of a mismatch between genderfeel and physical body.
WaM, it would be transphobic not to eat the guacamole.
Rob, well, that’s a relief.
I STRONGLY recommend everyone read this (it’s brief!), from evolutionary biologist Emma Hilton: From Humans To Asparagus, Females Re Females. It’s an entertaining response to this nonsense. No avacados, but clownfish get a mention.
https://fondofbeetles.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/from-humans-to-asparagus-females-are-females/
Females ARE Females. D’oh!
WaM, I’m not so sure it’s a relief. There are some avocados that no matter how much I look at them, or how hungry I am, I just don’t want to eat them.
But Rob, you were talking about guacamole, in which the avocados are mashed up into an asexual or pansexual mess, so you wouldn’t be able to distinguish which bit is what or whose. I wonder if guacamole might not prove to be a good metaphor for certain aspects of our present culture, or for what certain people would like that that culture to be – the sort of culture in which you simply don’t know what mole you might be guaccing, if you are in to guaccing moles at all.
Tim, you’ve got me there. I think this is as far as I’ll dip into this metaphor.
@16 Reminds me of the periodic uproar about the safety of hamburger meat being processed from parts of different animals, or pink slime, or horse meat. I guess if you want to make a hamberder, you have to break a few cattle, or something like that. It’s not less safe than any other meat.
Is there any species that can change sex that actually lays fertilized eggs? I’ve gotten the impression that the only ones that can squirt genetic material into the water and male/female reproductive organs are quite similar in function.
The Pop-Sci article reminded me of an article I read at Science Based Medicine. I had been hoping for better from them. Was wondering if others saw this and what you thought.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-of-biological-sex/
Oh, dear, look what I’ve started. Rob, Tim, I’m afraid at this point the metaphor is toast.
@SillySally,
Re the SBM article, as far as I can tell (I didn’t read all the way to the end) the argument goes something like this:
A) Sex is bimodal, not binary, because genes and gene expression aren’t 100% A or B.
B) Secondary sexual attributes are even more bimodal (there are hairy, strong women!).
C) Sexual attraction is in the brain, and is part of sex.
D) Sex is assigned at birth subjectively because you can’t be 100% sure.
E) Gender identity is in the brain, and is even less bimodal than secondary sexual attributes. Therefore, gender assignment at birth is subjective, and we have to believe what people say about themselves.
I’ve left out a lot of details, but I think I’ve represented the argument fairly. So, regarding A and B, yes, there is some overlap, enough that you can call it bimodal, but so what?
Regarding C, yes, sexual attraction is in the brain (where else would it be?), but then he makes a nice sleight of hand, conflating sexual attraction with biological sex. I don’t think that holds. Being able to distinguish between red and green isn’t the same as preferring green over red; one is a function largely of the eyes, while the other is a function of the brain. One is a necessary condition for the other, but it doesn’t make them the same thing. (And for the record, from a moral perspective it doesn’t matter if sexual attraction is innate and fixed or not; as long as there’s mutual consent it’s no one else’s business.)
Regarding D, as the author himself admits, in the vast majority of cases the doctor’s or midwife’s observation is accurate. It is an objective observation, but even objective observations can occasionally go wrong.
And then we get to E. Notice first that the author switches from “sex assigned at birth” to “gender assigned at birth”. If you think those two are synonymous, then that doesn’t matter, but I don’t think so, and more importantly, I don’t think the author thinks so. As far as I can tell, the author thinks that gender identity is the state of feeling that your outward biology matches your inner sense of self. That implies that they are two different things. Moreover, the author seems to be saying that that inner sense lives in the brain (again, where else would it live?) and that therefore it is innate. But that doesn’t follow–the brain is a malleable organ, and our sense of who and what we are is in flux. That mismatch between what our body is and what our brain thinks we are could well arise from psychological conditions that call for treatment–the fault lies not in our bodies, but in our heads.
WaM, Hmmm Avocado on toast…
Sorry Millennials, not for you.
Well, the avocado thing is simply called ‘dichogamy’, i.e. the temporal difference in gamete maturation within an individual, and it evolved to get something as close as full separation of sexes like we have. It’s an hermaphrodite trick to prevent self mating. Simply because self sex can be bad, depending on the mutation load in the population (i.e. it’s only good enough once you’ve purged deleterious mutations from the pool, and most of the time it becomes a either or situation, that is if you tend to outcross you’d better avoid selfing, but if most peers are selfing often enough it doesn’t matter much).
In avocado you have herms that are male in the morning and female in the afternoon, and individuals who are doing the reverse, and I keep telling my colleagues that having one of each is a game changer in terms of harvest. I have six trees in the garden and each will bear one or two hundred fruits, because I have a good mix (both individuals), but I don’t know which is which and it doesn’t matter as long as I don’t cut any. Single trees that are enforced into quasi selfing (bees taking pollen late in the morning and depositting on early female flowers; or the reverse), will bear a dozen or two at best.
@Micheal Houbrich #10:
Coral sex is gross, when you bath in the sea in August here, the swim is oily and that’s because you contribute to spreading coral gametes. Sticky oily. If you wear a mask you can even see the sea like a milky way.
Hahaha that’s very good to know.