Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than two sexes

[Axton]

First of all, evolution and development are not about "propagation of a species", they are both about the passage of genes from one generation to the next.

I must be misunderstanding you, because that sentence seems self-contradictory, along the lines of, "It isn't about A, but rather about A." The passage of genes from one generation to the next goes hand-in-hand with the continuation of the species. ("Propagation" may have been the wrong word, or at least didn't properly convey my meaning.)

[Simon_Jester]

Axton's problem is that he believes, on some subconscious level, that he is a god. Or is entitled to make statements about the purpose of the universe that only a god would be qualified to make.

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

As Alyrium points out, function does not drive biology. Failure to function drives evolution. Species evolve by discarding failures significant enough to prevent reproduction in a given environment. Whatever's left, survives. Unless of course nothing is left, which is why there aren't any trilobites or ammonites in the oceans.

Moreover, also worth remembering, evolution is in fact a mindless thing. It's like gravity, it doesn't have moral value. Things that evolve and survive are not morally superior to the things that they replace. Crabs are not somehow objectively better than trilobites just because crabs are around and trilobites aren't. Woolly mammoths aren't morally inferior to elephants. Dodos aren't objectively lesser when compared to chickens.

Therefore, "this is bad because it's biologically not functional" is equivalent to "this is bad because it doesn't do what I want it to do." Not "what Nature wants," but rather "what I want." Because Nature is not in fact a personified deity with a capital-P Plan for all life.

If there is a god worthy of worship, that god is not a god of evolution and would not make its will known purely through the outcomes of evolution.

I realize there may be some here whose feelings are hurt by that. I won't patronize you by apologizing. There is constructive, and there is non-constructive, even in nature. The universe is messy. If you are "messy", it doesn't make you wrong, or a bad person. But there's a difference between "messy" and not. Recognizing what is ordered versus what is not isn't an indictment of your value as a person, and it isn't meant to be. But it is a recognition of how the mechanism is supposed to work.

Your notions of how a mechanism is supposed to work are yours. They do not belong to fate, nature, or the universe. They are specifically your ideas, though you may have gotten them from someone else.

Please do not mistake yourself for a god, or your will for the will of the universe.

First of all, evolution and development are not about "propagation of a species", they are both about the passage of genes from one generation to the next.

I must be misunderstanding you, because that sentence seems self-contradictory, along the lines of, "It isn't about A, but rather about A." The passage of genes from one generation to the next goes hand-in-hand with the continuation of the species. ("Propagation" may have been the wrong word, or at least didn't properly convey my meaning.)

Let me make an analogy. No, on second thought it would probably not help. I'll be direct.

A species is not a gene. Evolution does not care about species. It affects genes, and only genes. It does not affect all your genes- only the genes that impact your likelihood of having children who will, in turn, pass on the same gene.

For example, many species have been known to overeat their habitat and destroy it, resulting in population collapse. Sometimes a species can be driven into extinction by this force alone. Clearly it is NOT in the overall 'interests' of a species to do this. So surely, the sophomore biology student reasons, evolution would lead to species NOT doing that, and instead would lead to species having just the right number of children to sustain their populations.

Nope! Because a gene that results in you personally having fewer children will automatically be selected against in the next generation. Your genetically less fertile descendants automatically get crowded out by the more fertile descendants of other creatures of the same species. It doesn't matter that it would be to the advantage of the species if every member of that species had children at an optimal rate. There's no way for such a gene to propagate through evolution, because evolution does not care that this would be good for the survival of the species.

Typically, if a gene does emerge to cause a behavior that reduces the number of children born to a species, the behavior that emerges is infanticide. Male lions, for example, tend to kill off any cubs fathered by other lions. This is clearly not in the overall interest of the lion species, but evolution actively encourages it, because lions that do this have a disproportionate number of cubs.

Likewise, we might imagine that it is somehow in the interest of the human species to become drastically more intelligent than it is today. But it is at least as likely that, in our current technological environment, all evolution will do is...

Credit to Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics

This.

So there is a profound difference between saying that evolution promotes the survivability, welfare, and propagation of species, and saying that it promotes the propagation of genes. If what is good for a gene is bad for the species, the 'interests' of the gene win, because that is how evolution works.

[Formless]

First of all, evolution and development are not about "propagation of a species", they are both about the passage of genes from one generation to the next.

I must be misunderstanding you, because that sentence seems self-contradictory, along the lines of, "It isn't about A, but rather about A." The passage of genes from one generation to the next goes hand-in-hand with the continuation of the species. ("Propagation" may have been the wrong word, or at least didn't properly convey my meaning.)

Alyrium is using Dawkinsian "gene-centric" evolutionary terms, and the problem with them is that they have this unfortunate tendency to use words which imply purpose or progress where there is none, and the person using them doesn't intend to imply it either. This is a legitimate criticism of gene-centric evolution from a Gouldian perspective. And yes, the perspective of Gould was a lot more holistic and stated that evolution happens at multiple levels and not just the gene. But that does not mean your ideas are correct from that perspective, either.

Evolution does not exist to perpetuate either species or genes. Evolution is merely a natural process (or rather, set of processes) that act upon populations of biological organisms both phenotypically and genotypically. That is the first thing you must realize in order to understand evolution and biology.

See, there are about three different definitions of what a "species" is that biologists have come up with that are individually useful in some contexts, but each have shortcomings and are ultimately mutually exclusive. Its a fuzzy concept. Are lions and tigers the same species just because in theory they can mate and produce a liger? Well, according to one definition they would be even though common sense suggests otherwise, so there is another definition under which they aren't the same species because they just don't behave that way in the wild. However, even this "ecological" definition of species runs into ambiguity when defining subspecies (eg, turns out polar bears and grizzly bears will mate in the wild when the ice sheets recede and food is scarce). Point is, no biologist that's actually being careful with their words says that organisms exist to perpetuate their species if we can't even come to a precise definition of species. In fact, evolution often happens when organisms of the same species compete with one another for food or mates! That's why ducks have penises shaped like corkscrews. (no really, they do) There are problems with saying that evolution acts solely on genes or that organisms always try to perpetuate their genes from one generation to the next which are too complicated to explain in detail, but none of these things help support your premise.

There is something that Stephan J. Gould came up with that helps sort out the problem here. We all know about adaptations, which are features of an organism which have value to the organism's survival and chance of reproducing; but there are also "spandrels", features which are "as useless as tits on a bull" as they say-- literally, male nipples are an example of a spandrel. We have them only because females have them, and they don't cause us harm so there is no evolutionary pressure that would remove them. Spandrels can come about from many things such as structural limitations of anatomy (genetics can code for things that can't actually exist, one of Gould's criticisms of Dawkin's perspective I should note), a side effect of an actual adaptation, or just random chance. We like to say that the human hand is very well adapted to tool use, and it is... but why do we have five fingers per hand? You can live just fine with only four (I have an uncle whose ring finger got amputated, so I know how big a deal it really isn't), and six would arguably be better than five. The number of fingers we have is arbitrary-- a spandrel that is a side effect of an actual adaptation. There are a lot of such spandrels in the geneotype and phenotype of most animal species, humans included. Genetic sequences that normally don't get activated in a male (or vice-verse) are a genetic level spandrel. They require a genetic or environmental trigger to activate, and they don't except in the opposite sex. At least normally they don't. Intersex conditions happen because sometimes in the environment of the womb a hormonal imbalance happens, or the chromosomes are screwed up (say you have an XXY chromosome condition), and either way that causes genes to trigger that should only trigger in individuals of the opposite genetic sex. Or you might just get ambiguous genitalia: for instance, if the mother's body exposes a female fetus to lots more testosterone than normal, the clitoris can grow into something more like a penis. Because as it turns out, the penis and the clitoris are formed from the exact same precursor tissues. Otherwise, the clitoris probably wouldn't exist, because it itself is also something of a spandrel-- like with male nipples, it corresponds to a feature present on males (i.e. the Glans Penis). Of course, one could argue that it encourages sexual behavior in females, which gets into the concept of exaption, but that's a discussion for another time.

Point is, everything you know about sex differences is wrong. At least, its wrong at a genetic level. Almost all of the genetic instructions that could make you female are present in your body whether you have a y chromosome or not. Likewise, almost all the genetic instructions that could make you male are present as well. There are really only a few instructions present on the Y chromosome that are necessary for you to develop testicles vs developing ovaries. Phenotype can drastically differ from geneotype if just a few accidents happen while you are developing in your mother's womb. So in fact, all of our concepts of sex are based on phenotype, and phenotype isn't either-or with regards to sex. Its a spectrum.

Also...

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

This is hilariously wrong. I mean, to answer your question, you realize that almost every single celled organism reproduces asexually, right? Are you aware that many species of organisms are hermaphroditic by default, like most species of plants but many animal species as well such as worms? Some amphibians and fish can famously change sex based on environmental cues, and yes they are fertile when this happens. There is even a species of lizard that is entirely female and reproduces asexually. And not just that, they also do courtship rituals prior to reproducing as a way of stimulating ovulation. In complete defiance of your narrow minded understanding of reproductive biology, an entire species of lesbian lizards exists in this world and is surviving just fine without males, thank you very much.

[Alyrium Denryle]

First of all, evolution and development are not about "propagation of a species", they are both about the passage of genes from one generation to the next.

I must be misunderstanding you, because that sentence seems self-contradictory, along the lines of, "It isn't about A, but rather about A." The passage of genes from one generation to the next goes hand-in-hand with the continuation of the species. ("Propagation" may have been the wrong word, or at least didn't properly convey my meaning.)

Yes, you are. The species does not matter. The individual's genes matter. Natural selection does not operate on species, species are simply a fuzzily defined thing that happen as a result of natural selection. Natural selection operates on an individual and their genes, and its effects made manifest over time in populations. There is no purpose or progress. Just the metaphorical red queen. Though occassionally when talking, it helps to use language that seems imply purpose or design. We are people, it is just easier to talk that way.

Typically, if a gene does emerge to cause a behavior that reduces the number of children born to a species, the behavior that emerges is infanticide. Male lions, for example, tend to kill off any cubs fathered by other lions. This is clearly not in the overall interest of the lion species, but evolution actively encourages it, because lions that do this have a disproportionate number of cubs.

Point of information, there are other ways, but it involves life history theory. Sometimes it pays to have fewer offspring, but invest more heavily into them.

Alternatively, you get most eusocial insects, but their sex determination system is haplodiploid so an individual gains more fitness when they raise siblings rather than their own offspring.

Alyrium is using Dawkinsian "gene-centric" evolutionary terms, and the problem with them is that they have this unfortunate tendency to use words which imply purpose or progress where there is none, and the person using them doesn't intend to imply it either. This is a legitimate criticism of gene-centric evolution from a Gouldian perspective. And yes, the perspective of Gould was a lot more holistic and stated that evolution happens at multiple levels and not just the gene. But that does not mean your ideas are correct from that perspective, either.

It can sometimes be useful to think of evolution operating on multiple organizational levels (particularly with eusocial insects or mammals with highly cohesive social systems), but that is more a theoretical excercise that aims at elucidating the parameters of selection.

Ex. Natural selection tends to favor social cheaters, until one realizes that social species are usually competing with other groups. If the group does poorly, everyone loses. So mechanisms to detect and punish cheaters will tend to evolve, much like how immune systems inside bodies tend to evolve.

But selection is still acting on genes.

There is something that Stephan J. Gould came up with that helps sort out the problem here. We all know about adaptations, which are features of an organism which have value to the organism's survival and chance of reproducing; but there are also "spandrels", features which are "as useless as tits on a bull" as they say-- literally, male nipples are an example of a spandrel.

He was definitely right about these.

This is hilariously wrong. I mean, to answer your question, you realize that almost every single celled organism reproduces asexually, right? Are you aware that many species of organisms are hermaphroditic by default, like most species of plants but many animal species as well such as worms? Some amphibians and fish can famously change sex based on environmental cues, and yes they are fertile when this happens. There is even a species of lizard that is entirely female and reproduces asexually. And not just that, they also do courtship rituals prior to reproducing as a way of stimulating ovulation. In complete defiance of your narrow minded understanding of reproductive biology, an entire species of lesbian lizards exists in this world and is surviving just fine without males, thank you very much.

It is actually several species of lesbian lizard and they all live next to me. I can go out with a lizard noose tomorrow and catch them if I wanted.

[Formless]

It can sometimes be useful to think of evolution operating on multiple organizational levels (particularly with eusocial insects or mammals with highly cohesive social systems), but that is more a theoretical excercise that aims at elucidating the parameters of selection.

Ex. Natural selection tends to favor social cheaters, until one realizes that social species are usually competing with other groups. If the group does poorly, everyone loses. So mechanisms to detect and punish cheaters will tend to evolve, much like how immune systems inside bodies tend to evolve.

But selection is still acting on genes.

Its acting on biochemical structures, which is all a gene ultimately is-- but so too is an organ system, or the organelles inside a cell. We like to talk about genes as information, but that can mislead people into thinking that DNA is like computer code when its actually far more dynamic and far messier, with proteins and other structures constantly doing error checking, adding and subtracting epigenetic tags, and other tasks that manmade machines don't really need to do. And multicellular organisms don't exactly come off a factory looking identical to their blueprint, they are grown and the process of growing creates most of the variation you see between organisms and not merely their genes. It also gives a false impression, since calling genes "information" or even "instructions" is also implicitly tacking human concepts onto these things retroactively, when we both know it contains tons and tons of spandrel junk and spaghetti code that would make a human programmer weep.

Anyway, my main point is, I think that the debates that Gould and Dawkins had are a bit too high level for this thread (and frankly while I know a lot about the topic my specialty still is psychology, after all); but at the same time I think that those theoretical exercises you associate with Gould really do help people who are confused about very basic evolutionary and biological concepts like "genes have no agency, and species aren't really real." Gould was simply more cautious about framing these things as truly mindless even if the explanation becomes more wordy, while Dawkins' word choices and framing just creates fundamental misunderstanding precisely because he tries to simplify so much. For many laymen with little to no biology training, its too simplistic and it leads to sloppy thinking that people with more training aren't prone to. Like Simon said, genes are not species, but Dawkins' can lead you to think so without meaning to just as an example. Otherwise, they actually agree more than they disagree, as I'm sure you know.

It is actually several species of lesbian lizard and they all live next to me. I can go out with a lizard noose tomorrow and catch them if I wanted.

Cool. How many species? Also, it would be interesting to know how they became mono-sex to begin with...

[Alyrium Denryle]

Cool. How many species? Also, it would be interesting to know how they became mono-sex to begin with...

Six that I remember (there might be a couple in New Mexico that I dont remember, or one in northern mexico that does not range into AZ)

As I recall they are the result of hybridization (and triploid). Two species of whiptails (not all of them are obligately parthenogenetic) hybridize. Only females survive. For some reason this switched them over to a parthenogenetic mode (lots of lizards can become facultatively parthenogenetic, including whiptails and monitor lizards). So they produce clones. However, they still kinda want to mate. So they backcross to a parent species, and an already diploid egg is fertilized by haploid sperm, thus producing a triploid hybrid that can no longer mate with anything. But ovulation is facilitated by courtship so eventually the genes that let them execute that fixed action pattern and pseudocopulate got switched on.

[Simon_Jester]

Typically, if a gene does emerge to cause a behavior that reduces the number of children born to a species, the behavior that emerges is infanticide. Male lions, for example, tend to kill off any cubs fathered by other lions. This is clearly not in the overall interest of the lion species, but evolution actively encourages it, because lions that do this have a disproportionate number of cubs.

Point of information, there are other ways, but it involves life history theory. Sometimes it pays to have fewer offspring, but invest more heavily into them.

Alternatively, you get most eusocial insects, but their sex determination system is haplodiploid so an individual gains more fitness when they raise siblings rather than their own offspring.

I was specifically thinking of behaviors that can emerge on short evolutionary time scales, and that specifically serve the purpose of reducing the number of offspring.

There are certainly species that take relatively more or less care of their own personal offspring. In situations where genes for caring for your own personal descendants (or your siblings or cousins or whatever) promotes the propagation of the specific gene that makes you do that.

The reason I mentioned infanticide, though, is that by the "standards" of evolution, killing infants that aren't your own descendants can be fairly effective at ensuring your infants are taken care of.

Because, as both of us are saying, the genes that drive a male lion to kill his mate's cubs by another lion... All evolution does is select those genes, it does not stop to consider whether it's moral to kill lion cubs, or whether it's good for the overall interests of the lion species.

[Obviously you've known all this for years, I wanted to communicate it so that others would see it written too]

[Axton]

Axton's problem is that he believes, on some subconscious level, that he is a god. Or is entitled to make statements about the purpose of the universe that only a god would be qualified to make.

Does that statement, ironically, make you a telepath? Let's stick to the claims, and hands off the motives.

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

As Alyrium points out, function does not drive biology. Failure to function drives evolution. Species evolve by discarding failures significant enough to prevent reproduction in a given environment. Whatever's left, survives. Unless of course nothing is left, which is why there aren't any trilobites or ammonites in the oceans.

Moreover, also worth remembering, evolution is in fact a mindless thing. It's like gravity, it doesn't have moral value.

I never assigned moral value to it. In fact, I made that clear, very distinctly.

One more thought: chimerism is a genetic anomaly, not evidence of a non-binary gender. I suppose the author of the article also believes in jackalopes.

[Axton]

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

This is hilariously wrong. I mean, to answer your question, you realize that almost every single celled organism reproduces asexually, right? Are you aware that many species of organisms are hermaphroditic by default, like most species of plants but many animal species as well such as worms? Some amphibians and fish can famously change sex based on environmental cues, and yes they are fertile when this happens. There is even a species of lizard that is entirely female and reproduces asexually. And not just that, they also do courtship rituals prior to reproducing as a way of stimulating ovulation. In complete defiance of your narrow minded understanding of reproductive biology, an entire species of lesbian lizards exists in this world and is surviving just fine without males, thank you very much.

I thought it would be fairly obvious, given the context of the OP, that I was talking about mammals. But maybe that would only be obvious... to mammals.

[Simon_Jester]

No, you said literally nothing about mammals-only rules. It was not obvious, and your attempt to retroactively pretend that you 'obviously' didn't need to mention something you may well have been entirely ignorant of isn't going to work well.

Axton's problem is that he believes, on some subconscious level, that he is a god. Or is entitled to make statements about the purpose of the universe that only a god would be qualified to make.

Does that statement, ironically, make you a telepath? Let's stick to the claims, and hands off the motives.

I'm being snide, yes- "mockery of stupid" is in play, I'll admit.

But I stand by my second sentence. You are making statements about the purpose of the universe that only a god would be qualified to make. The fact that you yourself do not realize this doesn't make it better. It just means that, as I said, you are mistaking your own opinions and ideas about 'how things should work' for some kind of universal law.

I never assigned moral value to it. In fact, I made that clear, very distinctly.

But you act as though it has moral value. Your every sentence drips with implied condemnation of "non-functional" and "abnormal" things because they don't "propagate" or whatever you believe is the sacred universal Plan that provides purpose to living things.

I assure you, if there is a purpose and a plan behind all life, the fact that there exist people with anomalous sex and gender determination is part of the plan, not a deviation from it. Because no entity capable of creating such a plan or purpose would have been stupid and incompetent enough NOT to foresee that such things would happen. Or stupid and incompetent enough NOT to have engineered a way to prevent it from happening, if they didn't plan for it.

One more thought: chimerism is a genetic anomaly, not evidence of a non-binary gender.

Do you believe that a genetic chimera is two separate people? Because there is only one body and one consciousness there. If the genetic chimera in question has mixed male and female anatomy, then damn right they are genetic anomalies...

But they are also an excellent example of a person who simply does not fit on a "male or female, pick one" scheme of biological sex. And depending on what's going on between their ears, they may not fit a binary gender model either.

So you are clearly wrong to say that chimerism cannot produce "non-binary gender," since it can quite easily create people whose biological sex can only be described as 'mixed,' and whose psychological gender (and social gender presentation) are going to be... anomalous.

While we're at it, can I convince you to clearly differentiate between sex (which is purely biological) and gender (which is psychological)?

Masculine and feminine (gender) don't mean the same thing as male and female (sex), and if you use the words interchangeably you're only going to confuse yourself. "Gender" is not a euphemism for "sex," as demonstrated by the absurdity of saying "I did not have genderual relations with that woman."

I suppose the author of the article also believes in jackalopes.

For what reason?

[Axton]

No, you said literally nothing about mammals-only rules. It was not obvious, and your attempt to retroactively pretend that you 'obviously' didn't need to mention something you may well have been entirely ignorant of isn't going to work well.

If the OP is speaking in regard to humans, and if, at no point until that's challenged do we start bringing in other classes of animals. The article holds up genetic chimerism as "evidence" that human beings are not subject to a gender binary.

Amoeba and lizards are brought up. The OP article, and the OP commentary trailing from it, weren't about amoeba. Or lizards. Both were about human beings. So let's leave the petri dish stuff in the petri dish and the zoo stuff in the zoo.

In human beings, chimerism and mosaicism are anomalous, not norms.

[Axton]

I suppose the author of the article also believes in jackalopes.

For what reason?

For the reason that the author confuses chimerism with a third gender.

[Esquire]

Please define gender. Obviously, as non-binary geno- and phenotypically-expressed sex is entirely possible and well-recorded, you can't simply ignore such cases as somehow less relevant than more straightforward ones. As a matter of logical necessity, humans cannot be subject to a binary gender categorization because a binary system doesn't cover all cases. At best it's a simplification; at worst it's a morally-repugnant attempt to cloak bigotry in pseudoscience.

As has been discussed above, even species are simply convenient bins of relatively similar expressions of relatively similar genetic and epigenetic factors. Why do you think 'gender' is somehow more stringent?

[Axton]

Please define gender. Obviously, as non-binary geno- and phenotypically-expressed sex is entirely possible and well-recorded, you can't simply ignore such cases as somehow less relevant than more straightforward ones.

Yes, genetic anomalies are "entirely possible and well recorded." That does not render them anything but anomalies.

[Axton]

Why do you think 'gender' is somehow more stringent?

Why do you think it's less stringent? Anorexia nervosa is another genetic anomaly falling within the same family of dysfunction -- body dysmorphic disorder. Would you encourage an anorexic? Would you claim that anorexia is normal and healthy?

[Esquire]

Please define gender. Obviously, as non-binary geno- and phenotypically-expressed sex is entirely possible and well-recorded, you can't simply ignore such cases as somehow less relevant than more straightforward ones.

Yes, genetic anomalies are "entirely possible and well recorded." That does not render them anything but anomalies.

You're quite correct, as long as by 'anomaly' you mean simply ' an uncommonly expressed trait.' You can't pretend nonbinary sexual traits aren't a reasonable result of the laws of biology.

Why do you think 'gender' is somehow more stringent?

Why do you think it's less stringent? Anorexia nervosa is another genetic anomaly falling within the same family of dysfunction -- body dysmorphic disorder. Would you encourage an anorexic? Would you claim that anorexia is normal and healthy?

Well, ten points for density, I suppose.

The primary difference - and this ought to be blatantly obvious - is that anorexia is damaging to the affected individual's health as an inescapable consequence of its nature; transsexual conditions would, in a perfect world, be no more risky than anything else treated with corrective surgery - cavus feet, say. What's more, 'normal' has nothing to do with 'healthy,' and even less to do with 'advantageous for the species,' although I realize that's a slight tangent.

What we call 'biologically-normal' in humans is simply the sum total of semirandom mutations which weren't fatal before age 20 or so more than half the time in whatever subpopulation they first developed in. There's no overarching plan and no hierarchy of traits; if you want to pretend a trait with many hundreds of thousands of expressions somehow isn't a rebuttal of your binary-sex hypothesis, please explain further.

[Axton]

Please define gender. Obviously, as non-binary geno- and phenotypically-expressed sex is entirely possible and well-recorded, you can't simply ignore such cases as somehow less relevant than more straightforward ones.

Yes, genetic anomalies are "entirely possible and well recorded." That does not render them anything but anomalies.

You're quite correct, as long as by 'anomaly' you mean simply ' an uncommonly expressed trait.' You can't pretend nonbinary sexual traits aren't a reasonable result of the laws of biology.

They're absolutely a reasonable result of the laws of biology; just as every other genetic anomaly is. Six-fingered people? Totally an expression of the laws of biology -- but should we be rewriting anatomical standards to include that trait as "normal"?

Why do you think 'gender' is somehow more stringent?

Why do you think it's less stringent? Anorexia nervosa is another genetic anomaly falling within the same family of dysfunction -- body dysmorphic disorder. Would you encourage an anorexic? Would you claim that anorexia is normal and healthy?

Well, ten points for density, I suppose.

The primary difference - and this ought to be blatantly obvious - is that anorexia is damaging to the affected individual's health as an inescapable consequence of its nature; transsexual conditions would, in a perfect world, be no more risky than anything else treated with corrective surgery

No. No. "Perfect world" is a copout. We don't live in a perfect world, and a body dysmorphic disorder is a body dysmorphic disorder. Moreover, genetic mosaicism doesn't always damage the affected individual's health -- in fact, in a detectable minority of cases of genetic mosaicism (true hermaphroditism included) -- the affected individual is even fertile (as a female), but it is, nevertheless, anomalous, not a "new standard." It isn't a third gender, it's a genetically damaged member of the gender binary.

You get cocks-and-balls, you get ova-and-vaginas, or you get genetically corrupted intermixes of the two. A proper third gender would have something totally new in the place of the genitalia of the gender binary. Like, hell, I dunno, a flesh covered spork-like thing.

[Formless]

No, you said literally nothing about mammals-only rules. It was not obvious, and your attempt to retroactively pretend that you 'obviously' didn't need to mention something you may well have been entirely ignorant of isn't going to work well.

If the OP is speaking in regard to humans, and if, at no point until that's challenged do we start bringing in other classes of animals. The article holds up genetic chimerism as "evidence" that human beings are not subject to a gender binary.

Amoeba and lizards are brought up. The OP article, and the OP commentary trailing from it, weren't about amoeba. Or lizards. Both were about human beings. So let's leave the petri dish stuff in the petri dish and the zoo stuff in the zoo.

In human beings, chimerism and mosaicism are anomalous, not norms.

Your backpedaling could not be more disgustingly obvious. Your question used the words "propagation of the species." Not "the human species," just "the species". You then decided to talk about the purpose of sex as a biological concept. At that point you can no longer claim that this conversation is solely about humans. You are talking about sex as a biological construct, which means it doesn't bloody matter what the OP is about. You were the one who decided to dig yourself into a hole by talking about higher level biological concepts, and promptly got stomped on by three different people, including a professor of biology. Fuck the hell off with this bullshit. You know what you are doing, and its as dishonest as your mother is about your father.

[Axton]

No, you said literally nothing about mammals-only rules. It was not obvious, and your attempt to retroactively pretend that you 'obviously' didn't need to mention something you may well have been entirely ignorant of isn't going to work well.

If the OP is speaking in regard to humans, and if, at no point until that's challenged do we start bringing in other classes of animals. The article holds up genetic chimerism as "evidence" that human beings are not subject to a gender binary.

Amoeba and lizards are brought up. The OP article, and the OP commentary trailing from it, weren't about amoeba. Or lizards. Both were about human beings. So let's leave the petri dish stuff in the petri dish and the zoo stuff in the zoo.

In human beings, chimerism and mosaicism are anomalous, not norms.

Your backpedaling could not be more disgustingly obvious.

You mean, you made a point and I acknowledged it by modifying my position?

Okay, you tell me what you'd be happy with:

1. You make a point, I acknowledge it, I modify or restate my position for the sake of either accommodating your fair point or better clarifying my own -- and then you call that "backpedaling."

Or, 2. You make a point, I rigidly and dogmatically refuse to acknowledge it and make appropriate modification to my position, and then you can accuse me of ignoring replies.

So which is it? Shall I backpedal, or shall I ignore your replies?

Your question used the words "propagation of the species." Not "the human species," just "the species".

"The" is pretty easily recognizable as a reference to one species. One. So which species had everybody been talking about up until you threw lizards and amoebae into the pot? (Brotip: It's the species under discussion in the OP -linked article and commentary. And in the event you've read neither, that species was homo sapiens, not lizards or ameobae.)

[Esquire]

No. No. "Perfect world" is a copout. We don't live in a perfect world, and a body dysmorphic disorder is a body dysmorphic disorder. Moreover, genetic mosaicism doesn't always damage the affected individual's health -- in fact, in a detectable minority of cases of genetic mosaicism (true hermaphroditism included) -- the affected individual is even fertile (as a female), but it is, nevertheless, anomalous, not a "new standard." It isn't a third gender, it's a genetically damaged member of the gender binary.

You get cocks-and-balls, you get ova-and-vaginas, or you get genetically corrupted intermixes of the two. A proper third gender would have something totally new in the place of the genitalia of the gender binary. Like, hell, I dunno, a flesh covered spork-like thing.

The factors making the world not perfect for this purpose are purely societal, as you really ought to know; effective treatments for inter- and transsexual conditions have been available for decades. Nobody's denying that they're unusual, but any attempt at a scientific description of humanity which doesn't include such conditions is a poor description. There is no gender binary in the logical sense (because inter- and transsexuals exist); there is no gender binary in the scientific sense because, as discussed above, there are actually a great many gene patterns that all code for 'fertile human being.' At best, you've got a semibinary phenotypically-defined system for unassisted reproduction due to simple mechanics, but by that metric 'dog' isn't a species.

I repeat: please give a scientifically-valid definition of gender which doesn't include nonbinary options. Do recall that the actual scientific community has decided that it's not a binary system, though. As biological structures go, yes, sex is about as clear-cut as it gets. But that's not very far at all, and I honestly don't see why you're so attached to the idea that it is.

[Formless]

You mean, you made a point and I acknowledged it by modifying my position?

No, that would be rewriting history. What you did was... rewrite history. You really shouldn't do that twice on a page, especially as an attempt to weasel out of the self-same accusation.

You claimed that you were always talking solely about humans in response to the point that in nature, biological sex is both abnormal if you include the massive diversity of microbes on earth that are asexual, and that among multicellular life it is extremely easy to find exceptions like you asked for. To claim that this was you acknowledging my point rather than attempting to weasel out of conceding the point is to prove how infuriatingly dishonest you are being.

So which is it? Shall I backpedal, or shall I ignore your replies?

If you start ignoring my replies I will have the moderators deal with you. That is in fact against the debate rules of the forum. Look them up, fuckwit. The mere suggestion tells me you are either here to troll, or are severely out of touch with the forum's code of conduct.

Which reminds me, you never did respond to the point that only a minority of the instructions that make you male or female are found on the sex chromosomes, and that this is why intersex conditions are perfectly predictable under certain conditions in the womb, and not abnormal except in a cultural sense.

"The" is pretty easily recognizable as a reference to one species. One. So which species had everybody been talking about up until you threw lizards and amoebae into the pot? (Brotip: It's the species under discussion in the OP -linked article and commentary. And in the event you've read neither, that species was homo sapiens, not lizards or ameobae.)

If you have read as much literature on biology as I have you would know that in fact this parlance is quite common when the species in question is entirely hypothetical. Which also tells me that you have not read as much biological literature as I have.

Also, I am not your bro, as if the insult directed at your mother didn't tip you off.

[Axton]

No. No. "Perfect world" is a copout. We don't live in a perfect world, and a body dysmorphic disorder is a body dysmorphic disorder. Moreover, genetic mosaicism doesn't always damage the affected individual's health -- in fact, in a detectable minority of cases of genetic mosaicism (true hermaphroditism included) -- the affected individual is even fertile (as a female), but it is, nevertheless, anomalous, not a "new standard." It isn't a third gender, it's a genetically damaged member of the gender binary.

You get cocks-and-balls, you get ova-and-vaginas, or you get genetically corrupted intermixes of the two. A proper third gender would have something totally new in the place of the genitalia of the gender binary. Like, hell, I dunno, a flesh covered spork-like thing.

The factors making the world not perfect for this purpose are purely societal, as you really ought to know;

Let me stop you right there with this question: out of what does 'society' arise? God? The Force? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? As someone who accepts an objective, mechanistic view of reality, I have to ask what you think 'societal' factors are attendant to.

Nobody's denying that they're unusual, but any attempt at a scientific description of humanity which doesn't include such conditions is a poor description.

And I've included them, as what they are; genetic aberrations.

There is no gender binary in the logical sense (because inter- and transsexuals exist);

Statistical outliers do not nullify norms.

...there is no gender binary in the scientific sense because, as discussed above, there are actually a great many gene patterns that all code for 'fertile human being.'

Demonstrate a fertile human being who was neither male nor female. Every fertile human being has been dominantly one or the other with marginal genetic corruptions.

I repeat: please give a scientifically-valid definition of gender which doesn't include nonbinary options. Do recall that the actual scientific community has decided that it's not a binary system, though.

This should suffice: The medical community classifies non-binary gender affectation as a dysmorphic disorder.

Wrong. According to the OP, a biologist -- one biologist, Paul James, has asserted that there is more than one gender, and has offered cases of genetic mosaicism as his evidence.

[Axton]

You mean, you made a point and I acknowledged it by modifying my position?

No, that would be rewriting history. What you did was... rewrite history. You really shouldn't do that twice on a page, especially as an attempt to weasel out of the self-same accusation.

It's becoming apparent that you're more invested in the accusation than in this discussion. If my wording is unclear, I'll clarify it. If you make a point which causes me to reevaluate and modify my position in accordance with a fair point, I'll modify it.

That's how an honest discussion works. If you're uninterested in an honest discussion in favor of landing accusations, I'm going to ignore you from here on out, because I'm interested in having a discussion, not being subjected to accusations.

I'm not taking this position out of a lack of regard for the board, its rules, or its staff. But at the point when you make this about landing an "-ist! -IST! -IST!" label on me, you're the one who has started ignoring the actual discussion.

I'll tell you that exactly one time. Leave the accusations behind, ditch the red herrings, and dump the ad hominems in the bin if you want to continue to discuss this with me. I won't have them. Otherwise, I'll assume that you yourself have abandoned the discussion in furtherance of time-wasting flaming and appeals to pathos.

[Formless]

You mean, you made a point and I acknowledged it by modifying my position?

No, that would be rewriting history. What you did was... rewrite history. You really shouldn't do that twice on a page, especially as an attempt to weasel out of the self-same accusation.

It's becoming apparent that you're more invested in the accusation than in this discussion. If my wording is unclear, I'll clarify it. If you make a point which causes me to reevaluate and modify my position in accordance with a fair point, I'll modify it.

That's how an honest discussion works. If you're uninterested in an honest discussion in favor of landing accusations, I'm going to ignore you from here on out, because I'm interested in having a discussion, not being subjected to accusations.

I'll tell you that exactly one time. Leave the accusations behind if you want to continue to discuss this with me.

Fuck you, and go to hell. I'll tell you once: the rules of this forum explicitly state that dishonesty is not accepted here. I'm not dealing with your arguments because YOU DID NOT RESPOND TO MY POINTS, you pile of shit! Instead you dismissed all of them because apparently you don't think you have to back up your claims regarding the biological purpose of sex.

So I am going to ask you just once. Back up your claim that:

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

It has now been challenged by multiple people, and instead of conceding it you have decided to throw out multiple red herrings and ad hominim fallacies. You can't make me shut up. You don't have the ability, the authority, or the rules of this forum on your side. I'm waiting.

[Axton]

All right, let me then restate the question, and let's have no further instances, from you or anyone else, of the fallacy of ambiguity:

Can a non-male human or a non-female human engage in non-artificially-assisted sexual intercourse in which an offspring is produced?

Now, you and everyone else knew god damned good and well that that's exactly what I meant the first time I asked that question.

Moreover, is there a gender which has no male or female traits, but only traits of its own?

Your fucking wiggle room has been removed. No more ambiguity, no more red herrings, no more bullshit from you. Answer that question.