There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex.
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There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex. The title and summary of a new paper on how scientists define sex, the lack of unanimity on the topic, and how some of the existing definitions just don't work for all organisms.
i don't know what hummingbird they are illustrating but i think this was brought home in hummingbirds when a VERY widespread & (we thought) well-known hummingbird, the white-necked jacobin, was discovered that if you did the DNA test, around 10-20% of the birds in "male" plumage were "females" (capable of laying eggs)
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i don't know what hummingbird they are illustrating but i think this was brought home in hummingbirds when a VERY widespread & (we thought) well-known hummingbird, the white-necked jacobin, was discovered that if you did the DNA test, around 10-20% of the birds in "male" plumage were "females" (capable of laying eggs)
@peachfront Seems to be indeed the white-necked jacobin, based on the references in the captions. e.g. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/289/1982/20220332/79500/Intersexual-social-dominance-mimicry-drives-female
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@ombialik not a single positive peer review, h- index unknown. Lol.
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Uriel Fanelli
Using Aktor: https://git.keinpfusch.net/loweel/Aktor-2
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old blog: https://blog.keinpfusch.net
new blog: https://keinpfusch.net@uriel imagine being so bad at reading comprehension and so bad at understanding scientific paper publication that you can't find the very obvious peer review link that it took me 5 seconds to find
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There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex. The title and summary of a new paper on how scientists define sex, the lack of unanimity on the topic, and how some of the existing definitions just don't work for all organisms.
@ombialik I admit my ignorance in a so specific analysis, but since it cites philosophers too it looks like anyone playing with words, more than science, may have their take.
That said, what I find disturbing is always that final need to "classify" individuals. While it's quite often easy to tell who's gonna reproduce and who's not, the scientifical evidence is (ironically) now used by social and religious movements, that just want to keep a grip on power and control. These are just free words. -
@uriel imagine being so bad at reading comprehension and so bad at understanding scientific paper publication that you can't find the very obvious peer review link that it took me 5 seconds to find
@cxiao imagine there is none. And this is why you don't post the link here.
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Uriel Fanelli
Using Aktor: https://git.keinpfusch.net/loweel/Aktor-2
XMPP: uriel@keinpfusch.net
old blog: https://blog.keinpfusch.net
new blog: https://keinpfusch.net -
There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex. The title and summary of a new paper on how scientists define sex, the lack of unanimity on the topic, and how some of the existing definitions just don't work for all organisms.
-
There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex. The title and summary of a new paper on how scientists define sex, the lack of unanimity on the topic, and how some of the existing definitions just don't work for all organisms.
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@AubreyDeLosDestinos @ombialik @rysiek I think the thing is that transphobes often want to claim it’s simply scientific fact. Biology says this, therefore opinions are irrelevant. When actually as this paper seems to point out, there is no such thing as unambiguous universal scientific fact in this topic.
Social constructs are not necessarily easy to change, true, but they are at least possible to change.
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@meltedcheese Found it, 2017 item in Scientific American by Amanda Montañez
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination/ -
@peachfront Seems to be indeed the white-necked jacobin, based on the references in the captions. e.g. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/289/1982/20220332/79500/Intersexual-social-dominance-mimicry-drives-female
it makes you wonder what else we will learn when more is known about the other species of hummingbirds (there are ballpark 350 species)
we have already learned that an unrelated bird species, the white-throated sparrow, has 4 genders
there is always something new to discover!
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@meltedcheese Found it, 2017 item in Scientific American by Amanda Montañez
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination/@ombialik Thank you! I used to save all my back issues of Scientific American. Sine I subscribed at about age 14, that became a very big pile when I made to decision to only save a couple of years, at age 55 or so.
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F folfdk@helvede.net shared this topic
