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Nothing in nature is a defect per se. They may be detrimental in many conditions, but it is something that exists and if there is a classification that claims to be unviversal, these must be incorporated. The classification as a defect is purely an anthropogenic construct. Light skin colour could be seen as a defect in melanin production, for example, but is rarely considered as such. Sickle cell anemia is seen as detrimental, but in some areas they are positively selected. Dismissing genetic elements merely as defects or exceptions do not prove the rule. If one claims that these classifications are universal, they must be universally applicable. If you have to add certain qualifiers then obviously you are just trying to press things into a mold that does not fit. And obviously if we go beyond humans (or mammals) there is far more variability. The issue with using the genetic ability to give birth as a gender means that any mutation that would render someone infertile would define them as male, which obviously not make much sense (as well as the fact that biology changes with different age stages and so does the ability to reproduce). Obviously, sex is quite a bit less diverse than gender and if you imagine both as a biphasic distribution, sex has probably sharper peaks and much fewer cases in between those peaks. But they still exist. Yes, but also they are often only binary in certain contexts. When we divide up a population into male and female, it is a simplification to accommodate a certain research question, for example (i.e. we just ignore cases that don't fit but due to low frequency it is still broadly representative of the larger population). It is like creating models of complex processes. This works out fine in a general sense (i.e. many studies in humans work well if consider sex binary). But on an individual level it can be more complicated, though it typically is more associated with gender, rather than necessarily sex.

Let me take this opportunity to remind readers of some useful factoids shared recently in another thread. They’re insightful when attempting to accurately answer the thread question and when pushing back on the many remedially inaccurate responses being shared here with great certitude and unfounded confidence. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/125880-jordan-petersons-ideas-on-politis/?do=findComment&comment=1190758 https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/125880-jordan-petersons-ideas-on-politis/?do=findComment&comment=1190791 I just don’t know who to believe... These quotes from our resident biology experts who’ve worked in the field for years and years and years and who are massively clear on the vagaries and messiness in biological classifications, or the people who are forcefully arguing an untenable position based on outdated 6th grade level understandings of biology and misplaced preconceptions. It’s such a hard choice. 🙄 QFT

https://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/men-at-high-risk-benefit-from-mammograms

There are definitely no more than two. Answers, that is.

Darn it, Stringy, always my kryptonite ... Very well, I'll change that to When your wife is told by her doctor to get screened for testicular cancer.

You know that there is no such thing as 'frictionless', don't you ? The laws of Thermodynamics can be likened to a card game ... 1 - You can't win ( can'tcreate energy in a closed system ). 2 - You can't break even ( no such thing as frictionless ). 3 - You can't get out of the game ( entropy )

That's called science. 😉

"Will my fly wheel battery/generator break the law of energy conservation?" No.

The problem is our definitions are becoming increasingly out of date with new data.

I fully admit I am far from an expert in this subject. But it seems to me that those who are much more expert than I am have yet to fully explore and understand the situation. This conference article in SCIAM is most interesting. In particular it seems that many definitions have been changing rapidly these days, particularly in the light of new chemical and biological discoveries. The article also discusses the medical implications of the subject. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/q-a-mixed-sex-biology/

This explains the different systems used in nature: https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/im-xy-know-sex-determination-systems-101/

Depends on what you mean by sex. Do you mean what gender you identify as ? Recreational ? Or procreational ? This is a Science site, and we classify sex only as it pertains to reproduction of the species. Self identity and recreational, we leave to the psychologists and sociologists. In terms of reproduction, there is a hard line between the two sexes/genders; one gives birth to young, the other doesn't. As they get older women might lose that ability, but sometimes we lose other abilities also. Are humans not classified as bipedal when they use a cane or sit in a wheelchair ? Are humans sighted, or on a 'spectrum', because some lose their eyesight as they get old ? It is black and white; that doesn't mean there aren't species that reproduce asexually, but of those that can even change sex, ( as Sensei mentions ) only give birth as female. Which 'sex' do you want to discuss ?

Don't forget the teacher! I had a horrible experience with calculus the first time I took it, mostly because the teacher's style didn't suit me at all. I dropped the class and took it the next semester with a different teacher and did fairly well. Sometimes it's just about the connection between teacher and student, and how one's enthusiasm (or lack thereof) can be channeled into effective learning.

So menopause is where a female becomes male? Puberty is the opposite? A hysterectomy or tubal ligation is a sex change? Which means the answer to the OP is “yes” according to this. —— Interesting we have already been offered two very different definitions

While the study of algae has many applications, I am not sure criminal rehabilitation is one of them. Though perhaps some understanding of scum is relevant. Sorry, some typos are too fun to resist. These issues of case management are so complex. Some sci-fi authors like to imagine societies where violent people wear shock collars or other devices. Behave peaceably and the collar is just inert, an unattractive piece of jewelry. Get violent and you are zapped. Such dystopian visions are meant to awaken us to the loss of human dignity and free choice when the state tries to exert absolute control. Rehabilitation should be about relinquishing control and replacing it with the person's self-control. We have to accept that doesn't always work and teach people caution in dangerous situations (like the proverbial dark alley). Some people will always slip through the cracks.

There will always be exceptions. IMO it’s a mistake to focus policy solely on them instead of the vast majority of others who don’t fit that marginal exception.

I recall somewhere around high school my son felt he was not much good at academics especially math. A few years later he was getting A-pluses in calculus and everything else, teaching himself programming languages, composing music, and trading emails with me on subjects like Bell's theorem or ionization bit flips. Sometimes it's just about finding a calm space to sit down and do the studying or the work without distractions. And some people can jump from one task to another all day, while others reveal their smarts when they focus on one thing for sixteen hours. As others note, there are such a variety of cognitive skills.

"Reference frame of light" make no sense from a physics perspective; this is an issue of relativity and light does not have an inertial frame. We observe that when you send a photons at atoms they can be absorbed, and the atoms emits light some time later. This observation takes place in the lab frame, not the photons. The physics used to describe this is also based in the lab frame. We don't have physics that can be used in a photon's frame, because there is no transform that gets us there and back; the equations diverge. No, we're talking about a photon being absorbed. Light has both wave and particle behaviors. Photons are most definitely quantum particles. Argument by quotation is pretty meaningless. Similar to the Wolff quote above, it doesn't add to any knowledge.

We're not in the frame of the light. The source of this is the energy-time uncertainty relation. ∆E∆t > hbar/2 The natural linewidth of any transition is related to its lifetime. And since E = hbar * w, you can see that this is just a relationship between frequency and time, which are Fourier transforms of each other. It's an inherent uncertainty from that.

Slightly less useful; you couldn't even fertilise the rose-beds with it.

I disagree. Sex is one of the few things that is actually binary. Genetically, you are one or the other. What you wish to identify as is a different subject. Call it sex-identity. That can as you say exist somewhere in a spectrum. If colour was similar, then you would have a world where people were born black or white. Nothing in the middle. But mentally, you could feel black, white, or any shade in between. You could be attracted to one, or the other colour, or both or neither, or bounce from one to the other. But if you were checked visually, you would always be black or white. We can't see genes, so it's not so simple. But imagine you could. Then what you would see would be just males and females. With some identifying differently, any way they liked. We would be used to it, it would just be part of normal life. So to me, the essence is that you can't BE whatever sex you like. But you can certainly IDENTIFY as whatever you like. Of course, how others see you is beyond your control. That's when it gets really complicated. I have one transgender friend, and they still struggle with their identity, years after the operation. It's not even easy or binary for those living it.

I know what you mean ... Science always talks about circles and spheres, when we know no such thing as a perfect circle or perfect sphere exists in nature. They are a 'spectrum' of shapes. Seriously, biological classifications are just that, an easy way to group organisms into groups according to certain specific criterea. And, yes, some of those criterea are binary. Does it matter tome what you choose to identify as? Not at all. I only get my back up when I'm told what I have to perceive you as. That is not my subjective reality; don't force yours on me. Do you identify any other organisms as anything other than your subjective perception of them ? Or do you ask your cat if she wants to be referred to as 'dog' ? Yeah, read the story. I was trying to be funny, and failed miserably.