Leaderboard

There is not necessarily a need for one. I.e. if we only want to discuss reproduction, we certainly can ignore infertile groups for the most part. This is one of the various cases where a binary classification is useful and as routinely done. However, I interpreted the OP as broader, as in: "does sex only exist in a binary classification system". As a biologist the almost automatic answer is "no" as basically every classification scheme we have is just a simplification in which almost always cases are found which do not fit these schemes (there are many things that are taught as being universal, except when they aren't, such as e.g. species, or the genetic code). Whether we need to use or address those elements in our scheme depends highly on what we use the classification for. If, for example we solely look at reproduction as a particular trait, then of course we would not need to consider infertile variants. If, on the other hand the question is can we cover the whole human variety that exist just using two sexes, well, in this thread no one managed to create a definition that would have not at least some group falling outside of it, which by definition does not cover the whole variety that exists. To provide an alternative approach to visualize but also categorize sex, which biologically exists in a continuum, in a more concise way some developmental biologists in the 50s tried to create a model of sexual development in humans. Fundamentally the idea is to look at the various steps starting from the karyotype to the full development of sexual organs and organize them into layers. So for example the karyotype would be considered the first element or layer which would be the genetic basis for the following development. The second layer is then when embryonic endocrine organs are formed that make hormones that push development more toward a male or female direction. Then in interaction with those, the next step would be the formation of internal reproductive organs then shaping external sexual organs etc. (I am sure that I missed some finer points but you get the idea). However, the folks who developed this model where especially interested in what they called intersex- i.e. those where either one or multiple of these layers where not clearly in the one or the other extreme. The karyotype could be fully male for example, but much of the internal and external organs would look female (so you could classify layer one as entirely male, but layers two is a bit indetermined resulting in the following layers looking female, for example). Each of the layers is non-binary as individuals would fall somewhere between the two extremes. A person that we would consider archetypical male would therefore fall mostly on the male side at each of these layers, a female on the opposite. However, persons that do not consistently are in or the either end (or perhaps are somewhere in the middle in some of those layers) could be considered intersex or at least on the extreme end of one of the genders (e.g. someone with a micropenis but otherwise fitting in the male categories in the other layers otherwise). So that is an example of an alternative model of sex, which tries to capture the complexity of sex and was developed in order to understand the concept of intersex. And before someone accuses science of following some current political agendas, this model was developed sometime in the 50s which, to my knowledge, is not generally considered to be overrun by SWJs. But at the same time, the folks stopped short of developing a new classification scheme, it was more a descriptive model to a broader range of human sexual elements which would not be possible if we just ignored the presence of those falling outside an exclusive binary scheme. These thoughts have been polished over the years and the mechanisms in each of these layers have been more tightly connected to complex signaling networks which are not simply on or off (i.e. binary) but you can imagine various parts of the network pushing into one, whereas other elements pull in another direction (for each element, i.e. gonadal development, sex organ development etc.) and as such at each step you have a range of possible outcomes (which also depends on external factors, such as exposure to xenoestrogens). But that being said, it is a model used in a particular context, but is likely to unwieldy if one is really not interested in the finer developmental differences between individuals.

I think we can all agree that for the purpose of reproduction of the species ( human, that is ), only two sexes are needed. One is not enough, and three ( or more ) are superfluous. That doesn't mean that there are not people who don't fully fit into the male, or female, grouping; but for the criteria of reproduction, there is no third ( or 4th, or 5th ) category to place them in. One has to ask, then, what is the purpose ( or agenda, if you will ) for having more than the male and female sex classifications. Please explain. Thank God he's not Mexican, or you'd imply he was lazy. Or Oriental and a bad driver. Or Italian and a mobster. Can you see what is wrong with that line of thinking, Stringy ? I had hoped this thread had died, because I really don't like having people I consider friends call each other 'dicks', or make thinly veiled implications of transphobia, homophobia or racism, so this will be my only post on this thread. But I would like an answer ( I will still read ) as to WHY a third sex is needed, and what is the PURPOSE of the differentiation. Is more 'separation' really desirable to more 'inclusion' ? Is this just another social engineering exercise ? Is it to make some people, who feel 'different', feel better about themselves ? What am I not seeing ?

For those of you who are interested in this. There’s been a flurry of papers on the subject over the past three years in particular, but it was very difficult to get the big picture. This is a nice, plain language summary. https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-most-famous-paradox-in-physics-nears-its-end-20201029/

Every one of the boxes that describes a phenotype/genotype that lies between genotypically/phenotypically male phenotypically/genotypically female at either end of the chart. The temporal axis, along with the arrows demonstrates how an individual can transition between states at different life history stages. Ergo. while there are two sexes, they are neither binary nor temporally fixed - so there are a minority individuals to which the question "Are you male or female?" would be "Neither." The biology reality of that is unequivocal.

When you make up arbitrary criteria to state that the intermediate states don't count, you have two binary categories. Yep. Spot on.

Yes. And as far as I am aware, little to no work has yet been done on how to get the energy out of the plasma, once it exceeds break-even. So it seems to me there is a hell of along way to go. Here is one link that goes into it. https://whyy.org/segments/fusion-energy/ The energy you actually input to the plasma is only a fraction of the energy needed to drive all the systems at the facility. And then the energy output from the plasma goes through various lossy processes, including a Carnot efficiency factor (<50%) in the steam turbine or whatever heat engine is used to convert heat to electricity. According to this article, to break even and become a net provider of electricity to the grid, you will need a Q factor of around 10. With laser "inertial confinement" systems it is even worse, apparently. (The article also corroborates @Prometheus's figure of 0.01 (1%) for JET.)

It has bugger all to do with your ethnicity. I was talking about the environment you were raised in, and the possible effect of that. You could be a native Pole in China and the effect could be the same if you were brought during your formative years there. Most people want an easy social life, so they conform, especially children, who have a higher need to be socially accepted by their local peers.

As someone who went through a sculpture phase that involved plumbing parts and misc. metal stuff, I really dig this lamp. The room is pleasant, too, though I would have heart arrhythmia if our coffee table was ever that uncluttered. The spouse likes her teetering piles. Plus one.

I like your two mates!

We had a briefing recently suggesting that lateral flow tests are likely not compromised, however as of last week I have not seen any larger scale data (the presented report was only on a handful of positive patients). I should add, that part of the careful optimism in that regard is because omicron only has few mutations in the nucleocapsid gene. Two seem to be specific to omicron (PI3L and Del31/33), so there is some effort to check out whether those could alter the results, whereas the two other commonly observed mutations were already found in alpha, for example.

Okay, I know this one is a bit of a stretch as a "woodworking" project, but I did have to make the base out of wood. 😁 I am going to be a grandfather again, the first grandchild that is a boy, and the parents are decorating his room in a space motif. So I found plans for this lamp and made it. Pretty simple and I think WAY cool! 😀

My understanding is that Q is a poor metric of performance as it doesn't take account of the energy put into the entire reactor, just that used to create the plasma. Apparently things like confining that plasma with powerful electromagnets takes an awful lot of energy which are not taken into account with Q. If you use Q_total (i.e all the energy used by the reactor) as a metric then the value for JET is more like 0.01.

That's an insulting strawman attack on StringJunky's post and his obvious intentions. We both were questioning koti's own words about local influences on his stance regarding gender, and I find your twisting of that to make it look like we're caricaturizing him as homophobic to be cheap and beneath you. Why must so many feel so threatened by this?

sad.

I wouldn't worry too much about 'loan atoms'. Forget about atoms; they're pretty abstract thingies. The way they combine into macromolecules to form self-molecules, vs non-self molecules is far more significant. Whatever 'I' is, it's to do with information, and that's in how atoms hang out with each other, not in atom Sally meeting atom Tom. There are far fewer alien cells in your organism than there are self cells. Think about it. So, what's the big deal about 'foreign atoms'? There are 39 trillion non-self things living in you. I hope that doesn't give you nightmares, and I hope it helps.

My farts don't smell.

So its ok to question my credibility based on my ethnicity but its not ok to point that out? I wish I was a black, transgender woman from Norway right now, it would sure make life easier for me on this site compared to being a white, heterosexual male from Poland. And you know what, thats ok. Stereotypes are an inevitable part of social interaction and I always could laugh about it regardless what side of them I'm on. I'm not taking offence on any of this and most of all, I will not forge this position into an offecive/defencive line of arguing during this discussion. It does make me feel a little sad to see the very people whom I though I provided more than enough evicende over the years for my views and personality to accuse me of homophobia, conspiracy theories, anti vaxx stances. But you know what Phi, thats what ideology and pollitics does to you and while being a little sad I'm not surprised.

You seem to be claiming the "enlightened" ground without any justification. It's enlightened to treat people with respect and understanding and a "live and let live" attitude, but pretending that science had the number of sexes wrong for all these years is just wokeness gone mad. Darwin would have pissed himself reading this thread.

Precision. Accuracy. Alignment with reality. Understanding. Clarity. There are others, but my only agenda is to present correct information and refute falsehoods. If I came in here claiming there were ONLY 2 types of quarks, up and down, would you not correct me for sharing falsehoods, and continue correcting me even if I remained obstinate in my stance and unable to defend it without casting personal aspersions at others?

It'll take some decades for these relatively avant garde concepts to filter across the population. The Old Guard will die off and the new, more enlightened population will emerge with no hang ups about it. As people get older they become more fossilzed in their worldview; people become representative of their time in history.

You’re so woke and scientifically fashionable that you don’t care, I get it. You probably think its cool or even noble to categorize someone born with a genetic condition as a different sex other than male or female, I get that too. I disagree but I get it.

Youre right, I missplaced the word ethinicity I should have used environment instead. I don’t think we did this formally Stringy, I must ask you what pronouns you use, I don’t want to insult you by mistake. Mine are he/him today. I will also inform you what sex I am when this thread runs its course and I finally find out.

It would be beneficial for everybody if you’d let the expert answer.

Yes, clarity is what we very much want so please let the resident expert answer thank you.