As has been explained to you, when it comes to race the deciding characteristics are arbitrary and there are massive grey areas.
When it comes to human sex, we have- genotype, genitals and reproductive organs, and the brain. These characteristics are NOT arbitrary. In over 99% of humans, all indicators line up on the same side. There are grey areas, but they are tiny.
It’s not established that the two concepts are similar enough to call for consistency, or that inconsistency is indicative of anything.
Do you like cake? Do you dislike manual transmissions? Inconsistency!
Your so-called refutations make no sense. All the existence of a person with male genitalia and XX chromosomes proves is that the sexual categories are not absolute. You’re saying that they’re as arbitrary as “race” (itself an ill-defined concept) - and that is an utterly unsupported premise.
No gotcha. Rand Rover is just comparing the arguments of people who reject race as being scientifically & objectively determinable and I just added that some points made in the thread are a little over-simplified in terms of determining sex. It’s a discussion, people exchanging different ideas and points of view. There’s very little gotcha going on at all.
As for some more/other stats: the Intersex Society of North America say the number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female is 1 in 100. Just to add it to going thoughts.
The ISNA also covers the difficulty in defining sex/intersex:
Gracer In case you weren’t aware (and for those lurking readers) intersex does not mean a third sex. True hermaphrodite humans are vanishingly rare. The label intersex takes in everything from Turner’s Syndrome (XO) to cases of micropenises and clitoromegaly. A man who is XY with fertile testes and a male brain but was born with a micropenis may still be classified as intersex.
Dude, once again, you have everybody in this thread utterly mystified about what claims you actually are making.How about you cut the coy crap? Instead of simply posting “I never made that claim” you tell us quite simply what the hell you are claiming? Because at this stage nobody has a fucking clue what your point is.
But I will try one last time to actually doivine what the hell you ar eon about. Tell me whether you agree with the following:
It is possible for a machine to divide people into the groups “male” and “female” with greater than 99% accuracy?
If point (1) is correct, that is positive proof that there exists and objective standard of "sex?
If a machine assigns humans to “male” and “female” using photographic interpretation, the people in those groups will share other traits, such as gonadal histology and sex chromosome composition with greater than 99% commonality? alternatively if a machine assigns humans to “male” and “female” using genetic testing, the people in those groups will share other traits, such as gonadal histology and genetic structure with greater than 99% commonality?
If point (3) is correct, that is positive proof that the objective standard of “sex” is not self-referential, that the grouping provides information about characteristics not used to make the grouping at >95% accuracy?
In science, the convention for the past 150 years has been that if we are > 95% certain that when we repeat a trial we will get the same result, the result is considered to be “real”?
I would appreciate an answer to these questions, rather than some coy non-responsive post. Because I honestly don’t see how you can dispute any of these claims, yet you repeatedly claim that there is no objective, non-self-referential test for sex and that that sex has no biological reality.
Now moving on to race
Tell me whether you agree with the following:
It is possible for a machine to divide people into racial groups with greater than 99% accuracy?
If point (1) is incorrect, that is strong evidence that there exists no objective standard of "sex?
If a human assigns humans to “Asian” and “Black” and “White” races using photographic interpretation, the people in those groups will not share any other traits, such as genetics, with greater than 90% commonality? Alternatively if a human assigns humans to “Asian” and “Black” and “White” races using genetic testing, the people in those groups will not share other traits, such as colour or eye shape with greater than 90% commonality?
If point (3) is correct, that is positive proof that the objective standard of “race” is self-referential, that the grouping provides no information about characteristics not used to make the grouping at >90% accuracy?
In science, the convention for the past 150 years has been that if we are <90% certain that when we were an experiment we will get the same result, the result is considered to be “not real”?
Once again, I would appreciate a response to these questions, along with evidence if you do claim that you objectively can group humans with >90% accuracy in a manner that is not self-referential.
Dude, you just told us that sex is not based on subjective criteria. You just admitted that I can divide humans into two sexes with >9% accuracy based on objetcive criteria.
See, this is why you are failing utterly to communicate. You previously conceded that "Of course a test for gender/sex is objective once you’ve defined “male” to include only “people with XY chromosomes.” And now in the very next post you claim that sex is based on subjective criteria.
These claims can’t both be true. You can’t believe that I can objectively determine sex with >99% accuracy, and then claim that the determination is subjective.
So which is it? Do you concede that a test for gender/sex is objective at >95% accuracy once you’ve defined “male” to include only people with XY chromosomes? Or do you still wish to argue that I can not apply a genetic test for sex with > 95% accuracy?
It has to be one or the other. You can’t assert that the test is accurate and >95% replicable in one sentence, then claim that I can’t apply an objective test at >95% accuracy in the next.
It’s hardly our fault that we are utterly confused when you make mutually contradictory statements in the same adjacent post.
I’m willing to risk saying that categories that cover 99% of cases can be considered useful. I’m a wild man.
Utter nonsense.
In science, an effect is considered real if it can be objectively measured and reproduce the same results >95% of the time. That standard has been place for 150 years. It’s not something we just made up on this board.
In biology, a categorisation is considered “real” if the process of categorisation provides information about the members of the resulting groups beyond the criteria used for assortment. Once again, this standard has been around for at least 80 years.
We can impose an effect upon a group of humans that divides them into male and female with >99% accuracy based on objective criteria. >99% of the members of the groups resulting from this assortment effects share a plethora of commonalities beyond the criteria used for the assortment.
Therefore “Male” and “female” are real groups.
While we can impose an effect upon a group of humans that divides them into races with >99% accuracy based on objective criteria, >95% of the members of the groups groups resulting from this assortment effects share absolutely no commonalities beyond the criteria used for the assortment.
Therefore races are not real groups. Races are a myth.
Now having read this, can you explain why believing that a scientific hypothesis that produces >99% accurate results should be given the same credence as an hypothesis that has never been shown to produce any accurate results whatsoever?
Because that is what you are claiming. If I accept sex a valid grouping because it produces 99% replicable results, I must also accept race, because it produces no replicable results at all.
How the hell does that follow?
Sorry, I’m not sure what this responds to? I don’t think it’s a third sex. The ISNA gives statistics on the amount of people “whose bodies differ from standard male or female”. That’s all. I think it’s relevant because I think it clarifies the idea that thinking of sex as being purely binary is over-simplified. (The OP is “[..] is there such a thing as gender?”, my answer is: popular ways of approaching sex/gender are usually somewhat over-simplified).
Bryan Ekers thinks it isn’t over-simplified to describe sex as a binary because a lot of the time it works. Fair enough. I think the one percent + the difficulty we have in defining sex means a broader approach can be useful.
Bryan Ekers has repeatedly recognized the existence of people who don’t fit a strict binary division.
Bryan Ekers is not especially impressed by your generosity in recognizing the existence of the science of genetics.
Can you qute where anybody in this thread has claimed that sex is purely binary?
Because if you can’t, this is a blatant strawman. You are trying to demolish a position that nobody actually holds.
I’ll leave him to respond to this, but I see no evidence that he believes this.
What he has said that if an hypothesis produces the correct result >99% of the time, it’s scientifically acceptable.
*Everything *in science is oversimplified. Science works by means of hypotheses, and we know that they are all simplifications. That isn’t a flaw, it’s feature. The question isn’t whether it is a simplification, the question is whether it maps to objective reality better than random guesswork. Sex does that, race does not.
That might be fair enough too, but it goes no way at all to contributing to this thread, which is concerned with whether “male” is more objectively accurate then “Asian”.
Are you seriously arguing that you can objectively assign Asians to the correct group and have the members of the group share other commonalities at >99% accuracy?
Because if you are not your contributions are utterly irrelevant.
Jragon:
“I know it when I see it.”
Sorry Bryan, if you were misrepresented. That was genuinely not my intention. You said that 99% was good enough for you, that’s all I was referring to. And to the fact that genuinely, that’s a fair enough point. I just mean that 1% is good enough for me to say “it’s not as simple as it seems”. I’m sure you’re very nice to people of all manner of chromosomes. I really don’t think we disagree on much. I’m not rabidly trying to overthrow all of the scientific method and claim the 1% king.
Blake, I’m responding to the accounts given earlier in the thread. They were, at times, over-simplified. They seemed to me to be going in the direction of “sex can always be completely accurately determined, so why even for a second compare it to race”. However, 1% of people apparently cannot be categorised that simply. There is some grey area and it’s relevant to the question of the “is there such a thing as gender”.
I’ll have to leave it at that. The question has been answered & unfortunately, Blake, your answers are too bizarrely rude, out of context & angry for me to have fun. You’d think I’d poked you with a prickly stick or something!
Well, when you can provide a quote of someone saying such a thing, then your contributions will be relevant, until then they are a worthless strawman.
What I said was that categories that work 99% of the time can be considered useful. There’s nothing in such a banal statement that says the remaining 1% doesn’t exist or should be shunned or whatever.
My primary contention with Rand Rover is that he’s taking something that works 99% of the time, comparing it to something that works, I dunno… 50% of the time (i.e. if we divide humanity into, say, five distinct “races”, we might be able to sort humanity into those races with 50% accuracy - I know these numbers are wild guesses, but I’m unaware of any particularly distinct definitions of “race”, let alone the necessary metrics to determine who belongs to which), and then claiming bafflement that a 99% method is not being treated the same as a 50% method.
To me, it’s looking more and more akin to “just asking questions” of pro-choicers along the lines of “so, why do you support feeding toddlers into woodchippers? I mean, if you support aborting fetuses, and a eight-month fetus is not significantly different from a newborn, you must be pro-toddlers-in-chippers, right? Huh? Right? No? Explain your inconsistency because I don’t understand.”
I think the thing is that, even if there is no binary certainty in sexing humans (and there isn’t, agreed) there are still universal objective criteria that work to do the job - chromosome count, genital morphology, hormone levels, hypothalamus size, whatever. There are a fixed number of categories you can divide human sexes into (from the crude male-intersexed-female to much finer detail) and 99% of them are going to be in one of two of those categories, with the remaining 1% as corner cases.
There aren’t any such criteria for race schemes. They’re always subjective and arbitrary - hair, skin, nose, eye shape - with multiple exceptions and a continuity between any two adjacent members, regardless of which side of a diving line they are on. Plus all those lovely corner cases like Khoi-San eyefolds and blonde Aborigines.
1% isn’t enough of an exception to say “there’s no such thing as sex”. Race has so many corner cases it resembles a sphere.
No, because there is no general objective definition of male and female. Now, if you want to define those terms only by reference to one factor, suchas chromosomes or external genitalia, then a machine could divide people with such accuracy. But there has already been a subjective element in deciding that such factor will be the one to decide maleness or femaleness.
[Quote]
that is not possible. Dividing people into races is a subjective exercise.
You ate confused. I said Kt is possible to objectively divide humans into male or female only after we say that chromosomes (or whatever) is the measure of whethera person is male or female.
See above. The claims do not contradict. Determining whether a person is male or female is subjective unless one first defines male and female downtown something that can be tested objectively.
I haven’t made ckntradictorystatements. You are simply more enamoured of typing long replies than you are of thinking about what I said.
Seriously people, please stop conflating “sex” and “gender.”
Words mean things, dammit.
This is one of the more befuddling things I’ve read here.
By this definition, is there anything that can be objectively defined? Surely a human must decide what the characteristics of any classification is. Mammals? Subjective. Birds? Subjective. Human? Subjective.
I really don’t think “objective” means what you think it means…
No. Words mean ideas.
