Split Gendered spaces, split from Drag Shows

[Loren Pechtel]

Not quite. Chemical categories, for example, are real, actual identifiable consistent functions of the universe that happen in observable, consistent ways on the basis of fixed process.

Hydrogen isn't imaginary, it's a function of the universe!

Are you sure?

Is a proton hydrogen, or does it need an electron in order to be hydrogen?

A bare proton is ionized hydrogen.

If it doesn't need an electron, then how do protons in a helium nucleus stop also being hydrogen atoms?

Elements persist even in the absence of electrons. A nuclear physicist can identify elements in the heart of a white dwarf even though a chemist would have thrown up his hands and said "there is no chemistry here".

If it does need an electron, then what is metallic hydrogen doing? And how come a hydrogen ion isn't hydrogen, but a sodium ion is still sodium? Or is it?

I have heard of "ionized hydrogen" plenty of times.

Chemical elements are categories, and as such are an imaginary human construct, that we use to impose order on our thoughts about our world. They map fairly closely with a bunch of stuff that's apparently real, but that's not proof that (or even evidence that) they aren't imaginary, and even with an example like this, where the mapping between our imaginings and our reality is very close indeed, we can find discrepancies - places where the categorisation is not particularly helpful as a description of anything real.

The structure of the outer electron shell has a substantial effect on how they behave. Noble gases are clearly a category. Column 1 and column 17 are likewise pretty darn clear.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not quite. Chemical categories, for example, are real, actual identifiable consistent functions of the universe that happen in observable, consistent ways on the basis of fixed process.

Hydrogen isn't imaginary, it's a function of the universe!

Are you sure?

Is a proton hydrogen, or does it need an electron in order to be hydrogen?

A bare proton is ionized hydrogen.

If it doesn't need an electron, then how do protons in a helium nucleus stop also being hydrogen atoms?

Elements persist even in the absence of electrons. A nuclear physicist can identify elements in the heart of a white dwarf even though a chemist would have thrown up his hands and said "there is no chemistry here".

If it does need an electron, then what is metallic hydrogen doing? And how come a hydrogen ion isn't hydrogen, but a sodium ion is still sodium? Or is it?

I have heard of "ionized hydrogen" plenty of times.

Chemical elements are categories, and as such are an imaginary human construct, that we use to impose order on our thoughts about our world. They map fairly closely with a bunch of stuff that's apparently real, but that's not proof that (or even evidence that) they aren't imaginary, and even with an example like this, where the mapping between our imaginings and our reality is very close indeed, we can find discrepancies - places where the categorisation is not particularly helpful as a description of anything real.

The structure of the outer electron shell has a substantial effect on how they behave. Noble gases are clearly a category. Column 1 and column 17 are likewise pretty darn clear.

I guess my point still stands? Either way, there is not some fundamental principle of the universe that causes sex to fall into well defined categories for which there is a specific set of quantum, discrete states it can occupy.

Sex is unlike chemistry, insofar as there is no completion of the concept.

The periodic table is a complete and ostensibly infinite function of the configurations and stabilities of electron, proton, and neutrons and their shell behaviors and the way they are constrained by immutable laws of nature.

There is nothing immutable constraining sex in the same way. There are game theoretic principles around reproduction and diffusion of populations, but nothing is actually bound to follow them perfectly.

Electrons and protons cannot behave in ways outside of the available quantum states. It's not that they don't, they literally can't. The universe just will not let them. We've tried.

The universe will absolutely allow all kinds of variance on the topic of sex. It already does, from vastly polysexual organisms like some fungi and bacteria, to intersexed organisms, to asexual and non-reproductive individuals whose only role in a group is to support.

People act as if there is some fundamental ethical obligation to reproduce and to stay reproductive, but for fuck, sakes look at bees, or ants.

There's like 1-2 reproductive individuals among tens of thousands, or even millions.

Clearly the "every individual reproduces" paradigm is not naturally necessary.

Indeed people call female worker bees female, and yet... Well... Yes, they have ovipositors, but they don't actually have the capacity to create offspring.

We call them "female"... but are they? Then, maybe the scientific community DOESN'T call them female anymore, I haven't checked lately.

There is no periodicity, no hard requirement, that sex even exist as a concept among some class of organism.

It's hard to even call what fungi do "sex" either for that matter. Genetic material is distributed by fungi in a fundamentally different way than it is among other organisms, creating an environment where compatibility is more like a heuristic than the quasi-binary that other organisms have.

In software, one learns similarly that there are two families of types, of categorization.

There is a family of types hard categories, of instruction.

There is also a family of types only defined by usage and usefulness, too, though... Data types.

The problem is that 0x4EE7BEEF is not an "integer" or a "boolean" or a "float" the same way "human being" is not a "man" a "woman" or an "asshole"... Or even really "a human being".

We subjectively consider and treat it like such, play a little game where we pretend that these things have meaning, casting them because it helps us keep strait which math to use where to get the result we want, but by the time that they become instructions, that meaning has been completely stripped away, torn off and thrown out, in most compiled languages.

Indeed, "man" is like "int". It's not so much about the thing itself, but rather about how it behaves in the system.

 

[Emily Lake]

Not quite. Chemical categories, for example, are real, actual identifiable consistent functions of the universe that happen in observable, consistent ways on the basis of fixed process.

Hydrogen isn't imaginary, it's a function of the universe!

Are you sure?

Is a proton hydrogen, or does it need an electron in order to be hydrogen?

If it doesn't need an electron, then how do protons in a helium nucleus stop also being hydrogen atoms?

If it does need an electron, then what is metallic hydrogen doing? And how come a hydrogen ion isn't hydrogen, but a sodium ion is still sodium? Or is it?

Chemical elements are categories, and as such are an imaginary human construct, that we use to impose order on our thoughts about our world. They map fairly closely with a bunch of stuff that's apparently real, but that's not proof that (or even evidence that) they aren't imaginary, and even with an example like this, where the mapping between our imaginings and our reality is very close indeed, we can find discrepancies - places where the categorisation is not particularly helpful as a description of anything real.

You guys are really taking solipsism and post-modernism to the extreme. Most cognitively functional humans grow out of this stage in college. About the only people who continue to hold onto this sort of a "we can't actually know if anything is real, man, it could totally be like, the Matrix, you know?" view on reality are those whose intake of THC precludes full participation in society.

 

[Emily Lake]

Claiming that the categories of male and female are imaginary is straight up loony tunes.

ALL categories of anything are imaginary.

Do you imagine that you might stumble across a rich outcrop of natural categories while on a hike? That a category might drop on your head and knock you unconscious? That you might stub your toe on a category?

Oh stop playing idiotic solipsistic games. You're half a step away from saying that you can click your heels together and whisk yourself to the omicrom nebula because physics is all just imaginary.

Don't play dumb games.

If by "don't play dumb games" you mean "stop making arguments I don't have answers for", then I must respectfully decline.

If, on the other hand, you do have answers, then please stop accusing me of playing games, and just demonstrate my failings by providing those answers.

Perhaps you could attempt to provide an example of a non-imaginary category? Jarhyn did, and I defended my position; If you have a more substantial and effective challenge than his, I would like to hear it.

Mostly (I must admit) because I am smugly confident that I can defend my position against any such challenge; But partly because I would have the opportunity to learn something useful and important if my current position turns out to be wrong.

I'm learning nothing by reading your fantasies about my nonexistent belief that physics is all imaginary; But I might learn something if you were to provide a valid counter-example that demonstrates my position to be mistaken.

"All categories of anything are imaginary" is playing games, bilby.

Especially when this sophomoric and solipsistic foil is used to support such complete inanities are Jarhyn's claim that male and female are imaginary.

 

[Emily Lake]

I guess my point still stands? Either way, there is not some fundamental principle of the universe that causes sex to fall into well defined categories for which there is a specific set of quantum, discrete states it can occupy.

Sex is unlike chemistry, insofar as there is no completion of the concept.

The periodic table is a complete and ostensibly infinite function of the configurations and stabilities of electron, proton, and neutrons and their shell behaviors and the way they are constrained by immutable laws of nature.

There is nothing immutable constraining sex in the same way. There are game theoretic principles around reproduction and diffusion of populations, but nothing is actually bound to follow them perfectly.

And yet... there are no anisogamous vertebrates yet found that demonstrate an anatomy evolved around an in-between gamete, nor around a completely different type of gamete. It's hypothetically possible that in some far distant future, some new reproductive strategy might evolve among a species that results in three distinct gamete types with three gamete-supporting phenotypes... but it's also hypothetically possible that in some distant future we'll find out that our understand of physics is wrong, and there are previously unknown atoms that have half-electrons or a new and different type of atomic particle in their nuclei.

So what's your point? That maybe some day in the future something different might evolve... and therefore we should all pretend like the distinction between male and female in all known anisogamous vertebrates at present doesn't exist? WE should bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the observable and objectively verifiable world around us isn't there, all in favor of wishes and fantasy about something that "might" "someday" come to be?

What is your end game? Why are you so determined to paint the distinction between male and female as "imaginary" or "arbitrary"? What do you think is gained by this pretense?

Electrons and protons cannot behave in ways outside of the available quantum states. It's not that they don't, they literally can't. The universe just will not let them. We've tried.

Well, really, it's more like we haven't yet found any that don't behave in ways outside of the quantum model. But who knows - we might someday find some that do! You don't know! Just like we might someday find a vertebrate on planet earth with a reproductive phenotype that is evolved to produce spergs! Just because we have never observed it in any of the vertebrate species we've ever looked at doesn't mean it can't happen! I mean, it's complicated, right?

The universe will absolutely allow all kinds of variance on the topic of sex. It already does, from vastly polysexual organisms like some fungi and bacteria, to intersexed organisms, to asexual and non-reproductive individuals whose only role in a group is to support.

People act as if there is some fundamental ethical obligation to reproduce and to stay reproductive, but for fuck, sakes look at bees, or ants.

You are the only person in this discussion, indeed in ANY related discussions, who has in any way introduced an OBLIGATION to reproduce. This is your own personal windmill. You're only arguing with your own imaginary dragon.

There's like 1-2 reproductive individuals among tens of thousands, or even millions.

Clearly the "every individual reproduces" paradigm is not naturally necessary.

Indeed people call female worker bees female, and yet... Well... Yes, they have ovipositors, but they don't actually have the capacity to create offspring.

You know why they get called female?

Because THEY ARE OF THE PHENOTYPE ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION OF THE LARGER GAMETE.

Actual production of the gamete is not required. Nor is actual employment of that gamete to reproduce. That's why your mommy is a female, and so am I, even though I've never actually reproduced. It's why a prepubertal female human is still a female, even though they haven't yet begun releasing ova. It's why a sterile woman of the human species is still a female, even if they never produce any eggs at all.

Because they have the PHENOTYPE associated with the production of the larger gamete, not the smaller gamete.

We call them "female"... but are they? Then, maybe the scientific community DOESN'T call them female anymore, I haven't checked lately.

Yes, we still call them female, as does the biological scientific community. They are called female because they are of the phenotype evolved for the production of large gametes, not of the phenotype evolved for the production of small gametes. Whether they actually produce any gametes at all is completely irrelevant.

There is no periodicity, no hard requirement, that sex even exist as a concept among some class of organism.

It's hard to even call what fungi do "sex" either for that matter. Genetic material is distributed by fungi in a fundamentally different way than it is among other organisms, creating an environment where compatibility is more like a heuristic than the quasi-binary that other organisms have.

First off, humans aren't fungi. The split between fungi and animalia is at the kingdom level.

And just in case you haven't kept up with the science, the taxonomy involved in distinguishing between realms of entities in biology is no longer using "this looks kind of like that" but is actually looking at genetic composition. These aren't arbitrary groupings based on some person's whims, they're based on the actual evolution and development of genes over the history of our planet.

In software, one learns similarly that there are two families of types, of categorization.

There is a family of types hard categories, of instruction.

There is also a family of types only defined by usage and usefulness, too, though... Data types.

The problem is that 0x4EE7BEEF is not an "integer" or a "boolean" or a "float" the same way "human being" is not a "man" a "woman" or an "asshole"... Or even really "a human being".

Humans aren't computer programs. Your repeated analogizing is flawed. And your understanding of biology is considerably sub par.

We subjectively consider and treat it like such, play a little game where we pretend that these things have meaning, casting them because it helps us keep strait which math to use where to get the result we want, but by the time that they become instructions, that meaning has been completely stripped away, torn off and thrown out, in most compiled languages.

Indeed, "man" is like "int". It's not so much about the thing itself, but rather about how it behaves in the system.

Wishful fantasy.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not quite. Chemical categories, for example, are real, actual identifiable consistent functions of the universe that happen in observable, consistent ways on the basis of fixed process.

Hydrogen isn't imaginary, it's a function of the universe!

Are you sure?

Is a proton hydrogen, or does it need an electron in order to be hydrogen?

If it doesn't need an electron, then how do protons in a helium nucleus stop also being hydrogen atoms?

If it does need an electron, then what is metallic hydrogen doing? And how come a hydrogen ion isn't hydrogen, but a sodium ion is still sodium? Or is it?

Chemical elements are categories, and as such are an imaginary human construct, that we use to impose order on our thoughts about our world. They map fairly closely with a bunch of stuff that's apparently real, but that's not proof that (or even evidence that) they aren't imaginary, and even with an example like this, where the mapping between our imaginings and our reality is very close indeed, we can find discrepancies - places where the categorisation is not particularly helpful as a description of anything real.

You guys are really taking solipsism and post-modernism to the extreme. Most cognitively functional humans grow out of this stage in college. About the only people who continue to hold onto this sort of a "we can't actually know if anything is real, man, it could totally be like, the Matrix, you know?" view on reality are those whose intake of THC precludes full participation in society.

No, we actually care, unlike you, about being faithful about using categories in consistent ways.

That's one of the early rabbit holes people go through when they figure that out, but you are apparently not even past that yet.

It's not about knowing whether things are "real" but knowing the difference between an imaginary and a real thing.

You clearly don't know how to tell the difference between statistical categories which are imaginary (like data types) and things which are fundamental (like instruction types).

We have supplied plenty of metaphors and analogies and people have accepted it enough that two people endorsed the position, both of which tend towards a particular sharpness about the difference between things created by belief vs things created by the fundamental properties of reality.

You're on your ear claiming I'm talking in tongues, because all you do in deposing it with claims it sounds crazy is revealing you lack the skills and education to understand.

Your incredulity and altogether vapid responses have not in any way addressed this beyond presenting a definition of "female" (not a definition of "woman") insufficient to do the philosophical work you would have it do.

 

[bilby]

Not quite. Chemical categories, for example, are real, actual identifiable consistent functions of the universe that happen in observable, consistent ways on the basis of fixed process.

Hydrogen isn't imaginary, it's a function of the universe!

Are you sure?

Is a proton hydrogen, or does it need an electron in order to be hydrogen?

If it doesn't need an electron, then how do protons in a helium nucleus stop also being hydrogen atoms?

If it does need an electron, then what is metallic hydrogen doing? And how come a hydrogen ion isn't hydrogen, but a sodium ion is still sodium? Or is it?

Chemical elements are categories, and as such are an imaginary human construct, that we use to impose order on our thoughts about our world. They map fairly closely with a bunch of stuff that's apparently real, but that's not proof that (or even evidence that) they aren't imaginary, and even with an example like this, where the mapping between our imaginings and our reality is very close indeed, we can find discrepancies - places where the categorisation is not particularly helpful as a description of anything real.

You guys are really taking solipsism and post-modernism to the extreme. Most cognitively functional humans grow out of this stage in college. About the only people who continue to hold onto this sort of a "we can't actually know if anything is real, man, it could totally be like, the Matrix, you know?" view on reality are those whose intake of THC precludes full participation in society.

Except that I am not saying that we cannot know if anything is real. If you think I am, then you have misunderstood my position.

Categories are real and useful tools that help us to understand reality.

But they're not reality itself, and reality trumps any categorisation scheme we can come up with.

Your insistence that sex (or gender, or whatever) is strictly dichotomous and that all individuals can and must fit into one and only one of two and only two categories, is simply wrong - that is, it doesn't conform with the observed reality.

It's not very wrong; The vast majority of humans do indeed fit easily into that dichotomy. But to demand or claim that every last single human does, for any given definition (and there are dozens of definitions, each useful in different ways and different contexts) is simply to make a demonstrably false claim.

Reality (particularly in biology) is under no obligation to be a neat or as simple as we would like it to be. Your desire to have a simple model is not a sufficient reason to declare that your simple model is an exact match for reality.

That's not solipsism, nor is it post modernism. Those are just insulting labels you're sticking on your opponents to avoid the risk inherent in thinking about what they're actually saying, which could lead to disastrous consequences such as your being forced to recognise that you are not one hundred percent correct about everything.

 

[bilby]

Claiming that the categories of male and female are imaginary is straight up loony tunes.

ALL categories of anything are imaginary.

Do you imagine that you might stumble across a rich outcrop of natural categories while on a hike? That a category might drop on your head and knock you unconscious? That you might stub your toe on a category?

Oh stop playing idiotic solipsistic games. You're half a step away from saying that you can click your heels together and whisk yourself to the omicrom nebula because physics is all just imaginary.

Don't play dumb games.

If by "don't play dumb games" you mean "stop making arguments I don't have answers for", then I must respectfully decline.

If, on the other hand, you do have answers, then please stop accusing me of playing games, and just demonstrate my failings by providing those answers.

Perhaps you could attempt to provide an example of a non-imaginary category? Jarhyn did, and I defended my position; If you have a more substantial and effective challenge than his, I would like to hear it.

Mostly (I must admit) because I am smugly confident that I can defend my position against any such challenge; But partly because I would have the opportunity to learn something useful and important if my current position turns out to be wrong.

I'm learning nothing by reading your fantasies about my nonexistent belief that physics is all imaginary; But I might learn something if you were to provide a valid counter-example that demonstrates my position to be mistaken.

"All categories of anything are imaginary" is playing games, bilby.

No, it's a simple observation that is completely accurate.

Especially when this sophomoric and solipsistic foil is used to support such complete inanities are Jarhyn's claim that male and female are imaginary.

I don't think you're considering sufficiently the significant differences between "imaginary" and "useless". They are far from synonymous.

Male and female are certainly imaginary categories, though that's not a particularly interesting observation to make; They are, more interestingly, very useful categories - as long as nobody's stupid enough to think that they are sufficient to usefully describe every single person.

Your ultra-conservative position that says every human fits into one, and only one, of two, and only two, categories is just as nonsensical as the post-modernist position that nothing can be categorised at all. Both extremes are absurd. Accusing others of adhering to one extreme, so that you can justify adhering to the other, is also absurd.

 

[bilby]

You know why they get called female?

Because THEY ARE OF THE PHENOTYPE ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION OF THE LARGER GAMETE.

Which is very useful indeed if we are studying the way in which they reproduce; While simultaneously being utterly irrelevant to the question of which bathrooms people should use.

 

[Jarhyn]

You know why they get called female?

Because THEY ARE OF THE PHENOTYPE ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION OF THE LARGER GAMETE.

Which is very useful indeed if we are studying the way in which they reproduce; While simultaneously being utterly irrelevant to the question of which bathrooms people should use.

Not exactly. She posed eggs.

For exactly the population of people for whom direct physical exposure to sperms can cause an egg to contact said sperms, it is relevant: bathrooms are places where people can rapidly expose people whose clothing is compromised to sperms.

For people who do not produce sperms, it is meaningless. For those who produce neither, it is meaningless.

This is because the only phenotype associated with the larger gamete by reality is actually producing the larger gamete. Anything else is essentializing the imagination of the association created by statistical observation.

This is about the difference between imagination and reality and it is clear she is the one who fails to understand the difference.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You guys are really taking solipsism and post-modernism to the extreme. Most cognitively functional humans grow out of this stage in college. About the only people who continue to hold onto this sort of a "we can't actually know if anything is real, man, it could totally be like, the Matrix, you know?" view on reality are those whose intake of THC precludes full participation in society.

The lack of clearly defined categories is actually far more of an issue with biology than chemistry. We think of biology in binary states but the real world is almost universally a range. Is it red? Orange? Yellow? No matter what dividing lines you pick there will be colors that are infinitesimally different but fall on opposite sides of the dividing line. "Orange" is thus an artificial category. Biology normally has double-humped curves rather than a continious spectrum but given enough samples you're going to find some incredibly close but on the opposite side of whatever line you try to draw.

 

[Bomb#20]

Claiming that the categories of male and female are imaginary is straight up loony tunes.

ALL categories of anything are imaginary.

Do you imagine that you might stumble across a rich outcrop of natural categories while on a hike? That a category might drop on your head and knock you unconscious? That you might stub your toe on a category?

Oh stop playing idiotic solipsistic games. You're half a step away from saying that you can click your heels together and whisk yourself to the omicrom nebula because physics is all just imaginary.

Don't play dumb games.

If by "don't play dumb games" you mean "stop making arguments I don't have answers for", then I must respectfully decline.

If, on the other hand, you do have answers, then please stop accusing me of playing games, and just demonstrate my failings by providing those answers.

Perhaps you could attempt to provide an example of a non-imaginary category? Jarhyn did, and I defended my position; If you have a more substantial and effective challenge than his, I would like to hear it.

Mostly (I must admit) because I am smugly confident that I can defend my position against any such challenge; But partly because I would have the opportunity to learn something useful and important if my current position turns out to be wrong.

I'm learning nothing by reading your fantasies about my nonexistent belief that physics is all imaginary; But I might learn something if you were to provide a valid counter-example that demonstrates my position to be mistaken.

I'm seeing a lot of assertions, but not a lot of substantive arguments. What is the criterion for something to be "natural" and not "imaginary"? That you can stumble across it on a hike? You've never stumbled across a quantum wave function. Does that mean wave functions aren't natural?

You can make a plausible case that "hydrogen" isn't a natural category because it conflates various alternative ionization states, and even that "hydrogen nucleus" isn't a natural category because it's a conflation of protons, deuterons and tritons -- and humans can use our imaginations to conflate whatever we please. But to jump from examples like these to the conclusion that all categories are imaginary is a hasty generalization. To conflate things is simply to treat the distinctions among them as not mattering -- so when there are no distinctions among them in the first place there's nothing to conflate. This at least makes "electron" a natural category. Electrons are all identical. Likewise other elementary particles.

Or, to put it differently, if there were no natural categories then there could be no physical law specifying that two particles interact one way if they're in the same category and a different way if they're in different categories. But there is such a law. To get probabilities from amplitudes in quantum mechanics, sometimes you have to add the amplitudes and then square, and sometimes you have to square the amplitudes and then add -- and which of those rules you apply when you calculate the probability of two particles trading places depends on whether the two particles are in the same category.

 

[Jarhyn]

What is the criterion for something to be "natural" and not "imaginary"?

You as a software engineer cannot recognize the difference between the immutable nature of an instruction type and the imaginary nature of a data type?

Are you being willfully ignorant at this point?

It's the same damn thing. This creates a simulation and there is no actual difference between a perfect simulation of an isolated mathematical system and a universe representing an isolated perfect mathematical system operating independently and fundamentally as a "naked universe".

This is in fact the very basis of why these forums exist, insofar as that it is impossible to tell whether we are "contained" or "naked" universe.

This is the very thing that proves that the proof of God either way is literally impossible short of seeing events that imply memory (quantum state) editing, and as a side effect, proves that there are categories of both "immutable/instruction level" created by the universe and it's fundamental laws (instructions/fundamental interaction types, and the available quantum states) vs mutable categories (dog, fish, woman, leaf chair, etc, namings based on how we can imagine interacting with it based on arbitrary goals formed just-so by neurons)

 

[repoman]

This hair splitting is so far removed from everyday reality.

So weird.

 

[Jarhyn]

This hair splitting is so far removed from everyday reality.

So weird.

Actual reality is far removed from "everyday reality". Physics is the study of just how complicated that difference actually is.

When we are trying to design laws and every day principles around physical realities rather than our imaginations, it requires fully illustrating the bridge all the way from those "far removed hair splittings" all the way to "every day impact"

When that is done, we realize that our "every day reality" was based on a huge misconception, the misconception that there is more at play than "hormones" and "chemical reactions between 'gametes'", complex chemical constructions that react reproductively with one another.

That is just one of the unfortunate facts of the universe.

The only rules that aren't made up and actually matter are the laws of physics and the constraints they place on the process of seeking "arbitrary goals". Strangely enough, this makes philosophical game theory a function of reality. Ethics is real, but man/woman are not.

 

[TSwizzle]

It really is a religion;

An anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburgh denied the difference between male and female skeletons to derisive laughter from students during a speaking engagement from college swimming champion Riley Gaines.

Daily Mail

Gabby Yearwood is a professor whose research focuses on 'the social constructions of race and racism, masculinity, gender, sex, Black Feminist and Black Queer theory, anthropology of sport and Black Diaspora' according to his bio.

Jeezus, what a pile of claptrap that lot is.

 

[Jarhyn]

Excepting of course that there is no such thing as a "woman skeleton" or a "man skeleton", a "black skeleton" or any other such classifier of skeleton that does not indicate some specific, binary condition. There are skeletons, collections of bones that come each from subtly unique organisms.

When sexing skeletons, they are normally making an assumption that the case is normal, and we can observe while that is true of many, it is not true of every example.

There are XY folks born with ovaries and vaginas and who eventually go on to give birth.

There are XX folks who end up fertilizing and raising a child from their sperms.

When someone looks at bones, they may be looking at an XY female with particular structures that commonly but not universally are seen alongside ovarian tissue and call it a "woman", then do a DNA test and say "oops, XY, guess it's a man" and then see "oh, they are buried as a woman they must have been trans or gay" and then we get that wrong too, because all their life they were a woman and happy to be it and never thought differently from that, and they raised a child from their own womb.

Bones don't tell that story, but fortunately living humans today do so often enough that we know it is not new.

What it is, is guesswork. While it can give a vague idea of how life was "back then", it doesn't always provide a perfect lens. The wise researcher uses a phrase such as "the bones APPEAR..." And "the DNA is this so they are probably..."

Much more interesting would be the measurements take from proteins of the teeth, as apparently they can retain biological markers from the lifetime of the individual that are telltale signs of ovarian activity. This could actually SEX the individual, but it still wouldn't tell you whether they are a man or woman, whether they had a penis or a vagina.

At best it says "female because egg". It doesn't even necessarily imply "not male".

 

[Bomb#20]

What is the criterion for something to be "natural" and not "imaginary"?

You as a software engineer cannot recognize the difference between the immutable nature of an instruction type and the imaginary nature of a data type?

Are you being willfully ignorant at this point?

An instruction type is a data type. If you are under the impression instructions aren't data, learning Lisp should disabuse you of that notion. And designing a computer with mutable instruction types would make a fine assignment for a computer architecture class.

It's the same damn thing. This creates a simulation and there is no actual difference between a perfect simulation of an isolated mathematical system and a universe representing an isolated perfect mathematical system operating independently and fundamentally as a "naked universe". ...

This is the very thing that proves that the proof of God either way is literally impossible short of seeing events that imply memory (quantum state) editing, and as a side effect, proves that there are categories of both "immutable/instruction level" created by the universe and it's fundamental laws (instructions/fundamental interaction types, and the available quantum states) vs mutable categories (dog, fish, woman, leaf chair, etc, namings based on how we can imagine interacting with it based on arbitrary goals formed just-so by neurons)

You appear to be stipulating that Bilby's claim that there are no natural categories was incorrect, which was exactly my point, so I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. Be that as it may, why are you equating "imaginary categories" with "mutable categories"? All sorts of natural phenomena are mutable.

 

[Arctish]

It really is a religion;

An anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburgh denied the difference between male and female skeletons to derisive laughter from students during a speaking engagement from college swimming champion Riley Gaines.

Daily Mail

Gabby Yearwood is a professor whose research focuses on 'the social constructions of race and racism, masculinity, gender, sex, Black Feminist and Black Queer theory, anthropology of sport and Black Diaspora' according to his bio.

Jeezus, what a pile of claptrap that lot is.

From that very same article:

According to the Smithsonian: 'Males tend to have larger, more robust bones and joint surfaces, and more bone development at muscle attachment sites. However, the pelvis is the best sex-related skeletal indicator, because of distinct features adapted for childbearing.

'The skull also has features that can indicate sex, though slightly less reliably.'

They note that sex-related differences are not obvious in the bones of pre-pubescent children.

However, Discover Magazine notes that skeletal studies regarding sex can lead to 'profound mistakes' and can ignore the existence of intersex people, who are born with a mix of X and Y chromosomes.

Males tend to have certain features (not always have and not only males can have them), skull features can indicate sex though less reliably, and sex-related differences are not obvious on the skeletons of persons who have not undergone puberty. Also, there's the matter of intersex people.

So the correct answer to the question 'If you were to dig up a human — two humans — a hundred years from now, both a man and a woman, could you tell the difference strictly off of bones?', is "no".

I don't know why members of the audience were laughing but I suspect it had something to do with ignorance and dogma.

 

[Jarhyn]

It really is a religion;

An anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburgh denied the difference between male and female skeletons to derisive laughter from students during a speaking engagement from college swimming champion Riley Gaines.

Daily Mail

Gabby Yearwood is a professor whose research focuses on 'the social constructions of race and racism, masculinity, gender, sex, Black Feminist and Black Queer theory, anthropology of sport and Black Diaspora' according to his bio.

Jeezus, what a pile of claptrap that lot is.

From that very same article:

According to the Smithsonian: 'Males tend to have larger, more robust bones and joint surfaces, and more bone development at muscle attachment sites. However, the pelvis is the best sex-related skeletal indicator, because of distinct features adapted for childbearing.

'The skull also has features that can indicate sex, though slightly less reliably.'

They note that sex-related differences are not obvious in the bones of pre-pubescent children.

However, Discover Magazine notes that skeletal studies regarding sex can lead to 'profound mistakes' and can ignore the existence of intersex people, who are born with a mix of X and Y chromosomes.

Males tend to have certain features (not always have and not only males can have them), skull features can indicate sex though less reliably, and sex-related differences are not obvious on the skeletons of persons who have not undergone puberty. Also, there's the matter of intersex people.

So the correct answer to the question 'If you were to dig up a human — two humans — a hundred years from now, both a man and a woman, could you tell the difference strictly off of bones?', is "no".

I don't know why members of the audience were laughing but I suspect it had something to do with ignorance and dogma.

You could not, no. You are correct.

It is, however, possible for some to see if they were strictly "male" or "female", through evidence of proteins that deposit in the teeth.

It would in fact be a smoking gun to whatever precursor, be it sperm production egg production, or hormone productions of some kind, in a way that bones alone, in a way that even DNA, is not.

It still won't tell you whether they were a man or a woman.