Gender Roles

[Jarhyn]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

There are genes that contribute to the expression of the phenotype. As discussed in other posts in this same thread even, those genes are often related to maternal processes, creating an epigenetic effect.

 

[Bomb#20]

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Where the bejesus do you see Emily or anyone else suggesting that the traits you disparage her theories by labeling 'doing as evolution did not "want" you to do' constitute moral wickedness?!?

 

[TomC]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

I interpreted Don's post as snarky.

Maybe because I had one kid (that God aborted), and my partner Doug has 4 that lived to reproduce, a flock of grandkids, a couple of great grandkids and another on the way.
Doug out performed the Clintons in the reproductive success competition. And Trump.
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

There are genes that contribute to the expression of the phenotype. As discussed in other posts in this same thread even, those genes are often related to maternal processes, creating an epigenetic effect.

I.e., there are genes that have multiple effects, one of which is a slightly elevated chance of homosexuality. That does not imply the genes "lead to less reproductive success of the individual". The other effects, including those "related to maternal processes", might cause a statistically larger gain in reproductive success of the individual. Natural selection is a probability game.

 

[Politesse]

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Where the bejesus do you see Emily or anyone else suggesting that the traits you disparage her theories by labeling 'doing as evolution did not "want" you to do' constitute moral wickedness?!?

I was commenting on the teleological fallacy as applied to evolution. Emily can decide for herself whether the criticism applies to her argumentation, I am certain.

 

[Jarhyn]

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Where the bejesus do you see Emily or anyone else suggesting that the traits you disparage her theories by labeling 'doing as evolution did not "want" you to do' constitute moral wickedness?!?

Maybe the part where Politesse didn't say that you or Emily disparage those traits as moral wickedness based on some such bullshit.

It's a common thing to object to, and yet every time someone objects to it, you take offense and try to paint yourself or someone you support the victim of it... And then you wonder why we think you may just identify with the groups we are discussing?

You object too loudly.

 

[Politesse]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

I interpreted Don's post as snarky.

Maybe because I had one kid (that God aborted), and my partner Doug has 4 that lived to reproduce, a flock of grandkids, a couple of great grandkids and another on the way.
Doug out performed the Clintons in the reproductive success competition. And Trump.
Tom

But you have to consider quality, not just quantity. Sure, your kids may be great, but how many of them will be WH Cabinet members after the government is cleansed of corruption by our noble leader?

 

[Bomb#20]

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Where the bejesus do you see Emily or anyone else suggesting that the traits you disparage her theories by labeling 'doing as evolution did not "want" you to do' constitute moral wickedness?!?

I was commenting on the teleological fallacy as applied to evolution. Emily can decide for herself whether the criticism applies to her argumentation, I am certain.

And you could have done that perfectly well without the rhetorical flourish you tacked on at the end. Your crack about moral wickedness appears to have had no purpose other than to tar thread participants' views with trumped-up guilt-by-association.

 

[Bomb#20]

Bomb, I described something and I called them fascists. You were the one who said that included and was exclusively "people who disagree with me". If the people I described, those fundamentally concerned with being selfish as a pure individual without respect to the needs of others, are "Nazis", then I'm glad that the people I disagree with are exactly "Nazis".

Your argument every time boils down to "how dare you tell me to not be selfish to my individual person above all other concerns!"

But Darwin standards are all about reproductive success for the individual. When did Darwin ever say the way evolution works is by selecting what's positive for the species as a whole? That interpretation of evolution appears to have been thought up later by people who were put off by the whole 19th-century "Nature red in tooth and claw" picture and wanted to restore 18th-century "Harmony of Nature" ideas.

Not quite: Darwin standards are about individuals passing along their traits successfully but also about traits being passed along being beneficial to the species as a whole. ... It indeed took a village and it was much better if some of the village was engaged in helping support other people's children or other people who needed to devote their resources to the care and feeding of offspring.

This is, I think, where much of the division lies.

There is a specific group within the society of our species that is only concerned with the individual, and I think this is a reflection of the fact that society and the species at large is actually physically comprised of individuals whose genetic mutations are unique, each individual serving as the limit of a whole and very specific "species", and effectively driving as a selection pressure towards genes that support the highest likelihood of retention of the whole genome, because this is best for the mutation and the genome, a genome which can contain other copies of the mutation.

Individual brains are just way more mutable than individual genomes, and generally tend towards the ability to identify those who share brain traits with them so that individual humans can more directly "band together" in trait carrying groups and make war on trait groups they dislike for whatever reason.

This is in essence the source of racism and eugenics and of fascism.

Racism and eugenics and fascism are collectivist ideologies! Any "specific group within the society of our species that is only concerned with the individual" has nothing to do with them. Duh!

"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." - Benito Mussolini

 

[Toni]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

As far as I can determine, sexual attraction occurs across a spectrum and is at the very least, heavily determined before birth—genetically determined. Many people are cis/straight but some are not straight/cis and some are bisexual or poly or pansexual trans some are ACE and many are predominately straight but may be attracted to others of the same sex or attracted to individuals rather than either sex. Western society has been structured to heavily favor cis straight people and depending on the society and era, may be more or less tolerant of other expressions of gender and sexuality.

It seems clear to me that these characteristics are largely genetically determined.

 

[Jarhyn]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

As far as I can determine, sexual attraction occurs across a spectrum and is at the very least, heavily determined before birth—genetically determined. Many people are cis/straight but some are not straight/cis and some are bisexual or poly or pansexual trans some are ACE and many are predominately straight but may be attracted to others of the same sex or attracted to individuals rather than either sex. Western society has been structured to heavily favor cis straight people and depending on the society and era, may be more or less tolerant of other expressions of gender and sexuality.

It seems clear to me that these characteristics are largely genetically determined.

I would wager they are epigenetic in at least some cases. Number of children is genetically correlated, but it's been shown as is discussed up thread that more offspring leads to a greater chance of a gay child.

 

[Jokodo]

I don't think it's reasonable to consider those malfunctions in the same sense. Having genitals that have a hard time getting the gametes to where they're "meant" to be wasn't an adaptation. Multiple births was -- bearing litters is the normal mode of reproduction in mammals. Typical litter size varies from species to species and natural selection tunes it, but it would be silly to calculate that cats' optimal litter size is three and deduce from this that my quads' mom malfunctioned. A cat having four babies just means the selection pressure to reduce the size to three can't have been all that strong and the species hasn't finished evolving to the new optimum. Likewise, if having twins really is as maladaptive in humans as you say, that just means evolution isn't finished tuning our average litter size from a lemur-like two or three to a chimp-like one. (And all that's assuming evolution isn't cleverer than you, and the current average human litter size of 1.01 isn't optimal!)

That's not really how evolution operates, is it though?

I have no idea what you're arguing here. How do you mean evolution operates, and what did I say that you think conflicts with that?

I'm sorry for the short and incomplete reply. I was meaning to post a longer response but accidentally posted the leading sentence.

What I meant is that a trait like "litter size" is several levels of abstraction away from the units evolution deals with. I believe you know all of this, but we all casually simplify stuff, and I don't think that's legit here because it fundamentally changes the global perspective. Litter size is the product of the number of ova maturing at the same time by the rate at which they get successfully fertilized by the rate at which they successfully insert themselves in the uterus and survive in utero. Each of these aren't specific numbers but have a mean and a standard deviation. The first is probably the most flexible, and it's in turn determined by factors such as amount produced and decay rate of the follicle stimulating hormone, thickness and permeability of the intervening tissue, and sensitivity of the recipient cells. Also, using litter size as the parameter of interest effectively introduces a potentially very significant selection bias: fertility peaks that don't result in a pregnancy are dropped from the statistics.

I think it's more than likely that an average litter size of 1.01 is neither optimal for humans, nor the consequence of an incomplete adaptation to a new optimum that we will eventually reach (or would have if selection pressures hadn't changed). It's most likely a stable equilibrium as the result of a trade-off. Evolution is a tinkerer, and it was given the toolset our ancestors used to roughly control litter size or prior to that clutch size. That toolset comes with a switch that allows you to set the mean number of ova per cycle that may result in a pregnancy (rounded to the nearest non-negative integer), but with a very considerable standard variation, and there really is no way for evolution to cut that spread down since it's a very delicate system with dozens, if not hundred, genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors involved. If you talk to couples that have been actively trying to get pregnant, you'll find that the mean in humans is considerably below 1.0, but the standard deviation is large enough that, among the non-zeroes, we get 0.5-1% twin pregnancies.

There could well be a conceivable biochemical pathway capable of ensuring one and only one implantation of a fertilized ovum per cycle, but evolution doesn't migrate microservices to Go or Rust and switch them into production when they have been thoroughly tested in isolation. Evolution is, at its best, a junior developer who's only ever worked with JavaScript who is handed a printout of a Fortran programme from back in the day when Fortran had fixed line width and told to make his best guess as to how to fix a bug that's only produced faulty output 5 times in the last 60 years, and who receives the test results by mail 3 week later. It's been what? half a billion years and still no vertebrate has gotten rid of that major bug in our eyes' design that gives us our blind spot. Any change radical enough to do away with our stochastic system of controlling the number of potential fetuses, in the rare cases it doesn't lead to outright infertility because it breaks another component of our delicate reproductory apparatus, would almost certainly need 100s of generations of fine-tuning before it becomes competitive with what we have.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

... From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

You appear to be assuming there are "homosexual genes".

It might only be epigenetic but they very likely exist because birth order is relevant.

(At least to the extent that homosexuality exists--I'm in the camp that thinks there's no such thing, we aren't wired for opposite-sex attraction or same-sex attraction, but for male attraction or female attraction. "Homosexuality" is when the attraction for your own gender is turned on, "heterosexuality" is when the attraction for the opposite gender is turned on. It makes a much simpler model that does a better job of explaining what we see in the real world.)

 

[Emily Lake]

The conditions (that may or may not be disorders for any given person) are only a "disorders" assuming they cause "distress" to a specific, real person. Some condition causing such distress to 99.999% of all the people who have it still does not make it a disorder, because it is the distress, not the condition, that makes it a disorder.

Cancer is only a disease if the person with cancer thinks it's a disease. If even one person is okay with having cancer, then we totally can't call cancer a disease, because it's the distress not the condition that makes it a disease.

Did you feel the same way about covid? Did you take the view that we can't call it an infection, because some people weren't distressed by having it and weren't bothered by their very mild effects? Do you support people choosing not to vaccinate themselves or their kids because they don't see those illnesses as distressing?

She is begging the question that we ought consider them as disorders absent the validation of distress.

No, I'm referring to them as disorders because 1) medical science classifies them as disorders and 2) they have negative impacts on the health of the people who have those conditions.

Once again, YOU are the person rubbing your moralism all over this topic. YOU are the one with the religious faith, who sees disagreement as tantamount to heresy.

 

[Emily Lake]

I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for"

No. They are disorders because they cause deleterious outcomes for those who have those conditions. They present with actual fucking harm experienced by the people who have them. In some cases the negative health issues are fairly obvious (such as with Kallman Syndrome, where there's a significant risk of osteoporosis and a host of other conditions), some are less obvious and largely present as sterility.

You're mixing two topics here. Disorders appear in any number of species, in any number of situations, and are generally based on the deleterious nature of the conditions on the individual with that condition. This is a separate issue from my discussion of the nature of sex.

Sex is an evolved mechanism present in most reproductive species. Some few species do not reproduce sexually, they reproduce via division (bacteria, for example) or via more complex "mating sets" like many algaes. But a huge number of species - especially vertebrates - reproduce sexually. That method of reproduction is the product of evolution. Way, way, wayyyyyyy back hundreds of millions of years ago, our ancestral species evolved so that reproduction occurred as a result of the merging of two different sized gametes. The two gametes have different roles in the creation of offspring, and those gametes place different demands on the bodies that produce them. As a result of those different demands, these species that reproduce via two different sized gametes (called anisogamous species) evolved different anatomical structures and processes. While the anatomies themselves differ from species to species, what is universal is that within any anisogamous species, we can observe that one body type has evolved to support the production of small motile gametes (sperm), and a different body type has evolved to support the production of large sessile gametes (ova).

We have observed that even when the individual does not actually produce gametes, they still conform to one of those two basic anatomical structures. We can also note that no other body type has evolved - there is no other distinct phenotype that has ever been observed within anisogamous species.

We have definitely observed that the growth of those phenotypes can be derailed, can display incomplete or ambiguous development, can even in some very rare cases display a mixture of typically male and typically female elements. But it is also clear in those cases that there are deleterious effects from those developments, often including the inability to reproduce. It's also clear that such conditions aren't within the range of normal range of human development. And it's abundantly clear to anyone without an ideological axe to grind that these are not evolved phenotypes in and of themselves.

Some people wish to argue that these conditions are either unique sexes of their own, or that they indicate that sex is "bimodal" or "a spectrum". Those arguments are flawed, and demonstrate a considerable lack of understanding of the process of evolution as well as the nature of sexual reproduction across all mammals, all birds, nearly all vertebrates, a huge portion of arthropods, and a whole lot of plants.

Regarding the remainder of your post, I will once again reiterate that evolution has no intent, no objective, it does not select. Evolution is a process, a mechanism. It's a gigantic pachinko machine played out over millions of years.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think it comes down to the fundamental issue wherein people who want to believe falsely that gender is a pure social construct, and who want to ignore that "disordered-ness" is a social construct.

People severely ignore that disorder/advantage is contextual whereas structure/form is absolute, and the expectation is that gender is a product of structure and form.

Realistically, gender is formed by the interaction of cultural aspects within a physically receptive (or unreceptive) context to the suggestion and the result is a social construct selected for physical reasons.

Compare this to disorders which are suggested by physical reasons (relative disadvantage to some task) and selected for social reasons (suggestions to the importance of the task).

I don't adhere to your religion, no matter how sciency you try to make your faith sound.

 

[Politesse]

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Where the bejesus do you see Emily or anyone else suggesting that the traits you disparage her theories by labeling 'doing as evolution did not "want" you to do' constitute moral wickedness?!?

I was commenting on the teleological fallacy as applied to evolution. Emily can decide for herself whether the criticism applies to her argumentation, I am certain.

And you could have done that perfectly well without the rhetorical flourish you tacked on at the end. Your crack about moral wickedness appears to have had no purpose other than to tar thread participants' views with trumped-up guilt-by-association.

And you are being melodramatic for no real reason at all. People talk about "good" or "bad" or "defective" genes all the time, that's just a fact. A tendency I find risible in all cases. Mother Nature doesn't have opinions on what genes "should" be, or what they are "for" or "not for". Because there is no Mother Nature, only cause and effect, and the directionless tides of gene flow over time.

 

[Emily Lake]

Not quite: Darwin standards are about individuals passing along their traits successfully but also about traits being passed along being beneficial to the species as a whole.

No, they actually aren't about the species as a whole. Evolution has no concept of species at all. Evolution is strictly about the passing on of genetic material by an individual. And it's not actually about those traits being beneficial - the only actual criteria needed for a trait to get passed on is that it doesn't reduce the likelihood of producing offspring.

We have a whole host of conditions that are deleterious to us and are heritable traits... but they don't express until after we've reached sexual maturity, and most of the time until after our primary childbearing period. Parkinson's, Huntington's, etc. are definitely not "beneficial" to the species as a whole. But they're in there, and they continue to be a part of our species' genetic profile because they express after most people have had kids already.

 

[Emily Lake]

By all means, point out where what I said implies that she made such a claim. I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for", and believes that allows, if not forces, us to ignore them in any objective description of the species. Because they are maladaptive mishaps of an error-prone biological mechanism that doesn't always end up with what was "intended" for us. Apart from the reek of teleology, the very same could be said about twins.

And homosexuals. Using the thinking offered, homosexual genes are errors because they lead to less reproductive success of the individual.

Teleological arguments about evolution always seem strange to me. If you were doing as evolution did not "want" you to do, wouldn't that problem promptly take care of itself? If you don't understand the adaptiveness of a given trait, especially a common one, the problem is almost certainly your lack of knowledge about the circumstances of that trait's development, not the moral wickedness of the trait.

Why do you and Jarhyn always insist on shoehorning morality into something that has none at all?

 

[Emily Lake]

It depends on whether or not a person has value beyond their ability and willingness to reproduce.

"Value" is a moral judgement, and it has nothing at all to do with evolution.