|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:Anyone else annoyed that when people add arts into STEM, they go with STEAM, instead of TEAMS? No, only you have this problem.
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 04:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 10:38 |
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:and, again, it's scientific terminology. you simply cannot accept technical terminology in one species and not in another analogous species. that it is normal scientific practice to use these terms is an empirical fact - you can consider it illegitimate, but it demonstrates that a lot of people with specialist knowledge on the matter find the terms coherent, which seems to be a fairly strong argument that semantic incoherence is not an argument which you can effectively use here You could have made this argument in 1900 with regard to scientific racism though: "well all these scientists are using these terms for racial categories so ipse dixit, they must be coherent categories". Scientists are just as susceptible to cognitive bias and tradition as anyone else, incoherent terms can survive for quite a while in scientific circles especially if (for example in the case of mice researchers) the terms are a convenient shorthand and the inaccuracies in using it aren't relevant to the conclusions of a specific paper.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 04:55
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:You could have made this argument in 1900 with regard to scientific racism though: "well all these scientists are using these terms for racial categories so ipse dixit, they must be coherent categories". sure, and from the epistemic groundwork of the day racial science was perfectly coherent - it's just that what they were basing said groundwork on (phrenology &c) was entirely bunk, some of it in ways they couldn't have known about (random phenotype selection, climate adaption hypotheses) and some (phrenology!!!!!) in ways they really ought to have discredited earlier if it were to turn out that there is no actual connection between chromosomal composition and phenotype i would accept that i was wrong, no problem
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 06:28
|
|
|
fun fact: the guy who invented the racial categories used in america today (caucasian, negroid, mongoloid &c), blumenbach, was actually attempting to affirm that all humans were the same species and deserving of certain basic human dignity that was a legitimate scientific discussion at a point in time, with genuinely intelligent and educated people on both sides. it was a wild age, and we can all be glad that it's over
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 06:34
|
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:fun fact: the guy who invented the racial categories used in america today (caucasian, negroid, mongoloid &c), blumenbach, was actually attempting to affirm that all humans were the same species and deserving of certain basic human dignity Was he the same guy who used the term "mongoloid" for downs' syndrome too because it gave sufferers perceived asian qualities, but then used that to argue that therefore we're all the same species? Someone posted that in yospos the other day and boy what a rollercoaster of "oh... oh erm huh... oh hey that's pretty cool actually" that was
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 06:59
|
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:this, in particular, i would like to address, because it's entirely facetious. a biological sex existing and underlying a gender construct is in no way similar to racial attributes, because race really is incoherent as a biological term. you will never be able to construct a racial theory which generally overlaps even closely to the socially extant racial categories we have in our western societies today
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 07:38
|
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:no i am literally having to argue that there is a biological component underlying and to a significant degree overlapping with gender, this is the actual argument we're having. i have repeatedly and explicitly said that the major categories for biological sex are non-exhaustive, which for some reason is seen as essentially excluding. twodot's position is effectively that the notion of sexes as a biological entities is prima facie incoherent, because you'll never be able to produce a definition of sex which is entirely exhaustive and robust. my response to this was pointing to practical use in biological research, and the response was essentially that "male" and "female" as "xx and xy or equivalent with associated phenotypes" is practically incoherent because of the existence of intersex or trans people - denying them respect for their gender identity - restricting them to certain social roles on the basis of their biology at birth - stereotyping And I am sure you and twodot and everyone else here agree on all of these (that people's identities should be respected, that women nor men should not, with maybe a few obvious exception centered as narrowly as possible around child birth and upper body strength, be restricted in their social roles, and that stereotyping is bad). And surely there's an interesting empirical debate to be had about to what degree gender roles have a partially biological origin -- I would claim that in humans, the research is very complicated and prohibits most strong conclusions, and you can only generalise the mouse analogy so far -- but I think the debate could be had a lot more dispassionately and productive if everyone here respected everyone else in assuming we all share the basic beliefs about the potentially hurtful and restrictive questions. Maybe I'm wrong and people actually get super upset about highly technical debates for their content alone, but my hunch is the anger comes from associations with the ugly part of the debate, where I think people don't actually disagree. ate all the Oreos posted:Was he the same guy who used the term "mongoloid" for downs' syndrome too because it gave sufferers perceived asian qualities, but then used that to argue that therefore we're all the same species? Someone posted that in yospos the other day and boy what a rollercoaster of "oh... oh erm huh... oh hey that's pretty cool actually" that was fishmech posted:Is there really much Science that doesn't involve Science, Technology, Engineering or Math? Cingulate fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 11:08
|
|
|
Unrelated: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/opinion/sunday/blue-states-red-states-values.html He says red states have higher rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, and so on. Now considering Simpson's paradox and "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State", does anyone have at hand the numbers on a lower level - individuals, or at least counties?
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 11:20
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:Depends. There's this whole field called "social science" which, to quote you, "studies" "human culture". (Sure, it "involves math", but so does astrology, so that's a weird phrasing.) Fishmech is trying to say that science is the first word in STEM so therefore all science is STEM by definition, because fishmech Cingulate posted:Unrelated: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/opinion/sunday/blue-states-red-states-values.html From the few by-county maps I've seen the common "color in the south and label it 'Bad Stuff'" mapmaking strategy seems to actually correlate most with race and poverty, but I'll have to dig those up later to double check. Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 14:38
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:My proposal is this: the stuff people actually care about is largely orthogonal to all of this. What is actually hurtful and restrictive to people? twodot posted:I mean, sure, if you want to have a system of biological sex that has dozens of categories, none of which map to "man" or "woman" then you can make that work.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:27
|
|
|
Constructing useful statistical models that apply to the majority of humanity and having a simple shorthand for describing them. Not exhaustive, no, but say, a medical treatment which works for maybe 90% of the human race is still a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Constructing useful statistical models that apply to the majority of humanity. edit: Like the whole argument for dual biological sex seems to be "First, we need to throw accuracy out the window, accuracy sucks, ok now what can we do?" twodot fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:32
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Constructing useful statistical models that apply to the majority of humanity. Especially in medicine you'd want to be more specific than that though because that could mean "works for 90% of the human race, causes the skin to fall off 0.1%"
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
twodot posted:Ok, but the system of biological sex that has dozens of categories can do that do, so why insist on the one with exactly two categories with a bonus "we don't care about this category" category? Because the alternative is that every possible study must also include a statistically sufficient sample of people from every possible sexual category rather than just the two most common ones. Which is probably going to be quite difficult to do. ate all the Oreos posted:Especially in medicine you'd want to be more specific than that though because that could mean "works for 90% of the human race, causes the skin to fall off 0.1%" I agree if you're beginning human testing or something but if you're doing preliminary work I don't imagine much research has the money to model the possible effects in detail for every possible sex. "Hey this should work for most people here's what we have can we have some more money please?" is a thing that is probably going to come up at some point. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:34
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Because the alternative is that every possible study must also include a statistically sufficient sample of people from every possible sexual category rather than just the two most common ones. edit: Like if it turned out tomorrow that there is a consistent biological basis for race, but it involves having 100,000 races, that wouldn't have any implication on how we construct studies or census reports or anything. Knowing how a drug affects, for example, XXY people, has nothing to do with whether you decide to acknowledge it as it's own thing or not. twodot fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:36
|
|
|
twodot posted:No, this is completely false. If you want to run a study on XY people you can do that without including other genetic configurations. If you want to run a study on testicle havers, you can do that without including non-testicle havers. The number of biological sexes we acknowledge has nothing to do with how we construct studies. And if you want to run a study on xx and xy people on the basis that they comprise the majority of people on the planet and you have finite resources, then you are functionally looking only at a binary concept of sex. And not out of malice. It is not exhaustive, but it doesn't need to be to still be useful to a lot of people.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:And if you want to run a study on xx and xy people on the basis that they comprise the majority of people on the planet and you have finite resources, then you are functionally looking only at a binary concept of sex. And not out of malice. It is not exhaustive, but it doesn't need to be to still be useful to a lot of people. edit: Again, running a study that excludes non-testicle havers is not denying they don't exist as a category. twodot fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:41
|
|
|
twodot posted:No, again completely false. Choosing to look at two categories out of dozens categories isn't reducing dozen of categories to two, it's just resource optimization. That's... my point...
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:43
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:That's... my point...
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:44
|
|
|
twodot posted:Is your thing that you acknowledge a biological system of sex needs to have dozens of categories, but you will only ever care about two of them? If that's your thing, I can't stop you, but it seems real uncomfortable, like a very unnecessary objection to bring up. My point is that ideally we would have infinite money for biological research but as we don't, the people doing it are going to have to do, as you say, resource optimization. And doing that is not maliciously exclusive on their part. The required change is beyond their ability to effect, really. Their choice is between condemning more people to suffer for lack of aid, or condemning fewer people, yet who suffer already to suffer further, neither one is a happy outcome but I would make the same decision each time. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
In my fields, I’d be super happy if two labels covered ~90% of cases. I’d let the rest run under „stochastic noise“ for a while while covering this part. Now you can’t do that with people right in front of you - if you identify as nonbinary, I cannot say „90% of my cases are well served with two labels, you don’t deserve anything more“. But I think if in my fields i went for a 90% accurate approximation first, that would be perfectly defensible. A lot of science is just capturing the major axes of variance. Now it’s dangerous to reify axes of statistical variation, to make them categorical, to claim this is objectively the fundamental level of reality. But it’s certainly useful to start with a single factor explaining 90% of variance, and dealing with that one for now. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 18:51
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:My point is that ideally we would have infinite money for biological research but as we don't, the people doing it are going to have to do, as you say, resource optimization. And doing that is not maliciously exclusive on their part. The required change is beyond their ability to effect, really. Their choice is between condemning more people to suffer for lack of aid, or condemning fewer people, yet who suffer already to suffer further, neither one is a happy outcome but I would make the same decision each time. What I will dispute is that any of this has anything to do with biological sex. The fact that some scientists are specifically interested in two specific chromosomal configurations does not create a system for biological sex and it certainly doesn't justify a dual system for biological sex even if it did. It also definitely doesn't justify people posting things like: quote:we can say that biological maleness is that which produces sperm or equivalent, whereas biological femaleness is that which produces eggs or equivalent.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 19:53
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:In my fields, I’d be super happy if two labels covered ~90% of cases. I’d let the rest run under „stochastic noise“ for a while while covering this part. I assume you clearly and unambiguously define what's meant by the two cases that cover 90% when you're doing this though right
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:29
|
|
|
twodot posted:Like this statement is incredibly far away from "some scientists like to run studies about XX and XY people, because they don't have infinite time and money". I mean to me it looks like defining both those words in a context which, well: ate all the Oreos posted:I assume you clearly and unambiguously define what's meant by the two cases that cover 90% when you're doing this though right Is this, surely? If they try to extend that definition outside that context I can take issue but "for the purposes of this discussion I'm going to use male and female to refer to sperm and egg producing gonad posessors cos that's relevant to this subject" then that's fine as long as someone else in the same discussion isn't trying to use them for something else? Cos they did say that male and female are obviously not exhaustive, which I agree with?
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:35
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I mean to me it looks like defining both those words in a context which, well:
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:42
|
|
|
I think that's the point, though? The use of the words in specific contexts isn't universal or exhaustive. But what sex organs you have is a, non exhaustive, biological definition of sex, it's just not the only one, but it one, like chromosomal makeup, that you would probably see used fairly often due to reproduction and xx/xy genetic differences being applicable to a lot of people.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:45
|
|
|
ate all the Oreos posted:I assume you clearly and unambiguously define what's meant by the two cases that cover 90% when you're doing this though right
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:46
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I think that's the point, though? The use of the words in specific contexts isn't universal or exhaustive. Again, what sort of hair you have is a, non exhaustive, biological definition of race, but biological systems of race are still incoherent. twodot fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 20:53
|
|
|
But they are only as incoherent as they are in practice. And in practice I don't think that if I wrote a paper where I wrote the words male and female, unqualified, that the majority of its readers would not take it to mean either a descriptor of sex organs or a descriptor of genetic makeup, or both, as was relevant to the context. I probably would include a sentence to clarify exactly what I mean and, if I was discussing gender and sex sociologically I would definitely include a glossary and be very strict in my use of all the possibly relevant words, but that doesn't invalidate the communicative capacity of male and female as words outside of that context. It's like... race is a dumb idea but it isn't a particularly incoherent idea a lot of the time, because a lot of people will probably be able to communicate quite effectively about race among themselves, and we often call such people racists. They, for the most part, know what they mean by it enough to communicate with it. That they are stupid and abhorrent people doesn't make them not actually communicating, it just makes the ideas they are communicating abhorrent. Yes what they mean might not quite perfectly line up across different groups of racists, but even with racism being an idiot hobby for idiot people they still manage to communicate some things to each other and it has a lot of well understood and utterly vile ideas that people immediately associate with it. It remains fairly effective communication even if what it communicates is poo poo. Like it was said a the top of the page, scientific racism was a thing and was coherent, it was just fundamentally, factually, and ethically wrong. And I think that male and female as words have stronger commonly understood, correct or not, meanings than most racist terminology. I don't agree that they are strictly factually correct but I also know that not everybody knows that. And so outside of talking to someone who already has a bit of grounding in why they're not strictly correct or sufficient, I'll use those common meanings. Cos no fucker will understand me otherwise. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Nov 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 21:02
|
|
|
twodot posted:I'm confused as to how you can think there could be multiple conflicting definitions of biological sex and you can still think that biological sex is a coherent idea
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 21:14
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:I think much like chocolate, being round or vegetables, biological sex can be sufficiently coherent in some contexts, without being all-the-way, to-the-bottom coherent. Is white chocolate chocolate? Are tomatoes vegetables? Well, depends on why you're asking - are you a botanist or a cook? 2) Your tomatoes/vegetables things is conflating some stuff. Biologically speaking, it's very clear that tomatoes are vegetables. As a biological term, vegetable is completely coherent. Maybe it's unfortunately that different disciplines happen to use "vegetable" to mean different things, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying even restricted strictly to realm of biology talking about one or two sexes never makes sense. You're always talking about a grab bag of characteristics, so you're either hoping your reader will think of the same grab bag of characteristics, or you've defined what you meant at the top of the page. In a biological context, if I use words like "vegetable", there's never confusion and never a need to offer a definition, so at a minimum, biological sex is plainly less coherent than words like those. If your defense of the coherency of biological sex is that we can always just include a glossary of what we actually meant, I have no help to offer.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 22:09
|
|
|
By that logic, the more technical language used by people who regularly discuss gender issues is also incoherent because most people would need a glossary to understand it... Which I would disagree with, as I think it's quite coherent. Lack of immediate knowledge of a subject is not an indication of its incoherence.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 22:23
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:I think much like chocolate, being round or vegetables, biological sex can be sufficiently coherent in some contexts, without being all-the-way, to-the-bottom coherent. Is white chocolate chocolate? Are tomatoes vegetables? Well, depends on why you're asking - are you a botanist or a cook? Wait who the hell is out there claiming white chocolate isn't chocolate, I will fight them
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 22:35
|
|
|
ate all the Oreos posted:Wait who the hell is out there claiming white chocolate isn't chocolate, I will fight them I think the argument is it doesn't have cocoa in it therefore it isn't chocolate.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2017 23:01
|
|
|
twodot posted:1) Would it really be the end of the world if someone were to claim that a biological classification of chocolate is nonsense and that the concept of chocolate is a socially constructed thing, and that things I might recognize as chocolate could be very different from what people in a different country recognize as chocolate? twodot posted:I'm not certain I would agree with a person saying that, but I would see no reason to fight them, especially if I didn't have a definition I felt should be universal handy. I'm not saying people can't conduct studies into people with sperm producing gonads, just that human sexual development is so multidimensional that it doesn't make sense to talk about one sex or another. You are deliberately discarding accuracy anytime you do it, which seems not great for discussions on biology. twodot posted:2) Your tomatoes/vegetables things is conflating some stuff. Biologically speaking, it's very clear that tomatoes are vegetables. twodot posted:As a biological term, vegetable is completely coherent. Maybe it's unfortunately that different disciplines happen to use "vegetable" to mean different things, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying even restricted strictly to realm of biology talking about one or two sexes never makes sense. I think you're making much too strong of a claim here. Maybe you can say something like, "sometimes, speaking of one or two sexes as if they were unambiguous, perfectly clear cut categories is not appropriate" seems perfectly reasonable. "It is never appropriate to talk as if there were, biologically speaking, males and females" seems to go much too far. And I don't see how you'd need to say it in the first place. Is the danger that we'll end up disrespecting people (humans) who don't clearly correspond to either category? I don't quite see where the passion is coming from. twodot posted:You're always talking about a grab bag of characteristics, so you're either hoping your reader will think of the same grab bag of characteristics, or you've defined what you meant at the top of the page. In a biological context, if I use words like "vegetable", there's never confusion and never a need to offer a definition
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 00:46
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:And is it possible that some other person would come up with a perfectly reasonable definition chocolate - including the line "contains cocoa" - that would be rather stupid to apply in one context (where white chocolate is sold or taxed), and completely accurate in another (where food allergies are concerned)? quote:I'm not a biologist, but do mouse researchers have this issue at all? How much is lost there by them largely not caring about intersex mice, trans mice, ..? (I'm not saying this immediately generalises to humans - it largely doesn't.) quote:Biologically speaking, tomatoes are fruit. Culinarily speaking, they're vegetables. Culinary categories somehow parallel biology, but are clearly socially constructed; the inverse goes for botany. quote:"Male gorillas are twice the size of female gorillas"? "Male praying mantis are eaten by the female after mating"? These sentences make no sense? quote:And I don't see how you'd need to say it in the first place. Is the danger that we'll end up disrespecting people (humans) who don't clearly correspond to either category? I don't quite see where the passion is coming from. quote:Unless you call a tomato a vegetable, which is wrong. twodot fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Nov 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 01:08
|
|
|
Somewhat confusingly within general biology it would be correct to call tomatoes a vegetable because they are part of the vegetable, or plant, kingdom. Whereas specifically within botany you would probably identify them as a fruit because that refers to their relationship to their parent plant, and culinarily you can probably have a fight about it depending on the dish. Which I choose to interpret as meaning that the words fruit and vegetable are irredeemably incoherent and we should stop using both of them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 01:13
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Somewhat confusingly within general biology it would be correct to call tomatoes a vegetable because they are part of the vegetable, or plant, kingdom. Whereas specifically within botany you would probably identify them as a fruit because that refers to their relationship to their parent plant, and culinarily you can probably have a fight about it depending on the dish. "Vegetables are literally any plant or part of a plant" Now, you do that with biological sex. edit: Hell, I'll even throw in fruit for free: "Fruits are the seed bearing part of a flowering plant."
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 01:19
|
|
|
"Sex is what sex a thing is" Which is about as useful as "vegetables are plants" given that those words are already synonyms in broad biological use.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 01:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 10:38 |
|
|
OwlFancier posted:"Sex is what sex a thing is"
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2017 01:25
|
|