<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" > <channel> <title>Biology – Dangerous Intersection</title> <atom:link href="https://dangerousintersection.org/category/science/biology-science/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org</link> <description>Human Animals at the Crossroads of Science, Religion, Media and Culture</description> <lastBuildDate>Sat, 12 Oct 2024 17:53:08 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">2851851</site> <item> <title>Determining One’s Sex Requires Requires One to Consider Anisogamy</title> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/07/11/determining-ones-sex-requires-requires-one-to-consider-anisogamy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=determining-ones-sex-requires-requires-one-to-consider-anisogamy&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=determining-ones-sex-requires-requires-one-to-consider-anisogamy</link> <comments>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/07/11/determining-ones-sex-requires-requires-one-to-consider-anisogamy/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Erich Vieth]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jul 2024 19:23:41 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Transgender]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dangerousintersection.org/?p=40158</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Paul Griffith explains in a letter to Nature:</p> <p><a href="https://x.com/Evolutionistrue/status/1811065783637758167/photo/1" target="_blank"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-40159" src="http://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM-936x1024.png" alt="Screenshot 2024 07 11 at 2.18.44 PM" width="536" height="587" title="Determining One's Sex Requires Requires One to Consider Anisogamy 1" srcset="https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM-936x1024.png 936w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM-274x300.png 274w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM-768x840.png 768w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM-1404x1536.png 1404w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-11-at-2.18.44-PM.png 1534w" sizes="(max-width: 536px) 100vw, 536px"/></a></p> <blockquote><p>Nature’s recent Editorial and collection of opinion articles on sex and gender in research would have benefited from greater attention to evolutionary biology and the definition of sex by anisogamy, or differing gamete size. In the words of evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden in her book Evolution’s Rainbow (Univ. California Press, 2013): “To a biologist, “male” means making small gametes, and “female” means making large gametes. Period!”</p> <p>This definition avoids the ‘sex binary’ that concerns so many people. Some organisms produce both male and female gametes, and others produce different gametes at distinct life stages or under various conditions. Organisms can be male, female, both at the same time, male at one time and female at another, or have no clear and unambiguous sex. The definition also implies that there are no essential or universal male or female phenotypes: male pipefish gestate their embryos and female jacana birds fight over mates, for example.</p> <p>Anisogamy is at the heart of the modern theory of why sexes evolved and why they show such extraordinary diversity. Neglecting it makes the varied phenotypic expression of sex, and its interaction with gender in humans, seem unmanageably complex. As with so much of biology, sex makes better sense when viewed in the light of evolution.</p></blockquote> <p>Nature 631, 275 (2024)</p> <p>doi: https//doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02248-1…</p>]]></description> <wfw:commentRss>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/07/11/determining-ones-sex-requires-requires-one-to-consider-anisogamy/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">40158</post-id> </item> <item> <title>J.K. Rowling Explains Why She Stood Up for Women</title> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/06/09/j-k-rowling-explains-why-she-stood-up-for-women/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=j-k-rowling-explains-why-she-stood-up-for-women&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=j-k-rowling-explains-why-she-stood-up-for-women</link> <comments>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/06/09/j-k-rowling-explains-why-she-stood-up-for-women/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Erich Vieth]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 09 Jun 2024 20:08:03 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Woke Issues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transgender]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dangerousintersection.org/?p=40007</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Why did J.K. Rowling take a strong stand in support of women, exposing herself to “a tsunami of death and rape threats”? See the following excerpt from J.K. Rowling’s new book, <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/jk-rowling-stand-up-women-trans-book-r6jlglpvq" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht</a>:</p> <p style="padding-left: 40px;">The thing is, those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how truly despicable I find theirs. I’ve watched “no debate” become the slogan of those who once posed as defenders of free speech. I’ve witnessed supposedly progressive men arguing that women don’t exist as an observable biological class and don’t deserve biology-based rights. I’ve listened as certain female celebrities insist that there isn’t the slightest risk to women and girls in allowing any man who self-identifies as a woman to enter single-sex spaces reserved for women, including changing rooms, bathrooms or rape shelters. . . . I’ve asked people who consider themselves socialists and egalitarians what might be the practical consequences of erasing easily understood words like “woman” and “mother”, and replacing them with “cervix-haver”, “menstruator” and “birthing parent”, especially for those for whom English is a second language, or women whose understanding of their own bodies is limited. They seem confused and irritated by this question. Better that a hundred women who aren’t up to speed with the latest gender jargon miss public health information than that one trans-identified individual feels invalidated, seems to be the view.…</p>]]></description> <wfw:commentRss>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/06/09/j-k-rowling-explains-why-she-stood-up-for-women/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">40007</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Facts First on Sex</title> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/05/25/facts-first-on-sex/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=facts-first-on-sex&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=facts-first-on-sex</link> <comments>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/05/25/facts-first-on-sex/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Erich Vieth]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2024 14:49:56 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Transgender]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Humor]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dangerousintersection.org/?p=39940</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Alan Sokal discusses “sex is assigned at birth” as Exhibit A on how well-intentioned science can run off the rails when it fails to put facts first. His article at The Critic is titled: <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/woke-invades-the-sciences/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Woke invades the sciences: The intrusion of irrational ideology is distorting and censoring science.”</a></p> <blockquote><p>Fast forward four decades. Now the entire American medical establishment, from the <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/ama-aamc-equity-guide.pdf#page=14" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Medical Association</a> and the <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/4/e20182162/37381/#12544903" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Academy of Pediatrics</a> to the <a href="https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/gender" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Psychological Association</a> and the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9077590/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Psychiatric Association</a> and even the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/Preferred_Terms.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>, insists that sex — as in male or female — is, in the AAP’s words, “an assignment that is made at birth”. What could this mean?</p></blockquote> <p>What are the indisputable facts?</p> <blockquote><p>The facts about sex are straightforward, and are taught in any half-decent high-school course in biology. Nearly all animals, as well as many plants, reproduce sexually. In almost all sexually reproducing multicellular species this occurs by combining a large gamete, called an ovum (or egg), with a small gamete, called a sperm. Though some (“hermaphrodite”) plants and animals produce both ova and sperm, there are no hermaphrodite mammalian species. In mammals, each individual produces only one kind of gamete. Those individuals that produce (relatively few) ova are called female; those that produce (large numbers of) sperm are called male. Whether a mammal embryo develops into a male or a female is determined (at least when things go right, which is nearly all the time) by a pair of sex chromosomes: </p></blockquote>…]]></description> <wfw:commentRss>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/05/25/facts-first-on-sex/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">39940</post-id> </item> <item> <title>What is a Woman? Here is J.K. Rowling’s Answer . . .</title> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/04/07/what-is-a-woman-here-is-j-k-rowlings-answer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-a-woman-here-is-j-k-rowlings-answer&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-a-woman-here-is-j-k-rowlings-answer</link> <comments>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/04/07/what-is-a-woman-here-is-j-k-rowlings-answer/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Erich Vieth]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 07 Apr 2024 21:07:39 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Woke Issues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Human animals]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transgender]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dangerousintersection.org/?p=39635</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>What is a woman? J.K. <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1776616861888655835?s=43&t=aZGZvucCijgkAtbapNBvqg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rowling offers this answer:</a></p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1776616861888655835?s=43&t=aZGZvucCijgkAtbapNBvqg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-39636" src="http://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-07-at-4.01.11-PM.png" alt="Screenshot 2024 04 07 at 4.01.11 PM" width="617" height="365" title="What is a Woman? Here is J.K. Rowling's Answer . . . 3" srcset="https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-07-at-4.01.11-PM.png 1018w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-07-at-4.01.11-PM-300x177.png 300w, https://dangerousintersection.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-07-at-4.01.11-PM-768x454.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 617px) 100vw, 617px"/></a></p> <blockquote><p>You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.</p> <p>I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not she’s carried a baby to term, irrelevant if she was born with a rare difference of sexual development that makes neither of the above possible, or if she’s aged beyond being able to produce viable eggs. She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others.</p> <p>I don’t believe a woman is more or less of a woman for having sex with men, women, both or not wanting sex at all. I don’t think a woman is more or less of a woman for having a buzz cut and liking suits and ties, or wearing stilettos and mini dresses, for being black, white or brown, for being six feet tall or a little person, for being kind or cruel, angry or sad, loud or retiring. She isn’t more of a woman for featuring in Playboy or being a surrendered wife, nor less of a woman for designing space rockets or taking up boxing. What makes her a woman is the fact of being born in a body that, assuming nothing has gone wrong in her physical development (which, as stated above, still doesn’t stop her being a woman), is </p></blockquote>…]]></description> <wfw:commentRss>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/04/07/what-is-a-woman-here-is-j-k-rowlings-answer/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">39635</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Andrew Sullivan Pulls Aside the Curtain to Expose the “Transqueer” Movement</title> <link>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/03/24/andrew-sullivan-pull-aside-the-curtain-to-expose-the-transqueer-movement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=andrew-sullivan-pull-aside-the-curtain-to-expose-the-transqueer-movement&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=andrew-sullivan-pull-aside-the-curtain-to-expose-the-transqueer-movement</link> <comments>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/03/24/andrew-sullivan-pull-aside-the-curtain-to-expose-the-transqueer-movement/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Erich Vieth]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2024 02:11:07 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Woke Issues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Biology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sex Based Differences]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Transgender]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dangerousintersection.org/?p=39552</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Andrew Sullivan, a gay man who was a courageous leader of the movement to legalize gay marriage,<a href="https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-transqueers-take-the-mask-off" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> has written a thoughtful article about the “transqueer” movement. </a> Here’s an excerpt:</p> <blockquote><p>“The truth is: we have come a long way in understanding and respecting the unique human experience of being transgender. In the US, trans people are protected by the gold standard of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They are everywhere in our popular culture. An entire generation has even been told that being trans is the most glamorous thing you could possibly be. But none of this is sufficient for the transqueers. What they want is an abolition of biological sex for everyone; the end of men and of women as separate categories; the sex reassignment of children on demand; the destruction of the nuclear family; an end to the Hippocratic Oath; the abolition of homosexuality; the presence of male bodies in women’s showers, prisons and shelter; the creation of fantastical post-everything genders and pronouns; and the criminalization of anyone who would ever question this cultural revolution.</p> <p>They are not winning, but it is not for lack of trying. The pseudoscience behind child transition is beginning to be exposed and puberty blockers are now banned in the UK outside clinical trials. A new lawsuit is being filed against the NCAA for destroying women’s sports. Public opinion has responded to the transqueer ideology by moving in the opposite direction, and now gay people are being caught in the queer crossfire.”</p></blockquote>…]]></description> <wfw:commentRss>https://dangerousintersection.org/2024/03/24/andrew-sullivan-pull-aside-the-curtain-to-expose-the-transqueer-movement/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">39552</post-id> </item> </channel> </rss>