CSICon is currently taking place in Las Vegas, with a great speaker lineup: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, Michael Mann, Massimo Pigliucci, Steve Novella, etc. For some reason, they also included Jerry Coyne, who has become a right-wing crank over the years, and who is quite annoyed that Novella discussed the myth of the gender binary — and chose to talk about Sex and Race: Handling the Ideological Hot Potatoes
. His abstract for the talk says he was arguing that race is a valid category because you can distinguish “race” genetically, which tells me that he doesn’t understand the argument. Individuals are unique and carry the record of their ancestry, but that ignores the fact that people use race as a catch-all for lumping people into stereotypes, which are not valid.
But I haven’t heard his talk, nor am I interested in hearing it. He did give a kind of “rebuttal” to Novella’s talk, though, summarized in one simple list. The list is a collection of his misconceptions and says far more about him than any argument us “woke” people would actually make. Further, it is embarrassingly stupid — irrelevant, confused, and not even wrong. It reminds me of the kinds of arguments creationists make that just reveal that they understand nothing about evolution.
Here’s Coyne’s list In Defense of the Binary Nature of Sex
, which does nothing of the kind.
IN DEFENSE OF THE BINARY NATURE OF SEX
Argument is completely limited to humans; is the binary of reproductive systems also “delusional” in other animals (e.g., foxes, ducks) or in plants?
No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.
Do people who are temporally binary, with gender fluctuating over time, change sex each time they change gender?
Fluctuations in referrals for gender dysphoria over time (20-fold in last ten years in UK)
Are “pure” members of one sex (with the corresponding genitals, chromosomes, gametes and chromosomes), but who feel they’re not of their natal sex, actually of the other sex?
People have incorrect feelings about their nature all the time (yes, in their brains), but this doesn’t mean that their self-image should be taken as biological reality.
And what do we do with people who sincerely feel that they’re other animals? Are they Indeed animals likes horses and cats?
Let’s take them on one at a time, shall we?
Argument is completely limited to humans; is the binary of reproductive systems also “delusional” in other animals (e.g., foxes, ducks) or in plants?
Who says the argument is completely limited to humans? It’s not. It’s just that we are far better at distinguishing subtle variations in our own species. Sexual development and differentiation in animals uses the same complex cascade of molecular interactions as it does in humans. There are differences in sexual morphology and behavior in individual animals that will leap out at you if you actually scrutinize them carefully. Even in spiders, which are only distantly related to humans. They exhibit different degrees of social behavior, aggression, cooperation, and yes, sexual activity. I’ve had spiders who exhibit no interest in sex at all; I raise them to adulthood, and can’t persuade them to reproduce even as their siblings readily mate at every opportunity. Every coupling is different. This is in a species that cannot communicate to us and every interpretation of their activity is subjective. What kind of biologist would look at the range of sexual interactions in any species and decide that they must be shoehorned into just two types?
As for plants — they don’t exhibit much in the way of behavior, expression, or culture, but they do have a complex range of sexes. How do you tell if a carrot is uncomfortable with its expected biological role?
No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.
Jerry Coyne knows nothing about neuroscience. We know there are differences in the brain that are correlates of differences in behavior and thinking; I’m pretty sure Coyne wouldn’t be claiming that brains are like featureless potatoes with patterns of activity that arise without differences in morphology or connectivity of pharmacology. Modules are abstractions that are used to model the functionality of different parts of the brain.
Many complex networks are composed of “modules” that form an interconnected network. We sought to elucidate the nature of the brain’s modular function by testing the autonomy of the brain’s modules and the potential mechanisms underlying their interactions. By studying the brain as a large-scale complex network and measuring activity across the network during 77 cognitive tasks, we demonstrate that, despite connectivity between modules, each module appears to execute a discrete cognitive function relatively autonomously from the other modules. Moreover, brain regions with diverse connectivity across the modules appear to play a role in enabling modules to interact while remaining mostly autonomous. This generates the counterintuitive idea that regions with diverse connectivity across modules are necessary for modular biological networks.
The brain is a network with spatial and functional segregation of elements that we can call “modules”; trans people will have modules that differ from cis people, and people who prefer coffee to tea have their own kinds of modules. All Coyne is doing here is denying the existence of differences between brains, which I would hope most people would recognize is ignorant and absurd.
(Note that there are differences in interpretation in the neuroscience community; we can argue about modules vs. modes, but good grief, denying that there are neurological differences is like trying to claim that population structure doesn’t exist.)
Do people who are temporally binary, with gender fluctuating over time, change sex each time they change gender?
Sure, why not? Why can’t both sex and gender be fluid? Coyne just wants to force-fit everything into only one of two possible categories, but biology is more complex than that. His narrow-mindedness is not evidence of much of anything.
Fluctuations in referrals for gender dysphoria over time (20-fold in last ten years in UK)
Jesus christ, really? Culture and evironment affect everything, that varying rates of referrals is a product of the way that societies fluctuate in their tolerance of sex and gender differences. That he doesn’t recognize this is just a sign that he has a painfully simple-minded notion of how sex functions as more than just a mechanism for reproduction.
Are “pure” members of one sex (with the corresponding genitals, chromosomes, gametes and chromosomes), but who feel they’re not of their natal sex, actually of the other sex?
I’m glad I didn’t hear his talk, because I wonder if he also talked about “pure” members of one race. There’s no such thing as being “purely” a member of one complex multidimensional and weakly defined category. We are all part of a continuum along many dimensions. This point makes no sense unless you’re thoroughly soaking in the preconception that there can be only two sexes and everyone must fit into one or another in all particulars.
People have incorrect feelings about their nature all the time (yes, in their brains), but this doesn’t mean that their self-image should be taken as biological reality.
I am grossly materialistic. Self-image is part of one’s biology. If it’s in our brains, how can it not be a reflection of biological reality? I’m sorry if plasticity isn’t in Jerry Coyne’s vocabulary. I’m pretty confident that dualism isn’t part of his worldview.
And what do we do with people who sincerely feel that they’re other animals? Are they Indeed animals likes horses and cats?
I kew that was coming. And what about the people who sincerely feel that they are attack helicopters?
No, people can’t change species. They’re still people. Being a person, though, encompasses a wide range of possibilities. Trans people fully understand their biological realities and don’t imagine that genitalia are magical products of desire.
As for what we do with people who have ideas that are less rigid than Coyne’s dumb-ass cis-normativity…do we have to do anything, or can we just let them live in peace?
Ooof, that speakers’ list. A smattering of people I used to respect, people I no longer remember if there was some major reason I stopped following them, and Drs. Novella and Mann.
It would be interesting (for certain values of the word) to stack Coyne’s claims here up against things he’s said in the past, because I strongly suspect that one would find something other than strong consistency. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen Coyne defend EvoPsych from its “Woke” critics, so claiming that there’s no neurological basis for gender identity would be pretty contradictory to the majority of pop-EvoPsych nonsense. A quick Google search suggests I might have underestimated Coyne in this regard, so apologies if that’s the case. Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender has led me to question a lot of the claimed differences between “male” and “female” cognitive abilities and brain differences, so I’m not entirely certain what modules we’d expect to find (though I also know that there’s research going back at least a decade showing certain correlations between sizes of brain-structures thought to be linked to sex and trans people’s gender identity, for example Zhou, Hofman, Gooren, & Swaab, 1995).
The bit about birds and plants is especially laughable. I am not a biologist, but I feel like I’d be hard-pressed to come up with familiar organisms that illustrate the “sex binary” worse than plants. And one of the pieces of writing that helped raise my consciousness with regard to sex, gender, and the myth of the binary was Natalie Reed’s “Bilaterally Gynandromorphic Chickens, and Why I’m Not ‘Scientifically’ Male.” Another quick bout of Googling hasn’t turned up any bilaterally gynandromorphic ducks, but there do seem to be some that exhibit other forms of gynandromorphism, and since ducks have the same ZW chromosome system as chickens, it doesn’t seem like it would be impossible.
Also, it seems worth noting that a “sex binary” feels awfully hard to defend when there’s not even a binary of processes of sex determination, but again, I am not a biologist.
I think it would be interesting to do studies of people who experience gender fluidity, to see if fluctuations in their identity do correlate to some biological substrate. Are there hormonal shifts that correspond to feeling one way or another? Learning that wouldn’t affect the validity of such identities, but might give insights into how gender identity interconnects with biology (whatever the causal relationship might be).
And the rest is pretty typical transphobe nonsense. The “graph of left-handed people” gambit, the “it’s just like anorexics” gambit, the “what about Rachel Dolezal” gambit. I appreciate that since they’ve decided “cis” is a slur, “Pure” is their totally neutral alternative, really just skipping to the point with that one.
When will these cranks find a new hobby?
Yes, the sex is binary claim is delusional any way you look at it. It was wrong from the very start.
Coyne is an ignorant idiot.
When did he forget how to use the search engine Google or Wikipedia?
.1. Sex is a binary.
So what happens if you are a real hermaphrodite?
30% of all non-insect species are hermaphrodites.
.2. Some organisms have more than two sexes.
Tetrahymena has 7.
“The hairy, fan-shape fungus Schizophyllum commune boasts more than 23,000 mating types”
Clam shrimp have 3.
.3. The Transphobes go on and on about how human gametes vary in size. This isn’t the least bit universal though.
Most single celled eukaryotes are isogamous, meaning their gametes look the same and are the same size.
“Isogamy is a form of sexual reproduction that involves gametes of the same morphology (indistinguishable in shape and size), and is found in most unicellular eukaryotes.[1] Because both gametes look alike, they generally cannot be classified as male or female.[2]”
Stawperson.
Comparing people who believe they are nonhuman animals with Trans people is a false comparison.
What we do is leave them alone as long as they aren’t causing any harm to themselves or other people.
It’s a free country after all, and kooks like Jerry Coyne have no right to interfere in any one else’s lives.
What do we do with right wingnut crackpots like Jerry Coyne who sincerely and mistakenly believe they have anything worthwhile to say any more?.
Nothing. He is free to be an irrelevant idiot and mindless hater.
We can hope he doesn’t spend any time around us. I wouldn’t let anyone like Jerry Coyne get near me ever. Probably not dangerous but certainly someone I wouldn’t take any chances with.
Cthulhu, Coyne is just getting dumb in his old age.
This makes no sense.
.1 Everyone has their own self image.
Everyone has their own right to their own self image.
This is so basic it isn’t even a human right. It’s considered part of anyone’s personality.
.2. There is no self image police.
It isn’t going to be Jerry Coyne or any of the hordes of fascists in our society.
If Jerry Coyne doesn’t like someone’s self image, too bad and so what?
Who cares? He is just a right wingnut crackpot on a one way trip down a rabbit hole to complete irrelevancy.
I don’t like Jerry Coyne or his self image either. He probably has no idea what he looks like to people outside his tiny echo chamber of a blog that he insists isn’t a blog.
And nothing I can or will do about that except hope he never gets any where near me and otherwise ignore him as a waste of time. I haven’t clicked on his not-blog in probably a decade.
I only hear about him when he says something dumb and someone else quotes it.
.
Has transphobia also turned people like Coyne into pro-genocide?
Because not only he’s going after trans people, he’s also going after pro-Palestinian protestors, especially the college kids who are against this genocide.
The sheer amount of lies this Coynehole puts out against those kids; along regurgitating bullshit from dubious sources; on his blog, is just staggering.
The one question he neglected to answer in his “defense” is “Why does it matter?”
Aside from all the exceptions people have already listed to this “binary,” and the fact that you can’t talk to a duck about its gender identity, Coyne himself has discussed reproductive morphs in the past: territorial males, satellite males, sneaker males, female mimics and so forth. He should be perfectly aware that gamete size alone often does not well predict an animal’s anatomy or behavior, even within a single species.
There are a number of studies showing statistical differences in brain structure between cis and trans members of the same biological sex.
That said, if Coyne doesn’t consider those to represent “modules,” whatever those are, then fine. Let’s toss out gender as biologically meaningless and everyone can use the same bathroom! He’s cool with that, right?
We know what genitals and gametes we have, dude. (Though rarely do we know our own karyotypes.). Trans people are quite knowledgeable about the ways in which we do or do not match our desired presentation. That’s why we transition medically.
Well I dunno, maybe ask them? Otherkin are people with feelings and preferences, who communicate with words like the rest of us. They have the right to weigh in on “what we should do” with them, unless you’re going full Nazi.
Talking to them might also give you a more nuanced understanding of the various reasons why they choose to identify with something nonhuman. Hint: it’s usually not because they believe they possess literal hooves or a tail, or want to shit in a litterbox.
When you attack one marginalized group with a reductio ad absurdum referencing another marginalized group, you just look like twice as much of an asshole.
What if traditional gender roles was just bullshit peddled by grifters to make people (mainly men) feel inadequate and desperate enough to buy whatever bullshit said grifters are peddling.
the problem looks to me some people are trying to impose order on nature and the world without asking if what they think is true is in fact true at all.
Clearly if sex in humans was like they claim it is supposed to be there would not be this problem of “wrong sexuality” unfortunately it clearly exists and has existed all along it is not some new thing from some subversive something. People have never nor will they ever fit into these rigid categories with their strict rules of behavior and appearance. Given the space and time all of those vary widely you can rail about it all you like nature has its own order and will not bend to suit anyone’s beliefs
The pointless pain and difficulties such intolerance creates is impossible to justify
If sexuality exists on a spectrum, then there is exactly, definitively ONE person who is the gayest.
And, leaving all that aside.,Why is it any business of Coyne’s, or anyone else, if someone wishes to change gender to that which they feel they belong to?
Bigotry generally is a mind-killer to twist Dune‘s Litany here.
Oh & dehumanisation of others is the trunk of all evil too.(The love of money being its roots.)
There are no known brain modules for cisgenderism or heterosexuality either, so they can’t be biologically meaningful descriptors, right? Prof Coyne?
As I read through this I realized that Coyne is doing the same thing that a fundamentalist does. He has a dogma and he’s selecting evidence that fits his dogma, and dismissing or ignoring any evidence that contradicts his dogma. While he might not invoke god or the bibles, he might as well.
A Sloth named Sparkles @5: No, Coyne was a mindlessly pro-Israel Islamaphobe well before he jumped on the transphobia bandwagon.
Yes, many ducks and foxes have no gametes. That indicates that, if you try to define sex solely based on gametes, foxes have at least three sexes: sperm, eggs, and no gametes.
Tom Foss@1–
I haven’t done so for a while now, but there was a time when I read quite a few papers on brain differences between groups. Most of the findings are just correlations. Many of these reported correlations probably don’t even really exist–the brain is full of structures to measure, so we’d expect any two groups to show some statistically significant differences just by chance*. Of the correlations that are real, we don’t know whether the correlation is causally important, or even which way the cause-effect arrow is pointing.
The formula for the probability of at least one significant correlation coming up by chance is
p = 1 – (1 – α)^n
where α is the significance level and n is the number of variables. For the standard α = 0.05, it takes only 14 variables for a better than 50% chance of finding a correlation in random data. At 45 variables, p > 90%. There are a lot more than 45 structures in the brain.
Jerry Coyne would not do well in the space annexed by the Raadchai (in Ann Leckie’s SF novels). They have only one pronoun for gender.
But the alien Presger are weirder. They would give Coyne a stroke.
Agree with microraptor @15. I was a regular at WEIT until about 2014, and Israel was foremost in his mind. Remember also that he bans anyone he feels has insulted him unless they apologize.
It is quite sad really. Transphobic people tie themselves in knots trying to come up with pseudo-intellectual justifications for hating trans people, the irony being that they don’t need such justifications and would cheerfully bigot away however unjustified their position actually is.
As far as I can tell, it’s about the degree to which their gender identity is central to their own self-image. People who aren’t all that invested in ideas like masculinity and femininity tend not to feel it is important to keep them rigorously separate. Mr. Coyne’s transphobia says a lot about his own anxieties and fears with regard to gender, not much about sexual and gender diversity in science.
cartomancer @20:
Nail hits head resoundingly.
Taking that at face value, what’s the conclusion supposed to be? That there is no such thing as gender identity, for anyone?
It looks like Coyne is wrong about brain modules and gender identity.
Five minutes with Google and I found a lot of research on this subject.
There is more but this paper, which is a review, gives one an idea of what this research has found.
Part of gender identity is located in the…central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3).
Claiming gender doesn’t exist and that gender identity doesn’t exist either is just dumb.
Of course it does. Almost all of us could answer the question of what our gender identity is immediately without thinking.
Something worth keeping in mind about the brain regions associated with differences. The places where society shoves people into slots will have a brain effect too. The way women and female people are pressured to use aggression for example.
There will be places where innate differences are associated with brain changes, but it’s the difference between following your instincts and society telling you your instincts should be something in particular. Not everyone will internally have a problem with the way things are set up socially and are able to go along with it. But some have different instincts.
In short, each of Coyne’s arguments is begging the question. Just as any other anti-trans argument one has ever invented.
@Tom Foss #1 – The fun thing about Rachel Dolezal is that virtually nobody questioned her blackness for 38 years.
There are no ” Brain modules” currently known for train spotters, ergo they don’t exist. But wait.. there are lots of them.
If anyone wants to see even more transphobic nonsense, check out the comments in this FTB thread:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/daylight/2024/10/22/sex-and-gender-are-constellations/
So it looks like the answer to Tom’s question @1 is: Never — at least not until a more convenient scapegoat appears…
I had very low expectations of Jerry Coyne and he managed to fail them. Kids wanting to be cats and dogs? Really? What a fucking idiot. I feel bad for the people in the audience.
I too am quite puzzled as to why anyone cares what Jerry Coyne thinks? It’s clear from this stupid title;
That he is clueless on both subjects, but thinks that anyone needs to hear his superior white man ideology which is obviously based on transphobia rather than any science.
Neither Sex or Race are ideologies, since you don’t get to choose your genes or sexual differentiation.
Is Coyne some kind of ‘legacy’ speaker that has been invited ever since the events started? Or may he have been invited to get a ‘both sides’ debate?
I have to disagree that it’s a great speaker lineup. It feels, well, tired. It’s largely names who’ve been in skepicism for decades, and only a quarter of the speakers are women. Where’s the new voices? Is American skepticism so defunct now that you’ve got to have the same bunch of guys on constant rotation? When I compare to something like QED the difference is stark.
Because he wears a cloak of authority:
“Jerry Allen Coyne is an American biologist and skeptic known for his work on speciation and his commentary on intelligent design. A professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, he has published numerous papers on the theory of evolution.”
(Wikipedia)
Blurb here recapitulates that: https://csiconference.org/speakers/
(“See the brightest stars of reason & science shine”)
Hopefully he listened to the next speakers talk about Quantum Misogyny, Changing Minds, and Echo-Chambers vs Evidence: Ideological Conflicts in Science Acceptance.
His credentials in biology and speciation aren’t particularly relevant to the supposed topics of sex and race. He also thinks ID is valid science, so I still wonder why anyone values his opinion?
It’s clearly just a bunch of transphobia and word salad about brain modules, followed with a slippery slope insult where he literally compared being transgender to people believing themselves to be animals. That doesn’t even make sense.
It does sound very like the people who claimed that letting gay people get married would lead to people marrying horses and dogs. Oddly enough, that didn’t happen either.
Tethys@35–
I’m pretty sure Coyne is very anti-Intelligent Design. I would also argue that while his expertise in biology has limited relevance to gender (a psychosocial construct), it is absolutely relevant to sex (an anatomical and physiological construct), which makes it even more disappointing that he gets it so wrong and refuses to acknowledge the overwhelming genetic, biochemical, and plain old observational evidence against universal, discrete binary sex categories, including in humans.
#32: You’re right. What briefly appealed to me was how familiar it all sounded — these are the same people who were speaking at skeptic conferences 10, 15 years ago! About the only real change is that I never get invited to them anymore.
#28: Ugh, what a mess. I learned long ago that transphobes have to be slapped down hard as soon as they start up, because they will never, ever shut up, and all they ever do is rationalize their biases. They cannot learn.
Chris Lawson @36
Yes, exactly. Even worse, he is inventing human anatomy of brain modules as a rationale for spouting transphobic nonsense.
I am lying here on my couch, in pain, swolen, hoped up on drugs 6 days out from bottom surgery; and ypu know, what i am overall very happy even with the extreme discomfort and pain. According to this simpleton I am a “cis het man.” Obviously getting a vaginoplasty is a normal behavior for a cis het man, so i look forward to all my other fellow cis het men here telling us about how excited they are to get their vaginoplasties! Come on guys tell us your stories of why you want to get your dicks flensced! (Side anecdote I had some very supportive male coworkers asking me about hormones, just out if curiosity. I am more than happy to answer questions, so I took my bottle of E pills out of my purse and put it on the table and they all backed away from it like I had just let loose a cobra in their mids, the visceral reaction was hilarious.)
I joke though because I know what he really wants to say is that I am “delusional” or “mentally ill” terms which don’t actually have deep meaning in the manner he uses them. No he his using them in the same exact manner as 19th century imperialist used “savage” or “lesser race;” or more contemporarily how we use the term “criminal.” These are just words to short cut any sort of real conversation or discussion of the nature of gender or sexuality, or even race for that matter, because once you drop the thought terminating words, which are functionally slurs, they lose badly. The truth is that bigots like this always prove to be childbrained idealists who are just mad that they world doesnt conform to the way they were told by mommy and daddy. People like him need things to be “”NORMAL”” because if you add and complexity or nuance it scares them, for them science is the same tool that the bible is for the religiois freaks saking basically the exact same things in digferent terms. This is one reason i have hard moved away from the idea that religion is the source of all reactionary thought. Like ill admit it has a much higher propensity toward it, but i could see a completely dechristianized right wing that uses the fetish of science as justification to hold the exact same beliefs they do now.
The ultimate evidence of their loss is the fact that WE ARE STILL HERE! No matter how many laws they pass no matter how many of us they brutalize and kill queer people aren’t going away, we are their siblings and children. Ultimately queers will win, it is only a question of time.
crimsonsage @39: Congratulations.
Remember whatshisname (due clicketys)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Robinson_(American_politician)#Homophobic_and_transphobic_comments
Not hearing much of him now, but… well.
(Talk about a guilty pleasure!)
crimsonsage, #39
Well, I doubt he’d say you were CIS-het, because that would imply that something other than cis is possible. Then again, basic logic isn’t these people’s strong suit, so who knows?
I’m going to repost a comment I’ve made before, last on the Daylight atheism thread taken over by a trans hating troll.
This is why the trolls and haters came up with that “sex is binary” claim and that is the only way to define it. This claim is BTW, only a few years old. The hate came first, the rational came later.
.1. Sex is binary.
.2. Gender doesn’t exist.
.3. Which means Trans men and Trans women don’t exist.
This is to allow the Tran haters to erase Trans people from the population. They can then discriminate against them, persecute them, and make them illegal. That is step 4.
.4. If Trans people don’t exist, eliminate them. Beat them up, outlaw them, fire them from jobs, make them live on the streets. Deny them medical care. Pass laws against them, something happening right now in Red states.
Right now it is working.
Trans people are 2.5 to 4 times more likely to be victims of violence than the general cis population.
Wherever you have hate speech, inevitably it is followed by hate violence.
Hate and violence just aren’t my thing.
I find Trans hating trolls like Jerry Coyne or Richard Dawkins to be mentally warped, destructive, and evil.
This is the motivation behind all the Trans hate and the lies they make up and repeat over and over again.
They want to eliminate Trans people.
Mostly because they can.
It isn’t like Trans people are any sort of threat to us or our society.
It is because they are a very small minority of 0.5% of our society. And one that most of our society doesn’t understand and they are “other” or “different”.
I’m just going to say it.
This is Nazi grade eliminationist ideology.
Hey, crimsonsage! May you quickly heal and live a life of wholeness!
Congrats @crimsonsage, I wish you a speedy recovery.
+++
As for the argument being limited to humans: There are multiple cases of non human animals exhibiting “gend er conforming” and “gender non conforming” behaviour. There’s nothing biological that makes male dogs lift their legs, yet they do. What if a male dog doesn’t, or a female one does? Just because we cannot tell whether they just think that stupid, didn’t get the memo, or have a different gender identity doesn’t mean we can discard that fact.
congrats crimsonsage, heal well!
Gilell @ #42 — I’ve known quite a few male dogs that don’t lift their leg. They squat just like the females. We’ve had 25 or so different dogs in our home over the last 4 years, many of them male, and many of those males never lifted their leg. It may be because of guide dog training.
crimsonsage @39: Adding my best wishes for a speedy recovery and continued happiness.
That slide was a quick addition to his presentation, and was his response to points that Steve Novella had made during his talk at CSICon the day before.
To respond to PZ’s points in order:
– The sexual binary Coyne is talking about is the type of gametes produced (sperm or egg). Sexual behaviour is irrelevant. A gay or trans spider would still produce sperm. Again Coyne’s point was regarding comments Novella had made in his talk.
– “No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.” Since he is talking about quantifiable activity in a specific part of the brain, or an observable brain structure, saying “Modules are abstractions that are used to model the functionality” kind of supports his point. Again it depends on whether Novella was talking in terms of actual physical modules or abstractions.
– “Sure, why not? Why can’t both sex and gender be fluid?” Well sex is supposed to be about reproduction. If a person can go from producing eggs to producing sperm, or vice-versa, then you have a point. If they can’t, then it isn’t fluid, by definition.
– I’m going to assume that the point he was making is that this is a fad or bandwagon that people are jumping on. I don’t have a response other than that.
– Coyne’s comment is much like the “What is a Woman?” question. If you are have a given definition for sex, how can you change it on a whim? Terms lose meaning if you can’t define them, particularly in Science.
– How do you distinguish between a true self-image and a delusion? If your self-image includes having wings, that doesn’t mean you actually have wings. I think that is the point he was trying to make.
– “No, people can’t change species.” Well like your assertion, Coyne is asserting that people can’t change sex. Both of you would need to justify your assertions, otherwise it is like saying that “Yes, you can self-identify gender, but you can’t self-identify race.”
I won’t bother responding to your ad hominem’s.
Michael:
Another person who evidently fails to understand to what argumentum ad hominem refers.
Example: “For some reason, they also included Jerry Coyne, who has become a right-wing crank over the years […]”. Here, the argumentum ad hominem would be that because he is a crank he is wrong; instead, PZ is claiming that he is a crank because he is wrong.
(See the diff?)
Michael is just repeating Coyne’s lies and mistakes.
.1. The sexual binary Coyne is talking about is the type of gametes produced (sperm or egg). Sexual behaviour is irrelevant.
This is also irrelevant when talking about Trans people.
They are by definition people whose sex assigned at birth doesn’t match up with their gender and gender identity.
.2. “No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.”
This is just wrong. I posted a review article above at #23.
There is a large number of research articles on exactly this point that Coyne is too lazy or stupid to access by using Google. It took me less than 5 minutes to find that literature.
.3. “I’m going to assume that the point he was making is that this is a fad or bandwagon that people are jumping on. I don’t have a response other than that.”
We do have a response.
Coyne is wrong again.
It’s a claim without any data whatsoever and can dismissed on that basis.
Coyne is just repeating Trans hater lies.
.4. “If you are have a given definition for sex, how can you change it on a whim?”
The definition of sex isn’t “sex is a binary” and it never has been.
Sex is multilayed and far more complicated than that.
This is something the Trans haters made up recently to rationalize their hate of Trans people.
.5. – How do you distinguish between a true self-image and a delusion?
It isn’t up to Jerry Coyne. Or you. Or anyone but the person whose self identity it is.
BTW, that is a bait and switch and it is also wrong.
With Trans people, the relevant term is self identity. Not self image.
You determine people’s self identity by…asking them what their self identity is.
If you don’t like their self identity too bad. That is none of your business or concern. It’s a free country.
.6a. “Both of you would need to justify your assertions, otherwise it is like saying that “Yes, you can self-identify gender, but you can’t self-identify race.””
This is wrong on multiple levels.
Trans people don’t change gender or gender identity.
They find out, sometimes early in life, that their gender/gender identity isn’t the one they were assumed to have at birth.
And, you and Coyne don’t even know what gender is, not being able to use a dictionary or search engine.
Among other things it is a social construct and those can change rapidly in Real Time.
.6b This is one that is really both stupid and wrong.
And a huge number of people have a fluid and changing self identification of “race”.
There are tens of millions of mixed race people in the USA. It is the fastest growing demographic in the USA.
Obama to take one notable example has a white mother and Kenyan father. He self reports his identity as…Black.
Mixes report their racial identities in a variety of ways and sometimes decide to change them for one reason or another.
My friend from the Caribbean is mostly Spanish with some small amount of Native American.
What race does she claim?
I have no idea. She and I just call her…Suzy.
This sex is binary lie was just made up a few years ago to persecute Trans people. Here is a more typical biological and medical definition of sex.
There is a lot more to sex than just what gametes are produced.
In a huge number of cases, people don’t even produce gametes for one reason or another.
Sex is multi-layered and complex.
Sex is used when describing anatomical, gonadal, chromosomal, hormonal, cellular, and basic biological phenomena. E.g., sex development, sex hormones, sex characteristics.
The source here is the US NIH.
A far more reputable source, than an obscure right wingnut crank in Chicago, i.e Jerry Coyne.
– The gamete distinction only matters if you think the only function of sex is reproduction. It isn’t.
– Abstractions are models of observable, measurable differences. The differences exist no matter what you call them.
– Sex is not just about reproduction. The poverty of your social life must be truly depressing.
– For the people who are just “jumping on a bandwagon”, it’s a matter of life and death, you know.
– Yes, it’s just like the “What is a Woman?” question. That is an attempt to invalidate a complex issue by pretending it’s simple.
– You’ve never talked to a trans person, have you? It’s their reality. What if I were to tell you that your cis sexuality is a delusion…would you care.
– People change sex every day.
Good. Then you’ll shut up and go away when I say you are a fuckwit.
Michael is a perfect example of the terrible stupidity of the anti-trans crowd. I quote:
LOL, no. A gay or trans spider would not necessarily produce sperm. And Michael doesn’t even know why.
I’m reading through all of these, and it’s just insane that a supposedly “atheist” like Jerry Coyne would go apeshit over the existence of trans people.
Why would any “atheists” like Coyne keep falling into transphobia?
robro @ # 48: … many of those male[dog]s never lifted their leg. It may be because of guide dog training.
From my limited observations, male dogs who squat to pee have been neutered before puberty.
[OT]
Pierce, from my limited observations (4 dogs over 45 years, current one is almost eight), it’s behavioural, not innate. One of them used to urinate for the purpose of urination and squatted until he grokked the smell marking thingy and then did the cocking thing (heh); one of them had the talent to eke it out so he could put a few drops at least every couple of minutes along the path for what seemed like hours on end.
(As with humans, they differ individually, breed notwithstanding)
Well sex is supposed to be about reproduction.
“Supposed to be?” Says who? In humans at least, sex, sex differences, sexual characteristics, and their consequences, are about far more than reproduction, both for people who have or plan to have kids and for those who don’t. If you want a citation for this, look under “S” for “self-evident.”
crimsonsage I hope you heal well and quickly, congratulations.
Our current female dog occasionally cocks her leg. I am not sure what makes her decide to do so, but suspect it maybe to do with the surface she is pissing on.
Jazzlet@60,
Our (spayed) bitch not only cocks her leg, she mounts various inanimate objects and thrusts as if mating with them. We’ll have to hide her if we see Hilary Cass approaching! And on a recent country walk, Ms. KG and I observed a cow mounting both another cow, and a bull, neither of which seemed to have any objection.
test
Jazzlet@60,
Our (spayed) female dog not only cocks her leg, she mounts various inanimate objects and thrusts as if mating with them. We’ll have to hide her if we see Hilary Cass approaching! And on a recent country walk, Ms. KG and I observed a cow mounting both another cow, and a bull, neither of which seemed to have any objection.
Ha! I was puzzled that the previous version of #62 would not post – but it turns out that it’s because I used the one-word term for a female dog.
@ ^ KG : My female dog regularly humps her cushion.. Previous female dogs I’ve had have also done this FWIW.
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@50. Michael : “Well sex is supposed to be about reproduction.”
Tell us you’re doin’ it wrong without telling us you’re doing it wrong hey dude!
Oh and just ask the Bonobos! As others have noted, no its not. Certainly not JUST reproduction.
So you saw it in person then? What did you think and what do you think looking back at it now? Did Coyne take any intresting questions during or after his talk?
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@ 39. crimsonsage : Respect, well said, congrats and hope you feel better soon.
I find myself baffled by people who say sex is all about gametes or chromosomes. Who on earth is going around asking people what their gametes are? I don’t even know what my own chromosomes are, let along anyone else’s. I was told I was female and have never felt any reason to dispute that. But not everyone is so lucky and forcing them to be misidentified their entire life is incredibly cruel and unnecessary.
The Trans hating trolls also seem to be overly concerned about other people’s self identity and self image.
It is none of their business or concern.
People have a right to their own self identity and no one can take that away from them. Self identity isn’t something you can force other people to change.
There is no mystery here though.
The Trans haters like Jerry Coyne and his follower the troll, Michael want to claim that Trans men and Trans women don’t really exist.
They aren’t Trans, they are deluded.
That is just wrong. Trans people exist no matter what lies you tell about them.
The Trans haters have their own problems. They are mentally warped haters responsible for spreading the hate that results in high levels of violence against Trans people.
They are both wrong and evil.
Absolutely. I think Christianity’s central premises are false, but I don’t argue for laws that prohibit arguing on its behalf or even encouraging people to convert to Christianity. On top of that, I think that business should be prohibited from discriminating on the basis of religion, even though that protects people whose worldviews are false and/or harmful.
The anti-trans crowd shows no such awareness of the social benefits of pluralism and non-discrimination.
The rot at CFI goes even deeper. The latest Skeptical Inquirer includes an article on gender-affirming care by CFI President Robyn Blumner that was so cringe-inducingly bad that it made me both simultaneously angry and incredibly embarrassed for an organization that I love. The title? The Cass Review: Are We Experimenting on Kids? Add that to the article by Jerry Coyne and Luana Maroja published last year in Skeptical Inquirer, and it’s hard not to conclude that the merger of the Dawkins Foundation with CFI has led to CFI being co-opted to Dawkins’ receptiveness to right wing culture war distortions of science.
Seriously, in her article Blumner cites sources like The New York Post, Bari Weis’s The Free Press, and The Economist, and her arguments read like Fox News (at best). As for Coyne, I don’t know what happened to him, but when it comes to sex, gender, and the gender-affirming care of adolescents with gender dysphoria, he’s truly turned into the proverbial old man yelling at a cloud. Or was it that he was always like this, and I just didn’t notice because I didn’t know him well enough or pay attention?
@Crip Dyke 67:
Imagine how much outrage there would be if someone wrote a law stating “Because Jesus is fake, it is now a crime for doctors to proscribe levothyroxine to people who identify as Christian. Levothyroxine is of course still legal for normal people. There have been lots of studies on the effects of levothyroxine, but none of those studies are exclusively done on Christians, so no one can know the long-term effects of this brand-new experimental medicine that was only recently invented in 1927.”
sockjockwarlock @56: From what I could tell from following his blog for a few years, it’s because he woke up one day and went into the Okay Boomer phase of his life where he suddenly realized that the world was no longer just a place for cisgender heterosexual white men and he found this perceived threat to his privilege to be completely intolerable. Before it was trans people, he was freaking out about safe spaces, completely unaware of the irony of doing so on a blog where he uses extremely liberal use of banning to prevent anyone from saying things he disagrees with. Or even using words he doesn’t like, such as “blog.”
michael
Which holy book are you quoting? Because I can’t remember Nature suddenly having made declarations. Of course you can try to define the word like that, but then people are allowed to disagree with your definition.
If anything, if we assume this is true, its even kore of an argument FOR transgender people, since it means that gender as a thing “doesn’t even exist.”
This feels like its missing a word or something, but isn’t this basically just asking if “eggs” exist?