Much as I admire Jerry Coyne and subscribe to his daily mail, I have a big problem with his Pro Israel ideology. At the start of the latest war, I sent Coyne an article that I thought was a balanced account of the issues. He replied that if I ever wrote him again, I would be placed on a public list of known Hamas lovers" - which I am NOT! It was a threat to be publicly accused and condemned for sending a balanced article. I now skip anything he writes about Israel and stick to the science.
I don't agree with him on all things. He is very anti-religious. While I'm agnostic, I don't have the antipathy towards religion or religious believers that he has.
Thank you, David, for discussing this topic. I followed up on the references, starting with the original Kat Grant essay, Coyne's response, and the responses to the responses.
I find that Jerry Coyne is too contentious for my taste. Terry Anderson's point about being accused of being a Hamas supporter is a good example. Coyne tends to go to extremes.
The most balanced observation on this whole debate is Steven Novella's response to Coyne's critique of Novella's presentation at CSICON (see: I did follow up on the references!)
This response has the appropriate level of nuance: life is complicated.
Steven acknowledges Coyne's basic point: binary biological sex based on gametes is a starting point. But, you have to acknowledge that there is this 1% intermediate that should be addressed. And here, Coyne starts getting shrill.
This paragraph from Novella's essay is probably the best summation of the whole kerfuffle:
"Here is my actual position, as articulated (quite clearly, if the overwhelming feedback I got was any indication) in the talk. Biological sex in humans is multifactorial and complicated, pretty much like all of biology. While there are two pathways of sexual development (we are a sexually dimorphic species), humanity is not “strictly” binary because not everyone fits cleanly or unambiguously into one of two sexes. Pretty much every aspect of biological sex has variations, or “differences in sexual development”, or ambiguous features in some individuals. These are the facts, and you cannot meaningfully disagree about this. So how do skeptics disagree? Largely due to semantics (or I guess making the other side into a one-dimensional strawman)."
About a year ago, there was a similar "sex is binary" article in the Free Press. I posted a comment similar to Novella's, which led to some strong objections. As a computer professional and someone who has actually gotten published in the scientific literature on genomics ( DOI 10.1016/j.jtbi.2020.110205 ) I phrase it this way:
Sexual binary is an over-simplification. It is more appropriate to consider sex (and also gender) as a logistic function:
This means that 99% of the range is either all male or all female. But there is a intermediate, non-binary, region in between where the intersex live.
When it comes to gender, there is another logistic function. Probably a little more spread out: 95% instead of 99%, maybe.
To go back to the original Kat Grant essay, obviously the conclusion is invalid: "A woman is whoever she says she is." Rachel Dolezal got into trouble with this type of claim by calling herself black.
Wittgenstein pointed the problem with this claim: private language is incoherent. When you you use the term woman (or black) you are using a term that has a shared meaning.
Much as I admire Jerry Coyne and subscribe to his daily mail, I have a big problem with his Pro Israel ideology. At the start of the latest war, I sent Coyne an article that I thought was a balanced account of the issues. He replied that if I ever wrote him again, I would be placed on a public list of known Hamas lovers" - which I am NOT! It was a threat to be publicly accused and condemned for sending a balanced article. I now skip anything he writes about Israel and stick to the science.
I don't agree with him on all things. He is very anti-religious. While I'm agnostic, I don't have the antipathy towards religion or religious believers that he has.
Thank you, David, for discussing this topic. I followed up on the references, starting with the original Kat Grant essay, Coyne's response, and the responses to the responses.
I find that Jerry Coyne is too contentious for my taste. Terry Anderson's point about being accused of being a Hamas supporter is a good example. Coyne tends to go to extremes.
The most balanced observation on this whole debate is Steven Novella's response to Coyne's critique of Novella's presentation at CSICON (see: I did follow up on the references!)
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/a-discussion-about-biological-sex/
A Discussion about Biological Sex
Published by Steven Novella
This response has the appropriate level of nuance: life is complicated.
Steven acknowledges Coyne's basic point: binary biological sex based on gametes is a starting point. But, you have to acknowledge that there is this 1% intermediate that should be addressed. And here, Coyne starts getting shrill.
This paragraph from Novella's essay is probably the best summation of the whole kerfuffle:
"Here is my actual position, as articulated (quite clearly, if the overwhelming feedback I got was any indication) in the talk. Biological sex in humans is multifactorial and complicated, pretty much like all of biology. While there are two pathways of sexual development (we are a sexually dimorphic species), humanity is not “strictly” binary because not everyone fits cleanly or unambiguously into one of two sexes. Pretty much every aspect of biological sex has variations, or “differences in sexual development”, or ambiguous features in some individuals. These are the facts, and you cannot meaningfully disagree about this. So how do skeptics disagree? Largely due to semantics (or I guess making the other side into a one-dimensional strawman)."
About a year ago, there was a similar "sex is binary" article in the Free Press. I posted a comment similar to Novella's, which led to some strong objections. As a computer professional and someone who has actually gotten published in the scientific literature on genomics ( DOI 10.1016/j.jtbi.2020.110205 ) I phrase it this way:
Sexual binary is an over-simplification. It is more appropriate to consider sex (and also gender) as a logistic function:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function
This means that 99% of the range is either all male or all female. But there is a intermediate, non-binary, region in between where the intersex live.
When it comes to gender, there is another logistic function. Probably a little more spread out: 95% instead of 99%, maybe.
To go back to the original Kat Grant essay, obviously the conclusion is invalid: "A woman is whoever she says she is." Rachel Dolezal got into trouble with this type of claim by calling herself black.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal
Wittgenstein pointed the problem with this claim: private language is incoherent. When you you use the term woman (or black) you are using a term that has a shared meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language_argument
But Coyne is definitely over the top in his objections. Not necessarily in his rebuttal, but in the following debate.
Thanks for this, David. I’ve been following the FFRF situation with keen interest. Hadn’t seen Valery Hudson’s piece yet—thank you for linking to it.