Again on sex as binary

gain on sex as binary  Sent from my Larry Noppious : “ There's also one molecular biologist who claimed similar on twitter (it gets copy-pasted around a lot) making a pretty embarrassing statistics error confusing dependent and independent variables.

Michelle Gael, this source does the same thing. Mostly it talks about gender and not sex, but it is indeed explicitly claiming: "For all too long, the government, the medical system, and even our parents have assumed that sex is binary. Based on science, this is not biologically or medically accurate.

What is true is that sex characteristics tend to be bimodal, meaning there are clusters of characteristics that tend to be associated with people that we call “female” or “male.”"

This is the same error of confusing dependent and independent variables. Specifically it's confusing sex with variables which are correlated with sex. Take, for example, hormonal levels. Hormone levels are correlated with sex, pretty much in that standard continuous bimodal fashion, but that doesn't mean hormone levels _define_ sex, hormone levels are just one of many variables that are _correlated_ with sex. Sex is _defined_ by gamete type, a hormone level isn't a gamete type.

It's easy to see this by considering the binary set {0, 1} (that which computers work with). This is as binary as it gets. Yet, there are continuous overlapping bimodal variables which are correlated with this set. Many people have different handwriting, so for example "roundness" would be a variable correlated with {0, 1} that is on a continuous bimodal distribution. Yet that doesn't stop the set {0, 1} from being binary, it's just the "roundness" variable that is continuous.

Similarly, a hormone level might be a bimodal distribution correlated with sex, but a hormone level isn't a gamete type. Chromosomes is a bimodal distribution correlated with sex, but a chromosome isn't a gamete type, etc.”

actually Anne Fausto-Sterling does regularly make such claims, she's pretty known for this. One has to understand that she's really a gender studies professor with a second degree in biology and has a habit of making claims in biology solely for ideological purposes in her gender studies work. It got so far out of hand that last year she retracted her claims of there being more than 2 sexes claiming it has just been a joke. https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1229876565548376065

br> I say it is not possible to change sexes. It is possible , but difficult , to change genders . Actually , I'd say there are more than two genders. It is possible to go from one of the two basics to a third . Homosexuals and Transvestites have long been third gender . Clothes worn are part of the basic definition of gender. Sex with the opposite sex is a basic part of gender . It's a third gender , because they will not be accepted as fully other gender by many people .

Notice homo-sexuals are not trans-sexuals; many are not "transgender" either , except in their sexuality

On Mar 3, 2021, AM, Charles Brown wrote  Gregory Lucero that’s not what defines sex. Eggs or sperm do. All of those combinations are either eggs or sperm phenotypes ( or infertile ) ; there’s no third type . Sex is of course only two complementary opposite types in sexually reproducing species. One of each required for fertile sex. No third type required or able to be part of reproduction. Anthropology includes human evolution, biology. I _teach_ biology .

Here let me teach you, giggles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biologica l_anthropology .

Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective.[1] This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective.

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2023/12/there-are-only-two-sexes-female-and-male.html