Lysenkoism Watch: "Here's Why Human Sex is Not Binary," or: Scientific American Turned IntoTeen Vogue So Slowly I Didn't Even Notice...

facepalm.

As we've come to expect of such nonsense, this is fallacies on parade. You honestly could teach a week or so of a critical thinking class on this--if you want to get fired, that is.

I'm not going to go through it in detail, but the main switcheroo comes here:

The bottom line is that while animal gametes can be described as binary (of two distinct kinds), the physiological systems, behaviors and individuals that produce them are not. This reality of sex biology is well summarized by a group of biologists who recently wrote: “Reliance on strict binary categories of sex fails to accurately capture the diverse and nuanced nature of sex.”

So gametes "can be described as" "binary"--i.e. they're dichotomous, i.e. dimorphic...but...there are other differences among humans that are less so and more overlapping...so...well, you see it. 

   This guy is at Princeton, apparently. But, y'know, in anthropology...so I guess that balances out...

   At any rate, this comes down, basically to distraction + the continuum fallacy. Yes, humans fall into two sexes. Each human (barring malformation or malfunction) produces gametes, and none (or perhaps few?) produce more than one kind. So: sex is dichotomous in humans. It's also dimorphic: there are striking average differences between males and females. They fall into two natural kinds. Natural kinds tend to be clusters of characteristics. Ergo there tends to be overlap. In particular if you look at one variable at a time. e.g.: men tend to be taller, women shorter. However, as with race, the difference between kinds really shows up when you look at multiple variables. Men tend to also be bigger, stronger, more aggressive, etc. than women, and to exhibit certain different cognitive abilities (better at math, worse at words).

   Ergh, I'm not going to waste a bunch of time on this nonsense. But I will let this dude speak for himself a bit more:

The animal kingdom does not limit itself to only one biological binary regarding how a species makes gametes. Scientifically speaking, animals with the capacity to produce ova are generally called “female” and sperm producers “male.” While most animal species fall into the “two types of gametes produced by two versions of the reproductive tract” model, many don’t. Some worms produce both. Some fish start producing one kind and then switch to the other, and some switch back and forth throughout their lives. There are even lizards that have done away with one type all together. Among our fellow mammals, which are less freewheeling because of the twin constraints of lactation and live birth, there are varied connections between gametes and body fat, body size, muscles, metabolism, brain function and much more.

My favorite bit:  "Scientifically speaking, animals with the capacity to produce ova are generally called 'female' and sperm-producers 'male.'" LOOOL This new learning amazes me! 

   Look: sexes are natural kinds found throughout the higher animals, and the fact that some few animals are of both, or can switch back and forth, does nothing to change the fact that there are two, nor that, in particular, there are two in humans. These are just empirical facts--they're what we find if we, y'know, look at nature. Instead of pushing a political agenda. There are very few genuinely borderline cases, sex-wise, in humans: we tend to fall determinately into one or the other sexes. And, of course: humans do not have the ability to change back and forth. 

   None of this really matters for the author's real purpose--which is clearly to support "transgender" ideology. That view uses the continuum fallacy at every opportunity--but it's irrelevant as well as fallacious.

   Uh, ok, one last stupid paragraph here:

There are those, politicians, pundits and even a few scientists, who maintain that whether our bodies make ova or sperm are all we need to know about sex. They assert that men and women are defined by their production of these gamete cells, making them a distinct biological binary pair, and that our legal rights and social possibilities should flow from this divide. Men are men. Women are women. Simple.

First, no one has asserted that "whether our bodies make ova or sperm is all we need to know about sex." No one. Ever. No one says that. No one thinks that. This is a straw man. (Well, of course: there's no stupid thing that someone hasn't thought it; but it's going to be really hard to find many instances of this one.)

Second, I don't even know what it means to say that "men and women are defined by their production of these gamete cells, making them a distinct biological binary pair." No, men and women aren't--because men and women are individuals. And, of course, some men and some women don't produce such cells because--like other animals--some are malformed or malfunctioning, some age out of the reproduction game, some are injured, etc. Now, if you mean: men are adult male humans, and maleness is centrally a matter of producing sperm...then yes. Men are male, and that's what males are. (I keep tying 'sparm,' but am too lazy to check carefully to make sure I've caught all those. And I find that pseudo-word hilarious, anyway.) And, yeah, they are a distinct biological" "binary" pair. (The word 'binary' is really stupid here, incidentally.' Again, as with other natural kinds, there are some borderline cases. But, per above that doesn't really matter.

Third: "...and that our legal rights and social possibilities should flow from this divide." LOOOOL

Straw man. Irrelevant. Bullshit. Sophistry. Make the conjunction long enough, and throw in whatever irrelevant nonsense you like, and you can make the conjunctive view false...

   Now look how much time I've wasted on this midwit bullshit.