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Oryx_404@lemmy.today

The history of sex research: Is “sex” a useful category? (lemmy.today)

submitted 3 weeks ago by Oryx_404@lemmy.today to c/critical_analysis@lemmy.today

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867424001223

The history of sex research demonstrates an ongoing coexistence of multiple, conflicting meanings of sex. This history raises questions for scientists about the deployment of a research variable that lacks precision. Cross-disciplinary collaboration between scientists and science and technology studies (STS) scholars offers a way to find solutions to this problem.

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[–] Oryx_404@lemmy.today 3 points 3 weeks ago

What a terrible, terrible paper.

And yet it was cited seriously on Lemmy over in https://lemmy.today/post/57474308. Here's a takedown of it:

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/03/17/the-journal-cell-endorses-the-view-that-sex-isnt-binary/

Here are the main problems with Velocci’s paper:

It conflates sex differentiation, sex determination, and the definition of sex

It argues, wrongly, that no progress has been made in understanding the nature and definition of biological sex

Its argument is ideological rather than scientific, yet is given the trappings of science

It argues that the binary nature of sex, which the author rejects, somehow erases transgender and nonbinary people

And, as usual, its supposed examples that make sex nonbinary, like the long clitoris of the hyena, are wrong. But where are the clownfish? Send in the clownfish!