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I'm not exactly being Gettier over here; if y'all have reasons why my counterexamples are wrong, then speak up. Otherwise maybe sit back and consider exactly wh

I'm not exactly being Gettier over here; if y'all have reasons why my counterexamples are wrong, then speak up. Otherwise maybe sit back and consider exactly why it's interesting that a professor of philosophy rattles off all of these biology facts in an attempt to back up the hilariously-bullshit utterances: > The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle. It would be quite straightforward to engineer a species that has three, but none has evolved naturally. This is straight-up wrong, and he attempts to use the nomenclature of "mating types" to dismiss the obvious counterexamples. He's attempting to be some sort of deep thinker about genetics, but he's reaffirming the idea that somehow there's only ever two sexes, which is literally binary gender theory and has already been debunked.

mariusor 6y ago
Probably going straight for the ad-hominem is a reason why people are bothered by your otherwise reasonable observation. Not everyone that's wrong is a "hack". If I remember correctly HN encourages discussions in the spirit of being charitable to another person's opinion.
- Kednicma 6y ago
  We shouldn't be charitable to racism, sexism, delusional religious beliefs, or fascism; they are too harmful to the world. In this case, you're asking me to be charitable to a sexist article whose author does not justify their credentials beyond being a professor of philosophy; perhaps they are only accidentally sexist here? Seriously, do some close-reading. The very first sentence: > It’s uncontroversial among biologists that many species have two, distinct biological sexes. Note the word "many" here; not all species, but just some. In other words, many species do not have two distinct biological sexes. They then continue: > It does so despite the fact that there are no more than two biological sexes in any species you’re likely to have heard of. Ah, so while many species do not have two sexes, we're not likely to have heard of them. Okay, that's a fair cultural idea, I suppose... And then, suddenly, a one-two punch: > Not all species have biological sexes, and biology seeks to explain why some do and others don’t. Wait, okay, so some species have more than two sexes, and some don't have sex at all? This is a confusion tactic, because the very next sentence is: > The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle. We've done it. We went all the way from some species, to no species that we've heard of, to no species at all having more than two sexes. This is a famous rhetorical technique known as Iago's whispers [0]. By carefully restating the original thesis over and over, but gently changing it each time, the meaning of the entire article is shifted. Now with this discrediting in hand, the author can continue safely down their binary-gender-theory path, writing slapstick like: > Now imagine if there was a whole species like this, where three different kinds of gametes combined to make a new individual – a sperm, an egg and a third, mitochondrial gamete. This species would have three biological sexes. Something like this has actually been observed in slime moulds, an amoeba that can, but need not, get its mitochondria from a third ‘parent’. You see, the idea of more than two sexes is now imaginary, relegated to thought experiments. And we see species that are like having more than two sexes, as a simile. But the author's carefully removed the actual physical reality from consideration. HN rules forbid me from accusing folks of not having read the original article. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iago
  - ceceron 6y ago
    > We shouldn't be charitable to racism, sexism, delusional religious beliefs, or fascism; they are too harmful to the world. In this case, you're asking me to be charitable to a sexist article whose author does not justify their credentials beyond being a professor of philosophy; perhaps they are only accidentally sexist here? If author justified his credentials with more titles, it would be better? If he was a biologist, his paper would stop being sexist in your opinion? Why does it matter? As for the article itself, it isn't sexist IMHO unless you believe that stating that the biological sex exists and in human case there are two sexes is sexist. If that's so then the most biologists I've met are jest sexists and I should probably call the police and denounce them as petty criminals. You're right that author contradicts himself in the sentence "The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle". It's definitely a logical error on the author's side and is plainly wrong, but it's not the main point of the paper.
    - Kednicma 6y ago
      No, the entire point of critiquing the author's qualifications is to break apart the idea that, because the author is well-spoken, they are therefore correct or even reasonable. If the author had declined to publish a miniature biography beside the article, then I would not have said anything. I haven't, for example, examined the rest of his body of work; I don't have any predictions to make about what else he may have written. > stating that the biological sex exists and in human case there are two sexes is sexist. You got it! Sort of. It's not a problem to use the concept of biological sex, but it's completely wrong to say that humans have two biological sexes. The main problem is in the assignment of chromosomal configurations to sexual configurations; humans have a dozen or so intersex [0] configurations which don't fit neatly into binary gender theory. And this has real-world consequences. There are many countries which have canonicalized various sorts of human-rights abuses based on the binary theory, mostly by establishing some sort of concentration camps for homosexuals. The author's writing forms a small but real brick in the wall of these camps. > If that's so then the most biologists I've met are jest sexists and I should probably call the police and denounce them as petty criminals. This is the error. It doesn't make sense to criminalize sexism, and indeed it's not criminalized in any jurisdiction that I know of. Instead, what's criminalized are specific deleterious pragmatic aspects of sexism: Sexual harassment, genital mutilation, conversion therapy, forced emancipation of trans children, human trafficking. When biologists are sexists, they are usually being reductionist as the author is doing, by minimizing and ignoring the diversity of the real world's biosphere; they are not directly advocating for the harm that is done by other, more hateful people, based on their reasoning. Also, yes, my priors are that people are 99% racist, 80% sexist, 85% delusionally religious, and 20% fascist; this gives me a weak but steady belief that the typical person I talk to is, in some way, a sincere believer in deeply harmful and falsifiable cultural beliefs. I'm in the USA, for what it's worth; hopefully it's not like this everywhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

mariusor 6y ago

Probably going straight for the ad-hominem is a reason why people are bothered by your otherwise reasonable observation. Not everyone that's wrong is a "hack". If I remember correctly HN encourages discussions in the spirit of being charitable to another person's opinion.

Kednicma 6y ago
We shouldn't be charitable to racism, sexism, delusional religious beliefs, or fascism; they are too harmful to the world. In this case, you're asking me to be charitable to a sexist article whose author does not justify their credentials beyond being a professor of philosophy; perhaps they are only accidentally sexist here? Seriously, do some close-reading. The very first sentence: > It’s uncontroversial among biologists that many species have two, distinct biological sexes. Note the word "many" here; not all species, but just some. In other words, many species do not have two distinct biological sexes. They then continue: > It does so despite the fact that there are no more than two biological sexes in any species you’re likely to have heard of. Ah, so while many species do not have two sexes, we're not likely to have heard of them. Okay, that's a fair cultural idea, I suppose... And then, suddenly, a one-two punch: > Not all species have biological sexes, and biology seeks to explain why some do and others don’t. Wait, okay, so some species have more than two sexes, and some don't have sex at all? This is a confusion tactic, because the very next sentence is: > The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle. We've done it. We went all the way from some species, to no species that we've heard of, to no species at all having more than two sexes. This is a famous rhetorical technique known as Iago's whispers [0]. By carefully restating the original thesis over and over, but gently changing it each time, the meaning of the entire article is shifted. Now with this discrediting in hand, the author can continue safely down their binary-gender-theory path, writing slapstick like: > Now imagine if there was a whole species like this, where three different kinds of gametes combined to make a new individual – a sperm, an egg and a third, mitochondrial gamete. This species would have three biological sexes. Something like this has actually been observed in slime moulds, an amoeba that can, but need not, get its mitochondria from a third ‘parent’. You see, the idea of more than two sexes is now imaginary, relegated to thought experiments. And we see species that are like having more than two sexes, as a simile. But the author's carefully removed the actual physical reality from consideration. HN rules forbid me from accusing folks of not having read the original article. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iago
- ceceron 6y ago
  > We shouldn't be charitable to racism, sexism, delusional religious beliefs, or fascism; they are too harmful to the world. In this case, you're asking me to be charitable to a sexist article whose author does not justify their credentials beyond being a professor of philosophy; perhaps they are only accidentally sexist here? If author justified his credentials with more titles, it would be better? If he was a biologist, his paper would stop being sexist in your opinion? Why does it matter? As for the article itself, it isn't sexist IMHO unless you believe that stating that the biological sex exists and in human case there are two sexes is sexist. If that's so then the most biologists I've met are jest sexists and I should probably call the police and denounce them as petty criminals. You're right that author contradicts himself in the sentence "The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle". It's definitely a logical error on the author's side and is plainly wrong, but it's not the main point of the paper.
  - Kednicma 6y ago
    No, the entire point of critiquing the author's qualifications is to break apart the idea that, because the author is well-spoken, they are therefore correct or even reasonable. If the author had declined to publish a miniature biography beside the article, then I would not have said anything. I haven't, for example, examined the rest of his body of work; I don't have any predictions to make about what else he may have written. > stating that the biological sex exists and in human case there are two sexes is sexist. You got it! Sort of. It's not a problem to use the concept of biological sex, but it's completely wrong to say that humans have two biological sexes. The main problem is in the assignment of chromosomal configurations to sexual configurations; humans have a dozen or so intersex [0] configurations which don't fit neatly into binary gender theory. And this has real-world consequences. There are many countries which have canonicalized various sorts of human-rights abuses based on the binary theory, mostly by establishing some sort of concentration camps for homosexuals. The author's writing forms a small but real brick in the wall of these camps. > If that's so then the most biologists I've met are jest sexists and I should probably call the police and denounce them as petty criminals. This is the error. It doesn't make sense to criminalize sexism, and indeed it's not criminalized in any jurisdiction that I know of. Instead, what's criminalized are specific deleterious pragmatic aspects of sexism: Sexual harassment, genital mutilation, conversion therapy, forced emancipation of trans children, human trafficking. When biologists are sexists, they are usually being reductionist as the author is doing, by minimizing and ignoring the diversity of the real world's biosphere; they are not directly advocating for the harm that is done by other, more hateful people, based on their reasoning. Also, yes, my priors are that people are 99% racist, 80% sexist, 85% delusionally religious, and 20% fascist; this gives me a weak but steady belief that the typical person I talk to is, in some way, a sincere believer in deeply harmful and falsifiable cultural beliefs. I'm in the USA, for what it's worth; hopefully it's not like this everywhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex