“A few pages of alterations in a 1500-page textbook do not portend the collapse of civilization and the problem should not be exaggerated.”
Oh, I don’t think it’s possible to over-exaggerate this problem, whether the shift is of innocent intent or not. One can’t look at this change as an isolated incident. It’s not just one biology textbook. It’s the insidious attempt to shift reality and impose that unreality on others through compelled speech and punishment for wrongthink (plus indoctrination of young children). A biology student (or medical student, etc.) who pushes back will not fare well in a course taught by an ideologue. This will rapidly and effectively weed out the undesirables. It is, no doubt, part of the process that has brought us a growing league of teachers and clinicians who believe in and spread this nonsense. For all of the outcry from liberals (I still consider myself one, in the classic sense) about “alternative facts,” we’re looking at the start of the post-truth world they’re championing.
I think his point in the first paragraph about the insidiousness of this is interesting, as well as frightening and anger-inducing! The “harder to remove” part is chilling.
This is alarming, but even worse is the incorporation of gender pseudoscience into actual medical journals. Here's a quote from the instructions for authors for a medical journal publishing papers on reproductive endocrinology, F&S Reports: "Definitions. Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features (e.g., chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy). A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth"), most often based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society. Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man) and unchanging whereas these constructs actually exist along a spectrum and include additional sex categorizations and gender identities such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD) or identify as non-binary. Moreover, the terms "sex" and "gender" can be ambiguous—thus it is important for authors to define the manner in which they are used. In addition to this definition guidance and the SAGER guidelines, the resources on this page offer further insight around sex and gender in research studies."
When biology textbooks spout woke "gender" nonsense, you know civilization is going down the tubes.
Sometimes, timing is everything. Just a few minutes before I logged onto Reality's Last Stand, I read an article that was published today on the New Yorker website, "The Perils and Promises of Penile Enlargement Surgery: One doctor’s Promethean quest to grow the male member is leaving some men desperate and disfigured."
I bring this article up because it shows the hypocrisy and willful blindness of the "trans-friendly" woke media. The article criticizes the adult men who seek this unnecessary and risky surgery on their previously healthy and normal-sized anatomy. It states these men would have been better served by getting psychotherapy. The article casts full blame on the doctors who heavily promote this surgery, fail to disclose the high rates of failure, and use sloppy surgical methods. The article includes a graphic and stomach turning description of how the genitals are sliced, diced, and turned inside out to accommodate the plastic implant. It also describes the permanent aftermath. The lack of sensation, the inability to have sexual intercourse, the inability to impregnate.
Yet when it comes to the equally risky and unnecessary genital and reproductive surgeries performed on girls and boys, women and men, the woke New Yorker is strangely silent. We see no criticism of the physically healthy children and adults who seek out these surgeries. No mention of the fact that patients are not given full disclosure of potential problems. No mention of the lack of sexual functioning and sterility. No mention of the detransitioners and their regrets. We see no mention of the greedy doctors and hospitals that perform this barbaric butchery. No mention of the schools, universities, entertainment, media, and governments that promote rancid "transgenderism" to innocent five year olds and vulnerable fifty year olds.
Dear Professor Byrne, thank you for pointing out how far the insanity has infiltrated into the very basic teaching tools of our society. I guess I am shocked, but not surprised, by the undercutting of fact.
It will take professionals such as yourself standing up, as you have, to begin to staunch the flood
(dare, I say it?) of misinformation. We, the parents and grandparents and family members
of children afflicted by the outreach of this ideology, are praying that more persons in the trenches begin to speak up. Thank you for your courage, stay safe. Love, Indio.
A textbook should cite that 'gender' is a working linguistic term which, when inappropriately applied to human sexuality, has no basis in empirical physical, medical, or any other scientific reality. There is zero evidence that the ‘innate sense of sexual self' of gender exists independent of simply the sex of a human in their consciousness. There is however substantial evidence of the existence of sexual attractions towards members of the same or opposite sex (not gender), evidence of distress related to persecution for behaviors deemed inconsistent with expected sex-stereotypes (nor gender), evidence of distress related to presence of secondary sexual characteristics the mind identifies incorrectly as foreign to the body (not gender), and evidence of a behavioral drive to achieve sexual gratification by appearing as the opposite of one's own sex to the opposite sex (not gender).
Use of the term gender as a fixed meaning is in reality (and ironically) in the process of being logically rejected by a growing group of young people, as unable to be used to accurately identify a complex multidimensional range of self-perceived identities into single meaningful categories. Sex is real, and invariant, while gender is a fiction which cannot have assigned meaning useful in biology, law, medicine, and science, and as such should be deprecated in use. The appalling history of the term gender should also be considered when avoiding its usage.
The term was invented in the 1950's in an effort to legitimize genital mutilation surgery on intersex infants, to force them into a sex assigned at birth, and then psychologically condition them socially to adopt grossly sex-stereotyped behaviors believed consistent with the assignment - the history of the discredited Johns Hopkins "Gender Identity Clinic" and the founder, the (non-medical Dr.) Dr. John Money in a capsule. The “Gender Affirming” Model of the clinic evolved into child “gender affirming care” for children distressed by persecution for behaviors deemed inconsistent with their sex, misleadingly called ‘gender dysphoria’. The most evolved “child gender affirming care” involves experimental genital mutilation and removal, experimental sterilizing chemical therapy, and experimental psychological social conditioning on distressed children. Even in light of functional standards of care which provide clinical relief to the vast majority of children at the conclusion o puberty, experimentation has proceeded unethically at an accelerated pace in the 21st century leaving a path of of damage of unknown size.
A biology textbook should present this information, and compare it to other grossly unethical medical experimentation with invented terms and ambitious practitioners. For instance, the term "psychosurgery" was invented by (non-surgeon) Dr. António Egas Moniz in the late 1930's, an originator, promoter, and Nobel Prize-winner for prefrontal lobotomy, which would be refined at George Washington University into "Ice-Pick Lobotomy" by (not surgeon) Dr. Walter Freeman and (surgeon) James M Watts. Lobotomy was essentially a 'therapy' that consisted of 'precision' surgery which meant essentially driving an ice pick into the socket of the eyes of the patient, most commonly a woman, who was depressed, agitated, or had other deemed mental diseases such as homosexuality (most commonly men). Once inserted, it was moved vigorously to crush or slice through the brain matter of the front of the cerebral cortex (prefrontal) to destroy it. Similar to ‘gender affirming care’ beginning chemical sterilization and endocrine disruption after a single quick visit, It became a quick, easy ‘outpatient’ treatment option, instead of more expensive and ‘standard of care’ institutionalization and psychiatric treatment for mentally ill and those deemed so. Before being banned, the practice was performed on tens of thousands of people in Canada and the US, to tragic result. Europe, as with 'child gender affirmation' preceded the US in forbidding the use of a catastrophically damaging 'therapy'.
I'd also suggest a textbook also, in the spirit of inclusiveness, highlight another invented euphemism - 'bad blood' instead of syphilis, and the history of a terrible, discredited unethical medical experiment, the Tuskegee Study which began in the 30’s. Promoted by Taliaferro Clark, and with the institution support of the US Public Health Service and Tuskegee Institute, hundreds of Black Men were intentionally misinformed about their syphilis - they had 'bad blood'. Through misinformation, these men were not allowed to provide informed consent for the experiment which simply allowed their syphilis to progress untreated to understand how the disease evolved. As with 'gender affirming care', the experiment actively withheld 'standard of care' treatment with antibiotics once they were introduced, and in World War II some men were prevented from from being treated by the military once inducted, and syphilis was detected by military doctors. At the conclusion of the grotesque experiment in 1972, a number of men had died from syphilis, went blind, had organ damage, disfigurement, and mental illness. Many wives also contracted syphilis, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.
The pattern is clear - made-up term: gender; psychosurgery; bad blood. Institutional support: Johns Hopkins; George Washington University; Tuskegee Institute. A drive for a key man, or men to make a name: Dr. Money. Dr Moniz, Dr Freeman, Dr Watts, Clark. Experimentation on human subjects: Infants and Children; Mentally Ill, and those deemed so; Black Men. Lack of informed consent: children can never content, parents misinformed about gender, can't consent; 'mentally incompetent' can't consent; men misled in an experiment can't consent. Withholding actual known beneficial treatment: watchful waiting, psychological support; effective psychiatric therapy; penicillin. Surprise and Ban on yet another unethical experimental 'treatment' for a nonexistent, induced, mis-diagnosed, or non-treatment.
I'd like those in the textbook. I wish there were a few million dollars to circulate information to parents through direct mail citing exactly the source and misguided science of this experimentation that is embedded in this textbook, sit back, and watch the explosion.
(As a Caltech alum, I watched bemused as my alma mater always playfully insulted MIT standards of science - crystallized in the endless Wolowitz/Cooper remarks in "Big Bang Theory". I'm pleased that they have a philosophy department, and with such rigor!)
We must never dismiss any of these things as too small to be of concern. This is a full-scale attack on the West by postmodernists, who reject objective reality existing outside of mind, and there is no middle ground between the rational and postmodernist worldviews. This is war; make no mistake.
Yes. Bowing to ‘Political Correctness’ always stuffs things up. And a large % of people always choose the wrong way because of what they perceive as expediency...
I wonder if you have, perchance, seen a PhilPapers article by Professor Paul Griffiths – university of Sydney, philosopher of science, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy?
Seems of some relevance to this post, to the general issue of the corruption of biology that Coyne and Maroja describe if not contribute to, and to yourself as Griffiths makes some pointed criticisms of you in particular. Although his criticisms justifiably extended to many other philosophers writing about the topic:
Griffiths: “Philosophers who have discussed biological sex, whether they seek to vindicate the idea (Byrne 2020) or critique it (Dembroff 2020), have not defined it in the way biologists do. .... [Byrne] did not expand on what he means by ‘biology’ but nothing in his article suggests any acquaintance with the literature reviewed here. Criticism of Byrne’s claim assumed that what is at issue is the adequacy of a chromosomal or phenotypic definition of sex in humans. [pg. 22]”
From which one might reasonably argue that that general lack of knowledge about the more or less standard biological definitions contributes as much to the corruption of biology as does the “updated” editions of “Campbell Biology” you described. Speaking of which, you apparently endorse its “chromosomal basis for determining sex” which entail some serious problems.
For example, the case of people with CAIS [“complete androgen insensitivity syndrome”] kind of knocks that criterion into a cocked hat. They typically have a “typical female external phenotype, despite having a 46,XY karyotype”; they have the phenotype, the physical appearance, of a typical female while having the genotype, the chromosomes, of a typical male:
IF one says they’re males because of the XY genotype then one is saying some males have vaginas, cervixes, and uteri – can females with penises be far behind? 🤔🙄 And if one says they’re females because of the phenotype then one is saying some females have testicles. Reductio ad absurdum. As Griffiths points out in quoting Dembroff:
Griffiths: “For example, Dembroff critiques the idea that there is a stable definition of ‘biological female’ by correctly documenting the failure of “sex hormones and sex chromosomes” to do the job (2020, 999-100). [pg. 12]
The problem is that, as Griffiths emphasizes, the “Campbell Biology” definitions are, at least for mammals, very limited operational definitions that are neither universal nor capable, in themselves, of uniquely categorizing individuals as males, females, or as neither:
Griffiths: “The chromosomal and phenotypic ‘definitions’ of biological sex that are contested in philosophical discussions of sex are actually operational definitions which track gametic sex more or less effectively in some species or group of species. Neither ‘definition’ can be stated for species in general except by defining them in terms of gametic sex [type of gamete being produced].”
But the deeper and more fundamental problem is largely because the biology conflicts rather profoundly with various “social justice” objectives:
Griffiths: “This reveals something very important about the biological understanding of sexes. I have repeatedly emphasized that the payoff for this way of thinking about sexes is that it helps to explain the evolution of reproductive systems and how they differ across the diversity of life. .... Things seem to be the opposite with the human practice of assigning people a sex as a social and legal status. There is a great reluctance to leave people outside the system of classification and one way to avoid that is by adding new categories. There are obvious reasons why human beings hanker for an all-inclusive system in which every person has a clear social and legal status. But these are not reasons that apply in the study of the evolution of reproductive systems. [pg. 20]
Trying to shoehorn the social justice foot into the glass slipper of biology – so to speak – just cripples the former and shatters the latter.
But part and parcel of that shoehorning is the rather desperate insistence that everyone has to have a sex. Which is simply incompatible with the standard biological definitions which Griffiths underlines and endorses:
Griffiths: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period!” (Roughgarden 2013, 23) .... “A sex is thus an adult phenotype defined in terms of the size of (haploid) gamete it produces: in an anisogamous population, males produce microgametes and females produce macrogametes. ...” (Parker 2011) [size matters ...]
As I’ve argued elsewhere [https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/binarists-vs-spectrumists], making small or large gametes then qualifies as the necessary and sufficient condition for sex category membership. Those more or less standard biological definitions boil down to an assertion that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. As Griffiths puts it:
Griffiths: “Biological sexes (male, female, hermaphrodite) are defined by different gametic strategies for reproduction. Sexes are regions of phenotypic space which implement those gametic reproductive strategies. Individual organisms pass in and out of these regions – sexes - one or more times during their lives. .... Importantly, sexes are life-history stages rather than applying to organisms over their entire lifespan.”
Seems it would help a great deal if more people, including more philosophers, had a better understanding of the biological definitions for the sexes, their justifications, and their consequences.
“A few pages of alterations in a 1500-page textbook do not portend the collapse of civilization and the problem should not be exaggerated.”
Oh, I don’t think it’s possible to over-exaggerate this problem, whether the shift is of innocent intent or not. One can’t look at this change as an isolated incident. It’s not just one biology textbook. It’s the insidious attempt to shift reality and impose that unreality on others through compelled speech and punishment for wrongthink (plus indoctrination of young children). A biology student (or medical student, etc.) who pushes back will not fare well in a course taught by an ideologue. This will rapidly and effectively weed out the undesirables. It is, no doubt, part of the process that has brought us a growing league of teachers and clinicians who believe in and spread this nonsense. For all of the outcry from liberals (I still consider myself one, in the classic sense) about “alternative facts,” we’re looking at the start of the post-truth world they’re championing.
I think his point in the first paragraph about the insidiousness of this is interesting, as well as frightening and anger-inducing! The “harder to remove” part is chilling.
This is alarming, but even worse is the incorporation of gender pseudoscience into actual medical journals. Here's a quote from the instructions for authors for a medical journal publishing papers on reproductive endocrinology, F&S Reports: "Definitions. Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features (e.g., chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy). A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth"), most often based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society. Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man) and unchanging whereas these constructs actually exist along a spectrum and include additional sex categorizations and gender identities such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD) or identify as non-binary. Moreover, the terms "sex" and "gender" can be ambiguous—thus it is important for authors to define the manner in which they are used. In addition to this definition guidance and the SAGER guidelines, the resources on this page offer further insight around sex and gender in research studies."
When biology textbooks spout woke "gender" nonsense, you know civilization is going down the tubes.
Sometimes, timing is everything. Just a few minutes before I logged onto Reality's Last Stand, I read an article that was published today on the New Yorker website, "The Perils and Promises of Penile Enlargement Surgery: One doctor’s Promethean quest to grow the male member is leaving some men desperate and disfigured."
I bring this article up because it shows the hypocrisy and willful blindness of the "trans-friendly" woke media. The article criticizes the adult men who seek this unnecessary and risky surgery on their previously healthy and normal-sized anatomy. It states these men would have been better served by getting psychotherapy. The article casts full blame on the doctors who heavily promote this surgery, fail to disclose the high rates of failure, and use sloppy surgical methods. The article includes a graphic and stomach turning description of how the genitals are sliced, diced, and turned inside out to accommodate the plastic implant. It also describes the permanent aftermath. The lack of sensation, the inability to have sexual intercourse, the inability to impregnate.
Yet when it comes to the equally risky and unnecessary genital and reproductive surgeries performed on girls and boys, women and men, the woke New Yorker is strangely silent. We see no criticism of the physically healthy children and adults who seek out these surgeries. No mention of the fact that patients are not given full disclosure of potential problems. No mention of the lack of sexual functioning and sterility. No mention of the detransitioners and their regrets. We see no mention of the greedy doctors and hospitals that perform this barbaric butchery. No mention of the schools, universities, entertainment, media, and governments that promote rancid "transgenderism" to innocent five year olds and vulnerable fifty year olds.
Now why do you suppose that is?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/03/the-cutthroat-world-of-penis-enlargement?utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_062623&bxid=5be9ff303f92a404693ac2f7&cndid=19666592&hasha=12f6646f3a38e3ea07cd31260cac2362&hashb=51f0fb05412ce2f229b62e7565ce0e4d29d4d375&hashc=efc98256897d59ebdb35f498359974ee40d1dc2d2f6e1c7737ca395a80824248&esrc=OIDC_SELECT_ACCOUNT_PAGE&mbid=CRMNYR012019
Dear Professor Byrne, thank you for pointing out how far the insanity has infiltrated into the very basic teaching tools of our society. I guess I am shocked, but not surprised, by the undercutting of fact.
It will take professionals such as yourself standing up, as you have, to begin to staunch the flood
(dare, I say it?) of misinformation. We, the parents and grandparents and family members
of children afflicted by the outreach of this ideology, are praying that more persons in the trenches begin to speak up. Thank you for your courage, stay safe. Love, Indio.
Too old to memorise my 1st edition Campbells Biology for when the book burners come.
TEXTBOOK GENDER
A textbook should cite that 'gender' is a working linguistic term which, when inappropriately applied to human sexuality, has no basis in empirical physical, medical, or any other scientific reality. There is zero evidence that the ‘innate sense of sexual self' of gender exists independent of simply the sex of a human in their consciousness. There is however substantial evidence of the existence of sexual attractions towards members of the same or opposite sex (not gender), evidence of distress related to persecution for behaviors deemed inconsistent with expected sex-stereotypes (nor gender), evidence of distress related to presence of secondary sexual characteristics the mind identifies incorrectly as foreign to the body (not gender), and evidence of a behavioral drive to achieve sexual gratification by appearing as the opposite of one's own sex to the opposite sex (not gender).
Use of the term gender as a fixed meaning is in reality (and ironically) in the process of being logically rejected by a growing group of young people, as unable to be used to accurately identify a complex multidimensional range of self-perceived identities into single meaningful categories. Sex is real, and invariant, while gender is a fiction which cannot have assigned meaning useful in biology, law, medicine, and science, and as such should be deprecated in use. The appalling history of the term gender should also be considered when avoiding its usage.
The term was invented in the 1950's in an effort to legitimize genital mutilation surgery on intersex infants, to force them into a sex assigned at birth, and then psychologically condition them socially to adopt grossly sex-stereotyped behaviors believed consistent with the assignment - the history of the discredited Johns Hopkins "Gender Identity Clinic" and the founder, the (non-medical Dr.) Dr. John Money in a capsule. The “Gender Affirming” Model of the clinic evolved into child “gender affirming care” for children distressed by persecution for behaviors deemed inconsistent with their sex, misleadingly called ‘gender dysphoria’. The most evolved “child gender affirming care” involves experimental genital mutilation and removal, experimental sterilizing chemical therapy, and experimental psychological social conditioning on distressed children. Even in light of functional standards of care which provide clinical relief to the vast majority of children at the conclusion o puberty, experimentation has proceeded unethically at an accelerated pace in the 21st century leaving a path of of damage of unknown size.
A biology textbook should present this information, and compare it to other grossly unethical medical experimentation with invented terms and ambitious practitioners. For instance, the term "psychosurgery" was invented by (non-surgeon) Dr. António Egas Moniz in the late 1930's, an originator, promoter, and Nobel Prize-winner for prefrontal lobotomy, which would be refined at George Washington University into "Ice-Pick Lobotomy" by (not surgeon) Dr. Walter Freeman and (surgeon) James M Watts. Lobotomy was essentially a 'therapy' that consisted of 'precision' surgery which meant essentially driving an ice pick into the socket of the eyes of the patient, most commonly a woman, who was depressed, agitated, or had other deemed mental diseases such as homosexuality (most commonly men). Once inserted, it was moved vigorously to crush or slice through the brain matter of the front of the cerebral cortex (prefrontal) to destroy it. Similar to ‘gender affirming care’ beginning chemical sterilization and endocrine disruption after a single quick visit, It became a quick, easy ‘outpatient’ treatment option, instead of more expensive and ‘standard of care’ institutionalization and psychiatric treatment for mentally ill and those deemed so. Before being banned, the practice was performed on tens of thousands of people in Canada and the US, to tragic result. Europe, as with 'child gender affirmation' preceded the US in forbidding the use of a catastrophically damaging 'therapy'.
I'd also suggest a textbook also, in the spirit of inclusiveness, highlight another invented euphemism - 'bad blood' instead of syphilis, and the history of a terrible, discredited unethical medical experiment, the Tuskegee Study which began in the 30’s. Promoted by Taliaferro Clark, and with the institution support of the US Public Health Service and Tuskegee Institute, hundreds of Black Men were intentionally misinformed about their syphilis - they had 'bad blood'. Through misinformation, these men were not allowed to provide informed consent for the experiment which simply allowed their syphilis to progress untreated to understand how the disease evolved. As with 'gender affirming care', the experiment actively withheld 'standard of care' treatment with antibiotics once they were introduced, and in World War II some men were prevented from from being treated by the military once inducted, and syphilis was detected by military doctors. At the conclusion of the grotesque experiment in 1972, a number of men had died from syphilis, went blind, had organ damage, disfigurement, and mental illness. Many wives also contracted syphilis, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.
The pattern is clear - made-up term: gender; psychosurgery; bad blood. Institutional support: Johns Hopkins; George Washington University; Tuskegee Institute. A drive for a key man, or men to make a name: Dr. Money. Dr Moniz, Dr Freeman, Dr Watts, Clark. Experimentation on human subjects: Infants and Children; Mentally Ill, and those deemed so; Black Men. Lack of informed consent: children can never content, parents misinformed about gender, can't consent; 'mentally incompetent' can't consent; men misled in an experiment can't consent. Withholding actual known beneficial treatment: watchful waiting, psychological support; effective psychiatric therapy; penicillin. Surprise and Ban on yet another unethical experimental 'treatment' for a nonexistent, induced, mis-diagnosed, or non-treatment.
I'd like those in the textbook. I wish there were a few million dollars to circulate information to parents through direct mail citing exactly the source and misguided science of this experimentation that is embedded in this textbook, sit back, and watch the explosion.
(As a Caltech alum, I watched bemused as my alma mater always playfully insulted MIT standards of science - crystallized in the endless Wolowitz/Cooper remarks in "Big Bang Theory". I'm pleased that they have a philosophy department, and with such rigor!)
How did these people become so powerful? To change the language of reality in biology textbooks? To change laws and government? How did this happen?
Very happy to see more public writings from professional philosophers!
We must never dismiss any of these things as too small to be of concern. This is a full-scale attack on the West by postmodernists, who reject objective reality existing outside of mind, and there is no middle ground between the rational and postmodernist worldviews. This is war; make no mistake.
Yes. Bowing to ‘Political Correctness’ always stuffs things up. And a large % of people always choose the wrong way because of what they perceive as expediency...
Professor Byrne,
I wonder if you have, perchance, seen a PhilPapers article by Professor Paul Griffiths – university of Sydney, philosopher of science, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy?
“What are biological sexes?”
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
Seems of some relevance to this post, to the general issue of the corruption of biology that Coyne and Maroja describe if not contribute to, and to yourself as Griffiths makes some pointed criticisms of you in particular. Although his criticisms justifiably extended to many other philosophers writing about the topic:
Griffiths: “Philosophers who have discussed biological sex, whether they seek to vindicate the idea (Byrne 2020) or critique it (Dembroff 2020), have not defined it in the way biologists do. .... [Byrne] did not expand on what he means by ‘biology’ but nothing in his article suggests any acquaintance with the literature reviewed here. Criticism of Byrne’s claim assumed that what is at issue is the adequacy of a chromosomal or phenotypic definition of sex in humans. [pg. 22]”
From which one might reasonably argue that that general lack of knowledge about the more or less standard biological definitions contributes as much to the corruption of biology as does the “updated” editions of “Campbell Biology” you described. Speaking of which, you apparently endorse its “chromosomal basis for determining sex” which entail some serious problems.
For example, the case of people with CAIS [“complete androgen insensitivity syndrome”] kind of knocks that criterion into a cocked hat. They typically have a “typical female external phenotype, despite having a 46,XY karyotype”; they have the phenotype, the physical appearance, of a typical female while having the genotype, the chromosomes, of a typical male:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome#Physical
IF one says they’re males because of the XY genotype then one is saying some males have vaginas, cervixes, and uteri – can females with penises be far behind? 🤔🙄 And if one says they’re females because of the phenotype then one is saying some females have testicles. Reductio ad absurdum. As Griffiths points out in quoting Dembroff:
Griffiths: “For example, Dembroff critiques the idea that there is a stable definition of ‘biological female’ by correctly documenting the failure of “sex hormones and sex chromosomes” to do the job (2020, 999-100). [pg. 12]
The problem is that, as Griffiths emphasizes, the “Campbell Biology” definitions are, at least for mammals, very limited operational definitions that are neither universal nor capable, in themselves, of uniquely categorizing individuals as males, females, or as neither:
Griffiths: “The chromosomal and phenotypic ‘definitions’ of biological sex that are contested in philosophical discussions of sex are actually operational definitions which track gametic sex more or less effectively in some species or group of species. Neither ‘definition’ can be stated for species in general except by defining them in terms of gametic sex [type of gamete being produced].”
But the deeper and more fundamental problem is largely because the biology conflicts rather profoundly with various “social justice” objectives:
Griffiths: “This reveals something very important about the biological understanding of sexes. I have repeatedly emphasized that the payoff for this way of thinking about sexes is that it helps to explain the evolution of reproductive systems and how they differ across the diversity of life. .... Things seem to be the opposite with the human practice of assigning people a sex as a social and legal status. There is a great reluctance to leave people outside the system of classification and one way to avoid that is by adding new categories. There are obvious reasons why human beings hanker for an all-inclusive system in which every person has a clear social and legal status. But these are not reasons that apply in the study of the evolution of reproductive systems. [pg. 20]
Trying to shoehorn the social justice foot into the glass slipper of biology – so to speak – just cripples the former and shatters the latter.
But part and parcel of that shoehorning is the rather desperate insistence that everyone has to have a sex. Which is simply incompatible with the standard biological definitions which Griffiths underlines and endorses:
Griffiths: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period!” (Roughgarden 2013, 23) .... “A sex is thus an adult phenotype defined in terms of the size of (haploid) gamete it produces: in an anisogamous population, males produce microgametes and females produce macrogametes. ...” (Parker 2011) [size matters ...]
As I’ve argued elsewhere [https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/binarists-vs-spectrumists], making small or large gametes then qualifies as the necessary and sufficient condition for sex category membership. Those more or less standard biological definitions boil down to an assertion that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. As Griffiths puts it:
Griffiths: “Biological sexes (male, female, hermaphrodite) are defined by different gametic strategies for reproduction. Sexes are regions of phenotypic space which implement those gametic reproductive strategies. Individual organisms pass in and out of these regions – sexes - one or more times during their lives. .... Importantly, sexes are life-history stages rather than applying to organisms over their entire lifespan.”
Seems it would help a great deal if more people, including more philosophers, had a better understanding of the biological definitions for the sexes, their justifications, and their consequences.