Weekly Reality Report

March 17, 2024

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Sex Pseudoscience Captures Cell

Last week, the eminent journal Cell, known for its illustrious contributions to the world of biology—like discovering microRNA and uncovering pivotal secrets of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing—decided to take a walk on the wild side. It published a paper by Beans Velocci (they/them), an assistant professor steeped in the History and Sociology of Science and an aficionado of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. This paper, drenched in activist lingo and nods to “other ways of knowing” (whatever those might be), sticks out like a sore thumb in Cell’s otherwise groundbreaking catalog.

Velocci’s paper concluded that “The answer to the question ‘What is sex?’ is, in both theory and practice, just about everything, and therefore also nearly nothing. This exercise demonstrates that sex is an incoherent category, one that has perhaps outlived its use.”

How, you ask, did Velocci arrive at this bewildering conclusion? By the sophisticated method of asking students “What is sex?” and charting their bewildered responses. Given the tidal wave of pseudoscientific takes on sex flooding our discourse, it’s no surprise the students were perplexed. Yet, rather than seeing this as a teachable moment to clarify basic biology and teach the students the correct meaning of sex, Velocci took their confusion as a sign that the term “sex” itself must be meaningless.

Biologist Jerry Coyne has a more in-depth writeup on this paper over at his website Why Evolution Is True that I recommend reading.