Meig Dickson (ey/em)
@kulindadromeus.bsky.social
Paleoecologist studying birds and trying to get my PhD. I run a-dinosaur-a-day on tumblr. Queer, Disabled, Neurodivergent, Anarchocommunist, Scottish-Sephardic Jew. Birds are Wonderful Dinosaurs. I live with 5 of them, and my spouse Max Wipson.
Hooookay Schedule my presentation on Shabbat once, shame on random chance Schedule my presentation on Shabbat twice, shame on me for not making the importance of Shabbat clear Schedule my presentation on Shabbat thrice??? Shame on SVP. Shame. **SHAME.** Shamey SHAMEY shame SHAME.
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Two cockatiels taking off in flight. They were previously perched on two dinosaur toys - an Allosaurus and a Stegosaurus. The Allosaurus has fallen because of the cockatiel taking off from it.
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Shana Tova!!!!! Shabbat Shalom!!!!!! May 5787 be an (extremely long) year of better things for everyone
"there must be something in our car it thinks it wants"
If Doctor Who and The Magic School Bus had a child, it would be Black Hole High (Strange Days at Blake Holsey High)
WHY IS LANCE BASS TRYING TO SELL ME METAMUCIL WHAT EVEN IS THIS REALITY
Ftr, the very existence of a paper arguing to go with a gamete definition of biological sex is, by its own admission, proof positive that biosex is a model, and not real, because they’re arguing which model to go with 🤷🏻
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oh well would you look at that, a fluorescent red flag
"sex is binary and just gametes, but also please don't use this paper to take away anyone's civil rights. and actually when you think about it, the real problem is those activists bringing that queer stuff into biology"
just what is even your point then. gametes are the most important definition of sex because everything is downstream of them, but also there's a lot of variation that isn't from gametes, therefore biological sex is gametes i've read better arguments in Intro Bio papers
oh good, my blood pressure wasn't doing anything alarming right now, so i'm sure this will be fine for me to read
again, the point of the model is in the flexibility. if you're studying super deep-time evolution of sexual reproduction, gametes are the character to use. but for many of use, the operative traits will be something else.
our whole argument was that for many organisms, trying to condense all of these characteristics into a single variable was counterproductive and misleading, and the point was to be thoughtful + specific about what sexual phenotypes were driving your classification
that whooshing noise was you missing THE ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT OF THE PAPER MY GUY
but your whole cascade model is doing exactly that!!! quit talking out of both sides of your mouth!!!!!!!
*rubs temples* no, that's not our argument. we didn't say "oh boy, this is too complicated!" and end there. we said sex is a *complex phenotype* (aka one made of multiple component characteristics that are each subject to their own evolutionary pressures) and gamete size may not be the most relevant
1 and 2 are...well, i mean, they're interesting from an evolutionary perspective. idk whether the first is very useful because there's a lot of other types of differentiation in reproductive roles, and some may be more relevant to understanding specific systems.
YES THIS IS WHY WE SAY THAT A MULTIVARIATE MODEL OF SEX IS BETTER BECAUSE IT ALLOWS FOR EXACTLY THIS SORT OF THING because the phenotypes associated with reproduction are each being acted on by multiple evolutionary pressures and aren't all simply downstream consequences of gamete size!!!
the reason we argue to be precise about this is that we use the male/female descriptors for anatomy, physiology, behavior, genetics, etc. so saying "ah but it simply means large/small gamete!" is pretty pointedly hiding the ball imo, seeming to attempt to *encourage* conflation.
look i fucking hate arguing about terminology but one of the big reasons to steer away from using "egg=female, sperm=male" is that while you can try to set that as a scientific definition, you and i both damn well know that's not what those terms mean in most contexts.
okay so here's where my head explodes. because if you define biological sex as binary based on gametes, but then concede that organisms can produce either, both, or none, and thus do not fall into two classes, then *what is the point of trying to say it's a binary*??????????????????????????????????
![" It is precisely this highly consistent occurrence of two distinct gamete size classes across anisogamous species that renders the definition of biological sex based on gamete size inherently binary. [highlight begins] However, defining biological sex as binary does not imply that individuals necessarily fall into two classes, as they can produce male, female, both, or neither gamete class."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2ptqgg335yb5negavlhu6g6s/bafkreih26gleppe4sdbzfs3mldobdhyqj45dzvc7bfhmfoi76pmnvuuomm)
i know i'm being very salty considering i said i was trying to approach this in good faith but i think we just hit where i am having a hard time assuming the authors are writing this in good faith. so.
hang on i need to grab a soda, we're only two paragraphs in and this is going to be even worse than the dire wolf paper isn't it
