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Let’s talk about (biological) sex — part I
From a Vegas conference to a scientific puzzle: why sex isn’t going away
I can’t believe I’m about to go there. For quite some time now I have made it my policy to stay away from current political and partisan controversies, on the ground that half the audience won’t even listen and the other half already agrees anyway. Not much to gain, possibly a lot to lose. Instead, as my readers might have noticed, I write about ancient history and philosophy, focus on episodes or concepts that are of value today, step back, and let people draw their own parallels and conclusions.
But occasionally one needs to make exceptions to rules, and this is one. We are going to talk about (biological) sex, baby! (But not gender. And not gender roles. Or sexual preferences. Just sex.)
I can’t believe I feel compelled to start with a disclaimer, but here it is: nothing that you are about to read should be construed as somehow opposing the rights of transgender people. If that’s going to be your conclusion, I don’t know what to tell you, other than you are flat out wrong.
The story begins back in October of last year, when I was invited to give the opening keynote at the annual CSICon, the major conference of scientific skeptics, held in Las Vegas and organized by CSI, the Center for Skeptical Inquiry. (They publish Skeptical Inquirer magazine, for which I write. The former editor was a friend and esteemed colleague.) The title of my talk was “Why bother? The nature of pseudoscience, how to fight it, and why it matters.” I’ll publish an article based on it soon.
Shortly after me, my friend Steven Novella, of Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe fame and a neurologist by profession, got on the stage and delivered his talk, entitled “When skeptics disagree.” I found myself nodding along, except when Steven got to the “controversy” about biological sex. He said that biologists themselves disagree on the best definition of sex: does it have to do with chromosomes? Is it about anatomy? Behavior?
I immediately thought, uh-oh, here comes trouble! You see, I knew that one of the speakers slated for later on in the conference was my colleague Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist and author of Why Evolution Is…
