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Such information is certainly interesting and potentially useful in the field of genomics and the biological sciences at large; however, I am inclined to caution those who might attempt to affix some sort of ethical/moral value to these findings. Science, by its very nature, is largely antithetical to notions of good, bad, and what "should" be, and I think it is a mistake to attempt to formulate corrolaries between experimental findings and political agendas. Science can never prove anything, and it can never tell you what should happen. It can only tell you what does or does not happen. Ethical extrapolations (which seems to be what is happening here) are always a result of interpretation, and are never a result of science itself.
I am not so naive to think this doesn't happen regularly, and I also understand that some issues that have scientific components are also ethically structured (gene therapy, stem cell research, and so forth); nevertheless, one must keep in mind that these ethical debates are ultimately seperate from the science itself - they are a product of human machination.
Distancing the biological sciences from ethics and morals is particularly important because it is very easy and tempting to formulate notions of "worth" (human or otherwise) from scientific experiments. Eugenics is a good example, "scientific creationism" is another. Notions that evolution is progressive is yet another. Each of these are completely flawed, because they attempt to ground ideas of good and bad in science. For laymen particularly, it is often difficult to understand biological processes as seperate from some purpose or meaning. Whether there is any purpose, meaning, or worth is not of any concern to science, and science cannot, by the definition of experiment, provide answers to these issues. Attempting to find answers to these and other related issues through science does a disservice to the integrity of science, and, moreover, is a waste of time. At best, nothing results from such endeavors; at worst, people are stigmatized, ruled inferior, and even murdered.
"There is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.... DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."
-Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
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I should clarify that I don't think such discussion on this issue is necessarily negative or anything like that, and that I also think such information can be effectively used to refute "findings" of male inferiority ("Y: The Descent of Man" or whatever that piece of trash is called). I just wanted to offer my opinion that I think using science to demonstrate a percieved biological advantage (or disadvantage) of one group of people over another is dangerous and irresponsible.
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I agree that the high-road is not to use biological differences in our political activity as a basis for "male worth" or somesuch. Feminists now have a well developed machine churning out popular "men are inferior/evil" pseudoscience and playing on the same field could actually give credibility to their specious arguments.
Nevertheless I think we should oppose such pseudoscience vigorously. I admit I have usually ignored it, feeling that such obvious tendentious crap could be adequately met with contemptuous silence. Unfortunately this stuff is quite influentially with the scientifically and ethically illiterate 95% of the voting population. Claims that are ethically irrelevant and scientifically shaky (such as the claim that ontogenetically embryos are female before they are male and that therefore femaleness is prior to and therefore superior to masculinity; or the claim that the Y chromosome is defective and therefore males are inferior and about to become extinct (funny thing that males have survived in our ancestral line for more than 10^9 years despite their defects)) are gleefully taken up by every dimbulb office girl as another opportunity to rub men's faces in the dirt.
Refute feminist pseudoscience; do not generate masculist pseudoscience.
Tim
Those who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
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Well said, Tim. I think we pretty much agree on this.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 26, @07:38AM EST (#6)
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> Claims that are ethically irrelevant and scientifically shaky (such as the claim that ontogenetically embryos are female before they are male and that therefore femaleness is prior to and therefore superior to masculinity
So is it true or not ? I've always read that embryons begin their lives in a neutral form (though already genetically gendered), and that during the first stage they have neither a penis nor a vagina.....
So what's the answer ?
Rage
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As I understand it they develop into pseudo-females at some point, and if the embryo is destined to be male, testosterone is released and that causes the embryo to develop male characteristics. If not, it will develop into a full-fledged female. It isn't like the embryo has a fully developed female reproductive system and brain at that point, so it isn't quite one or the other at the time of the switch.
(Insert jokes about being selected for varsity here.)
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You know what I do when one of these simpering twerps starts in on her "men are the second sex" horsecrap?
I usually reply, "How true. Human, 2.0 - the new and improved version." Another line I use is "Well, I guess that means God created woman, then corrected His mistake." Then I smile, and walk away while shock changes to anger on her face.
They can dish it out. But they can't take it.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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This is one of the most intelligent posts I have read in the last month. Good show.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday June 25, @11:48AM EST (#3)
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"Scientists have discovered that "Y" can fix its own genetic defects"
Hmm ok, so the "male" chromosome can fix its own problems (sounds familiar). What do the X chromosomes in women do when there's mutation in one - yabber on endlessly to each other over margaritas?
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It is truly sad that in 30 years men are feel and rightly so they have to defend their very maleness with scientific evidence from the agenda of hateful women (and a their sicophantish man-lapdogs) who would like to see our entire gender reduced to mere sperm donation-suppliers under constant supervision by female guards and held behind barbed wire fences.
I hope that if I return to this planet in the next life, I will come back as a beautiful woman who takes up the masculist cause. That will certainly help move it along, in the same way that men joing the fems in the 60s and 70s moved it along.
But the question of whether or not I will be a lesbian is TBD. I'll have to think about that some. :-)
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