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posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 05 2017, @09:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the language-evolves-too dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

When uploaded to Netflix, an episode of the educational children's show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" cut out a segment saying that chromosomes determine one's gender.

[...] While noncontroversial at the time, the 1996 segment appears to contradict Netflix's new series "Bill Nye Saves the World."

The new show endorses a socially liberal understanding of gender, under which gender is defined by self-identification rather than genetics and there are more than just the two traditional genders.

People, people, people... Say it with me: The Internet Never Forgets.

Source: http://freebeacon.com/culture/netflix-edits-bill-nye-episode-remove-segment-chromosomes-determine-gender/


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Soylentbob on Friday May 05 2017, @11:07AM (7 children)

    by Soylentbob (6519) on Friday May 05 2017, @11:07AM (#504772)

    We already had the fight between religious zealots demanding creationism being taught as an equally valid concept as evolution, with religion attacking biology to benefit from biologies reputation. The outcome was the highly entertaining foundation of a new religion [wikipedia.org].

    Now biology appears to be again under attack from social sciences, demanding to be treated equally valid as genetics, presumably also to add some value to social science :-) I wonder if we will see an equally entertaining new branch of social science in response :-)

    Don't get me wrong: Psychology, social concepts and so on are all real things with a huge impact and need to be studied. I just doubt that they are well accessible through a scientific approach, and as long as they don't follow commonly accepted scientific methods, they shouldn't be called science. I happily endorse the concept of people dressing, behaving and feeling whatever way they want (as long as no innocent bystander is harmed). But defining ever new genders and how they should be assigned is imho the wrong approach. Instead we should just forget about gender outside the procreational process and let people be people. If a person feels better in a dress, so be it. If a person wants to marry another person, I don't see the point in peeking into their pants first to check if they are sufficiently genetically diverse. And if a person feels today as what we consider "female" and tomorrow as what we consider "male", so what. If a person truly suffers his/her physical attributes, ze [wiktionary.org] should be able to let them be changed, either on own expense or, if the suffering exceeds a threshold (measurement method and value to be determined) and public health insurance is available, paid by that.

    I acknowledge that this might lead to some uncertainties in terms of dating-websites. But call me narrow minded, if I'd look for a partner there, I'd look for a person with female parts.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by ledow on Friday May 05 2017, @01:20PM (6 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday May 05 2017, @01:20PM (#504824) Homepage

    Actually, genetics isn't as clear cut as you might like to make out.

    That's entirely the problem.

    "Intersex" conditions, rather than orientation, are the true driver here. There are people who are NOT clearly male, female or both simultaneously.

    It is NOT as simple as X and Y, genetically, as there are many similar markers that also determine, e.g. how the genitals grow, etc.

    Blinkered thinking based on presence or absence of genitalia or - indeed - any other kind of biological difference will show you the thing that's both the most wonderful and most annoying trait of biology and science in general. You cannot draw a line and have everyone clearly fall neatly into only one side of it. Whether that's "species", "race", "gender" or anything else, it never works.

    It might work for classification, and for the majority, but it never works entirely. Rather than claim it does ("People can ONLY ever be left-handed or right-handed"), state the biological fact that it's just not that simple.

    Spectra are the nature of science, in general. Whether that's autism, gender, star-classification, or anything else.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Soylentbob on Friday May 05 2017, @02:44PM (5 children)

      by Soylentbob (6519) on Friday May 05 2017, @02:44PM (#504882)

      First of all, the article is about a kids-show? I expect some level of simplification there. Stuff falls to the ground, the sun is yellow, the sky is blue, a baby comes from a woman and a man when they love each other. No need to add the subject of one-night stands, rape, differences between social- and biological gender-assignment or biologically unclear gender. I understand that in our society, with the sometimes really strong expectations to fulfil the given role, *some* people can be unhappy with this simplification. But I don't believe the problem is the simplification, which is essential for a kids show, but the expectation. If a person could life ze felt gender without any outside pressure, I'd assume they could easily ignore the fact that the simplification doesn't match their exception.

      Second, TFA states clearly

      under which gender is defined by self-identification

      That means, they are not targeting the biological/genetic exceptions, but the social ones. I fully agree that an advanced biology class should discuss the topic of unclear defined gender, just like an advanced physics class should convey a rudimentary knowledge of relativity theory. But for primary school or for secondary school even for basic biology/physics classes, I think "X/X = female, X/Y = male" / "E=1/2*m*sqr(v)" is sufficient.

      • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday May 05 2017, @04:57PM (2 children)

        by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday May 05 2017, @04:57PM (#504998)

        The only problem with your quote is that the fine article appears to be biased to push the narrative that the kid's show is pushing some kind of narrative.

        • (Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Friday May 05 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)

          by Soylentbob (6519) on Friday May 05 2017, @05:17PM (#505016)

          Looks like you cheated, you didn't stick to the summary and read the article. And applied common sense. <sarcasm>CHEATER!</sarcasm>

          • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday May 05 2017, @05:58PM

            by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Friday May 05 2017, @05:58PM (#505044)

            I only read TFA, after noticing somebody else pointed out the video was about probability, not Biology.

            So I made a few silly comments with the assumption that TFS did not have an ultra-right bias,

      • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday May 05 2017, @05:53PM

        by ledow (5567) on Friday May 05 2017, @05:53PM (#505041) Homepage

        Intersex conditions affect approximately 1% of the population of the world.

        The same percentage as, say, autism. Which is on Sesame Street.
        The same percentage as, say, coeliac disease. Which is taken account of on every school menu.
        The same percentage as, say, OCD. Which almost every kind will of heard of and is discussed in class.
        The same percentage as, say, epilepsy. I guarantee your kid's schools have Epi-pens all over the place.

        And that's just the basic, obvious stuff. Actually TALKING about the 1% should be covered by more than just the 1%.

      • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday May 07 2017, @09:11PM

        by vux984 (5045) on Sunday May 07 2017, @09:11PM (#505988)

        First of all, the article is about a kids-show?

        Meaning the audience is kids, some of which won't fit into the definition of boy and girl you just gave them.

        It's ok to simply gravity to stuff falls to the ground, because its a shared universal experience, and the exceptions to it like helium balloons are also a shared universal experience. But over simplifying gender issues when talking directly to children who are excluded by that oversimplification is pretty insensitive and unhelpful.