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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.
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Netflix Edits 'Bill Nye' Episode to Remove Segment Saying Chromosomes Determine Gender
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Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Friday May 05 2017, @01:36PM (6 children)
There have been cross dressers, butch women, lady-boys and all manner of other ways we define ourselves as long as there have been humans.
First, I'm pretty sure that a significant proportion of cross-dressers don't consider themselves to actually belong to the sex they impersonate (AFAIK even being gay isn't compulsory) and that even fewer women who might, for one reason or another, find themselves (offensively) labelled as "butch" consider themselves to be male. Actual transgenderism (is that a word?) may be connected with such things, but it isn't the same - and while the phenomenon may be older than humanity, the wide social acceptance that people are entitled to choose their gender independently of what sexual organs they were born with is a phenomenon of the last couple of decades. This has created a requirement for separate terms for "biological gender" and "social gender" where none existed in the past. Biology may not have changed, but society has.
There is a difference between biological "sex" and cultural "gender".
However there's no clear consensus on the vocabulary - "sex = biological, gender=cultural" might be a sensible to adopt some such convention going forward, there's certainly no justification for going back and censoring 20-year-old videos that don't use your preferred terminology.
Still others have XXY chromosome sets. Often, despite the Y chromosome, such people are women. If someone has a Y chromosome, yet has female genitalia, how does that comport with your conception of sex vs. gender?
It just goes to show that reality is always more complex than high school science - but you have to start somewhere because the simplistic observations lay the groundwork for more sophisticated models: After the discovery of general relativity and quantum mechanics, nobody went back and airbrushed Newton and Mendeleev from recorded history - they weren't wrong they were incomplete and the thinking behind them was still of value.
Anyway, all of these "nature vs. nurture/biology vs. culture" arguments have two big failings: first, they assume that there is a distinction line between the two (basically a hangover from the religious conceit that we have a soul that is somehow more than the product of our physical nature - and that our culture is something other than the product of our biology) and, secondly, it's all non-falsifiable because it is almost impossible to test experimentally without committing ethical atrocities.
Maybe in the future there will be a complete biological model explaining the 256 gender types identified by social science. For the moment, the best option might be to let people self-identifiy.
Shall we deny that small percentage of those who wish to choose differently their personal agency to think and choose for themselves?
I see no evidence that the GP was opposing this, just objecting to the retconning of the language and censoring of perfectly valid (if simplified) science because it failed the buzzword test. This is what stirs up some of the division on these issues: the presumption that someone who isn't quite pro-active enough in using your preferred terminology is actually showing intolerance. If you accuse everybody who disagrees with you of bigotry, soon only bigots will disagree with you.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 05 2017, @02:24PM (3 children)
However there's no clear consensus on the vocabulary - "sex = biological, gender=cultural" might be a sensible to adopt some such convention going forward, there's certainly no justification for going back and censoring 20-year-old videos that don't use your preferred terminology.
In my initial post [soylentnews.org] I commented that I thought it was a bad idea to censor prior work.
In fact, I'm pretty anti-censorship in general.
My reference to cross-dressing, etc. was more to point out that culture plays a role in gender identification. Biology also plays a role. And new research is pointing out that during pregnancy brains can develop in conflicting ways from the body. There is no religious bias (at least not from me). I reject the concept of dualism as a ridiculous anachronism.
Making a human is a complex undertaking. From the chemistry of conception, to the incredibly complex interplay of cellular growth and replication modulated by many enzymes and hormones, to the socialization and environment of the individual.
For the most part, I think we're in violent agreement. We can disagree as to nomenclature if you like.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Friday May 05 2017, @03:09PM (2 children)
To be fair, having gone back and looked at the context for the original video, the main focus of the show is probability, not biology, which makes "censoring" a little more forgivable.
Trouble is, how the hell do you introduce probability to kids when the interesting real world examples are all about gambling, sex or death? As someone who has actually worked on educational materials I can attest to this being a headache: we know that using entirely dry/abstract/contrived contexts for science and math turns kids off and deprives them of educational opportunities, bringing the real world into the classroom engages kids and improves their learning but opens a minefield of sensitivities: Try even stocking the imaginary school shop with items that 5/6-year-olds might realistically buy that are healthy, eco-friendly, gender neutral, race neutral, social-class neutral, hypo-allergenic, don't promote specific products or brands and cost less than 99c (because adding numbers over 100 isn't on the curriculum until next year). The kids are gonna get sick of apples.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 05 2017, @11:55PM (1 child)
To be fair, having gone back and looked at the context for the original video, the main focus of the show is probability, not biology, which makes "censoring" a little more forgivable.
A fair point. However (given that I haven't read TFA or watched the video -- informed discourse at its best, FTW!), I have a problem with censorship in general. I think an addendum or inserting *additional* footage would have been preferable to censoring the original.
Trouble is, how the hell do you introduce probability to kids when the interesting real world examples are all about gambling, sex or death? As someone who has actually worked on educational materials I can attest to this being a headache: we know that using entirely dry/abstract/contrived contexts for science and math turns kids off and deprives them of educational opportunities, bringing the real world into the classroom engages kids and improves their learning but opens a minefield of sensitivities: Try even stocking the imaginary school shop with items that 5/6-year-olds might realistically buy that are healthy, eco-friendly, gender neutral, race neutral, social-class neutral, hypo-allergenic, don't promote specific products or brands and cost less than 99c (because adding numbers over 100 isn't on the curriculum until next year). The kids are gonna get sick of apples.
Another good point. Although I would point out that even apples are problematic, given pesticides and GMO strains [scienceblogs.com].
In fact, there isn't anything except mom (but you can't have more than one, so that's right out) and apple pie (those damn apples again! so I guess not) that you can use for this stuff.
More seriously, it's an interesting problem. Perhaps creators of such materials could, you know, talk to young kids and get a sense of how they view such things to give them ideas as to the types of examples and comparisons to use.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday May 06 2017, @02:32PM
In fact, there isn't anything except mom
Little Alex's mommy went to hospital and is now ver "other daddy" you insensitive clod!
More seriously, it's an interesting problem. Perhaps creators of such materials could, you know, talk to young kids and get a sense of how they view such things to give them ideas as to the types of examples and comparisons to use.
They do. Except, its not the young kids that are filtering what you can talk about in the classroom for "triggers" - its the teachers, superintendents and upwards who are terrified and tend to turn sensible "guidelines" into iron rules.
I suspect that you could have a great science lesson on genetics vs. gender that would elicit surprisingly mature discussions from the kids and teach everybody (including the teacher) a lot about science and tolerance. However, it would be a very, very brave teacher that would tackle it and run the subsequent gauntlet of complaints from parents (often based on incomplete responses to 'what did you do at school today?')
(Score: 4, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday May 05 2017, @03:22PM (1 child)
Gender only became synonymous with sex after sex reassignment became available in the mid-20th century.
- Definition of gender in English [oxforddictionaries.com]
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday May 05 2017, @05:22PM
"Although the words gender and sex are often used interchangeably"
...is the salient point there unless you're an etymologist.
Rather boringly, though, having looked at the video in question neither the words "gender" or "sex" feature prominently so we're all arguing over a straw person here... It is "boy" and "girl" but it is clear from the context that they're talking about biological sex. It's also a very short slot about probability that certainly doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive lesson in genetics, so the question is, is it OK to refer to biological sex without always appending an explanation of modern thinking on gender identity?