CharonY

You got it backwards. Depending on which characteristic you use, you there will be a subpopulation which you could assign to either category, if you only use two. I.e. if you use karyotype, clownsfish have only one sex. If you use behavioral cues you can to some degree of accuracy say that the those that do more of the behaviour of males are males and those that fit female behaviour are female. But if you look at a hundred females assigned that way, 99 might have female gonads, but 1 might still have retained male ones. You might find a couple that still have both characteristics and so on. So in other words, if everything has to fit two categories, you can make them, but it does not mean that those reflect nature. And as a side note, in science lingo, gender and sex are two different (but related things) things. Exactly. And also the photon does not care either way, it is just what it is. The categories are basically made by an observer, not by the photon itself, if that makes any sense.

When in science we assign categories the big question is always what makes sense (aka is it useful?) and to some degree how close do categories reflect reality. For example using categorical variables to assign size (e.g. small, medium, large) has obviously some uses (e.g. for certain clothing) but clearly does not capture the complexity of height ranges in humans. So OP is kind of asking how close the common two categories reflect nature. To answer this question it is obviously necessary to collect data and then decide whether there are categories that reflect that data. I.e. we cannot start of with the assumption that there are only e.g. three categories and then try to squeeze everything into it. If we were to do that, I could make the argument that there are only three heights in humans. So now take a look at potential classifiers and to keep things simple let's stick with humans. One potential way that has been mentioned is karyotyping. We just say that XY is male and XX is female. The issue is that more than those two karyotypes exist. While the number is low, we cannot just ignore them. They exist and therefore the classification does not reflect the entirety of biology. It covers well over 98% of all cases, however, and in many cases it is sufficient to use such a measure. But again, that is a category we make and it does not fully capture the complexity of nature. There are other criteria one could make, such as looking at gonad tissue. But there are cases of chimerism where folks have both types of tissue. We can decide based on fully formed reproductive organs, but then it would include folks whose organs are not fully formed. We can decide based on function (e.g. childbirth) but that would exclude sterile folks. So fundamentally we can make categories that cover most, but clearly not all cases. So to answer the question are there more than 2 sexes, one would have to be very clear what one is really asking. Have we (as humans) created more than two sexes as classifiers? That depends on the field I guess but quite often only two are used as main categories and then the term intersex is often used as a kind of catch-all for all other cases. If you are saying if nature has only two sexes, the answer is not really. MigL, to answer your question, it depends a lot on what the researcher is looking for. If they want to look at genetic control of their sex, they could e.g. look at the expression of the main regulator gene and go from there. If group interactions are what folks are looking at, often the largest in the group is the dominant female and has altered behaviour. That being said, there are many cases where it might not be apparent (e.g. incomplete sex changes) and in these cases you can not really assign a sex trivially. E.g. you might have a fish that behaves like a female but is unable to produce eggs, for example. Or you can dissect the fish to look at the gonadal tissue, but again, it might be unclear. In other words, the researchers assign sex once sufficient parameters are fulfilled relevant to their work (on the tissue, functional organ and/or behavioural level) but they can get things wrong if the transition does not follow the expected route.

Nothing in nature is a defect per se. They may be detrimental in many conditions, but it is something that exists and if there is a classification that claims to be unviversal, these must be incorporated. The classification as a defect is purely an anthropogenic construct. Light skin colour could be seen as a defect in melanin production, for example, but is rarely considered as such. Sickle cell anemia is seen as detrimental, but in some areas they are positively selected. Dismissing genetic elements merely as defects or exceptions do not prove the rule. If one claims that these classifications are universal, they must be universally applicable. If you have to add certain qualifiers then obviously you are just trying to press things into a mold that does not fit. And obviously if we go beyond humans (or mammals) there is far more variability. The issue with using the genetic ability to give birth as a gender means that any mutation that would render someone infertile would define them as male, which obviously not make much sense (as well as the fact that biology changes with different age stages and so does the ability to reproduce). Obviously, sex is quite a bit less diverse than gender and if you imagine both as a biphasic distribution, sex has probably sharper peaks and much fewer cases in between those peaks. But they still exist. Yes, but also they are often only binary in certain contexts. When we divide up a population into male and female, it is a simplification to accommodate a certain research question, for example (i.e. we just ignore cases that don't fit but due to low frequency it is still broadly representative of the larger population). It is like creating models of complex processes. This works out fine in a general sense (i.e. many studies in humans work well if consider sex binary). But on an individual level it can be more complicated, though it typically is more associated with gender, rather than necessarily sex.

I do not think that this is related to immigration, though. Just to provide some data on the Switzerland issue, over 80% of all foreigners in Switzerland are Europeans. The largest Asian population are Turkish (~1%) and the totality of all African immigrants make a bit less than 1%. This is not too different, from e.g. Germany (though they have a larger Turkish population).

...and?

Most immigrants to Switzerland are Europeans, and in contrast to other countries, getting citizenship is rather notoriously difficult (and below oecd average).

That goes to the visibility part. Interestingly, in many cases aggregation of folks are caused by limitations set by the host country, so it can also be policy driven. But overall, it seems that certain events (e.g. Migrant crisis), policy and public framing has a huge influence. For example in the 80s despite much lower immigration rates, the public in many parts of Europe were much more adverse to permanent migration, even from within Europe.

I think it is at least fair to say that we all learn by exposure what is familiar and what is not.

I would add a couple of caveats to that. First, perceived immigration rate is often very different from actual rates. Surveys through the world have shown that in most countries immigration is vastly overestimated (e.g. in the US and UK 2018 values indicate that the share of immigrants is about 14% in both countries, but folks assume that it is actually 36-32%). And related to that, how visible (this includes also how visibly "foreign" the immigrants are). There are different ways to measure acceptance of immigration, and asking e.g. whether you are in favour of more immigration can yield different results from asking whether you would like to have immigrants as neighbours. Asking the former many countries with traditionally high levels of immigration have overall more positive attitudes, though there are some outliers with e.g. Japan recently have become very much in favour of more immigration despite (or because of) low immigration rates. The UK is surprisingly high in terms of seeing immigration as a strength (in line with relatively high immigration rates) but is only middling (but still above average) in the acceptance score (asking e.g. about immigrations becoming neighbours or marrying one). Some studies indicate that acceptance is not strongly related to immigration rate (or is positively correlated). Rather, the way immigration is debated in terms of policy seems to heavily influence perception. E.g. in countries where debates are almost exclusively about economic cost (in many European countries, for example) resistance against immigration is high (though it could be a chicken and egg situation). In others where it is framed as a larger part of economic opportunities, it is generally more positive. But some areas (e.g. Italy and to some degree Germany) have a profoundly schizoid situation where immigrants are accepted on an economic basis with high participation in the labor market as business owners etc. but are often culturally rejected. Invisible immigrants are sought after, but if they become visible (in any number), they are often seen as a threat. It is an interesting, but complex dynamics.

There are a lot of hot zones, and much focus in on spillovers from eth environment. While this is clearly a risk factor, I think folks are underestimating the risks associated e.g. with factory farming. Swine flu has jumped to humans several times and quite a few of these cases happened in the US. It was only by luck that most have not become pandemics, though specifically swine flue eventually did become one (in 2009). Ultimately I think it will be impossible to predict the next location, as it could be almost anywhere and we need a more comprehensive approach to monitoring, detection and reporting. What the current pandemic is showing us is that existing measures are simply isufficient.

This is quite a bit of whataboutism. The German atrocities were on a scale that single-handedly crippled the eugenics movement in the US. Switzerland basically gave (some) of the money back that they owed, but the banks were also heavily critized becaue they blocked tracing Holocaust Victim's money in Swiss banks after they perished. Likewise, the Swiss bank secrecy has obscured Nazi funds, which were stolen from Jewish people. Ultimately survivors won compensation sometime in the 90s, but it was not that Switzerland generously compensated survivors out of goodwill. Also, the deal was brokered with the support of US politicians. I will say that also in German schools the Holocaust was typically taught rather well, though there are movements to cripple that (led by the right-wing AFD). Likewise, there are decent curricula in the US regarding their treatment of the black population. Overall, I am not sure what OP is trying to ask, though. Should folks apologize more, or less, is Germany somehow a reference point, or Switzerland, or the US? Should we cross-compare atrocities? Is it about how different suppressed groups were treated across different times? Perhaps it would be helpful to organize the thoughts a bit better and explain what OP tries to express.

Honestly, I dislike discussing science via videos, especially in areas I have no expertise in. Fundamentally, there is often not a lot of information that you can provide with such a medium. Rather, I would like to read through relevant literature from that person and read perhaps one or two reviews on the topic in order to contextualize it. Of course, it would still be a very incomplete view in areas outside ones expertise, but I would bet that it would still be far superior than what I would gleam from an youtube viedeo. I don't think that the areas where is became (in)famous are inside his expertise, if you look at his peer-reviewed publication record. His self-help book are massive extrapolations from that particular viewpoint. I.e. it is a bit like Dr. Oz and his health woo. I think he is a surgeon, so I am pretty sure that his surgical knowledge is at least alright. But his opinion and diet are oversimplification of the existing evidence with an added heap of unjustified confidence and guesswork.

While that may be true, a couple of posts earlier I mentioned one or two studies that demonstrated that specifically the application of stand your ground laws show quantifiable racial bias. It does not mean it happens in every specific case, but on average black folks are disproportionately disadvantaged when it comes to these issues. This includes either being the shooter claiming self-defence as in the above indicated example or being the victim of a stand your ground shooter.

I know you are joking, but generally speaking everything is a specialty. I.e. research in how to establish personality types is different from looking at e.g. personality and drug use. Or personality type and relationship to status and so on. Which is why sweeping assertions tend to be ultimately wrong as few folks actually have the broad knowledge to do so (and which is why inter and multidisciplinary research as well as collaborations are so critical).

The racial part was mostly what would have happened if Rittenhouse was black. Considering the history of e.g. police shootings when black persons were considered threatening (even if unarmed) or the conviction rate even if black persons declared self-defence (there some lit out there about it, too, and it ain't pretty). With regard to self-defence, I think that there is big rift between North America and much of Europe. In Europe the general assumption of proportionality and not even the immediate brandishing of, say a bat would immediate jump to lethal countermeasures. Especially in the US, there is the assumption that any potential harm can be escalated to protect yourself. In Canada self-protection laws also include proportionality, but I think the close cultural exchange via the Southern borders might have eroded that line of thinking somewhat.

In the US I found that case is rarely used in many stores. In contrast in many European areas cash is still very common.

Well, the issue is even if I talk about biology but build my arguments based on stuff that I do not understand (say quantum mechanics) rather than from biological principles, my arguments are going to end up crap. If I am ultimately right, it is not due to the argument. And you will note that in much of the famous bits and pieces he is saying in his book and some of the interviews are not based on psychological sciences that much. This includes his ideas of human hierarchies (he tries to use biological principles), or the bill C-16 (where he shows insufficient legal understanding), or what he thinks neo-marxism is (which offends historians and philosophers in equal measure), or his recent objections to vaccinations, or when he tried to peddle meat diets. Even in areas that relate to psychology, in his discussion he mixes in things that are clearly outside of it. Such as why capitalism somehow is not a human development but kind of sortof a natural state? He then tries to frame that in terms of biological terms (adaptive responses) which shows that at least in his outward persona he does not stray on track in terms of expertise. I suspect that his actual scholarly work is simply not that sensationalist and does not make money, so that is why it is not that high on his peddling list. But has found a way to start on a topic that he is comfortable with and then tries to connect it postmodernism, SJW or feminism in six steps or less. I would have zero issues if he was talking about his research more, but that is not what he is selling. And just to be clear, most of his work was on addiction and personality traits. I have not seen much that would point to studies of social interactions, dominance behaviour and related things in his scholarly work.

Not trying to be sensationalist, but I have the feeling that a black person might not have made it to the court room in the first place. A black person running with a gun toward police has likely quite a different life expectancy than a white person. There is a huge systemic issue ranging from laws, law enforcement and law interpretation. Some studies have for example shown that stand your ground laws are very unevenly enforced when comparing cases when black persons are either the shooter or the victims. I also recall studies where law enforcement (and other folks) where quicker to shoot at targets when they looked black so there is quite a subconscious bias which can easily turn deadly in stress situations. In some ways I think there two big issues here. One is how gun laws and control (or lack thereof) and culture can create situations where folks can be shot dead and ultimately no one is really at fault and the second is, even if folks were OK with living in the Wild West, would a black person be afforded the same rights. Evidence suggests that the former situation just amplifies the baked-in inequalities of the system. Now there is another case in trial in play that on its face seems even more clear. Here an unarmed black man (Arbery) was chased by gun-wielding vigilantes and ultimately gunned down. Here, also a self-defence claim was made but I would think that the fact that they chased him down should weaken that argument (but who knows). Now, the killers are not law enforcement, so conviction is not utterly unlikely, especially with the scrutiny following the Rittenhouse trial, but who knows. Just perhaps to add some data: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/race-justifiable-homicide-and-stand-your-ground-laws-analysis-fbi The study showed that 11.4% of White on Black homicides where considered justified, but the reverse case is only justified about 1.2% of cases. Where stand your ground laws were enacted, among Black folks shot to death the rate of homicides ruled to be justifiable doubled, whereas in countries without they fell. https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?r Now this might be a bit of a tangent as I do not think that Wisconsin actually has a stand your ground law, but it goes more to the overall weird tap dance that folks are doing with regard to gun violence (and the uncomfortable issues relating to race).

Another study looked at the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and found additional evidence poi tinting to the Huanan market. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454

Exactly. Add to that some sort of credentials and folks can become really aggressive followers to an almost cult-like degree.

Well, first of all, if it is still under investigation, you cannot claim it is true and then use that to build an argument on top of it. You are also missing the bigger picture that you cannot just take an organism that is so far away and lacking basically almost all of the relevant features (including a brain) and then use it to explain complex behaviour (again, at that point you can take any random trait from any random animal, you will always find similarities somewhere). Thus, the whole argument is bogus. Second, it is not that we know nothing, it is clear that the mechanisms are very different. Folks with high aggression levels and impulse control (which goes into a similar circuit in humans) are not usually very dominant, again, in direct opposition to lobsters. So considering same input and getting different outputs I would claim that these are certainly different systems (and we also know that from a physiological standpoint as the structures are very dissimilar to begin with). Just as a note, lobsters separated from us roughly the same time frame as say, mantidae. As such my example is about as valid as his (which is to say, not very). Again, if he actually did a minimum of research and wanted to make an evolutionary argument (even a very sketchy one) he should have looked at our closer cousins. Except he can't as social structures in primates is very complex and would counter his basic arguments. Therefore he chose a model and ventured into the not even wrong region.

There are some newer studies out there, but fundamentally the strongest link is seen in cases of severe deficiencies where impulse aggression seems to be elevated. Outside of extremes the evidence points to perhaps a slight inverse relationship, but it is certainly not a simple quantitative correlation. That, btw. is a common finding in human subjects. For complex traits there is rarely a simple quantitative relationship between a given trait/behaviour/psychological state and a given marker. In some cases changes are more indicative (e.g. increase or decrease of certain hormones as opposed to their absolute values) but almost always the situation is complex. It is likely also for many animals, but we lack the ability to define nuances that we can do with humans, as we can simply talk to folks.

Except of course that in humans the relationship is at best inverse, as I mentioned before. Abnormally low levels are correlated with aggressive behavior, further highlighting the differences between lobsters and humans. I think I may also have provided some info on the more complex relationship between dominance and aggression in primates, which are arguably better models for humans than crustaceans. So while the bolded part might be true for lobsters (and likely there are caveats, but it is not my field), it is certainly not true for humans or animals more similar to us. Don't worry, Peterson doesn't know much about Biology, either. Just say that it is the fault of chaos dragons and you are good.

As a biologist I know that not to be true. What you state is part of a larger evolutionary narrative where biological structures, such as brains are build up successively from simpler to more complex form. Only, that is not the case, it is more like a broad branch of different structures to fulfil sometimes similar functions. It is like saying that modern microchips incorporate vacuum tubes. Specifically, the "old" structure, responsible for fear and aggression is mostly the amygdala, but is only found in vertebrates. Lobsters, for starters do not even have a brain and we do not share the same structures or responses. I.e. it is not more insightful than e.g. saying that folks should always stand their ground, like trees. Those that uproot themselves will die of nutrient deprivation. Or men should never procreate otherwise the women will behead them and use them as snacks. It only sounds insightful if you do not think about it. Also delicious (actual) brains.

No, I think that is fine, and I do that, too. However, at some point you have to drive down to the details where you get to the testable hypotheses (or equivalent). You cannot just remain on the narrative level and claim those as facts. The reason is that strong narratives are often counterproductive to critical thinking. The hypotheses and evidence to support or refute those are those that often challenge narratives and is why science works. I think that it is dangerous a it makes it easier to obfuscate the fact that one actually does not have expertise in a topic. I.e. misleading folks and selling narratives without the evidence. An actual educator should have a balance in these things. Here I can say that your reading is really different from mine. What he does is, for example to take a factoid (lobsters compete with each other aggressively) and then uses that to explain complex human social dynamics. In a science paper that would be a clear misquotation as the studies only apply to an entirely different (non-social) species. Even findings he cites in the psychological area tend to be massive overinterpretation, i.e. he draws conclusions which are actually not part of the study. Together with his debating style he therefore ventures far out away from the actual state of knowledge and sells them as facts. He is therefore more a pundit equivalent than an educator and together with his seemingly convincing debating style, he is far more persuasive than the data and science allows. The annoying bit is that at least some folks still see him more as an educator (or even scientist) rather than a pundit.