That is a different thing than "reproduction can only produce one of two distinct sexes"

Indeed. But we know evolution cannot produce a third sex as it would be outcompeted immediately by male or female strategies.

That is 100% irrelevant to the question of whether offspring that are neither of the two predominant sexes can be produced.

Do we know that? What's the source of that knowledge?

This is mainstream biology. A text book here describes this. www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

The biology literature is full of papers that discuss why we have two sexes and their nature. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

And where in those texts do we find the claim that a third sex cannot evolve? And where are my stats or are you just arguing in bad faith now?

Apparently it’s “I’ve never heard of bees”?

It also does not make the claim that no more than 2 sexes can evolve.

No, it doesn't. It tracks two models, which they clearly state are not mutually exclusive, and explain why a reproductive scheme based on two different sizes of gametes stays functionally stable. It most definitely does NOT say there can't be more than two sexes.

Oh wow, way to quote text that directly contradicts your contention. "one may say that this is very easy to answer... In reality..."

Moron

I accept your surrender.

Second self-own today.

You have the intellectual depth of a bag of gravel. Of course it is a hard problem of why we only see two sexes. The paper is all about showing how that has been solved.

Sweetie, you're as bad at insulting me as you are at understanding what the paper is saying.

Pretty sure I've said way worse to you.

A solution you misunderstood.

The paper: “Reproduction does not require sex. It is one of many possibilities. We may never know exactly how this system evolved; it may have appeared in several different ways independently. The mechanics do not tell us the reasons behind it.” Quack: “YOU GUYS SCIENCE SAYS THIS IS THE ONLY WAY”

Really. The depth of dishonesty you stress now having to display is staggering. I have never claimed what you say I have. Always producing straw men.

Hey, do you remember claiming that no organisms can fulfill both (or all) reproductive roles?

No, I never claimed that. you’ve imagined that

Excellent. Now that I have your attention, where are my statistics showing the majority of gynecomastia cases are "voluntary"?

🤣🤣🤣

I see the chud streak of citing sources that debunk their arguments has followed us to Bsky.

He's sulking now. 😂

He did get awfully quiet.

What’s the rest of the sentence that gets cut off there at the bottom?

It says there are many different sex determination mechanisms in nature that drive male and female development. What is you point?

Why did you cut it off there?

Because nothing beyond that point was required to make my point. You (as always) are misreading what is said. Never in my life have I seen such motivated reasoning resulting in consistent absurdity. You are experts at it.

“I quoted the part that supports my argument. It’s not my job to acknowledge anything that contradicts it.”

Nothing contradicts what I said. Just motivated reasoning and plain ignorance leads to bizarre thinky-thoughts in these people's heads.

But I am glad you accept the bit I quoted supports my argument. The other dishonest clowns here do not.

Oh, that’s a miscommunication on my part. I’m just mocking how your brain works by translating your sad attempt at logic to what it actually sounds like to others. Accepting your premise isn’t necessary for that. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused, though that may just be your default.

Why did you abandon the “thought experiment” conversation you and I were having the other day?

Because you all refused to answer the simple question I had. And so I answered it for you.

That's a lie. You refused to fully outline the parameters of your question. Even after you claimed to shift to a framework of self-identity, you still kept trying to go back to the original undefined premise. And several people answered your question. You are just too dishonest to admit it.

Right? “None of you answered it the way I wanted you to” is not the same as “none of you answered it.”

After clarifying parameters, I even answered it with a specific percentage!

That’s not true. I answered, and you ignored my answer. bsky.app/profile/kath...

He’s a shitposter who seems hell-bent on reinforcing his binary worldview.

I’m aware.

And yet there are only two sexes.

Oh I’m sure, I just feel like it needed pointed out again. No particular reason.

I think that should be his _bimodal_ worldview.... (Heh heh heh!)

Yesterday I asked you if you could counter the idea that 'male' and 'female' are easy shortcuts for laypeople to use to describe the two most common, prevalent spectrum outcomes, and not the only possible outcomes. Can you?

bsky.app/profile/enga...

Oh, dude. This whole paragraph (both your excerpt and the part you cropped out) are making the exact opposite point to yours.

You are conflating sex determination with sex definition. The paper did not do this. It is just saying there are more ways of producing males and females than XX/XY. Sex determination mechanisms proliferate. Sexes do not. Idiot.

I didn’t do anything except quote your favorite paper back to you. You said it “shows why more than two sexes cannot evolve.” It does not. (And, just to be clear, it wouldn’t help your case even if it did. This study has basically no discussion or bearing on individual sex assignment.)

You misunderstood what you were quoting

LOL No, sweetie. You did. You believed you had a paper to support your statements but you didn't read it closely enough to understand what it is actually saying. And now all you have are ad hominem attacks, lies, and running away from claims you made. Sad.

Oops.

Even if one accepts your assertion that there cannot be more than two sexes (using whatever definition you want to pretend exists), you haven't advanced your quaint little notion that everyone fits in exactly one and only one of them. Tossing a coin has more than two possible outcomes...

You are putting words in my mouth. I have explicitly said that is a logical possibility that some cases may be hard to classify. That does not mean (a) there are not classes than male and female for sexes ; (b) they still are either male or female. More straw man arguments.

If you cannot lay out a rule that objectively sorts the hard cases into one of two exes, (b) cannot be true.

That is not true. Difficulties in classification may be due to lack of perfect knowledge not the existence of other classes.

Are you suggesting that you lack the knowledge to sort the hard cases into one of the two sexes?

This seems like a real problem if you are arguing a maximalist position.

It's not the only problem he's had, but it's definitely one of the funnier ones.

Indeed. People like Caster Semenya were classified as female at birth as they were born into communities where there was not the expertise to gain the right knowledge to understand their condition. At puberty it was obvious he was a man.

Did you... look at the post you were responding to?

We tried to explain to you 72 hours ago that even assuming perfect knowledge does not let you escape the fundamental issue that you can’t even define discrete criteria for your classification.