Tuesday: Hili dialogue

33 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

1. Astonishing moose

   I love the dinosaur comic/meme.

   1. Yes it is amusing, but I can’t get past the fact that fossil fuels are not made of dead dinosaurs.

2. We have a piebald deer in the local 550-acre Mariners Museum park, a wooded urban park surrounding a large fresh water lake and bordering the marine mouth of the James River. The deer herd was established with creation of the park in the 1930’s by importing deer from the Shenandoah Mountains. The creator of the park was a sculptress and artist who found these mountain deer to be more attractive than the indigenous swamp deer. I walk a trail there five days a week and spot this piebald once a month or so. It is really strange to see….almost all white (80-90%).

   1. Below I write about the piebald deer on Orcas Island. I didn’t see your post, else I would have appended my response to yours. The piebald deer are a striking sight!

      1. No problem. Thanks for this note.

3. My question is how much committee time was spent debating the number and identification of the ‘official’ genders?

   1. Yesterday, via fellow traveler Ophelia Benson’s website, I learned that any listiing of 24 genders would be drastically undercounting them. It might be literal violence! Or even genocide! Also, thank goodness, each of the 4,969 (and counting) genders has its own flag.

   2. I don’t know, but that list is a jumbled mess of epistemic and ontological confusion. They don’t even have “male” and “female” on the list! And the rest is somewhere between useless and bonkers. E.g. “detransitioned” – fine, you’ve reverted from being trans, so presumably you’re back where you started, which is where exactly? Or, “Questioning” – okay cool, so once you’ve found the answer to who you are, you go back and change your documents?
      Also, more fundamentally, what IS “gender”? The most steel-manned description that I could come up with something like “behavioral patterns to fulfill biological constraints and social expectations that arise from being male or female”. In other words, from knowing someone’s gender, you should be able to derive probabilistic predictions abould their character, communication habits and behavior. But most of the entries in that list don’t help at all! What does “questioning” tell you? What’s the difference between “agender” and “androgynous”? What are society’s expectations for “genderqueers” and “non-conforming”?

   3. I hate it when they leave out cakegender (gender.fandom.com/wiki/Cakegender): “soft and fluffy…sweet or warm [with] flavors which could change how the gender feels.”

4. Other than as a means to show their woke bonafides by calling out the “Euro-American-centric approach”, mentioning the Indigenous communities use of cyclical calendars, using “mis-” in the title, and of course using the word “inclusive”, I see no reason that was published by Nature.

   Refuting their points:
   1. “Avoid naming seasons for events.” Using local seasonal names is helpful for naming international events by adding local color and helping to communicate to attendees what to wear.
   2. “Provide specific dates”. Really? Have you ever attended a conference that did not provide specific dates and just said “summer event, please come”. Or seen a study that said, “we measured 2300 migratory birds flying over during a few weeks in the autumn”? Do these people think others are that dumb?
   3. “Respect work-life balance around the globe”. I’ve been on a professional board that schedules seminars; believe me, we always asked what holidays are around the time of our events. The goal is to have maximum attendance, so you always plan around holidays and vacations.
   4. “Adjust global analyses to account for hemispheric differences”. Do the authors really think that any researcher is not doing this?

   This is not worthy of Nature. Maybe the note about hemispheric change is OK for HS science as a reminder, and the need to recognize timing is good for rookie event planners, but if this is all Nature has to fill it’s pages, then I feel bad for it.

   I can’t wait to see how SciAm responds with their take about how mis-seasoning affects each of the 24 genders. 😉

   Thanks for giving me a laugh this morning!

   1. The season thing is crazy. It’s like people are looking for something to complain about and hopefully get their own way.

5. Dr Coyne: there is a Hofbräuhaus in Las Vegas, and they claim to bake their own pretzels. Last time I was there, the food was pretty authentic, so it’s probably the one of the best places on the continent to satify your yearning for a brezel with senf and a mass bier.

   1. Jawohl! I’ll look for it!

      1. Nein, nein! Das Hofbräuhaus in Las Vegas ist schrecklich. Erstens ist es unerträglich laut. Zweitens ist das Essen am besten mittelmäßig. Die Würstchen sind nicht frisch und die Spätzle schmecken wie Kraft Macaroni und Käse.

   2. Richard:
      We also have a Hofbräuhaus in greater Cincinnati (Newport, Kentucky). The pretzels, along with the other items I’ve sampled, have made for enjoyable visits. The main hall is primarily set up with long, group tables, meaning you may be making new friends while you are there. Here, they have places where the regulars can keep there steins, ready for their next visit(s).

6. The plagiarism hunters are still gunning for Kamala Harris and have found multiple more examples than just in her book.

   1. Yes, so let’s vote for the orange dementia patient who didn’t even write his own books.

      1. Apparently she didn’t either

7. The piebald moose is interesting, and reminds me of the piebald deer on Orcas Island. They are rare on the mainland but, due to inbreeding, are much more common on the island. The first time I saw one I thought it was a goat! But it was a (fairly) rare piebald deer. These deer sometimes have a few other anomalies along with being piebald, but many are viable and fertile.

   https://deerassociation.com/piebald-deer-how-rare-are-they/

   1. When we first spotted the one in the Mariners Museum (comment #2 above) a couple of years ago, we had no idea what it was and thought it might be a goat also.

   2. Yes, this will be in tomorrow’s nooz.

   3. Lovely soft focus shot of Hili today.
      I hesitate to comment on anything related to this horrendous election we’re in the midst of, but here I go:
      If Bret Stephens really believes all he said about Harris and still votes for her, I consider his decision reckless. On the 60 minutes editing, if I were running against “Madam Vice President”, I wouldn’t agree to an interview with CBS, either.
      On a less contentious matter, the piebald moose is a trip!

8. Call no man happy until he is dead; recount the happy voters once the term is through.

9. “The online version differed from the original in that Harris’s tendency to ramble and—let’s face it—make no sense was expunged in favor of a more succinct words. “
   “How much time did they save by the editing? From what I see, about seven seconds.”

   I get your point, but 7 seconds doesn’t sound like much of a ramble…

10. Bret Stephens wrote:

    I fear that Harris is every bit as vacuous behind the scenes as she seems to be on the public stage. I fear she will be tested early by a foreign adversary and stumble badly, whether it’s in stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon or China from blockading Taiwan or Russia from seizing a portion of a Baltic country. I fear she will capitulate too easily to her party’s left flank, especially when it comes to identity politics, economic policy or polarizing cultural issues. I fear she’ll have no domestic policy ideas that don’t involve mindlessly expanding the role of government. I fear she’ll surround herself with mediocre advisers, like her embarrassingly bad veep pick. I fear she won’t muster the political will to curb mass migration. And I fear that a failed Harris presidency will do more to turbocharge the far-right in this country than to diminish it.

    Add to that, I fear that Harris will not hesitate to throw Israel under the bus, and you have exactly why I will be voting for Trump.

    1. This Trump ?!?:

       https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/14/trump-book-jordan-abdullah/

       You can trust Trump about as far as you can swing a cat.

    2. I find it incredible that emotional dislike of Trump will override logical analysis of all of the negative points about Harris.
       “Sure, electing Harris could lead to the end of Israel, let men further invade women’s sports and showers, let little boys be castrated even when medical evidence doesn’t back it, will lead to Iran from building nuclear weapons, will let China invade Taiwan and Russia invade the Baltic states, will impose government limits on free speech, will cause further divide in this country, will allow further illegal immigration that strains our resources, plus she plagiarized a lot, can’t string together a coherent sentence, and staged a coup to secure the nomination without a vote, plus copied her opponent’s economic policies, but that guy with the orange hair made a joke about being a dictator for a day and didn’t like the result of the last election, so I’m voting for her!”

       I know, I know, there’s a more to Trump’s negatives, and everyone is free to choose to vote based on whatever criteria they choose, so I’m not judging anyone. I do find Stephens’s logic indefensible – if you truly believe that Harris will be that bad in terms of actual policy but vote on emotion, that’s dumb, in my opinion (ok, maybe I’m judging him).

11. Sports (most assuredly including the Olympics) should require sex testing. Buccal swabs (cheek swabs) are 99.99+% accurate. They are also fast, cheap, and non-invasive. However, 99.99+% is not 100.00%. Three exceptions come immediately to mind. CAIS persons have 46-XY chromosomes and high (male normal) Testosterone levels. However, they are not ‘male’. There bodies don’t respond to the Testosterone that their (internal) testis produce. In my opinion, they belong in women’s sports. They look entirely female (very female) and they think like women. However, they are not really women either. They never menstruate and never have children.

    Swyer’s syndrome is another quite rare exception. These persons have 46-XY chromosomes. They typically have fallopian tubes and uteruses. With medical help they can even have children. They lack ovaries. In my opinion, they belong in women’s sports.

    Mosaic persons are perhaps the hardest case. In these very rare cases, some cells are 46-XY and some are 46-XX. In these exceptional cases, I suggest using ultrasounds for sex determination. Ultrasounds have the advantage of being accurate and non-invasive. However, they are not that fast or cheap.

    Passports should never be used (in my opinion). Passports typically reflect what sex was observed at birth. In some important cases (5-ARD) that is just wrong.

    1. Agree. Buccal swabs for all competitors in women’s events above a certain level, and “for cause” at any level, which the sport governing body can work out. If a buccal swab for direct Y chromosome determination* shows an athlete to be presumptively male (or not definitely female), she can, if she believes she is female, appeal the result and get more definitive testing. World Athletics, which oversees track and field, has its rubric on its website. They are well aware of androgen insensitivity in XY individuals and certifying them to compete as women is straightforward in the more common complete form. If there is partial sensitivity, the athlete is usually DQ’d.

       In past Olympics there was controversy about whether supposedly XX women who had unusually high testosterone levels and full sensitivity with masculinization were being unfairly “policed.” At least one of these individuals was later revealed to be an XY male and the others had modestly elevated T levels (not in the normal male range) seen in polycystic ovary syndrome. (The ovaries don’t secrete T in this condition which is of unknown cause. The changes in the ovaries are the effect of the T, not the cause.). These women were offered clearance to compete if they took birth control hormones, which angered the activists.

       Since sport is played by humans with rules written by humans and enforced by human judges there will be decisions that other humans will disagree with. But that is no different from accepting the umpire’s call that a pitch was a strike or that a pop-up could be handled by an infielder with ordinary effort. Find a rule and stick with it. No one has a human right to compete in a competitive sport. That’s not what sport is.
       ————————
       * The old-fashioned approach was to look for Barr bodies which indicates two X chromosomes. This usually but not totally excludes a Y chromosome. Conceivably a man who knew he was XXY could compete as a woman but he would have to take pains to hide his male genitals from other competitors.

       1. Believe it not, but there are 46-XX males, who should not (in my opinion) compete with other women. In some very rare cases. the SRY gene gets translocated onto an X chromosome. This (quite rare) condition gives rise to 46-XX males. I don’t know enough about medicine/genetics to say how this condition can be detected.

          PCOS is rather common in women and it does result in somewhat elevated Testosterone levels (high for women, low for men). However, PCOS does not result in a person going through male puberty (at least, I don’t think so).

          1. You’re correct. PCOS doesn’t cause male puberty. By “masculinization” I should have clarified to mean just a more masculine distribution of body hair. The argument was that their T levels were high enough that, had they been due to doping, they would have been DQ’d. This doesn’t necessarily hold water. If a woman is taking any amount of pharmaceutical testosterone she is doping, by definition. The way you detect “any amount” of T is by setting the test sensitivity at the upper limit of normal for women. Over that and she is doping, even if it’s not enough to give her a performance advantage. She might have been taking much higher doses during pre-competition training and evaded the drug police while she was “glowing.” Whether this holds for the levels of T seen in PCOS I don’t know. They aren’t cheating, is all I can say, but they may still not be eligible.

             46,XX males are usually discovered, much to their flabbergasted surprise, only when they are found to be infertile. Since not all men ever get the opportunity to try to impregnate a woman or look at their semen under a microscope, many probably go to their graves undiagnosed. The other way would be recreational genetic testing or during a lab exercise at school. When we did buccal swabs on ourselves in med school to test for Barr bodies in the antediluvian days before genomic sequencing, our preceptors warned us that occasionally students turned up with more or fewer X chromosomes than they had every reason to think they had.

             A male athlete who discovered he had a Barr body (or with modern technology, no Y chromosome) could use this information to clean up in women’s events despite being a visibly intact male. But because he would have developed as a typical male all his life he would have to have some opportunity to discover this before he decided to compete as female. (Testing for SRY is not always diagnostic as some individuals don’t have a detectable SRY gene on their paternal X chromosome. It’s complicated.)

             Bringing back sex testing for the Olympics needs to take all these rare conditions into account. Elite competition is highly filtered. What seems rare in the general population may become common enough to produce unfairness as it drips drop by drop through the filter.

             1. I didn’t know about XX males. Thanks for the info.

             2. “Elite competition is highly filtered”

                Indeed. There are other realms of human endeavor that impose a strong filtering effect. What is very rare in the general population is surprisingly common in these groups.

Comments are closed.