There is a lot of talk about gametes (sex cells, ova (egg) and sperm) as the defining factor in sex biology and the essenceof females or males. A 🧵 This is based on Anisogamy, the production of different sized gametes (the main form of gamete production across animals). The size difference became the focus of many hypotheses about large and small gamete producer differences

Greetings twitterverse! my latest for SciAm in response to the ongoing “sex is not binary” vs. the call to define human women and men via their gametes. This is the ~900 word version, stay tuned for the 50,000 word version in 2024.
scientificamerican.com/article/heres-… I see the yelling has started. If you are interested please read the essay (~900 words) and this thread (~500 words). Make up your own mind.

1/Latest WSJ Opinion piece on why sex is "binary" by @SwipeWright is another reason why people really need to learn about biology in general and human biology in particular. Here are just a few lines that are factually incorrect from the piece: 2/ " There are only two sexes. This is true throughout the plant and animal kingdoms." Totally untrue. Most animals have two sexes, but some have more than two, and some have only one. Let's not even get started on plants.

Hey @shi_huang5 you claim to be driven by the science of human biological variation and evolutionary processes, so be a scientist and do some reading of the abundant scientific literature before making your claims about race and "ranking"--- here a teeny 🧵of suggestions all the article in this recent special volume on the subject onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aj…

Given a slew of recent twitter activity on the evolution/naturalness of Patriarchy, I offer some thoughts from a forthcoming publication on human evolution and patriarchy. a too long 🧵 Patriarchy is a social system where men hold primary power, dominating in political leadership, social privilege, economic control, and the structuring of moral authority. Over the last few centuries, the majority of nations on the planet are structured as patriarchies.

1/ That the @NatureHumBehav statement generated the ire of the typical crowd is not surprising. They don't like to recognize an "ethical obligation to uphold intellectual integrity and avoid preventable harms that may arise in the course of research or its communication." 2/ but that is the reality and responsibility of researchers. The ethics guidelines are not onerous nor are they a threat to complicated scientific foci.They simply ask that more care be taken in the framing and structure of projects and their reporting, a reasonable ask today.

1/ Yet another article proclaiming GENETIC underpinning of IQ diff between races and ethnic groups. And that the topic of genetic influences on intergroup intelligence averages has been understudied. sigh. A short thread (article link at end). 2/ So many issues but I’ll only note 3: citations, race definition, GWAS misuse

1/ Yet again, let me be clear, my editorial was about "Descent". I did not read "Descent" as if it were produced in our own awakened intellectual environment. I read it as a scholar of evolutionary science and an anthropologist. A thread 2/ My goal with the editorial was to reflect on how societal biases of racism and sexism are so powerful that they can facilitate even such a spectacular scientist as Darwin to be blind to the data in front of him.

1/7 Yes, free inquiry is critical to good science. But, defending the right to keep trying to “prove” repeatedly refuted assertions about “race” and “IQ” is not equal to free inquiry or good science. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… 2/7 No definition of “population” or “race” in essay or in majority of sources cited to support the argument.

Watching nova “the violence paradox”. So far one of the most biased and misrepresenting views of aggression and violence I’ve ever seen (18 minutes in). No anthropologists yet. Lots of Steven Pinker and pretty sure my lengthy interview did not make the cut.