Crash Course vs Biological Sex (Response)

Crash Course Biology decides to forego the natural science for a lesson and jump headfirst into politics and ideology. In this video we explore whether their ideological claims are accurate, and precisely how this functions to undermine the actual science.

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00:00 Binary or Spectrum
03:04 Animal Diversity
13:47 Gender Explained
19:21 Assigning Labels
23:18 Sex Distinction
27:13 Men and Women
32:16 Sexuality
37:16 Conclusion

[nablamakabama]

The 20, 000 sexes in that fungus is absolute nonsense. Those are mating-types. This is like a guy saying that he’s usually attracted to women, but since he doesn’t feel attracted to his sister, she’s not a female, but a different new sex. Many fungus species have multiple mating types, and if they have the same mating type that means they are probably closely related or part of the same organism, and in that case nuclei will not be transferred. This is mostly so that they don’t constantly „mate“ with themselves.

[Eric_Hunt]

I'm off to play postmodernist football. It's the same as regular football except the goalposts move.

[BillyTheBranco]

We never *assign* a sex to anyone. We assess it

[Engrave.Danger]

I can't help but notice that none of those examples require gender affirming care clinics.

[commentcomment-vune]

The real question is why animals with weird sexes are brought up to justify humans having sex on a spectrum. It implies those animals are the exception, not the rule.
To put it another way, they're not saying that humans are like the rest of nature (implying sex is on a spectrum for most of nature) but that humans are the exceptions (and bringing up other exceptions to justify that).

It's a very strange argument on their part.

[gamzecarsamba]

How does this support the trans claim?

Some fish can change sex, mamals can't, ergo we should pretend they can?
Soo stupid..

[Toastie]

I don’t even understand why TRA’s lap on about this. Intersex people are a completely different thing to trans people.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Do you "identify" as human, or are you simply human? Sex/gender is the same. I don't "identify" as a man, I simply am a man.

[jawwer]

I'm in college right now, and part of the History curriculum has Crash Course videos as supplementary material, and there were quite a few essay/response paper assignments related to them.

The amount of complete non-sequiters, most of which boiled down to "white man bad" or "socialism would have solved every problem" is down right staggering.

[AnthonyBSusan]

"The split-gill fungus has over 20, 00 sexes."
Those are not sexes, they're mating types.

"We're assigning sex."
Sex is not assigned.

"Sexuality"
It's really important that he means sexual orientation, which is a part of sexuality.

"You can't just boil it down to sperm and eggs because lots of people don't produce either."
According to this logic, prepubescent boys and postmenopausal women don't have sexes. People like this also act like this is some novel concept that most of us don't already understand.

[kamiwriterleonardo]

TLDR:
A binary is more complex than a spectrum because you can have two spectrums, one in each side of the Binary.

[captainalexaaa]

No way I always thought biological sex was a social construct

[yazoink]

I've always wondered, what about mules? They can't reproduce, but we still classify them as male and female. Like you said, the sperm and eggs are signposts, not destinations.

[GrimMeowning]

Also, even when fish can change sex from one to other - it is still just two sexes, not third.
And about plants - a lot of plants are both male and female at same time. Still not makes it third sex and still not related to humans.
In mushrooms there technically only two sexes, but thousands of mating types. It is like "male but one that work not for all females, but for specific ones". Which still not makes it something else.

[StuntedSlime]

Actually the way these fish work is that from early fryhood, based on what kind of dolls they like, the fish discover who they truly are on the inside. They then find a special type of shrimp who will then prescribe hormones and surgery to them so that their sexed body can match their gendered personality.

[madelinecox]

Scishow did quickly retract misinformation they spread about GMOs. I feel like it's gonna take longer for them to redress this.

[hrafnagu]

Here's the thing about the fish example: Humans are not fucking fish.
(Note that the use of "fucking" here is intended as an intensifier. I am not insinuating that you go and "fuck a fish"🤣🤣)

[rosieapplelemontart]

An amazing and unexpected consequence of this bs debate is that the general population, across both sides, have become about 5000% more knowledgeable about specific niche animals' reproductive biology.

I don't begrudge the seahorse and clown fish taking up space in my head, I just never thought that this is how they would get there 🤷‍♀️

[corenlavolpe]

Crash Course really fell off, or at least that's what it feels like. For me I noticed the lack of integrity when they released that Environmental Determinism video and called it racist when it quite literally is the least racist theory of how culture develops that has ever been submitted.

[williamjenkins]

"All models are wrong, but some are useful"

I dont think it is very useful longterm to try poking holes in their models since they can forever play what-aboutism and goal post shifting. Instead ask what use they are trying to get out of their new models and head it off there. I dont need a deep scientific or philosophical understanding to know dudes getting records in female sports is wrong.