Been a bit busy this week so just a few short takes:
Tangled bank #54 is online at Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin' with two contributions from theforcethat:
http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2006/06/unintended-consequences-of-invasive.html
and
http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2006/05/religion-and-science.html
But of special interest in Tangled Bank is a wonderful post from another Kansas blogger, Josh Rosenau, on emergent properties which I tend to share with my students tonight.
If you want a to see a good use of blogging a trip, check out my friend Doug Patterson's postings from Las Vegas at the Gambling Geek. Wonderful photos Doug!
Oh and I almost forgot! Be sure to visit the Kansas Guild of Bloggers latest carnival at:
http://3oclockam.blogspot.com/2006/06/kgb-carnival-for-june-5.html
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Sex, gender roles and gender identity
While rummaging around the noosphere this morning over coffee, ran across Alice Dreger's article, The Social Construction of Sex and Me. Dr. Dreger is involved with the Intersex Society of North America, and her article very nicely balances biology and social construction to cut through a lot of the fog generated in certain academic circles about the distinction between biological sex, gender roles and gender identity.
On biological sex she notes as have I (Sometimes I like it when people agree with me) that:
"Nature doesn'’t care that we humans tend to like discreet categories. The real world is messy."
So while most people fall into nice binary categories in terms of biological sex, not every one does. At the same time it is clearly a logical error to assume as some writers do that these categories have no biological reality. After all as she notes most human males have XY chromosomes and most females have XX chromosomes. Her work concerns the exceptions to these generalizations.
With respect to gender roles, she makes a clear distinction between gender roles, the parts males and females are expected to "play" in society and gender identity which she describes as ones internal feelings of "...Being a boy, girl, man, woman, or something else." She then asks if gender is something that is socially constructed, with no biological basis, or does biology enter in to gender roles and identity.
She concludes that both gender roles and identity are at least in part based on biology noting in part in reference to the social construction of gender:
"When I started doing intersex work, I thought so. I thought we were taught to feel, act, and behave like girls and boys. But I don'’t think that anymore. That is to say, sure we'’re taught these things, but many of us probably get our core gender identities as much from our biological origins as we do from our gender educations. I've met too many people who, in spite of careful gender educations, —sometimes even intensive gender educations, —just clearly felt the gender assigned to them was the wrong one."
I am reminded of an experience with my son when he was small. We had decided not to expose him to guns, but one day while we are eating (He was I think around 4), my son took a slice of bread and neatly chewed it into the shape of a gun and started shooting every one at the table. We gave up at that point. Needless to say he has turned out just fine.
As an aside, she argues that those people who think that gender is socially constructed really are extreme biological determinists in that the brains are "empty slates" at birth waiting to be filled. I seem to remember E.O. Wilson making a similar point during the flap over sociobiology in response to the charge that he was a biological determinist. As I recall, he argued that claiming that human behavior is due to environment is the same thing as saying that people are slaves to the environment.
Without getting in to the free will vs determinism flap, clearly as individuals our ontogeny involves genetics and external environmental influences. But there is more. We also have an interior environment of the mind which influences itself. Perhaps it is this interior environment, this interior life which makes us free.
Technorati Tags:
gender
transgender
On biological sex she notes as have I (Sometimes I like it when people agree with me) that:
"Nature doesn'’t care that we humans tend to like discreet categories. The real world is messy."
So while most people fall into nice binary categories in terms of biological sex, not every one does. At the same time it is clearly a logical error to assume as some writers do that these categories have no biological reality. After all as she notes most human males have XY chromosomes and most females have XX chromosomes. Her work concerns the exceptions to these generalizations.
With respect to gender roles, she makes a clear distinction between gender roles, the parts males and females are expected to "play" in society and gender identity which she describes as ones internal feelings of "...Being a boy, girl, man, woman, or something else." She then asks if gender is something that is socially constructed, with no biological basis, or does biology enter in to gender roles and identity.
She concludes that both gender roles and identity are at least in part based on biology noting in part in reference to the social construction of gender:
"When I started doing intersex work, I thought so. I thought we were taught to feel, act, and behave like girls and boys. But I don'’t think that anymore. That is to say, sure we'’re taught these things, but many of us probably get our core gender identities as much from our biological origins as we do from our gender educations. I've met too many people who, in spite of careful gender educations, —sometimes even intensive gender educations, —just clearly felt the gender assigned to them was the wrong one."
I am reminded of an experience with my son when he was small. We had decided not to expose him to guns, but one day while we are eating (He was I think around 4), my son took a slice of bread and neatly chewed it into the shape of a gun and started shooting every one at the table. We gave up at that point. Needless to say he has turned out just fine.
As an aside, she argues that those people who think that gender is socially constructed really are extreme biological determinists in that the brains are "empty slates" at birth waiting to be filled. I seem to remember E.O. Wilson making a similar point during the flap over sociobiology in response to the charge that he was a biological determinist. As I recall, he argued that claiming that human behavior is due to environment is the same thing as saying that people are slaves to the environment.
Without getting in to the free will vs determinism flap, clearly as individuals our ontogeny involves genetics and external environmental influences. But there is more. We also have an interior environment of the mind which influences itself. Perhaps it is this interior environment, this interior life which makes us free.
Technorati Tags:
gender
transgender
Monday, June 05, 2006
The Intelligent Designer Speaks
The intelligent design folks claim that knowing who or what the designer is, is not relevant to intelligent design theory. Well I guess the designer got sick of this claim because out from the noosphere comes the designer himself...and he really looks the part in a quirky sort of way.
So check it out at http://www.designerspeaks.com/index.html
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Intelligent Design
So check it out at http://www.designerspeaks.com/index.html
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Intelligent Design
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Other Voices
Check out Other Voices. Volume 21 just out has six of my poems in a very small collection the editor called I Live in the Shadow, taken from one of the poems in the collection. My thanks to Ron Hudson who asked me to submit poetry to Other Voices.
Technorati Tags:
poetry
Technorati Tags:
poetry
First Monarch of the Year!
Had my first monarch visitor to my butterfly garden this year. Not a great picture but I was on my way out, ran back inside to grab my camera.
Could it be the adult of this larva from summer 2005?
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butterflies
insects
Could it be the adult of this larva from summer 2005?
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butterflies
insects
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Carnival of Bent Attractions now online!
The 7th edition of the Carnival of Bent Attractions is now online at Ron Hudson's blog 2sides2ron, including my report on the Identity Police. If you are interested in LGBT issues, be sure to check it out at http://ronhudson.blogspot.com/2006/06/seventh-edition-of-carnival-of-bent.html
Technorati Tags:
LGBT
Transgender
Gay
Religion
Technorati Tags:
LGBT
Transgender
Gay
Religion
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Carnival of Genes (Mendel's Garden)
Update! RPM and I are currently setting up a blog just for this carnival, soon to be at:http://mendels-garden.blogspot.com/
Carnivals seem like great fun; I have been in several and thought it would be fun to organize one for genetics in the broad sense. So if you have posts about any aspect of genetics, send them on and let's see what happens. The deadline for submissions is 11:59 pm on June 15.
Possible topics could include classical genetics(what ever that is), evo devo, population genetics and evolution, behavioral genetics, viruses, regulation of gene expression, medical genetics , genetic counseling and ethical issues.
Note this Carnival has been renamed Mendel's Garden. A tip of the telomere to RPM at Evolgen.
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Carnival
Biology
Genetics
Science
Ramble through Prairie Park
Had a nice ramble at Prairie Park which is about 1/2 mile from my house. If you are ever in Lawrence it is worth a visit (map). There are about 5 miles of easily walkable trails, a nice little museum, a state fishing lake called Mary's Lake(Hey it's a large pond but very popular) and a small patch of native prairie.
This dragonfly is the only one of many that cooperated with me. The vertical pose of the abdomen caught my eye. Don't know if that is characteristic of this species, but this one would move and then take up that abdomen up pose.
I was pleased to find this carpenter bee(Xylocopa virginica). I don't think of these bees as being common in this area, but I have seen several around my garden and they were all over this legume.
Another tiger beetle, I know. But this one cooperated very nicely.
Finally a few flowers such as this small phlox. There was not a whole lot in bloom in the native prairie area.
A Prairie Mimosa.
Lastly, a very delicate prairie pink. I like the mottled petals:
Technorati Tags:
Kansas
flowers
insects
This dragonfly is the only one of many that cooperated with me. The vertical pose of the abdomen caught my eye. Don't know if that is characteristic of this species, but this one would move and then take up that abdomen up pose.
I was pleased to find this carpenter bee(Xylocopa virginica). I don't think of these bees as being common in this area, but I have seen several around my garden and they were all over this legume.
Another tiger beetle, I know. But this one cooperated very nicely.
Finally a few flowers such as this small phlox. There was not a whole lot in bloom in the native prairie area.
A Prairie Mimosa.
Lastly, a very delicate prairie pink. I like the mottled petals:
Technorati Tags:
Kansas
flowers
insects
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