RE: Questions about genders ... male/female
November 4, 2014 at 8:01 pm
(This post was last modified: November 4, 2014 at 8:03 pm by Chas.)
(November 4, 2014 at 6:14 pm)Reader Wrote: Greetings!
I'm new here, so I'll add a short reason why I am asking this question on this forum.
I teach worldviews classes to high schoolers. We cover Secularism, Postmodernism, Islam, New Spirituality, Christianity and Marxism. Within each worldview we cover each discipline of theology, philosophy, history, economics, sociology, ethics, biology, psychology, law and politics and how they differ across the board.
We are currently in the biology unit ... and I've pondered this question from an atheistic evolutionary viewpoint for a bit ... and I can't seem to find an answer.
Not atheistic, scientific or naturalistic.
Quote:So, I thought I would post here to see if you all could offer some insight.
Why do we only have two genders, male and female? [excluding asexual animal reproduction] ... just humans and almost all animals? Why only two? Why not ... say ... seven, or seven-thousand? If we have evolved over time from a single celled organism ... why did we only evolve into two genders and not more? Why did it stop at two? Thanks for your time.
Two sexes, some number of genders.
There are two general reasons. One is the structure of DNA - it is a double helix. It splits in half (meiosis) to create two complementary strands. This structure preceded sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction evolved from that base.
The other is a mathematical proof of the optimality of two sexes. I would have to dig up a reference. Or you could.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
