Ivy League Sophistry about Sex and Gender

May 10, 2023 By Richard McDonough

In opposition to the traditional view that sex is “binary,” i.e., that humans divide into males and females, Princeton University anthropology professor Agustín Fuentes claims that the traditional way of marking sex distinctions by reference to biological reproductive cells (sperm and egg cells), does not determine whether someone is male or female.   That, he says, is “bad science” because the production of sex cells "does not … tell us all we need to know about sex, especially human sex” and does not, therefore, determine the definitions of “woman” and “man.”............Fuentes provides no scientific argument whatsoever that sex is non-binary.  He presents an ideological view borrowed from “post-modernist” philosophy and disguised with some scientific jargon that our sex concepts are culturally constructed (and therefore easily “deconstructed”).  Unfortunately, post-modernists make life very easy for themselves when they fallaciously infer from that trivial fact that we construct our concepts to the conclusion that we construct the reality represented by those concepts.  Although there is an obvious sense in which our concept of a woman is culturally constructed that does not mean that there is not a reality to womanhood independent of human constructions.............To Read More...