"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, July 08, 2017

Saturday Science: It's Not "Either/Or"

In this universe, I don't think anything is -- that's a fallacy derived from the central concept of the desert religions: there is a deity who is purely good; therefore, there must exist something that is purely evil.

Well, no.

However, rather than going into a universe-spanning examination of this question, let's just examine one area in which that fallacy has had severe repercussions: human gender and sexuality. Bill Nye to the rescue:

The infamous science guy gave the straightforward explanation about human emotion and hormones and the concept of gender on his new Netflix series, Bill Nye Saves the World. . . .

Nye goes on to explain how gender is something that most people come to understand by the time they are young children, but how it isn’t always as straightforward as your gender matching up with the sex assigned at birth.

“When you throw in gender, it gets even more colourful. By three or four, most kids identify with a gender. It doesn’t always match the sex they were assigned at birth.

“A person’s gender identity may change over their lifetime.”

Sadly, I can't link to the Netflix episode (well, I could, I guess, but you'd have to sign in to watch it), but I've added his series to my list on Netflix. There's a brief clip at the link, just to whet your appetite.



No comments: