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Related discussion: "Something peculiar in my 2yo's bedroom led me to a revelation about our universe"
https://twitter.com/latifnasser/status/1750952860131729544
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39151768 (181 points | 16 days ago | 49 comments)
That twitter link sounds like it's the start of the thread, but the thread is not visible. Probably due to Musk's changes to twitter. Is there a way to see the entire thread? Otherwise I think people should stop posting threads on twitter and linking to them.
You probably need to be logged in to see the full thread. That said, here's a mirror without that requirement: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1750952860131729544.html
Twitter was already a horrible place to read entire blog articles anyway.
Yeah, I don't know why people keep posting this stuff there. It's completely unsuitable to it. It wasn't great for it before, but it's completely terrible for it now. Post this sort of stuff either on a blog or on some Fediverse thing that doesn't try to own your content and keep people from reading it.
Because the platforms design is irrelevant - people go where people are, where the content is. Twitter could be irc beneath for all the world cares.
Remind me a lot of Cruithne[0] which IQ once incorrectly called the second moon of Earth. Like Zoozve it orbits the sun with the same period as a planet and in a way that's strongly influenced by that planet, but while Zoozve kind of orbits Venus as a result (but in an orbit that crosses the orbits of Mercury and Earth and clearly couldn't possibly be maintained by Venus' gravity itself), Cruithne does the opposite: it kind-of orbits a point on the other side of the sun from Earth. Whenever it gets close to the Earth, it turns around. It's playing cat and mouse with the Earth, slowly overtaking it in a lower orbit until it nearly overtakes Earth, then switches to a higher, slower orbit and falls behind until the Earth nearly overtakes it, at which points it moves to a lower, faster orbit again.
From the Earth's perspective, it follows a horseshoe shape around the sun, with the Earth in the gap of the horseshoe. It's definitely not a moon, but I wonder if it could be considered a pseudo-satelite like Zoozve. They feel similar to me, though in an opposite way.
Edit: according to the Wikipedia link below, it does not follow a horseshoe shape like I originally learned, but more of a kind of bean shape that's varying between just in front of the Earth to half an orbit ahead of the Earth. Not sure where I got the horseshoe description.
Reading the Wikipedia article I wondered why there was no (proposed) mission to Cruithne. The Space Exploration Stack Exchange has the answer: It's difficult to reach. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41500/why-not-expl...
We ought to go to 2003 YN107 [1], it literally arrives at Earth's doorstep every 50 years. Although it's rather tiny at 30 m. The spiral patterns really neat to look at though.
The orbit varies with time in a cyclic fashion and if you trace it for its whole cycle you get the horseshoe.
Thank you, that's it. In the short term it's a bean, but it the long term it moves from just behind the Earth to just in front in and then back again in that horseshoe shape. So there's two different weird effects going on here.
I've been listening to Radiolab for a few years now on my runs, and I generally enjoy it a ton. Occasionally they really really dumb things down to the point of making me wonder who they think their audience are. But oftentimes they produce these amazing gems like Zoozve or Alphagal for example.
I think it's really hit or miss these days. It feels like the episodes like this that Latif hosts are interesting. But towards the end of last year they had a very long less sciency run that was not very interesting, so much so that I stopped subscribing and listening, I mean not dumbed down, but actually unscientific, like the long series on immigration or broadcasting an anti-trans activist to talk about gender.
I lost a bit of respect for them when they did an episode about the placenta and had an apology at the start because the episode contained the word "mother" rather than "pregnant person".
I feel if you want to be a great science communicator you can't also insist on using postmodern language which will either confuse or put-off much of your audience.
What's confusing about the term "pregnant person?" It seems very clear to me and has the benefit of being more inclusive.
Because the identity politics has no meaning when we talk about biological phenomenon like pregnancy. We know that only members of female sex can get pregnant. The word “mother” is defined as female parent in a dictionary. So there’s nothing wrong with the term mother in the first place.
So it's not confusing, you're actually just opposed to it on a political basis.
The word mother is fine but it isn't inclusive for trans men who can also give birth. It's better for their mental health if we use gender affirming language. This is supported by research and the health services of many countries support it.
Dictionaries change every year. I think it's better to consider the health and happiness of the people around you than to be slavish to dictionary definitions.
Apologies for making this political point on Hacker News, I know it's discouraged. Just felt the need to call out the assertion that the language used was "confusing" as I know we're all smart enough here to understand simple words.
I don’t think it’s political at all. It’s just that in my field trans people would very likely be outside of the scope of most studies. Genomics is still expensive and including someone on HRT is going to create outliers regardless whether you assign them to male or female group. It’s not terrific to exclude them, but that’s the realities of life.
So, when I’m at a conference and someone gives a talk on how live birth leads to microbiota transfer from mother to child, it’s clear who we talk about when we say “mother”. I’m not sure there’s a case for fighting for someone’s mental health here.
> it isn't inclusive for trans men who can also give birth
Do you consider trans-men to be male or female?:
female /ˈfiːmeɪl/ adjective
Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.
It depends on the person. In the general case I consider them men with female reproductive organs.
I've already said I'm not interested in the dictionary. That's what the word female means in the simple definition, yes, but reality is more complicated. Some women are born without ovaries, or they later have them removed. What sex would you assign to them?
> I consider them men with female reproductive organs.
I'm not asking about other labels (man, woman, mother etc). I'm asking if a trans-man can correctly be described as "female".
Saying they have "female reproductive organs" i.e. those of a female, implies they are not female, yet the definition of a female is basically "has (female) reproductive organs", so it feels like redundant semantics / wordplay.
It's like being asked "is this a red bucket" and saying "No, its a bucket thats colour is red". If you aren't being deliberately obtuse then there some conflicting root of understanding you aren't just stating outright.
> I'm not interested in the dictionary.. reality is more complicated
word are convention of meaning. other than researching common usage, that's all they are. There is no a priori "true meaning" of a word beyond their definition, whether found in a dictionary, or elsewhere.
Does rejecting the "dictionary" mean you disagree with the definition I supplied; that you have your own alternative definition; or you don't care much about what word means (but do, nonetheless, care how it's used)?
> Some women are born without ovaries
Some women have ovaries removed, others don't yet never become pregnant. Conventionally they are still referred to as female.
The word "can" in the definition implies "capability", which allows a certain level of ambiguity in definition. They belong to a biologically class capable of, and distinguished by, reproduction. Perhaps there is a grey-area in how this definition is applied, but that aside: how does that affect a conversation of whether "pregnant people" are female? We bypass the issue of "who doesn't meet the condition(s)" entirely by presenting a group that absolutely meet the condition(s), without ambiguity.
> What sex would you assign to them?
This begs the question that all individuals have a unambiguous sex.
The OED gives 24 definitions for the word "female." The second in the list defines female as having the opposite gender identity as a male. Following this definition it would be incorrect to label a trans man as female. I wouldn't like to refer to them as female as this can be offensive or damaging. In my country trans men are medically recognised as distinct and medical professionals are encouraged to use gender affirming terminology. I'm not sure what bearing your insistence on a single definition has to the topic at hand. If the word red had 24 such distinct meanings and if buckets had feelings and preferences about how their colour was described then your metaphor might work better.
Rejecting the dictionary means recognising that dictionaries are made to reflect language as it is used, rather than as a handbook for relating to other people. As descriptive texts they will always lag behind use in practice and, as I said above, I see no reason to insist on certain harmful terminologies on the basis of a dictionary definition. I call them harmful terminologies because of the medical recognition of the distress that can be caused by misgendering individuals.
You recognise yourself that sex has many gray areas. Human life has many gray areas. The more we move towards a society where people are free to express their feelings the more people we see who have been unhappy with their prescribed gender identity. I feel morally obliged to be kind to the people around me and, as someone living in a community and society alongside trans and non-binary individuals, as well as same sex couples, I prefer to make the trivial change in my language that helps them feel included and happy in their own bodies. I can't see any reason why I wouldn't do this, but if others can then they're free to speak as they want.
Pregnant person is a very clear term in my mind.
I don't have access to oed.com - the definition you picked seems to explicitly refer to gender
So, does the word "female" prescribe gender? or not?
Or is the idea that some such definitions might exist, and therefore such words are to be avoided?
On that basis, there are 14 meanings for "pregnant", so how does this not have the same problem?
> If the word red had 24 such distinct meanings
Are the meanings for "female" all distinct?
> As descriptive texts they will always lag behind use in practice
ok, so you are talking about common usage? What else can it "lag behind"?
I'm no longer sure what you're asking me or what point you're making overall. I understand your individual questions but not what bearing they have to the topic at hand or why I should entertain them.
If you have a point to make then I would rather you simply state it and stand by it. As it is it feels like you're trying to bait me into admitting a fault in my own reasoning using a series of first principle questions. If you see a problem with my logic then please come forward with it, I have neither the time nor the energy to engage in your socratic dialogue.
> I'm no longer sure what you're asking
Generally, if it ends with a '?' it's a question. Try answering those, and maybe you'll get the point.
e.g. "So, does the word "female" prescribe gender? or not?"
Why did you choose not to answer that and instead claim you "no longer sure what you're asking"? I'm asking if the word prescribes gender, it's pretty clear!
I also don't have the time or energy - I asked the questions straight, and if I break-down the questions further it's because you didn't answer them in the first place.
> If you see a problem with my logic then please come forward with it
Here's what I wrote, then re-iterated:
>> since in this context "pregnant person" is suggested to be fine, why doesn't the same problem arise there too?
>> On that basis, there are 14 meanings for "pregnant", so how does this not have the same problem?
I'll "simply state it": read what I wrote and respond to it rather than "anticipating" my point and waffling on about something else.
I don't even know what prompted the "Human life has many gray areas" paragraph, it feels like you are responding to something else.
Ok, A quick search and it seems you're Irish. I wondered if there was a language barrier here, but it seems that's not the case.
The following definitely needs citation:
"In my country trans men are medically recognised as distinct"
In mammals, only the biological female has a womb. That's not "political", it's reality.
It sounds like you have an axe to grind...
In humans, gender is a social construct created on top of sex. It comes with a heap of socio-political norms. Some people feel that the gender assigned to them on the basis of their sex doesn't match the feeling they have about themselves or the way they would like to relate to society. For these people gender affirming language is very important to their quality of life, and their quality of life is directly tied to the well-being of their children.
> It sounds like you have an axe to grind...
Could you explain what you mean by this?
And here's how it was socially constructed -
Step 1: Take all the western cultural sexist stereotypes that apply to women (female) and men (male).
Step 2: Redefine "woman" and "man" in terms of all these sexist stereotypes, instead of by sex.
Step 3: Anyone who wants to adhere to the sexist stereotypes imposed upon women is now a woman. Anyone who enjoys the sexist stereotypes associated with men is now a man. Invent the term "non-binary" for people who don't want either set of sexist stereotypes to apply to them.
Step 4: Whichever category of sexist stereotyping from Step 3 an individual feels most comfortable with becomes their "gender identity".
Step 5a: Replace sex with "gender identity" in law and policy everywhere. Formerly single-sex spaces and services are no longer separated by sex, but by which set of sexist stereotypes a person feels most comfortable performing. For example, if a male human criminal enjoys wearing dresses and make-up, incarcerate him in the women's prison.
Step 5b: Replace any language that references anyone's sex with a sex-neutral term instead, so that those who enjoy performing sexist stereotypes feel comfortable and unchallenged in their beliefs. For example, replace "expectant mother" (a term implying the female sex) with "pregnant person", just in case a female human who aligns herself with the sexist stereotyping associated with men bears a child.
This sounds like a valid interpretation which doesn't outright ignore valid points made the progressives, however, by calling gender stereotypes sexist, you sound more like a gender abolitionist believing that the distinction between male and female in behavior is completely arbitrary.
This IS theoretically a valid solution to the problem, however it requires a massive change in the society as it doesn't reflect how real humans behave here and now anywhere on the planet.
The way I see it, the current solution proposed by the progressives, with treating gender stereotypes as something substantial, is a tiny bit more practical in terms of healthy coexistence (leaving contested topics like sports aside). As to whether it'll be a temporary bandaid solution and the humanity will choose gender abolitionism, I guess we'll see in 500 years.
I'm not sure these stages apply to any known theory in contemporary gender studies.
It's roughly how this ideological viewpoint has developed, and how it's affected language and policy, in the past few decades.
> gender affirming language
Do the words "male" and "female" affirm gender (as opposed to sex)?
If there's some contradiction there, it seems an inherent property to being trans;
since in this context "pregnant person" is suggested to be fine, why doesn't the same problem arise there too?
I'm not totally sure what you're asking me. Pregnant person covers everyone who is a person and pregnant. That can be a cis woman, a trans man or a lesbian woman with a non-pregnant co-mother as a partner.
Doesn't "mother" work just fine to cover these cases as well? It just sounds like an unnecessary awkward neologism.
No, it doesn't cover trans men who will give birth to become the baby's father.
Too late to edit, but it's also not useful when we're specifically talking about pregnant people. If we give advice for "expecting mothers" not to sleep on their backs, for example, then it's inaccurate as they could have a same sex partner who will also be a mother but who is not going through the process of carrying a child.
> No, it doesn't cover trans men who will give birth to become the baby's father.
Why?
> If we give advice for "expecting mothers" not to sleep on their backs...
Yes, but
a) you rarely need such differentiation.
b) I'm pretty sure people would understand what is meant from the context.
> Why?
Because they're fathers, not mothers.
> a) you rarely need such differentiation
How common does it need to be before precise language becomes preferable?
Around one in a 100 couples with children are same sex couples, at least in the US. Acceptance rates of homosexuay vary of course and laws have been lagging behind, so we can expect this number to raise as acceptance grows. Inclusive language is part of that acceptance.
You also have many families with adoptive mothers who didn't give birth to their children.
> b) I'm pretty sure people would understand what is meant from the context
And I'm pretty sure even children can understand the term pregnant person. I'm surprised that so many people here are confused by it
> Around one in a 100 couples with children are same sex couples, at least in the US
How many of these couples include a pregnant trans male though? I think the term "pregnant person" would be a hard sell in particular.
> Because they're fathers, not mothers.
They gave a birth to the child, something only mothers can do.
> You also have many families with adoptive mothers who didn't give birth to their children.
Well that's my point. Using the term "mother" is just fine for them. That doesn't make a necessity to always differentiate by emphasizing that a given woman is "birth mother" / "birth person". In most cases (including LGBT/trans) using the term "mother" is fine and there's no need to go more specific than that.
> And I'm pretty sure even children can understand the term pregnant person. I'm surprised that so many people here are confused by it
It's not confusing, use it, if you wish, but I prefer the term "mother".
What people are annoyed with is the language police, imposing your preferred usage on others. The host being pushed to apologize for using the term "mother" is just absurd.
You're on the attack over some commenters who affirm the reality of "female" vs "male".
Social constructs are abstractions, not necessarily based on reality. Feelings do not change facts; nor can facts be changed to fit one's sensibilities.
I didn't think I was "on the attack." Could you point out where you were reading an attack in my comments?
I asked why "pregnant person" was a confusing term and defended it on the basis of inclusivity. Social constructs are indeed not based on immutable truths, they reflect our beliefs and feelings. It seems reasonable to me to consider the beliefs and feelings of others when perpetuating social norms. Mother is an ambiguous term when we're talking about child bearers. Not everyone who bears a child is a mother and not every mother bears children.
Consider also that in the case of lesbian couples both parents will be mothers but only one of them will go through the process of giving birth, so it's useful to have language which can account for this distinction.
Lesbian couples can become pregnant through co-parenting arrangements, sperm donation and sexual assault.
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Sex and gender are not the same thing. I just checked a couple of dictionaries for "mother" and got a 2:3 mix of variations of "parent who is female" and "parent who is a woman."
You selected a definition that aligns with your worldview and make it sound like an unimpeachable, universal truth.
It’s not my world view, it’s the context of my area of interest, where it’s unlikely to be an issue.
People can be whatever they want, have my blessing. It’s just the whole “pregnant person” vs “mother” debate started from the scientific podcast. Mixing identity politics and biological phenomena seems a bit excessive. Nobody is trying to offend anyone when they write a Nature paper and use the world “mother”. I don’t think that the attitude of getting triggered by words is a constructive one.
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As I said, when talking science it’s not “a preference”, rather just stating a fact. I’m not advocating for the usage of exactly the same terms in other settings.
Also, there’s a lot of getting offended on behalf of others these days. That’s not something I’m willing to entertain.
What science are you talking about? Trans fathers exist and are recognised medically.
Whose behalf are you offended on now, your own? Do you have a womb or work as a midwife?
Radiolab isn't peer-reviewed research. It's meant to educate and reach as many people as possible.
It's on them to build emotional resilience, not for everyone else to erase the word "mother" from their vocabulary.
No one is suggesting removing the word mother altogether. If someone is a mother then they are a mother. But not every person who is a mother has given birth (adoptive mothers, mothers who are partnered with child bearers) and not everyone who gives birth is a mother (trans men who will be the baby's father).
The word mother never was a problem with adoptive mothers or step-mothers. It shouldn't be for pregnant trans-men. When they are pregnant they do have the mother role as there is no manly masculine way to be pregnant. Later they can have more fatherly role, whatever that means.
Using weird postmodern language that puts off most people to make a small number of people happy makes for ineffective communication; at least if you're aiming for a mass audience, which science communicators probably should be.
What's your source that it puts most people off? And is it arguing in good faith to paint your opposition as "weird?"
If you really believe that most of society prefers "pregnant person" to mothers, I encourage you to step outside your social bubble.
I didn't suggest that more inclusive language is the majority preference. I questioned the claim that the majority find it actively off-putting.
Personally I don't see that the more inclusive terms harm anybody and I doubt it would make a difference for most people.
I also want to say that I find the tone of your response to be quite rude, especially when you're misrepresenting my argument.
What's the overlap between "people who choose to listen to NPR" and "gender essentialists"?
I'm pretty sure most of society does not care, and would not find either terminology noteworthy if it weren't part of a prefix-apology.
If most people are put off by trans issues, why are most companies using trans pride flags in advertising?
Do you think companies are somehow averse to profit now?
No one has a problem understanding what "pregnant person" means, all of these new terms are 100% clear; you just don't Like Them. It's worth interrogating personally why you feel that way.
I've found the same, although I still remain subscribed. For me, their episode last year "Born This Way" was a low point of their reporting, but there have been a lot of others that I feel really miss the mark on scientific reporting, including the one on Zoozve which instead of spending time exploring the different ways multi-body orbital dynamics can produce interesting and non-intuitive effects, spent half the episode distracted by what was effectively "bro, wouldn't it be hilarious if we officially named it Zoozve? lol"
Maybe it's always been hit or miss but I remember the "old days" when I listened on the radio very engaged to the show while commuting and didn't have access to resources to instantly follow up and verify facts, and now I had to go after each episode to investigate further and ruin the experience myself or maybe I am over romanticizing a past that never existed. I think I wouldn't mind so much if the episodes were not so long no matter if they are good or bad in my judgement only, so the conundrum of having to screen each show didn't seem worth it for me. I agree with you on that low point, Lulu actively cheerleading the TedX speaker was distasteful at best, and it felt like Lulu was on every episode.
Radiolab has the kinda same problem that Star Wars has. It is so influential that groundbreaking stuff has become an industrial standard so now the product kinda feels stale.
I appreciate that they slightly pivoted from "science" to "anything interesting, obscure and true" which occasionally is just human drama. A show can't run for decades without adapting. I think the new format has had some real duds but I still enjoy it most of the time.
"Zoozve" is its original name "2002VE" read as a word because an illustrator for a poster wrote his 2s looking like Zs.
The RadioLab episodes about Zoozve are great fun
Absolutely. Adding the links below -
I shall call him, "Mini-moon"
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So Planet X could be a large quasi-moon, not only undetectable or merely undetected with our current technology, but orbiting multiple objects at once, throwing off our assumptions of what exists in the oort cloud
No, the hypothesized planet X would have a mass of on the order of 10 Earth's, and would therefore be too heavy for that.
A quasi-moon is a relatively lightweight object which shares an orbit with a host planet, but doesn't (noticeably) disturb the orbit of that host planet.
Could this mini moon be nudged to first be stable, then to become a dust ring and shadow venus?
I think it is too small to form a ring. At <1km, it may require an orbit so low that atmospheric drag would take over before tidal forces could pull it into a ring.
Title should have 2002 in it.
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