Kednicma

I assume that you know about the facts that some humans have fewer than two arms, and some humans have not just fewer than five, but also sometimes more than five fingers [0]. In what way, then, do you hope to show that the facile versions aren't wrong? I think that what you're saying is that it is quite common for human genetics to plan for people to have two arms and five fingers. But it's not universal. We must distinguish between the two, because every time we make a universal claim about humans, we implicitly exclude the humans who aren't covered by the claim. Indeed, intersex folk, polydactyls, amputees, and folks with Down syndrome are all marginalized in our society, and all via this same mechanism of minimization and normalization.

On personal attacks: I've only lost karma in this thread and I'm going to continue losing it; I'm not sure by what means you could imagine that I'm effectively winning.

* Perl 5 to Perl 6: So disastrous that they rolled back and Perl 6 is now known as Raku

* PHP5 to PHP7: Burn my eyes out, please! But of course PHP has unique user pressures, and a monoculture helps a lot

* Python 2.4 to Python 2.7: Done in several stages, including deprecation of syntax, rolling out of new keywords, introduction of backwards-compatible objects and classes, and improvements to various semantic corner cases

* Haskell 98 to Haskell 2010: GHC dominated the ecosystem and now Haskell 98 is only known for being associated with Hugs, which knows nothing newer

* C++03 and earlier to C++11: Failed to deprecate enough stuff, but did successfully establish a permanent 3yr release cadence

* C99 to C11: Aside from the whole Microsoft deal, this was perfect; unfortunately Microsoft's platforms are common in the wild

Now consider how many Python 3 features ended up backported to Python 2 [0] and how divisive the upgrade needed to be in the end.

On readability, you'll just have to trust me that when Python gets to millions of lines of code per application, the organization of modules into packages becomes obligatory; the module-to-module barrier isn't expressive enough to support all of the readable syntax that people want to use for composing objects. If you want a FORTRAN example, look at Cephes [1], a C library partially ported from FORTRAN. The readability is terrible, the factoring is terrible, and it cannot be improved because FORTRAN lacked the abstractive power necessary for higher-order factoring, and so does C. Compare and contrast with Numpy [2], a popular numeric library for Python which is implemented in (punchline!) FORTRAN and C.

> stating that the biological sex exists and in human case there are two sexes is sexist.

You got it! Sort of. It's not a problem to use the concept of biological sex, but it's completely wrong to say that humans have two biological sexes. The main problem is in the assignment of chromosomal configurations to sexual configurations; humans have a dozen or so intersex [0] configurations which don't fit neatly into binary gender theory.

And this has real-world consequences. There are many countries which have canonicalized various sorts of human-rights abuses based on the binary theory, mostly by establishing some sort of concentration camps for homosexuals. The author's writing forms a small but real brick in the wall of these camps.

> If that's so then the most biologists I've met are jest sexists and I should probably call the police and denounce them as petty criminals.

This is the error. It doesn't make sense to criminalize sexism, and indeed it's not criminalized in any jurisdiction that I know of. Instead, what's criminalized are specific deleterious pragmatic aspects of sexism: Sexual harassment, genital mutilation, conversion therapy, forced emancipation of trans children, human trafficking. When biologists are sexists, they are usually being reductionist as the author is doing, by minimizing and ignoring the diversity of the real world's biosphere; they are not directly advocating for the harm that is done by other, more hateful people, based on their reasoning.

Also, yes, my priors are that people are 99% racist, 80% sexist, 85% delusionally religious, and 20% fascist; this gives me a weak but steady belief that the typical person I talk to is, in some way, a sincere believer in deeply harmful and falsifiable cultural beliefs. I'm in the USA, for what it's worth; hopefully it's not like this everywhere.

> Telomeres, the caps on the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, play critical roles in cellular aging and cancer.

On war, we lose millions of people regularly [4]. We lose about a million people to genocide every year [5]. These are people that, in Bostrom's parlance, we have put on the train to go see the dragon; we sacrificed them for nothing at all. Nothing in Bostrom's tale suggests that, having defeated the dragon, we will stop killing millions of people.

On nuclear war or other disastrous climate change, something you only allude to, the Doomsday Clock [6] is currently at less than two minutes to midnight, and has never been closer. It is widely agreed that we are on the very edge of self-annihilation and that we expend a tremendous amount of political effort simply not destroying ourselves.

I can see that you're a relatively young and inexperienced account; I hope that you do some reading and improve your understanding of biology and history, rather than continuing to lean on mystic or mythic influences for your worldview.