Cannabis Ruderalis

thcscience_admin

Template:Vital article Template:Findsourcesnotice

WP:Undue intersex material in the lead

Intersex77 (talk · contribs), this is WP:Undue for the lead. The lead is meant to summarize the article. If you must add this material, then include it in the Sex determination section that already mentions the topic of intersex people. But I must point out that even that might be removed by someone since this article is not a legal article; it is a biological article. Also, do not use Wikipedia as a source; it is not a WP:Reliable source. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:56, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed all mention of intersex from the lead just now. Splitting things into male/female/intersex is far too human centric - far more generally relevant is male/female/hermaphrodite. Evercat (talk) 00:43, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Evercat and Flyer22 Reborn: That seems like an improvement, per due weight. I wonder if we need to place "sexual reproduction" in the lead in context with the other main form of reproduction, i.e., asexual.
On the other hand, I'm tempted to ask what this article is actually about (and perhaps thrown an {{Unfocused}} template on it), given that the lead of this article and the lead of Sexual reproduction cover essentially the same ground, if in different ways. Per WP:AT, The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles. When I look at Sexual reproduction I know what it's about just from the title, and reading the first sentence confirms it, and introduces and sets the tone for the rest of the article, When I read the title of Sex, or look beyond it to the first sentence, or the rest of the Lead, I'm really not quite sure what to expect from the rest of the article. Perhaps this is just a case of improving the first sentence, in particular, and bringing the rest of the Lead in line with the body, but it's still really not clear what the focus of Sex is, in any coherent way, especially insofar as the second part of the statement above, namely the and distinguishes it from other articles part. In a few words: 'What is this article about?' (Perhaps this deserves its own section to discuss separately?) Mathglot (talk) 01:14, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
When it comes to the WP:Lead sentence and how the article no longer seemed to be defining what "sex" is, it was not an improvement and I reverted. Furthermore, since the topic of hermaphroditc animals and intersex people is discussed lower in the article, it is not WP:Undue to have a brief mention of those aspects in the lead. And the vast majority of the biological sex literature is about males and females, as is this article. That doesn't make the topic human-centric whatsoever. As the article even notes, "Like animals, plants have developed specialized male and female gametes." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:25, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And, of course, the article mentions that many plants are hermaphroditc. Anyway, I changed the lead to this, and then to this. "Male," "female," and "sexual reproduction" should get priority, per the literature. "Intersex" and "hermaphroditc" are discussed after that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:57, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the changes you made is that you overly narrowed the article to be about biological sex, which is far narrower than the subject of the article. This was always intended to be the general article, where the various meanings of sex are explained, distinguished, and linked to. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:53, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Per what I've stated above, this is not "the last good version." Sources are clear about what sex is (when not referring to sexual intercourse), and it is usually defined in terms of "male" and "female," which does not solely refer to "individuals." All I did was restore the lead sentence to what it was, without "intersex" being there. What you have done is restored the lead to something that does not make clear what the topic is about and easily makes this article look like the Sexual reproduction article, which also (unsurprisingly) mainly concerns "male" and "female." I don't have time to fully address this issue right now. But I will be returning to start an RfC about lead sentence wording for this article, and that RfC will include reliable sources proving my point. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:08, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And the subject of this article is indeed mainly about "male," "female" and "sexual reproduction." Read it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:13, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Update: RfC started below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 10 December 2017

171.79.240.181 (talk) 17:29, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: as you have not requested a change.
Please request your change in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 17:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which lead sentence should we go with?

In a discussion higher up on the article talk page, concern has been expressed about the lead sentence of the article. One view is that "splitting things into male/female/intersex is far too human centric - far more generally relevant is male/female/hermaphrodite." In a similar vein, there is also sentiment that stating "are specialized into male and female varieties, each known as a sex" makes the article "overly narrowed [...] to be about biological sex, which is far narrower than the subject of the article. This was always intended to be the general article, where the various meanings of sex are explained, distinguished, and linked to." The other view is that when sources on "sex" are not talking about sexual intercourse/other sexual activity or sociological gender, they are talking about biological/anatomical sex, which are terms that redirect to this article and do not solely concern humans. There are already Sexual intercourse, Sexual activity, Sexual reproduction and Gender articles. This article is mainly about biological/anatomical sex. It is not an article for every definition of sex that exists. Sex (disambiguation) covers that. Per WP:Lead sentence, this article's first sentence should be clear what it's about.

So which lead sentence should we go with?

Option 1: "Organisms of many species are specialized into male and female varieties, each known as a sex."

Option 2: "Sexual reproduction involves the combining and mixing of genetic traits: specialized cells known as gametes combine to form offspring that inherit traits from each parent."

Option 3: Some other wording.

I'll alert WP:Biology, WP:Physiology, WP:Anatomy and WP:Med to this discussion. Sources are listed in the Discussion section below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Discussion

Some sources defining and/or talking about sex in relation to the aspects of this article.
  • This Merriam-Webster source states, "either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures. 2 : the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of organisms that are involved in reproduction marked by the union of gametes and that distinguish males and females."
  • This OxfordDictionaries.com source states, "Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions."
  • This 1986 "Biology: A Modern Introduction" source, from Oxford University Press, page 166, states, "In most species there is a clear difference between the male and female organisms, and between the gametes which they produce. Where this is so the female produces gametes which are larger than the male's. The female gamete is larger because it contains stored food in its cytoplasm. This food is used to nourish the embryo which develops from the zygote."
  • This 2000 "Life: The Science of Biology" source, from Macmillan, page 736, states, "A single body can function as both male and female. Sexual reproduction requires both male and female haploid gametes. In most species, these gametes are produced by individuals that are either male or female. Species that have male and female members are called dioecious (from the Greek for 'two houses'). In some species, a single individual may possess both female and male reproductive systems. Such species are called monoecious ("one house") or hermaphroditic."
  • This 2006 "Plant Cell Biology" source, from Science Publishers, page 229, states, "In anisogamy, the thick cell wall of the female gamete is completed after fertilization and protects the zygote during the period of dormancy. The storage materials are used before the zygote undergoes meiosis and produces haploid cells of a new generation. At this level of sexual reproduction, the difference between male and female organisms is already discernible and during the following processes of evolution leads to a great specialization in the male and female roles."
  • This 2011 Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Book & CD-ROM Set" source, from Oxford University Press, page 1320, states, "Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions. The fact of belonging to one of these categories. The group of all members of either sex."
  • This 2014 "Dictionary of Biology" source, from Routledge, page 112, states, "In most higher organisms, gametes are usually regarded as being either male or female."
  • This 2015 "The Evolution of Life" source, from Oxford University Press, page 413, states, "To understand the biological nature of gender, it is useful to forget about animals and plants to begin with and think instead of a unicellular eukaryote that may develop either was a vegetative spore or as a sexual gamete. As a gamete it will fuse with any sexually compatible partner. In this case, gender is clearly an attribute of the individual cell. If the gamete has been produced by a multicellular organism such as a seaweed then nothing changes; it will still fuse only with some other compatible gamete, regardless of the form of its parent. Hence, "gender" is an attribute of gametes, not of the cells that give rise to them. (It is, of course, a rather unusual attribute because it can be defined only relative to other gametes of different gender.) [...] Ciliate protozoans can have a dozen or so genders and some fungi have hundreds. Animals have just two: small motile male gametes, the spermatoza, and much larger non-motile female gametes, the ova."

Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Sex&oldid=826290122

Leave a Reply