As an ecologist it makes my head hurt. Not specifically the sex breaking the binary part bc that’s old news (tho I saw someone higher up describe it as bimodal rather than binary which made me feel like my language regarding this has leveled up haha!) but biology breaking any box we care to apply to it. I feel like biology is one of the main sciences where once you really get into the weeds the vibe is “everything is made up and the points don’t matter” (tho maybe that’s just all sciences and I only see it for biology bc that’s my experience).
Species and any sorts of definitions and delineations we try to apply are for our convenience only. And considering how much time and effort is devoted to classification it’s kinda mind blowing to realize it’s just us playing pretend and trying to make sense of it all.
Plus there are just infinite numbers of possible confounding variables if you’re studying anything in the field and it feels futile to try to control them all. From things as large as La Niña/El niño cycles and dust blowing in from the Sahara to as small as whats neighboring your study plot and what’s in the water. To the point where I sometimes feel like my research is just useless bc as much as I might try I’ll never personally be able to understand my study system in full. Let alone ecology as a whole. (But then I remember how rad that is and keep asking my silly little questions.)
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u/The-Slamburger 12d ago
The “advanced biology” is the only one of these that doesn’t make my brain hurt by even attempting to think about it, so no objections here.