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Feminist Biology
Feminist biology is an approach to biology that is concerned with the influence of gender values, the removal of gender bias, and the understanding of the overall role of social values in biological research and practices. Feminist biology was founded by, among others, Ruth Bleier of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (who authored the 1984 work ''Science and Gender: A Critique of Biology and Its Theories on Women'' and inspired the university's endowed fellowship for feminist biology). It aims to enhance biology by incorporating feminist critique in matters varying from the mechanisms of cell biology and sex selection to the assessment of the meaning of words such as "gender" and "sex". Overall, the field is broadly defined and pertains itself to philosophies behind both biological and feminist practice. These considerations make feminist biology debatable and conflictive with itself, particularly when concerning matters of biological determinism, whereby descriptive sex terms of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life. Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce. Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments. Biologists are able to study life at multiple levels of organization, from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and evolution of populations.Based on definition from: Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology, each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use. Like other scientists, biologists use the sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sex And Gender Distinction
Though the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' have been used interchangeably since at least the fourteenth century, in contemporary academic literature they usually have distinct meanings. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while ''gender'' usually refers to either social roles based on the sex of a person (gender role) or personal identification of one's own gender based on an internal awareness (gender identity).Prince, Virginia. 2005. "Sex vs. Gender." ''International Journal of Transgenderism''. 8(4). While in ordinary speech, the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' are often used interchangeably, most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO make a distinction between gender and sex. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the individual's gender identity, but in some circumstances, an individ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Determinism
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. Genetic reductionism is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposedly causal role of genes. Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including eugenics, scientific racism, and the debates around the heritability of IQ, the basis of sexual orientation, and sociobiology. In 1892, the German evolutionary biologist August Weismann proposed in his germ plasm theory that heritable information is transmitted only via germ cells, which he thought contained determinants (genes). The English polymath Francis Galton, supposing that undesirable traits such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticism toward the "meta-narrative, grand narratives" of modernism, opposition to epistemological, epistemic certainty or stability of meaning (semiotics), meaning, and emphasis on ideology as a means of maintaining political power. Claims to objective fact are dismissed as naïve realism, with attention drawn to the instrumental conditionality, conditional nature of knowledge claims within particular historical, political, and cultural discourses. The postmodern outlook is characterized by self-reference, self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism (philosophy), pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism; it rejects the "universal validity" of binary oppositions, stable identity (philosophy), identity, hierar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donna J
Donna may refer to the short form of the honorific ''nobildonna'', the female form of Don (honorific) in Italian. People *Donna (given name); includes name origin and list of people and characters with the name * Roberto Di Donna (born 1968), Italian sports shooter * Fernand Donna (1922–1988), French sprint canoeist Places *Donna, Texas, USA *Dønna, Norway * Donna (crater), a tiny lunar crater on the near side of the Moon Music * The Donnas, American all-girl rock band * Donna (radio station), former Flemish music radio station located in Belgium * ''Donna'' (album), album by Donna Cruz * "Donna" (Ritchie Valens song), a 1958 song by Ritchie Valens, covered in the United Kingdom by Marty Wilde * "Donna" (10cc song), a 1972 song by 10cc * "Donna", song from ''Hair'' *"Donna", song by Wally Lewis * "Donna, Donna", a Yiddish song * "Donna the Prima Donna", a 1963 song by Dion Other * Hurricane Donna, Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 1960 * ''Una donna'', 1906 novel by Sibilla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androcentrism
Androcentrism (Ancient Greek, ἀνήρ, "man, male") is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing a masculine point of view at the center of one's world view, culture, and history, thereby culturally marginalizing femininity. The related adjective is ''androcentric'', while the practice of placing the feminine point of view at the center is '' gynocentric''. Etymology The term ''androcentrism'' was introduced as an analytic concept by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in a scientific debate. Perkins Gilman described androcentric practices in society and the resulting problems they created in her investigation on ''The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture'', published in 1911. Because of this androcentrism can be understood as a societal fixation on masculinity whereby all things originate. Under androcentrism, masculinity is normative and all things outside of masculinity are defined as ''other''. According to Perkins Gilman, masculine patterns of life and masculine minds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oocyte
An oocyte (, ), oöcyte, or ovocyte is a female gametocyte or germ cell involved in reproduction. In other words, it is an immature ovum, or egg cell. An oocyte is produced in a female fetus in the ovary during female gametogenesis. The female germ cells produce a primordial germ cell (PGC), which then undergoes mitosis, forming oogonia. During oogenesis, the oogonia become primary oocytes. An oocyte is a form of genetic material that can be collected for cryoconservation. Formation The formation of an oocyte is called oocytogenesis, which is a part of oogenesis. Oogenesis results in the formation of both primary oocytes during fetal period, and of secondary oocytes after it as part of ovulation. Characteristics Cytoplasm Oocytes are rich in cytoplasm, which contains yolk granules to nourish the cell early in development. Nucleus During the primary oocyte stage of oogenesis, the nucleus is called a germinal vesicle. The only normal human type of secondary oocyte has t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Fausto-Sterling
Anne Fausto-Sterling ( Sterling; born July 30, 1944) is an American sexologist who has written extensively on the biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, gender roles, and intersexuality. She is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emerita of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University. Life and career Fausto-Sterling's mother, Dorothy Sterling, was a noted writer and historian while her father was also a published writer. Fausto-Sterling received her Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology from University of Wisconsin in 1965 and her Ph.D. in developmental genetics from Brown University in 1970. After earning her Ph.D. she joined the faculty of Brown, where she was appointed Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies. In a 1993 paper titled "," Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. She later said that the paper "had intended to be provocative, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dichotomy
A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts. If there is a concept A, and it is split into parts B and not-B, then the parts form a dichotomy: they are mutually exclusive, since no part of B is contained in not-B and vice versa, and they are jointly exhaustive, since they cover all of A, and together again give A. Such a partition is also frequently called a bipartition. The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other. Treating continuous variables or multi categorical variables as binary variables is called dichotomization. The discretization error inherent in dichotomization is temporarily ignored for modeling purposes. Etymology The term '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". Sex assignment at birth usually aligns with a child's anatomical sex and phenotype. The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 1:2000–1:4500 (0.022%–0.05%). Other conditions involve atypical chromosomes, gonads, or hormones. Some persons may be assigned and raised as a girl or boy but then identify with another gender later in life, while most continue to identify with their assigned sex. The number of births where the baby is intersex has been reported differently depending on who reports and which definition of intersex is used. Anne Fausto-Sterling and her co-authors suggest that the prevalence of "nondimorphic sexual development" might be as high as 1.7%. A study publish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reductionism
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts. Definitions ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three-part division: # Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts. # Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. # Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three parts: translation, derivation, and explanation. Reductionism can be applied to any phenomenon, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Politicization Of Science
The politicization of science for political gain occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. The politicization of science may also negatively affect academic and scientific freedom, and as a result it is considered taboo to mix politics with science. Historically, groups have conducted various campaigns to promote their interests in defiance of scientific consensus, and in an effort to manipulate public policy."Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
