Clearly science not only does not preclude creative thought, it demands creative thought. As I remember Godel (where is that damned umlaut?) proved that there is no mathematics which is complete. Because any conception we have of the universe is flawed and incomplete, we constantly have to think of ways to perfect it. The quest to make our ideas approach a perfect and objective Nature is a constant, unending process. Therefore, to think a limit is both to create it and doom it to be transcended.
As a practical matter, this answers the philosophical question of whether science is subjective. The answer is "yes, but...science constantly approaches perfection *and* demands eternal skepticism." Still, we can say definite things about empirical observations because although no proposition can be proved with absolute, eternal certainty (a mathematics or logical system may develop at some distant time in the future which calls the proposition into question) many propositions can be stated with a doubt that is so small it is likely never to prove significant at any time in the future.
Thus the proposition that "Saturn is a planet" is not in doubt. "Planet" is a definition that is so basic and allows for so many of the likely innacuracies in our observation that we can ignore the possibility that "planet" is the wrong thing to call Saturn. Is there a possibility that the definition might prove to be something we have to overturn at some later time? Yes, but that possibility is too tiny to be meaningful.
So, as an ontological matter, I think we can say with confidence that the definition of gender as female and male karyotypes is so robust that it is vanishingly unlikely ever to prove inadequate. Witness the very small number of people whose physical condition belies this definition (and the fact that they are unlikely to reproduce, thus the number may well get smaller) and the fact that it has proven so robust for so many millions of years of late vertebrate evolution.
The body of those observations (millions of years of late vertebrate evolution, the species produced by it and their genomes) and the robustness of the definition mean that while Butler's point is valid as a conceptual possibility, we can safely ignore it for any practical purpose.
There are, scientifically speaking, two human genders and a very large number of sexual behaviors.
'Nuff said.
boddi
On 11/19/05, Arash <arash at riseup.net> wrote:
> >But how do you know that your perception of the "data from your
> >external environment" reflects what actually exists in the
> >external environment? --Epistemological regress here.
> >(Nietzschean knots!)
> >
> >Miles
>
> You know by consistent verification through variety experiments testing the
> hypothesis. That's how we really "know" any fact. And such facts are open
> to empirical refutation. Yeah, it's always possibly we're just brains in
> vats but then they've done at hiding the influence of these vats.
>
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