January 15, 2025 | Jerry Bergman

On Gender Issues, Atheists Devour Their Own

The facts of biology force
evolutionists to agree with the
Bible . . . at least in one case

 

A contemporary debate in Western society is “do two distinctly separate sexes exist?”

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

In 2018, Scientific American stated that some “biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male.”[1] As a result, they claimed that gender needs to be redefined because the idea that only two sexes exist is overly simplistic.[2] This leads to a pressing cultural question: can a male become a female by a process called transitioning?

Human sex chromosomes

The Bible teaching is clear: “God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

The gender-fluid idea is not sitting well with some scientists. Evolutionist Jerry Coyne agrees that sex is binary. He wrote the fact that two distinct sexes exist is not debatable. Biology is very clear, he said: in humans, sex is determined by one’s chromosomes. Males have XY chromosomes, and females have XX chromosomes. All normal persons that have a Y chromosome are male. Those that lack a Y chromosome are female.

What About the Exceptions?

Aside from a few rare genetic mistakes, such as XO, XYY, and cases of pseudo-hermaphroditism, 99% of the human population is either XX female or XY male. Even most humans with these rare genetic exceptions develop as male or female. Turners syndrome (X), a mosaicism trait, affects only 1 in 15,000 people. All are female. Of those born with the XYY condition, which occurs in about 1 in 1,000 newborns, although taller than average, as they grow they produce normal male testosterone hormone levels. Consequently, they have normal male sexual development.

On average, men are taller than women and have more muscle mass. Is it fair for biological males to compete against female athletes? That debate has been creating deep conflicts in society, and is likely to come to a political climax this year.

One complication is mosaicism which results from a random event during cell division in very early embryonic development. The SRY gene, which alters the normal ovarian development that occurs in all embryos to testicular development. XX individuals that carry a Y chromosome fragment that contains SRY develop as males. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome results when the receptors that respond to male sex hormones are mutated. Consequently, a person with a Y chromosome and internal testes develop external female genitalia, but mature as females at puberty.[3]

In very rare cases, the body is built from cells that come from twin embryos. If one twin is a male and the other a female, some cells will carry two X chromosomes and other cells an X and a Y. This condition—known as intersex, is a sexual development disorder—and parents face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their child as a boy or a girl.[4]

Other examples of similar conditions exist, but all of these cases are the result of abnormalities caused by genetic mutations or aberrant development. These examples do not negate the fact that binary sexuality in healthy humans is the norm.

Sexual Dimorphism Is Common in Nature

Humans and many animals are sexually dimorphic, meaning the sexes are morphologically very different. In some animals, sexual distinction is not as clear as it is in humans. Determining the sex of a house cat is difficult during certain growth stages after they are born, but nonetheless they are still two different genders. Other cats like lions are sexually dimorphic. The sexes in some birds look alike, while others, like peacocks and chickens, diverge as they grow into distinguishable forms.

Sex differences due to genetics appear in every organ and cell.

Evolution Teaches Gender Evolved

Rejection of the Biblical view leads to the evolutionary opinion that gender was not created in the first man and woman, but rather evolved. Darwin taught that the morphological differences in the sexes, including in humans, was the result of sexual selection. Thus, the two sexes were not part of the original creation, but rather evolved. If sexuality evolved, it is fluid, supporting the transsexual position.

An evolutionary story about sexual selection goes like this: pre-human females preferred males that were less hairy. As a result, compared to our ape ancestors, modern males lost most of their body hair. Evolutionists today generally agree that most of sexual differences arose due to sexual selection.

Prince or princess? Sheer dumb luck.

In our distant past, though, female apes must have preferred males with a great deal of body hair, causing the evolution of hairy males. Thus, these primates were far more likely to mate and had a much larger number of offspring. The result was that the hairy body became more common.

Problems with this story include, how did the attraction for males with less body hair evolve? How and why did female preferences change from preferring hairy mates to much later preferring less-hairy mates?[5]

Biologist Condemned for Agreeing with the Bible’s View that Only Two Sexes Exist

Evolutionist Kat Grant believes that gender is a matter of personal choice and identity. In an article published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, she opined that “A woman is whoever she says she is. If I think I am a woman, I am a woman.”

This claim motivated militant evolutionist and aggressive anti-creationist Jerry Coyne to counter Ms. Grant’s claim using biology. Although he does not accept the creation view that gender is DNA-determined, Coyne wrote “Kat Grant struggles at length to define the word [woman], rejecting one definition after another as flawed or incomplete. Grant finally settles on a definition based on self-identity.”[6]

Coyne correctly notes that gender in normal healthy persons was DNA-determined at the zygote’s creation. Thus, gender was determined by our sex cells called gametes (the reproductive cells, eggs in women and sperm in males). Coyne adds that “although this gametic idea is called a ‘definition’ of sex, it is really a generalization — and thus a concept — based on a vast number of observations of diverse organisms. Except for a few algae and fungi, all multicellular organisms and vertebrates, including us, adhere to this generalization. It is, then, nearly universal.”[7]

A storm of condemnation that resulted from Coyne’s firm position was stoked further by Richard Dawkins’ answer to the question, “Is a transwoman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no.”[8]

Biological sex, which leads to secondary sex characteristics in body, mind and propensities, is one of the most striking and beautiful aspects of our humanness. The sexes, with different strengths and needs, complement one another according to God’s perfect plan. Both are equal in his sight (Galatians 3:28).

Gender-Fluid Intolerance

Coyne’s  statements based on science elicited vehement objections from many Freedom From Religion Foundation supporters.[9] What upset them the most was Coyne’s claims, quoted above, which was supported by both biology facts (and, incidentally, by the Bible’s teaching).[10]  Then, not only Coyne but also Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, both whom agreed with Coyne, were forced to resign from the FFRF. In the end, the organization dissolved their 14-member honorary board.[11]

The controversy even caused the American Humanist Association to withdraw its “Humanist of the Year” award from Dawkins 25 years after he received the honor.[12] Coyne, Dawkins, and Pinker, all prominent atheists and anti-creationists, were condemned for the simple reason that they accepted well established science (which agrees with the Bible). They “accept the biological reality of binary sex” and “refused to reject concepts based on ideology.” Coyne said, “One should never have to choose between scientific reality and trans rights.”[13]

References

[1] Ainsworth, C., “Sex redefined: The idea of 2 sexes Is overly simplistic,” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/, 22 October 2018.

[2]Ainsworth, 2018.

[3] Read, A., and D. Donnai, New Clinical Genetics, Fourth Edition: A Guide to Genomic Medicine, Scion Publishing, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England, 2020.

[4] Hrabovszky, Z., “Androgen imprinting of the brain in animal models and humans with intersex disorders: Review and recommendations,” Journal of Urology 168(5):2142-2148, 2002; Zucker, K., Intersexuality and gender identity differentiation,” Annual Review of Sex Research 10(1):1–69, https://doi.org/10.1080/10532528.1999.10559774, 2012.

[5] Bergman, J., The Three Pillars of Evolution Demolished: Why Darwin Was Wrong, WestBow Division of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, Bloomington, IN, 2022.

[6] Coyne, J.A., “Biology is not bigotry,” Freethought Now!, https://web.archive.org/web/20241227095242/https://freethoughtnow.org/biology-is-not-bigotry/, 26 December 2024.

[7] Coyne, 2024.

[8] Flood, A., “Richard Dawkins loses ‘humanist of the year’ title over trans comments,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/20/richard-dawkins-loses-humanist-of-the-year-trans-comments, 20 April 2021.

[9] Coyne. J.A., “The FFRF removed my piece on the biological definition of ‘woman’,” https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/28/the-ffrf-removed-my-piece-on-the-biological-definition-of-woman/, 28 December 2024.

[10] Mind Matters, “Freedom From Religion Foundation deletes entire honorary board,” https://mindmatters.ai/brief/freedom-from-religion-foundation-deletes-entire-honorary-board/, 7 January 2025.

[11] Coyne, 2024.

[12] Flood, 2021.

[13] Coyne, 2024.

Note: The people images in this article are AI-generated and do not represent any specific individuals. From Grok/XI.


Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.

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