Dunning-Kruger
Dunning-Kruger
Dunning-Kruger
Darn that science, keep that liberal where it belongs, in the humanities.
“It’s basic biology” mfs when advanced biology
it is basic biology, ie biology simplified to teach a kid in middle school. the thing is sciences don't stop at middle school level. a lot of university education is about clarifying that things you learned before were simplified to the point that they're practically useless if not outright wrong.
People who see gender as a F or M binary in 2025 are willingly ignorant to the bone.
Dunning-Kruger reminds me of this one president and his cabinet.
Confidently incorrect is the default with these people. I spend most of my time with family aggressively correcting misinformation about my field and related ones. They will die earlier thinking they know more because of Youtube. Getting them to stop taking bad health advice and mystery joint injections from a fucking chiropractor is the latest battle.
The impression of legitimacy enjoyed by chiropractic is too damn high. I was well into my 20s before I ever heard a single word about it being pseudoscience. Walking around (usually on people's fucking spines) calling themselves doctors, I absolutely believed it was just some sub-variety of physiotherapy, which I guess is the point. In the whole universe of alternative medicine, I think that has to be the practice which has most effectively disguised itself as conventional medicine. It's gross.
I walked in to a chiropractors' office once to try and see if they'd take me for an appointment, found a brochure proudly proclaiming that chiropractic treatments can help cure autism and cancer, and turned right the fuck around and walked back out.
If you think you need a chiropractor you actually need a physical therapist and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is lying to you.
The way chiropractic plays itself as the cure all for any ailment with regular "adjustments" is the real bullshit, it's straight up a sales pitch to get people in a recurring schedule for that sweet appointment revenue. Don't get me wrong, when I've thrown my back out the best and most immediate relief I've found is to have the guy super twist and crack my back loose just so I can get some mobility to stretch and walk. But the way they sell it as you need several appointments a week to stay "regular" is a crock of shit.
The quackness of chiropractors depends on where you are, in many places it's indeed just a type of physiotherapy, or better put you have to be a physio to be a chiropractor. Similarly, in practically all of the world osteopaths are quacks while in the US they're doing evidence-based medicine with particular philosophical accents.
In Australia they are able to request some x-rays. As in the entire spine, which ends up irradiating radio-sensitive organs like the thyroid and ovaries, often in young people. As a radiographer this shit drives me up the fucking wall, especially given the already frustrating battles over inappropriate imaging requests from real, actual doctors. Want to know a contributing factor to the increase in cancers? The absolutely absurd radiation doses people are sucking up over years of over-imaging.
They provided me valuable placebo (I think). I still have no idea what my issue really was, but at least it's gone. Never been back to a chiropractor since though.
I find irony that they disregard expert opinions on the things they are experts for (climate scientists for example) but will accept an entire worldview of opinions based on someone being "smart" like the opinion of a software engineer has on philosophy or politics.
Reject the expert on the subject they're an expert on because that makes them "elite" and they were trained to think that was bad, but accept an unfounded opinion of someone who may be smart in an unrelated field because the opinion is "different" so it must be "smart"
I think this is the trap all self assigned internet intellectuals fall into. They parrot opinions and vibes from echo chambers that discredit real science or real reporting and call it enlightenment. This in itself is stupid, but then even more stupid people are drawn in and suddenly we have a big club of geniuses
Just curious, is this chiro actually injecting something into their joints? Or is it like pretend injections, like with that magic gun thing that makes a click but doesn't actually do anything?
I agree with Dr. Jey McCreight on the science.
But for determining truth, both sides are wrong here.
Dunning-Kruger is bad, but so is credentialism and appeal to authority.
Many people with PhD's have had Dunning-Kruger. Someone else mentioned Ben Carson being great at neurosurgery, but not politics.
A PhD doesn't make you infallible.
I am saying this as someone who is taking graduate-level courses and will be pursuing my PhD. When I'm correct, it's not because my future PhD causes reality to magically conform to my opinions - it's because I rigorously looked at the evidence, logic, and formed my own conclusion that better aligns with reality.
Okay but what is good engagement against "follow the science" aside from "I literally DO the science"? Dr. McCreight offered a point and was met with "nuh uh" so at that point it can hardly be called an argument or debate. Do those fallacies honestly matter at that point when one refuses to engage with tangible points of discussion?
Go Stephanie!
Note how they always enshrine gender in biology, but then make all kinds of non-biological statements about what gender is.
"XX is woman"/"Large gametes is woman"/"can conceive is woman"
And then they'll say
"Women aren't as aggressive", "women are more emotional", "women like being in the home more", "those are women's clothes", etc.
The only reason it's so important for it to be biological is because of how it punishes gender non-conformity and makes the lives of trans people hell. Like it isn't ideologically consistent and they know that. They just don't care. If it was just about genitals or chromosomes, then why is it that gender dictates all these social things about us? The only reason to root gender in how you were born is to ensure gender roles are as rigid and immutable as possible.
The only reason to root gender in how you were born is to ensure gender roles are as rigid and immutable as possible.
This, this right here, that's the game, that's the whole game. They want to punish transness and then start changing what the definition of trans is.
"Your daughter was wearing pants, and said no when my boy asked her out, that's trans behavior and it's unAmerican, might have to report you to a correction agency if this shit doesn't stop."
Aren’t there more than two sexes in biology?
Yes, there are many species that have more than 2 sexes. Those are decided by scientific consensus.
But sex is ultimately a category to describe the process of reproduction. By definition, this is exclusionary. It's why conservatives fumble so much when trying to describe sex in terms of actual definitions. Inherently, it is not possible to fit every person into a table of 2 columns in that way. Sex is not a binary because human beings are not binary. There is an incredible amount of variation in our bodies.
Depends on how you're counting.
Reading the discussions and some of the disagreements, a correction is needed to be more precise.
Some XX people will be Assigned Male At Birth. Some XY people will be Assigned Female At Birth.
Some XX people live their entire lives as men without ever knowing otherwise, and the same happens with XY individuals living as women. Even having children won't reveal the apparent discrepancy, unless they need certain tests done.
To be fair, a Person with a PhD still can have Dunning-Kruger on other subjects.
Ben Carson is a great Neurosurgeon, but dumbass on politics.
Even Noble Prize winners are surprisingly often affected by this -> wikipedia:Noble disease
Neil deGrasse Tyson and literally anything other than astrophysics
And sometimes also astrophysics
They can also on their subject.
I guees it needs (relevant) inserted?
Yeah, both sides are wrong here.
Dunning-Kruger is bad, but so is credentialism and appeal to authority.
I think a lot of these XX XY "only two genders" people aren't just dunning Kruger, they're transphobic idiots with an agenda. So even if they had the science and knowledge it wouldn't matter because they're pushing their hateful stupid agenda, facts and logic be damned. They don't care, they just want to rationalize hating us trans people because we make them uncomfy.
I would honestly be very surprised if any Republican politicians actually care about sex or gender. I think they're just evil and those are convenient issues to divide the working class. When you don't have popular policy in real issues, you need to make up some fake ones to get people to still support you.
The current moral panic about queer people is definitely manufactured, but the hatred that it's stirred up is still real. All the religious psychos in power (including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson) really believe that stuff and want to enforce their hierarchy.
What really bothers me is that they seem to be winning on the "Trans Sports" issues which sucks, it's such a blatant distraction that I'd let them just "have that", but... you know damn well that's the floor and not the ceiling, and even then their wins are based on lies.
There are less trans athletes in the world then there are kids with measles in Texas, but the Right would have you believe ever Macho Man Randy Savage type is getting into sports and just blowing records clean away. Hence the push to "Ban transwomen and revoke their records"
What records? Even Lia Thomas, the closest they've gotten to finding an "Evil Cheating Trans!!1111" only came in 4th place....
Exactly. They just don't care. They're not necessarily ignorant and participating in good faith.
They're guaranteed to not be participating in good faith if they're angrily debating sex and gender like that.
Is there some third gender that trans people can transition to that I'm unaware of? I'm afraid I don't follow the whole situation all too well sorry. My partner has some transgender family members, but i've never i've seen anyone that isn't male to female or female to male. I guess non binary exists, but doesn't that mean no gender or both?
I'm afraid I don't know much on the subject It's unfortunate.
Fear not I, a still rather confused individual, but with slightly more knowledge on the topic shall answer thy call (I seem to suffer from the curse referred to as "being genderfluid" by the scholars of that gender stuff)!
Somebody who is non-binary is just someone who does not feel like they are entirely male or female. This can mean that they are both, neither or a different gender not connected to either but also not entirely absent or of course any combination of the previous examples.
In my case (genderfluid) I just flop around on the gender spectrum, mostly not having a gender or feeling a bit feminine but sometimes I do feel male or like some other gender. Though genderfluid just means that the persons gender changes over time, it doesn't have to be the same genders that I experience.
Hope this helps :)
You're confusing sex with gender. Both are a spectrum but sex is a biological spectrum of sexual organs in a living creature and gender is a quality, projection and performance of a person that also lands on a spectrum.
The confusion is because they both use male and female but sex and gender are different things. Gender can change throughout a person's life. A person's sex is consistent throughout life and can't be changed. A person's gender can't change their sex. Sex also isn't as simple as xx is female and xy is male, there's a whole bunch of things that can't put a person in one, both, or none of those categories. Gender is even more complicated.
The current doctrine is that there are unlimited genders, if you can think of one you can call yourself that, they call them "neopronouns" and aren't simply relegated to xe/xer but include things like wolfkin and dragonfucker. There's also plurals which to the best of my understanding feel like there's multiple people usually with multiple neopronouns inside their head simultaneously.
I'm not either of these so maybe someone who is can elaborate better, but that's what I've been told and I hope it helps.
lmao, you've had multiple comments deleted for being bigoted
good job bigot
Those are classifications made by humans. Nature doesn't have a concept for sexes and even less so for syndromes. If it became evolutionarily advantageous to have a dick and a vagina, nature would be onto that.
The phrase is funny but you wouldn't catch me dead wearing a logical fallacy
Can I interest you in a logical phallus?
Wouldn't that be a logic probe?
Wait until they learn about XXY, XYY, and XO individuals.
There hugs AND kisses people?
We prefer "asexual" or "ace".
I swear I was learning about extra X and Y in high school 20 years ago and that studies (at the time) were showing correlation between different traits displayed by effected people. Just that alone shows incredible gender fluidity.
So where we are, 20 years later, you’d think we’d have a better understanding within society but instead somehow it’s literally regressed since then.
While this is very funny, and definitely representative of a sort of ignorance/arrogance commonly found in ideologues - I recently learned that most people talking about the effect have, in fact, been Dunning-Krugering themselves.
Insightful video on the topic.
What most people expect the effect to look like:
What the actual results were:
Fig 1 is a modified emotional change curve applied in learning and business settings. The term "Valley of Despair" is used in both concepts, and it's cool, memorable verbiage, but it shouldn't imply relation between Dunning-Kreuger and the change curve
Image description: A modified emotional change curve from Evocon with Y-Axis being "attitude during change process" and X-Axis is time. There are 6 emotional phases described on this chart: 1. Neutral attitude, no knowledge; 2. Initial excitement, motivated; 3. Denial, indifferent, passive, apathy; 4. Resistance, frustration, doubt, anxiety (this phase falls below neutral and is described as "The Valley of Despair"); 5. Exploration, energized, small wins, creative; 6. Commitment, enthusiasm, problem solving, focus, team work.
Yeah, it's really frustrating and quite ironic that pop culture keeps using this obscure scientific reference, that they don't really understand in its intended context, to describe something that really ought be plainly said: that we all have a tendency to overinflate our competence. if anything Dunning-Krueger showed that only the most seasoned experts judge themselves modestly. (and even then we'd likely only find their modesty in that particular area of expertise). it's a commentary on all of us!
But no, people name-drop this research just to dunk on people and feel smugly superior. (and I am glad I agree with the politics of the intellectual in the OP, that means it's okay and I'm a bit more competent too!) ugh. I cringe every time i read someone say Dunning-Krueger.
PS on your first image, whoever failed to put "phd student" at the trough of that curve fucked up
While I know of the proper dunning-kruger effect chart, that still doesn't help me out of the imposter syndrome valley of despair
"Yeah but science can be proven wrong an change over time, while my beliefs and biases are forever!"
Bayesian updating converges, surprisingly, to that idiot’s belief system.
Critically thinking now, how strong is the evidence here?
My take is that sex-linked characteristic are grouped together due to prehistoric and historic evolution. Since I dont have a womb my tits would not have been worth the energy cost in an ancestral environment. Therefore, they are not coded in my DNA and I have to dose to maintain them.
There are people who are different, that is a fact.
Some folks are given "PhD", others are kidnapped and sent to concentration camps. Is the education system legitimate, or corrupted by authority?
Those are two real medical diagnoses - Swyer syndrome or XY gonadal dysgenesis for XY women (occurs in about 1:100000 women) and de la Chapelle syndrome or XX male syndrome for XX men (occurs in about 1:20000 to 1:30000 men)
Here is a NORD report on Swyer syndrome, as well as the original article on de la Chapelle syndrome: 1.https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/swyer-syndrome/ 2.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1762158/
A person’s biological sex usually refers to their status as female or male depending on their chromosomes, reproductive organs, and other characteristics. Chromosomes are tightly packed DNA, or molecules that contain the genetic instructions for the development and functioning of all living things. Humans typically have forty-six chromosomes. Two of those are sex chromosomes that contain instructions for the development and functioning of characteristics related to biological sex, such as reproductive organs. There are two kinds of human sex chromosomes, X and Y. Individuals identified as males tend to have one X and one Y chromosome, while those identified as females tend to have two X chromosomes. However, other people are born with other chromosome combinations, such as XXY, that lead them to develop a mix of characteristics. People who fit that description are often referred to as intersex, a category for people whose bodies do not conform with stereotypical expectations of males or females at birth.
Taken from here
Evidence seems pretty strong to me.
One time a woman told me that my lack of a second X Chromosome meant I would "always be a man"
So I gaslit her into thinking her husband had klinefelters.
I hate how Republicans think transphobia is science
That's gloriously devious
Can I get a T shirt that says “I have Dunning-Krueger and your Phd looks cute”? I just have a lot of BS to share and I don’t want to be sorry about it.
Actually, the science says you will feel regret and will grow to resent that shirt over time. /s
That's because today's t-shirts are made of such poor materials.
But the economics says I should print them and make a fortune selling them to idiots. Hmm decisions, decisions.
Dunning-Krueger effect is the delusion that you are smarter than a serial killer who stalks teenagers in their nightmares.
You know how a bunch of villains are Dr. So-and-So? I bet it's dealing with morons talking about your area of expertise that leads to one's villain era.
"That's doctor Evil. I didn't spend 8 years in evil medical school to be called mister, thank you very much."
I was once the hero now I am the villain
....and all in between, hormonal and/or physically. "Only two genders" is false
I hope this criticism is valid :
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/04/08/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-autocorrelation/
and
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2023/05/09/debunking_the_dunning-kruger_effect_898340.html!
...
There is a "people think they are better than average" rule, rather than whatever Dunning-Kreuger suggested.
Error: url1 and url2 are the same
Thank you, I made amends.
I think it's sus that a Math Lecturer decides to post an article about philosophy and then doesn't describe any of the steps he took. The article basically just says i did a thing, but doesnt explain what he did/how to reproduce the result... On the other hand, philosophy is a field with many wrong conclusions and the like, so it is believable. But again in my eyes it's not proven, since it's just 'one guy' saying something and not replicated nor reproduced.
Edit after replied comment edit: The second article you linked (actually the first in the post) changes my believe about the dunning-kruger effect. Thank you for sharing!
Can someone explain to me how some XX people become cis male?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
tldr biology is dice rolls and humans are intersex for no reason sometimes
on a side note one of my friends had this and she only found out when she started transitioning. she is now a trans woman with XX chromosomes. i can only imagine how fucking vindicating it must have felt
De La Chappell syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, androgen exposure in utero, ovotesticular disorder of of sex development all result in a person with cis male characteristics and in some cases cis male typical genitalia despite having xx chromosomes
Gene expression is not as straightforward as people think. All sorts of weird shit can happen, and that's not even including gene mutations.
https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/File/Pitch_sketch_final.png?w=2000
This is the best resource I've seen to show things relatively simply.
The TL;DR is that a whole "Y" chromosome isn't exactly responsible for "maleness", the SRY gene is. It's normally on the Y chromosome, but mutations can occur placing that gene onto the X chromosome. Inversely, someone could inherit a Y chromosome without that gene, in which case they would develop with female traits.
It's not considered trans because someone with 46XX plus the SRY gene would develop male genitalia, be identified as male at birth, and likely identify themselves as male. For some types of these conditions, there are plenty of people walking around with no clue that their chromosomes don't match their gender.
Disclaimer: I'm not a geneticist, so i could have explained something a little off.
I'm also not a geneticist but I did study genetics for a while and that's pretty much what I remember learning, so you're good.
The books Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi explains it all very well and touches on many other related genetic conditions like the Klinefelter syndrome (XXY). It's an incredible read all around that really opened my eyes to how malleable biology is.
I googled it for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
In 90 percent of these individuals, the syndrome is caused by the Y chromosome's SRY gene, which triggers male reproductive development, being atypically included in the crossing over of genetic information that takes place between the pseudoautosomal regions of the X and Y chromosomes during meiosis in the father.[2][7] When the X with the SRY gene combines with a normal X from the mother during fertilization, the result is an XX genetic male. Less common are SRY-negative individuals, those who are genetically females, which can be caused by a mutation in an autosomal or X chromosomal gene.[2] The masculinization of XX males is variable.
You've heard of xy people and xx people, but wait till you hear about X people!
Or xxx people, or xxy people, or... dies
Maybe she means the exceptions?
Exceptions: While XX and XY are the most common sex chromosome combinations, there are exceptions, such as individuals with variations in their sex chromosomes, such as XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) or XYY.
cis just means your current gender identity is the same that was assigned to you at birth. there are cases where someone has XX chromosomes, but the body develops as male.
Outward, their genitals might look like those of the oposite sex.
I can try. The cis part means the person's naughty bits are aligned with their gender identity. The male is their gender identity. So post-bottom surgery it's perfectly possible. If you use different definitions for concepts though you will have difficulty making it work.
None of this has anything to do with the claimed PhD in genomics though. These are socio-cultural concepts. So they should stick their PhD where it belongs and address the arguments head on instead of trying to argue from authority.
I don't have a PhD, but my understanding of the basics is this:
All people start out developing as female in the womb before a certain point where a large dose of testosterone caused (usually) by the Y chromosome activating (basically the only time in life that it does apart from starting puberty AFAIK) causes the proto-labia and vagina to push outwards and form the ball sack and enlarging the clitoris and urethra into what we know of as the penis. This is why you can see that line down the middle of your ball sack; that's where your labia fused together. It's also why the tissue that makes up your ball sack is biologically identical to the tissue that makes up the inside of the vagina. It's an outie vs. an innie.
There are many reasons why this wouldn't happen "correctly" since biology is more a wonder of things somehow working at all after evolution is done with them rather than a perfectly designed, well-oiled machine. Sometimes the Y chromosome simply doesn't activate, or it does, but the person has androgen insensitivity and so the testosterone doesn't do anything, or they develop as female but have testicles where their ovaries should be, rendering them infertile but otherwise a perfectly normal woman. Sometimes a person is XX, but they experienced a higher than normal amount of testosterone during development and developed male instead of female.
And that's before you get into the issue of intersex people, who are often surgically altered as babies when they're born by the doctor to match with the genitalia that the doctor thinks should be the "correct" one. In a number of places, the doctors don't have to ask permission or even tell the parents after.
Also, your definition of cis male is slightly off. "Cis" is the opposite Latin prefix of "trans," meaning a non-changing/stable state of being, and in this case it's used to mean that one's gender identity matches up with the one that you were given at birth. It ultimately has nothing to do with what genitalia you have, and it's simply an identification saying that your sense of gender matches up with the sex that the doctor declared and that you therefore aren't trans. It's an after the fact solution to the question of what to call people who aren't trans and comes from the use of trans to identify somebody who transitions from one gender to another.
I think you're misunderstanding the point the OP is making. Typically, male/female are used when referring to sex, and masculine/feminine and man/woman are used when referring to gender. So this conversation isn't about gender identity at all, but completely about biological sex.
There are a bunch of factors that go into determining sex. The two main categories are related to the person's genes (their genotype) and how the person physically presents (phenotype). The biggest genetic marker is whether the person has XX or XY chromosomes (or some other combination). The easiest marker for phenotype is the person's genitalia, but there are others, such as gonads, gamete production, hormones, etc.
So even just talking about biological sex, a person's genotype and phenotype might give conflicting determinations of sex. So an "XX male" refers to someone with the genotype of a female, but the phenotype of a male, but says nothing about their gender identity or any surgeries they might've undergone.
With that in mind, someone with a PhD in genomics seems to be in the right field to address gene expression and genotypes vs phenotypes. Although you're right that we shouldn't rely on authority, but instead on the arguments presented. What we've been shown here, though, isn't a fully fleshed out debate. It's about 60 words on social media that amounts to "your mental model of sex is wrong; here are cases to rebut it"
How do you know if someone has a PhD.?
They tell you
Never not true
I never tell people I have a PhD. It's rude, plus I don't have one.
I mean yeah, if you spent 5 years of your life pushing the edge of human understanding on a subject, and a shithead tells you to do the science on your research subject, it's relevant lol
Tbf, they kinda earned the right to brag.
True, but I do think it was warranted in this case.
Well you don't know people with PhD that don't tell you they have one
An unknown-unknown?
This is putting confirmation bias to the extreme.
How do you know someone has a PhD?
When it becomes acutely relevant, they'll politely let you know, and then you can become annoyed at them about it.
Thinking about it, that exact thing also applies to other 'how do you know someone is/has/does [...]' as well.
..why shouldn't they?
Funny enough, my boss has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. She never tells people because they start referring to her as Doctor, and she hates that. I don't think I've actually ever heard her bring it up on her own.
I'm a bit uninformed on this; it seems fascinating. Do these things happen due to something unusual during the growth of a fetus? What's the name for this phenomenon?
There's a bunch of them, but one more common example is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
It's also possible to have a non-functional SRY (XY but female), or to be XX with an SRY translocation (XX but male).
Biology is complicated: pretty much anyone who says it only happens one way or is really simple is wrong.
you just know that 75% of people who would wear this don't really have a PhD and 90% of those don't have a PhD in the right field
I mean look at the brainrot in this very thread
What brain rot do you mean?
Honestly, it would be a pretty lame T-shirt.
That's the fallacy of authority
I agree. Doctorate in Biology =/= Doctorate in Religion. She's not right because she's a doctor, she's right because she's right.
You're a sad transphobic loser. Have fun being banned. I'll personally find and report the rest of your alts to make sure you're banned from all of Lemmy forever.
XY it’s man, XX it’s woman, nothing will ever change that…
I think it's really funny you left out the exact intersex conditions that disprove your point, Swyer syndrome and de la Chapelle syndrome.
You are either a man, a woman, or you have a syndrome
So someone with de la Chapelle syndrome is neither a man nor a woman but has a syndrome? 'Man' and 'woman' are social categories and syndrome is not, so this makes no sense. Also I doubt you'd be able to spot the 'syndrome' in a group of men.
It’s a delusion to believe that you can change your biological sex during your lifetime.
This is a strawman I see repeated a lot. I've never seen trans advocates claim this, only opponents. Even then I would still argue that it is true to some extent. Sex is not just chromosomes (as proven by the two conditions I linked above). It's made up of many different characteristics and you can change some of them, e.g. with hormone replacement therapy, which changes some secondary sex characteristics. Or even just gynecomastia does it too.
For people who are interested in what the actual science says about this topic I recommend Forrest Valkai's new Sex and Sensibility video (warning, it's long).
Edit:
And no, you won’t change speech, you are a man and a he, a woman and a she. That’s it, you can get as angry as you want, nothing will ever change that.
Language is completely made up and changes all the time. But you're claiming it will never change again?
Cis men and women? How does that work? Does he mean in the womb? I thought the entire problem was that trans surgery was never quite good enough to make you truly male or female.
Ngl, even if I'm more than fine with my gender, we where all curious what it's like to be the other gender, so if you could do it at a press of a button...
I was unaware that an X chromosome could mutate into a Y and vice versa over the course of a lifetime. Do we know what causes that?
They are not saying that the X chromosome mutates to Y, but rather saying that XY doesn't define the sex. For example, some people with XY are born with female genitalia and look female their whole lives. Sometimes they don't find out they are XY until trying to have kids and are unable to. It isn't like the X changes to Y over time. That isn't possible.
classism
Countries besides the US exist, y'know? Where getting a master's degree does not require you to go into debt and you're usually employed by the university as a TA while pursuing a PhD?
I was trolling/being facetious. I don't live in the USA. But I can't pursue a PhD because it amounts to below minimum wage.