Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this and this is just my understanding of how to answer this question

You may or may not realize that most voters don’t usually go out well in advance and research all potential candidates, selecting the one they feel represents their values the best. Many of them don’t even check in to the conversation until the primaries are over and they can make a simple red vs. blue choice. Among voters that do participate in primaries, they mostly rely on information they learn about those potential candidates by watching advertisements, endorsements from other well known politicians, clips from debates, news and social media coverage, etc.

Creating that information (ads, debates, news coverage, social media, etc.) requires two things: money and momentum. Money comes first, and is disbursed according to the process the other commenter described-- the party talks with its donors and collectively they decide who to fund.

In Bernie’s case, he was systematically deprived of money by the DNC as described above, in addition to his moral philosophy of not taking money from big donors. Instead, he funded his campaign through small donations-- which he earned a LOT of-- but he still had fewer funds to generate advertisements, to host events, to “get the word out”.

Without this funding and support, Bernie couldn’t generate momentum as effectively. The fact that he is as popular as he is despite the lack of support from the party illustrates how popular his platform is, but that isn’t enough to get disengaged voters interested. Further, in his case, other party members actively wanted him to NOT be the nominee, so there were fewer endorsements, more intentional maneuvering by the party to convince voters to vote for other candidates, etc.

In essence, the idea that having the purest moral and policy philosophy is the most important element to winning the nomination is naive: it takes money and support from institutions, or else no one will ever even know what that pure philosophy is.

bogus

we’re in agreement :-) what I said is an Orwell’s 1984 quote. My overly simplified explanation of the quote is that the governmental entities in the novel were able to maintain absolute authority because of a manufactured conflict. In essence, two sides intentionally maintained a stalemate at war so that each of them could keep absolute control over their populace using fear of the other. In reality, both groups were controlled by the same people-- an autocratic ruling class.

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

and all that

I like how the artist included the one cyclone turning the opposite direction (on the right, hair blowing the other way)

… if you know you know 😎

… their government IS our government. Guam is a US territory.

Women are not included in those polls

… accurate

because the very first thing you say in this post basically amounts to “I think I have the authority to decide the basis on which we determine who deserves to vote”

like, yeah, most people can navigate to their secretary of state websites. And it’s not really your responsibility to have to link the pages anyway.

But doing it for that reason aligns you philosophically with people who think that the illiterate, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the critically ill, etc. somehow don’t deserve to vote. It aligns you ideologically with other people who think they can decide who deserves to vote, with people who want to disenfranchise others-- in essence, it aligns you ideologically with many Republicans

Using Jesus as a reference is unfortunate, yeah, but any other world calendars have to pick a nearly equally arbitrary way to contextualize the start and end year.

Take your pick: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Year_in_various_calendars

I personally use “2024 CE” for “common era”, with BCE referring to “before common era”. This allows us to communicate relatively clearly with other people who use the Gregorian calendar without explicitly endorsing the birth of Jesus as the important event defining the switch-over between CE and BCE… A bit of a cop out, but

Anyway have fun, there are lots of options

Edit: also the one you’re referring to in your post is the Holocene Calendar

Absolutely!

Two eggs:

Booth et al. (2014). “New insights on facultative parthenogensis in pythons”. Biological Journal of Linnean Society, 112(3)461-468

Two sperm:

Tinti, F. and Scali, V. (1992). “Genome exclusion and gametic DAPI-DNA content in the hybridogenetic Bacillus rossius-- grandii benazzii complex (Insecta Phasmatodea)”. Molecular reproduction and development, 33(3)235-242

One egg:

Ryder et al. (2021). “Facultative parthenogensis in California Condors”. Journal of Heredity, 112(7)569-574

One sperm (surprised me too!):

Heesch et al. (2021). Evolution of life cycles and reproductive traits: insights from the brown algae." Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 34(7)992-1009

These examples are non-exhaustive (so many parthenogensis examples!) so if you want to know more, or if you’re interested in learning about the increased reproductive fitness post-homosexual mating activities, no one primary publication will give you a complete picture. I recommended reading the book I mentioned-- Evolution’s Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden-- because it details this in ways I can’t summarize in a social media comment.

I will have a PhD in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. I have publications in epigenetics/chromatin/gene regulation and similar fields. I also research equity in the sciences, and one specific research focus is inequity for LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM. Therefore, I have expertise in these social issues as well as the biological ones. I will have a certificate added to my PhD in biology that validates this expertise in LGBTQ+ justice and social research methods.

I just want to be clear (not to this person but to anyone reading) that they are wrong.

They are assuming what they will read as evidence in books and literature. It’s frankly kind of astonishing that I can say “I’m an expert, I’m a biologist, and trans women are women with tons of biological evidence for that validity” and then have this person say “AH but the SCIENCE says I’m right, you just have FEELINGS!”

To be clear, the science says I’m right, the feelings are irrelevant. Toodles!

This is the last comment I will make to you.

Those who carefully read my previous replies will notice that I absolutely did not step over this question. The book I recommended details more than just animal and ecological examples, it also addresses physiological differences people of different sexes, sexual orientations, and gender identities.

Here’s the truth: the binary categories of male and female are not simple biological ones. Organisms cannot be neatly categorized as male or female, including humans. To put humans into these boxes is to ignore huge grey areas in our understanding of the biology underlying these traits. Even among XX or XY individuals, sex characteristics are polygenic and vary continuously, meaning that even looking at a person’s karyotype (which, you should understand, we hardly ever do) you could not reliably predict the appearance of external genitalia, the presence or absence of other sex characteristics like body hair or breasts, or the identity or orientation of a person.

Although I do not personally believe that having an underlying biological justification is necessary for a trans woman to be a valid woman, there definitely are physiological and biological realities that validate her experiences. Moreover, I don’t think we determine womanhood by biology at all-- for example, a XY human with complete androgen insensitivity would likely not even know HERSELF that she had a Y-chromosome, perhaps for her whole life, and you-- a random person on the street-- would be absolutely unable to tell.

If the question is, then, is there natural precedent for an organism’s sex chromosomes to be unpredictive of their sex characteristics or social roles? The answer is YES, unequivocally. If the question is, is there natural precedent for organisms to be able to intentionally change their sex? The answer is YES, absolutely. If the question is, is there natural precedent for organisms to have a social role that does not match the standard for individuals of their sex? The answer is also YES, 100%, certainly.

Thus, if the question is, are trans people representative of the norms of nature and the biological sciences? The answer is: You fucken BET.

Anyone who claims that trans women are somehow categorically distinct from other women is ignoring how loose the boundaries of womanhood already are. They are trying to twist the facts present under close examination of the biological world to fit their own human social narrative of gender essentialism. The facts of biology are absolutely on the side of trans individuals, this is the consensus among researchers-- and it is being ignored for political purposes in the same way the consensus among researchers on climate change is being ignored.

Like I said, I don’t have all day to engage on this, especially since almost everyone talking about trans people in relation to biological essentialism is not engaging in the discussion in good faith. The take home message is this: if you are earnestly wanting to understand what biological science says about trans people, go read that book, and listen to myself and other experts that trans women have every right and every fact on their side to support their identities.

Oh, second comment: your framing is disengenuine.

These are scientists, I’m a scientist, we’re held to standards of peer review and methodological scrutiny.

I don’t need to establish how and whether we’re doing science with authority-- that’s the beauty of the invention of the scientific method. I also don’t need to establish whether these are facts or opinions, because the body of research is so large and well-discussed, for decades now, that peer review has had plenty of time to do it’s work.

To humor you-- the methods used have been all of the above: surveys, experiments, studies, etc.

To humble you-- it’s extremely arrogant of you to ask a scientist, to their face, whether their research is real or just opinion. If you think all the research in this field is wrong, you can fix it the way we fix all our science: by conducting your own research and subjecting it to review by other experts in the field.

It’s a little unclear if you are asking for resources about the diversity of sex, sexual orientation, and sexual selection strategies in nature, OR about the ways in which they are misconstrued by society-- either by ignoring the diversity of nature to favor a heternormative and gender essentialist narrative, or by too closely feeling that what is natural is what should be considered good and just (the naturalistic fallacy).

I, myself, am authoring studies on the latter topic, but the field is so small that by sharing specific examples, I seriously risk doxxing myself (and others with whom I work closely on a politically fraught topic).

One also needs to understand the former before meaningfully engaging with the latter anyway, so I highly recommend the book Evolution’s Rainbow by Stanford ecologist Joan Roughgarden. The book is written in plain language (intended for a wider audience than just biology researchers) and details the (at the time-- 2009, with an updated edition from 2016) present summary of known ecological examples of organisms behaving in ways that counter the human social norms surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity. She goes on to discuss the molecular basis of sex and gender in humans, including what is know about difference in brain structures and gene regulation, and then she contextualizes these examples in sociological terms. I think the book is a little dated at this point, and there was some conflict amongst biologists about aspects of the book that aren’t related to what we’re discussing (related to her modification of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection), so it isn’t perfect, but it’s basically the first thing any junior scholar is asked to read regarding this discussion topic. I think it will provide you with what you are looking for, seeing as it cites hundreds of studies in tens of fields of biological sciences relating to sex, gender, and sexual orientation in humans and other organisms.

Some key facts (mostly covered in the book) that you or others might find interesting:

• Homosexual behavior (same sex mating behavior) has been documented in fish, insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, Invertibrates, and over 100 species of mammals
• Intersex bodies are common in nature, with many organisms either having characteristics of both sexes at one time or changing sex over the course of their lifetime. This is commonly found in “higher order” animals as well, and some populations of large mammals (like deer or bears) have been documented to have MOSTLY intersex individuals.
• Heterosexual mating is not required for reproduction, with documented examples of two sperm, two eggs, or just a single sperm or egg being enough to produce viable offspring in some circumstances. When homosexual mating is observed, it often increases the reproductive fitness of the participants
• The “sex roles” (unfortunate terminology, imo) of organisms are not a fixed norm, and we have many examples where the expectations you might have based on human societies for division of labor and activities are inverted or ignored entirely (such as birds where the males stay home and incubate eggs while the females compete with each other using displays of dominance and promiscuity)
• Although it doesn’t make sense to describe animals as having gender identities (due to those terms being intended for self-description among human social groups), it is worth pointing out that we do have many examples among animals where individuals of the same sex may have distinct categorical social dynamics, morphologies, and social roles (and that human gender identity does appear to have some underlying biological basis, although I will emphasize that it is non-deterministic and non-essentialist). There’s a discussion happening in the field about whether it is worth the potential downsides to describe these animals as having multiple genders within a single sex, so as to normalize and explain to non-biologists that human gender identities are mirrored by other organisms and are valid according to biological science

OP: says something revealing they don’t understand biology

Response: dude, what? You don’t understand biology!

You: “maybe they don’t understand biology because of all these new-fangled GeNdErS and iDeNtItIeS!!!”

(please don’t get me started on this, I am literally about to get my PhD in the ways people intentionally misconstrue and oversimplify sex, sexuality, and sexual selection in nature to obfuscate the validity of LGBTQ+ people in society and I don’t want to be here all day)

As an education professional: what the hell, dude? It’s not unfortunate that we aren’t just dropping struggling students without first carefully examining why they’re not succeeding.

You might be right that you can’t let some students detract from the class for other students, but the solution there is advocating for better funding and more staff to be able to give every student what they need, whether they’re above or below the expectation for their age.

Saying it’s “unfortunate” that students don’t fail (read: ruin their whole god damn lives) as often anymore is blaming our most vulnerable YOUTH for the systemic problems of our society. It’s not their job to be what the school environment wants them to be, they don’t even have a choice about whether or not they are there. It’s our (as educators, and as tax paying and voting community members) responsibility to make sure they get the education they need to be functional members of our society.

We even have huge bodies of research to reinforce this. It’s not a secret that the school environment excels at making nice workers, not critical-thinking and well-adjusted adult humans.

Take it up with the school board! Take it up with the local, state, and federal government! Take it up with the voters!

That’s a good (and reassuring) observation!

Still, even if it’s a bot/troll/etc. post, if we don’t call it out when we see it, the culture of the community slowly shifts towards “bigotry is acceptable here”…

I’m gonna keep pointing this stuff out when I see it whether the user is acting in good faith or not :)

Aight you got me there

I, too, am down to clown tbh

Sure, notice that I included this possibility in the last paragraph.

Also notice that that possibility doesn’t reinforce the perspective that “women are sluts for clown daddies”