How do you know that?

Through most of human history the conception of babies has been inexplicable. The child must have been placed by a spirit or by god. A piece of spirit in a womb to grow a baby, to grow a child, to grow an adult.

Well, it's an answer. The product of intellectualization, of thinking about the problem, of looking at the evidence. This stuff isn't just yanked outa thin air, y'know! Y'know?

The baby looks like his parents and he learns and thinks. A new baby isn't much like an adult, but it's obviously human.

And gender roles, too! I reckon there's boy souls and girl souls (if they have souls at all) 'cause the roles have always been that way.

And he has his mather's eyes!

The method of inheritance, the gene, could not have been guessed at.

And thinking? The method of thinking is still being examined now, what about prehistory? The idea that a clump of gray brain stuff could think is unthinkable. It's a nice solution to think the spirit does the thinking...there's something in thinking very unlike most other animals. So connnecting it to a human soul is a nice solution.

But these soulish solutions are folklore. They don't fully hold up in modern times. I suggest grabbing an encyclopedia or a zoology text book for material on Father Gregor Mendel, inheritance, and genetics. Further information, and a good read, can be found in Watson and Crick's Double Helix, the story of their discovery of the structure of DNA, its replication, and its implications for inheritability of characteristics.

For genes, sexuality, and gender-identification on the web see:

Multi-Dimensionality of Gender and
Sexual Differentiation

for readable professionaly written text and links.

See my article on "Spirit Technology" for an attempt at an absurdum argument comparing the "god makes genes" argument with god's need to make spirits. This is, admittedly, an incomplete argument, how do I improve it? What's wrong with it? Write me, pro or con:Mail me.

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updated: 11/6/2004