Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the familyKnight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Science
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family
Knight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Sex (Biology); Sex (Psychology); Taboo; Women
Crossing European and Japanese gypsy moths, Goldschmidt [1,2,3,4]
noticed that the sex types secured were not pure--i.e., that certain
crosses produced females which bore a distinctly greater resemblance to
the male type than others, and _vice versa_. One of these hybrids of
"intersexes," as he calls them, would always possess some female and
some male sexual characters. He found that he could separate the males
and females, respectively, into seven distinct grades with respect to
their modification toward the opposite-sex type, and could produce any
one of these grades at will by breeding.
For example, the seven grades of females were roughly as follows:
(1) Pure females; (2) Females with feathered antennæ like males and
producing fewer than the normal number of eggs; (3) Appearance of the
brown (male) patches on the white female wings; ripe eggs in abdomen,
but only hairs in the egg-sponge laid; instincts still female;
(4) Instincts less female; whole sections of wings with male colouration,
interspersed with cuneiform female sectors; abdomen smaller, males less
attracted; reproduction impossible; (5) Male colouration over almost the
entire wing; abdomen almost male, with few ripe eggs; instincts
intermediate between male and female; (6) Like males, but with
rudimentary ovaries and show female traits in some other organs;
(7) Males with a few traces of female origin, notably wing-shape.
The males showed the same graded approach to the female type. Their
instincts likewise became more and more female as the type was modified
in that direction. That is, a moth would be 12% or 35% female, and so
on.
Goldschmidt watched the crosses which produced seven different grades of
maleness in his females. The moth material, like the birds and mammals,
suggested a dual basis for sex in each individual. The grades of
maleness and femaleness made it seem probable that the factor which
determines sex must be stronger in some instances than in others, i.e.,
that the difference between two of these grades of female is originally
quantitative, not qualitative--in amount rather than in kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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