Re: A unique number for every "person" - can it be done?

From: Arthur J. O'Dwyer (ajo_at_nospam.andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: 03/02/05 

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 20:25:17 -0500 (EST)

[fups set to the most general of the three groups --- IMVHO! :-]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, gerard46 wrote:
> | TGOS wrote:
> |> spinoza1111 wrote:
> |> This taxonomy would discriminate against transgendered people and at a
> |> minimum needs a fourth category of "indeterminate" for gender.
> |
> | Every human being has only one sex. It is determined by the presence or
> | absence of a Y chromosome. Presence means male, anything else female.

> Not quite. Some human beings have both, er, as you say, sex. You are
> assuming that an XX is a female, and XY is male. How about YY ?

   Looks like "the presence of a Y chromosome" to me. That would mean
"male," in the taxonomy TGOS provided immediately above your response.
(Note that there may or may not be a correlation between primary or
secondary sex characteristics and the chromosomes present in each cell
--- offhand I'd suspect there is, but I'm no biologist.)

> In any case, this all breaks down when you can't determine what the sex
> is, and it happens more than you think. After all, how many humans had
> their chromosome's checked ? A lot of certain atheletes, of course.
> Most of us know what we are by just looking. Sometimes, that's not
> enough. Think hermaphodites. _________________________________Gerard S.

   Given that this thread has already seen proposals for the recording
of birthdates down to the millisecond, I don't think something as
relatively commonplace as a DNA test is worth dismissing out of hand. ;)

-Arthur

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