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[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

As always, I am posting a reply mainly for the readers/lurkers.

Humans are one of the few species with two sexes.

humans are of the very few that have only 2 sexes

"male" and "female" are socially constructed categories that can only be applied to humans and few others

99% of multicellular organisms and all the "higher animals" reproduce sexually. Scientists say sexual reproduction has been occurring for 2 billion years.

The emergence of species that reproduce sexually did not mean that species that reproduce in other ways disappeared and no longer exist. Species that reproduce in various ways can, and do, co-exist. Some species reproduce both sexually and asexually.

Birds do it, and bees do it. Indeed, researchers estimate that over 99.99% of eukaryotes* do it, meaning that these organisms reproduce sexually, at least on occasion.

*(An eukaryote is an organism consisting of a cell or cells in which the genetic material is DNA in the form of chromosomes contained within a distinct nucleus. Eukaryotes include all living organisms other than the eubacteria and archaebacteria. Eukaryotes are distinct from prokaryotes. A prokaryote is a microscopic single-celled organism that has neither a distinct nucleus with a membrane nor other specialized organelles. Prokaryotes include the bacteria and cyanobacteria.)

99.99% of all eukaryote species constitute a tad more than "few."

sex(ual reproduction) is incredibly common. Furthermore, even though asexual lineages do arise, they rarely persist for long periods of evolutionary time. Among flowering plants, for example, predominantly asexual lineages have arisen over 300 times, yet none of these lineages is very old. Furthermore, many species can reproduce both sexually and asexually, without the frequency of asexuality increasing and eliminating sexual reproduction altogether.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/sexual-reproduction-and-the-evolution-of-sex-824/

This goes to show "male" and "female" are socially constructed categories that can only be applied to humans and few others, making them not universally true categories that can be applied to every specie.

"Female" and "male" refer to the two kinds of gametes required for sexual reproduction - eggs/ova and sperm. Sexual reproduction does not involve any additional kinds of gametes - there is no third, fourth, 100th or 20,000th kind of gamete.

No one has ever claimed that male and female "can be applied to every specie [sic]". We say these terms apply to species that reproduce sexually.

Humans are not fungi. BTW, there are a lot of kinds of fungi on earth, and they are highly diverse.

We conclude that the commonly cited estimate of 1.5 million species (of fungi) is conservative and that the actual range is properly estimated at 2.2 to 3.8 million. With 120,000 currently accepted fungi species, it appears that at best just 8%, and in the worst case scenario just 3%, are named so far.

https://www.asmscience.org/content/journal/microbiolspec/10.1128/microbiolspec.FUNK-0052-2016

Fungi have multiple ways of reproducing.

Reproductive Processes Of Fungi: Following a period of intensive growth, fungi enter a reproductive phase by forming and releasing vast quantities of spores. Spores are usually single cells produced by fragmentation of the mycelium or within specialized structures (sporangia, gametangia, sporophores, etc.). Spores may be produced either directly by asexual methods or indirectly by sexual reproduction.

Sexual reproduction in fungi, as in other living organisms, involves the fusion of two nuclei that are brought together when two sex cells (gametes) unite. Asexual reproduction, which is simpler and more direct, may be accomplished by various methods.

https://www.britannica.com/science/fungus/Sexual-reproduction

But all this about fungi is besides the point. Fungi are not humans or mammals, just as clownfish aren't. Fungi are different from other plants too, which is why they are classified separately.

The planet has created four sexes: Male, female, hermaphrodite, asexual. Though Google says some species can switch from sexual reproduction to asexual reproduction, so there are five sexes. Male, female, hermaphrodite, asexual, male/female/hermaphrodite and asexual.

Nature itself created an unlimited number of sexes for many species

There are species with four, thousands, or an unlimited number of sexes

mushrooms have thousands of sexes

Claiming in the same short post that there are "four, five, thousands and an unlimited number of sexes" is poor form even for you. Sounds like your abacus is broken.