Researchers from the United States and Canada are pushing the scientific community to no longer acknowledge biological sex and to reject the utilization of "binary terms" such as male and female, man, woman, mother, or father.
The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Language Project is striving to eliminate the mentality that Western scientists have supposedly adopted, which could be considered offensive. This is according to an article by The Times.
Rather than using terms such as male and female, this research group suggests that people use "sperm-producing" and "egg-producing" to avoid reinforcing heteronormative ideas. Additionally, they propose that father and mother be changed to "parent," "egg donor" and "sperm donor.
The EEB describes its mission according to its website as the following: "Amid a growing disciplinary commitment to inclusion in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), it is critical to consider how the use of scientific language can harm members of our research community. To unite those of us working to revise harmful terminology in EEB, we introduce our grassroots, collective initiative called 'The EEB Language Project.'"
The contributors of the project, who come from prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and the University of California, wrote an article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
The February 6 paper emphasizes that it is "particularly important for redressing the ongoing marginalization of many groups in EEB, including Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities; and disabled communities; among others."
The group specified 24 of the most offensive terms, which were included on their list.
The EEB Language Project emphasizes that terms such as "primitive" and "advanced" should not be used, as they are derogatory towards humans and their practices, and are also scientifically inaccurate as they imply an evolutionary hierarchy. As an alternative, the scientists suggest the use of "ancestral" and "derived".
The phrase "survival of the fittest" has fallen out of favor due to its associations with "eugenics, ableism and social Darwinism," the researchers noted. As an alternative, they suggested using the terms "natural selection" and "survival differences" instead.
Despite their attempts to alter the language of science, certain individuals in the scientific community have rejected the idea.
Professor Frank Furedi, from the University of Kent, warned in a statement to The Daily Telegraph that, "I think that when you characterize terms like male/female, mother/father as harmful you are abandoning science for ideological advocacy. Regardless of intent, the project of re-engineering language will cause confusion to many and the last thing that scientists need is a lack of clarity about the meaning of the words they use."
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