Reporting the Biology of Sexuality May 3, 2007
Posted by Dwight Furrow in Science.4 comments
Nicholas Wade’s fascinating article on biology and sexuality in the NY Times (also in the UT) was unfortunately less than convincing. The article advances the generalization that sexual desire and sexual preference are largely genetically determined. By implication, culture seems relatively unimportant. Yet the research reported by Wade suggests that, for women, sexual preference does not seem to be genetically determined, and that homosexuality is evolutionarily maladaptive. So for roughly half the population, the generalization is false and it confronts an enormous explanatory hurdle. Furthermore, the ratio of hard facts to speculation is disturbingly high.
Part of the difficulty is that the author gives us no sense of the degree of consensus in biology regarding the generalization and barely mentions social scientific research on the topic. If culture plays a substantial role in sexual desire and sexual preference, biologists would be unlikely to identify that role, since they are not looking for it. Some discussion of social scientific research would provide a more accurate account of what we know now on this topic.
We could use fewer snapply headlines and more nuanced reporting.
