Shhh … sexuality is complicated, ctd

The American Association for the Advancement of Science made a splash a few weeks ago when it publicized an about-to-be-published study which found that sexual behavior is influenced by genes, environment, and social milieu, garnering front-page features in the New York Times and Washington Post. Unfortunately, the news was at once overtaken by that ambulatory excrescence in the White House and, so far as I can tell, there haven’t been any thoughtful second-day stories or much coverage in regional and local newspapers.

In other words, an important story relevant to some of the most fractious issues before the public has gone … POOF!

As it happens, my own issue of Science didn’t show-up until Wednesday for some reason, more than a week late. Worse, the study is introduced in the magazine, but not published there; it’s online, which is the worst way ever conceived by the mind of man for reading technical material. All of which I remark to explain why I haven’t yet kept my promise to read and digest the study and explain it here.

But maybe I’m just slow. After all, there are a lot of folks out there who haven’t had the slightest difficulty tweeting a précis:

So the look of things is that once Science proves there is no gay gene! got out, a lot of people were happy to decide that (1) science can be trusted, sometimes, after all, and (2) there is no need to know any more. So, as some of the authors feared, the publication of the study has had the result of ending the discussion for some people. Reality persists, but it’s going to seep into public consciousness more slowly than I hoped.

At least part of the problem is a metaphor that all of us were introduced to in grade school: The gene is like a blueprint, it specifies your eye-color, your height, your hair color, et cetera, et cetera. The more complicated truth is that genes have more in common with the familiar IF-THEN-ELSE statement used to program computers:

IF (condition)
    THEN (actions)
    ELSE (actions)

and the condition being queried is the chemical environment of the womb. The rest of the problem, of course, is that this leads into intellectual subtleties that are inaccessible to a lot of people and, worse, the complex truth offends the resolute ignorance demanded by Eternal Truth.

Science and technology have created a world in which a lot of people will never feel comfortable, a world with more uncertainties than simplistic certitudes. That is the engine that powers the global fundamentalist rebellion against modernity, and we’re going to be living with it for a long time to come.

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