I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

[satyrica]

heh heh, the fools! The Guardian's seen fit to put my letter in response to their article (which, annoyingly, I can't find online) about research into biological causes for homosexuality up on their website (no prizes for guessing my views . . .) although they did edit out my clause about the experience of bisexuals being once again denigrated.

hid in the cool of a cinema and watched Dear Wendy this arvo which I enjoyed more than I's expecting to, even if the plot-credibility quotient rather fell away towards the end. In other news I think I bruised my ribs during the Foo Fighters set on saturday and they seem to be getting worse rather than better . . . (although I'm sure dancing at Red Eye didn't help) Oh and I got back to a message to call tomorrow about the outcome of the interview so that's tonight's cliff-hanger . . .

Comments

[jenny-gould.livejournal.com]

oooh, cool letter. Go Neil! Heres wishing you well with the job stuff too.

[anonymous-james.livejournal.com]

ooh big words and everything, no wonder they had to put it up there :)

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

it is written in that special language reserved only for Writing Letters to Newspapers . . .

[reindeerflotila.livejournal.com]

also , you are now coming out with us.


BWWAAAAAHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAA! i inflict you with electro doom!

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Well put. I just don't understand how there can still be researchers treating sexuality as a binary trait.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the article has been omitted from the Guardian archive for copyright reasons. Is it the same as this one, that appeared in the boston globe two weeks ago?
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_people_gay?mode=PF

As for why scientists research sexuality as a binary - why do mathematicians do calculations using, say, perfect circles, when no perfect circles exist? The scientists' job is made easier by abstracts and first approximations, even if they are palpably false. Problem is the socio-political consequences when the scientists (and commentators) start reifying those abstractions...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

As for why scientists research sexuality as a binary - why do mathematicians do calculations using, say, perfect circles, when no perfect circles exist?

Mathematicians do what you describe under two circumstances:

1) They are talking about what perfect circles would be like if they did exist, or what perfect circles are like in the (imaginary or perhaps Platonic) world they inhabit, or some such scenario where they acknowledge that what they are studying is not real, and they don't mind (pure maths).

2) They believe or can prove that an exact solution to the approximate problem will be an approximate solution to the exact problem - in other words, there are real circle-like things which behave enough like perfect circles to make the behaviour of perfect circles interesting (applied maths).

Researchers into sexuality, whether sociologists or biologists, don't have either excuse: they are obliged to talk about reality or they're wasting everybody's time, and a binary model of sexuality is (we assert) so poor an approximation as to have insignificant predictive or explanatory power.

Problem is the socio-political consequences when the scientists (and commentators) start reifying those abstractions...

Indirectly, but the underlying problem is that the abstractions are so crude as to be useless even as abstractions, let alone when assumed real.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

thanks :-)

I think there's a lot of people trying to prove what they want to be true, unfortunately, although I'm surprised that gets past the proposal stage . . .

[(Anonymous)]

Smackdown! Go Neil.

-Matt W