Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation

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Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation Pub. Date: 6/28/1997 Publisher: Hyperion
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Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation Pub. Date: 9/28/1999 Publisher: DIANE Publishing Company

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A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation (1st ed) Pub. Date: 6/28/1996 Publisher: Hyperion

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Overview

In Aug. 1991 a neurologist announced the finding of a physiological difference between the brains of heterosexuals & homosexuals. This was science that not only challenged accepted beliefs but carried profound legal, political, & social implications. Two years later a team of geneticists reported finding a likely genetic basis for homosexuality in men. This book explores the rich & varied research that is currently being carried out in neurobiology, endocrinology, & genetics. It also considers the awesome ramifications of research that may well come to explain the origins of one of the fundamental components of our humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Burr's detailed, elegantly written report takes us to the front lines of research into a possible biological or genetic basis for homosexuality. He dispassionately reviews the scientific and political controversy surrounding the report in 1991 by gay British neuroanatomist Simon LeVay that a cluster of cells in the brain's hypothalamus is larger in straight men than in gay men. National Cancer Institute molecular geneticist Dean Hamer's 1993 finding that a specific region of the X chromosome is linked to homosexuality in some men led to intense debate over how a "gay gene" might function in creating a homosexual orientation. Boston University geneticist Richard Pillard theorizes that the sexual centers of gay men's brains are not "defeminized"a hormone-regulated process that routinely occurs in the embryonic brains of male heterosexuals. Burr, whose 1993 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly led to this book, ponders the ethical issues swirling around Affymetrix, a Santa Clara, Calif., company that is building a semiconductor chip made of silicon and human DNA that may make possible widespread testing for a gay gene. Illustrated. Author tour. (June)

Ray Olson

Burr is that rare bird, the journalist who writes well about science. Here, seemingly acting out of the journalistic lust for controversy, he reports on the neurological, endocrinological, and genetic inquiries into why some people are homosexual. But although he regularly notes the politics involved and concludes with a chapter comparing the conflict over homosexuality with the Renaissance battle between church and science over heliocentrism, Burr concentrates on science and sends us on a modern odyssey full of intellectual adventure and revelation. He explains how one researcher discovered a possible difference between homosexual men and others in a particular neural nucleus in the brain; how the "gay gene" (actually, an allele, or alternative form of a gene) was found and how it works; and how genetic surgery (contemplated to be nonintrusive) might alter sexual orientation in adults. However far afield from the subject of sexual orientation Burr seems to stray, the side trips always reconnect with the main road. To counteract how the popular press has misrepresented certain research findings, such as that apparent gay brain difference, Burr reports what the researchers think their discoveries' significances are: the brain difference's discoverer actually claims his findings show only that further similar research holds promise for investigating sexual orientation. Burr also relays the counterarguments, many of them more persuasive, of scientists who think particular findings are either not so significant, misleading, or downright erroneous. Enthralling--unputdownable!--this may be both the gay studies book of the year "and" the popular-science book of the year.

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Kirkus Reviews

A thorough, often riveting review of research on homosexuality and male-female differences.

"Amid the chaos of debate is the virtual certainty that the biological origins of sexual orientation will become known to us," writes journalist Burr, who penned a controversial 1993 article on the subject for the Atlantic Monthly. He has to be congratulated for providing a fine summary and preview of what is politically one of the hottest topics today. He does it by stressing the science, by using lengthy quotes from the investigators, and by asking questions that go beyond the disputes and data to tap the attitudes and philosophies of the scientists themselves. The recent furor dates to 1993, when National Cancer Institute investigator Dean Hamer reported that sexual orientation was at least in part due to maternal inheritance of a gene located on the X chromosome. But Burr and his corps of experts underscore that genes are not destiny and exhort all to bury forever the nature/nurture dichotomy. The X locus Hamer has found is a part of the biological picture, and to explore it, Burr treats the reader to a primer on fetal development, the role of androgens and estrogens in creating males from the "default" female pattern, and the influence of hormones on the brain. His concluding chapters touch on the heart of the political/social/ethical dilemmas—the guarantee that there will be not only tests for the sex-orientation gene (or genes) but micro- gene-chips that will tell you what could be in store for your potential offspring—with all the Brave New World scenarios that engenders. Burr ends with a brief commentary on the conflict between science and religion and the peculiar irony of the current debate, which finds conservatives plumping for homosexuality as an immoral "lifestyle choice" while liberals may say it's all in the genes.

By this time the savvy reader—thanks to Burr's excellent exposition—can say, A pox on both their houses.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780788166976
Publisher: DIANE Publishing Company
Publication date: 9/28/1999
Pages: 354
Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 9.40 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Chandler Burr

Chandler Burr is the New York Times perfume critic and author of The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses and A Separate Creation. Burr, who earned a master’s in international economics and Japan studies from the Paul H. Nitze School/Johns Hopkins, has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, U.S. News & World Report (where he was a contributing editor), and The New Yorker. He lives in New York City.

1	The Black Box	3
2	The Debate: Definitive Proof that Homosexuality Is Biological	21
3	The Debate: Definitive Proof that Homosexuality Is Not Biological	37
4	How to Look at a Brain	49
5	Biological Archaeology	90
6	Genetic Grammar 101: A Crash Course	127
7	The Gay Gene: The Discovery of Xq28	158
8	What Does "Genetic" Mean?	198
9	How the Gay Gene Might Work	238
10	How Genetic Surgery Can Change Homosexuality to Heterosexuality	270
11	The Knowledge of Good and Evil	309
	Notes	327
	Glossary	341
	Index	344

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Anonymous

Posted October 19, 1999

Making a Mockery of 'Science'

Although Chandler Burr is a good read, it is especially bothersome in this day and age that some journalists not only assume they know the subject they choose to write about, but that they are somehow experts on topics of personal interest. Obviously, science is not Mr. Burr's expertise, and it is doubtful he has had much science education at all. Unfortunately, there are many readers of this trash that know no more than Mr. Burr about science, and will thus choose to believe what they read. Being 1999, it has become very evident that the 'science' Burr uses as the basis of all his sociological and political arguments is garbage. Even though the scientific community questioned this research upon it's release, Burr did not have enough understanding of science to see the reason for the questions. To date, there we have not seen any 'science' regarding the origins of homosexual attraction and orientation. There are years of ethological evidence regarding homosexual behavior, which is, of course, an entirely separate topic. I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to anyone who is not well-trained in the sciences and scientific method. For such readers, this will make a possibly good conversation piece regarding 'good' and 'bad' science and the ethics of particular types of biological research. My advice to readers--both gay and straight: for your own well-being and welfare, look closely at who writes what you read and what their motives might be for writing it.
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Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation

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All Available Formats + Editions

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Overview

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Ray Olson

Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

Meet the Author

Chandler Burr

Table of Contents

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Making a Mockery of 'Science'