The basic scientific principles of gay sheep

It's Saturday morning here in the 'couv, and I am enjoying a rather 21st century hobby, reading the "papers" on line. I never seem to have the time to read as widely as I'd like during the week. Usually, I save those moments of pleasurable brain-break for dooce, gofugyourself, amalah and violentacres.

So imagine my surprise when I find out that the amazing gay sheep story has completely passed me by. The story goes: (as recounted in a hindsight kind of piece at the New York Times) that Dr. Charles Roselli at Oregon State University studies the brain structures and hormone environments that lead to  homosexual rams, who make up about 8% of the population. He did some experiments with hormone levels in utero, others where they just look at their behavior and mate choice selection, and then some where the rams are killed to allow the researchers to analyze brain structure. It's basic science - this dude just wants to understand what makes sheep gay.

But PETA got wind of the research and decided that Roselli was an animal killer trying to "cure" homosexuality in people. The Sunday Times printed a massively error-filled feature article, which seems to have been written directly from the PETA press release. From the get go the authors jump on the eugenics train and get experts to weigh in on how very bad bad bad that would be. Including gay tennis player Martina Navratilova (here is the link but the story has mysteriously disappeared...) Ben Goldacre of the Guardian nicely sums up the factual scientific errors about the tests they performed, the results etc. Similar corrections made in the above NYTimes piece.

Now I have a couple of thoughts. Firstly, since when is PETA involved in gay rights? Are they just stirring up a PC hoo-ha to get out their animal killer hatred? Secondly, are the gay rights people really, actually, upset about this piece, keeping in mind that it was scientists like Roselli who uncovered the genetic basis for homosexuality, substantiating ideas that people are gay by birth, not by choice and helping do away with the notion that you can "unchoose"/cure homosexuality?

Also in the New York Times piece, PETA says they were justified in attacking Roselli's sentiments based on a quote from a press release: The release quoted Dr. Roselli as saying that the research “also has broader implications for understanding the development and control of sexual motivation and mate selection across mammalian species, including humans.”

Roselli goes onto say that he HAD to say stuff about applications and implications because that is how grants get funded. Here I feel pretty sorry for him. I have heard so very very many scientists talk about basic science with a sigh - it is the basic science, guided merely by questions and hypotheses, not by problems to solve, that end up leading to so many good product, drugs, technologies. "You never know where fundamental understanding will lead,"  Nobel prize winner Harry Kroto once told me. He discovered carbon60 or buckyballs in the mid 80s. Since then, chemists and engineers have been working furiously to use fullerene chemistry (buckyballs and their family members) to build armor, improve electronics, deliver drugs...all sorts of things. Same could be said for DNA fingerprinting. Alec Jeffreys was just screwing around with some bits of variable DNA - he never thought his research would redefine crime-fighting.

Kroto summed up the problem between media and science relations quite well: "The real problem that you have," Kroto told me on the phone last summer, "is that it’s very difficult to be interested in what interests a scientist. People only want to know what this science will do for them. That’s a bit of a problem. Journalists need to explain that scientists are fascinated by sort of nitting gritty puzzles. When they make the breakthroughs and solve the puzzles, out comes something unexpectedly valuable."

At the end of the New York Times article, the author quotes a University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist and bioethicist who basically says Roselli deserved this attention: "By discussing the human implications of the research, even in a somewhat careful way, Dr. Roselli “opened the door” to the reaction, Dr. Wolpe said, and “he has to take responsibility for the public response.”"

Sorry, but what a crock of shit. No one opens the door to their research being reported erroneously. The majority of the public reaction was based upon mis-information and media frenzy. As scientists are ever more pushed to justify their research for the good of humanity, society..whatever...we are checking them into boxes they just can't find their way out of. Sometimes they just don't know where their research is leading them. And that can be good. Though discovering new information always holds the promise that the information will be used unscrupulously, it is no reason to stop people from researching. And certainly no reason to stop them from talking about it.

Comments

[LawMonkey]

I'm sure, from the information presented, that this fellow's motives are pure--and it's rather interesting that 8% of rams are gay! It's also peculiar that PETA is suddenly concerned about gay rights.

But the concern is... well, perhaps far-fetched, but not entirely illegitimate. It is not a leap to go from 'being gay is genetic' to 'being gay is a genetic *disease*' which ought to be 'cured.' (It also obscures the possibility, at least to the layman, that sexuality may be more malleable than a simple either-or proposition, as those of us who are bisexual, or whose preferences have changed or do change over time, might point out.) The gay rights strategy ought always to have been that choice of sexual partner, as between consenting adults yadda yadda, is a moral nullity--whether Adam, as they say, prefers Steve or Eve is moot, and we ought instead to celebrate the variety and richness that such things bring to life.

All of that said, I wish Dr. Roselli the best of luck in his gay sheep research. :)

[Anna]

Hey, thank you for the thoughtful comment. I think you're right about sexuality, too - genes, environment, choice, who cares! It's not about what's behind the choice, but more the freedom to make it.

I guess poses an interesting ethical question - scientists don't mean to make the technology for evil, but it can be co-opted. At what point do we stop them from doing the research because the harm it *could* do is too great a risk. I think we should give scientists a large leeway..because hopefully we can control the use of bad. But if we stop them, we'll never know what good there could have been.

[Lab Lemming]

PETA is in the business of shutting down animal research labs. Whatever inane excuse they use to justify their luddite behavior is irrelevant.

[Kira]

Science and politics make lousy bedfellows.

This just points out the problem, once again, of trying to write about science for a lay audience. Basic research is not respected. Whether that’s because money is tight and taxpayers feel they have to have a direct stake in research for it to be funded or what, I don’t know. But the public somehow feels entitled to weigh in on every experiment conducted.

The fact is, finding out if there’s a physiological component to homosexuality might not be such a bad idea. You’re right though, what comes of that research could be abused. But is that a reason not to try to answer the question?

PETA (http://blog.peta.org/archives/2007/01/peta_sets_the_r_1.php)
seems to attempt to side with gay rights activists by quoting extensively an “openly gay blogger”:

“I shudder to think what ‘correction’ Rosselli has in mind for AIS women, much less the rest of LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex] people.”

AIS being Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a form of intersexuality.

Coincidentally, National Wildlife (http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=112&articleID=1410) reported on polar bears in its Dec/Jan 2007 issue.

The researcher, Andrew Derocher, a professor at the University of Alberta and chairman of IUCN “has also detailed unusual pseudohermaphroditism, or females displaying some male sexual characteristics. In other species, exposure to man-made chemicals, especially during pregnancy, has been associated with such unusual gender-bending effects.”

I’m not a scientist, but I’d sure like to know what effects chemicals have on all animals, including humans. To think scientists can’t pursue research because someone might be offended, is, well, offensive. And I’m a lesbian. Maybe I should fear a “Children of Men”-like future where we’ve cured homosexuality and we’re down to the last one. I wouldn’t want to be her. But really, homosexuality has been around forever. I doubt it’s caused by anything that can be “cured.” I think there’s a continuum of sexuality, from gay, to bi, to fluctuating. We may find a cause for some forms but not others. If pollution is a cause, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we knew that and cleaned up the pollution?

I feel sorry for scientists who have to come up with some application for their research to justify it for reporters (and their audience) and funders. Research for the sake of research is interesting. Period.

It’s also interesting to note that Roselli’s study was published in 2004. Google “Charles Roselli,” and you get “about” 176,000 hits. Yikes. And most seem to be about the sheep study. He’s characterized in many scary ways:

“conducting gruesome experiments on sheep in the name of eradicating homosexuality”
"‘gay sheep’ researcher”
“drugs foetal sheep to alter sex hormones in their brains and cuts open the brains of rams”
“is killing scores of sheep and cutting open the brains of rams”
“spending millions of taxpayer dollars to kill homosexual rams and cut open their brains”

And one site even says, “Such studies could be expanded to include research into whether there are hormonal links to pedophilia. . .”

I think it’s not insignificant to ask what effect the blogosphere will have on scientific research. If someone doesn’t like someone’s research, they can make said researcher’s life hell, apparently.

[coturnix]

More blogospheric responses to the gay sheep story and the PETA story:

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/01/gay_sheep_in_the_new_york_time.php

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/01/i_always_like_it.php

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/01/is_it_really_counterpropaganda.php

[MT]

If outing human beings is cruel, imagine what it's like for sheep! Talk about your ideal model system though....

[thomas]

There is another aspect of this issue that I think should be addressed: science stories as a soundbyte. Why is it that the stories we hear the most about are the ones that have endured political machinations or run through a tabloid mill? This story had the privilege of experiencing both. Combine communication of science via press release with the tendency of the public to be interested in reports on a report, we very quickly lose the important information to come from the science. Thanks to the NYTimes writer (John Schwartz) for going back and getting the story strait from the beginning.

Another blogger's perspective is at:
http://hope-for-pandora.blogspot.com/2007/01/science-media-public-abuse.html

[brown sheep]

Imbay eh eh eh eh eh