Misusing Science

by CKR

I posted an op-ed by David Barash the other day on WhirledView Choice, with a snarky comment about the author being male. What occurred to me as strange was that Barash knew better, in a couple of dimensions. I've read other stuff he's written.

Now Jenny Duschek, a science writer, replies that science is showing us that neither females nor males are perfectly monogamous, even in species that were thought to be exemplars of the form.

And here's an even better exposition of that research, some of it done by, er, David Barash.

We may speculate about men's hormonal difficulties in thinking about sex and applying logic simultaneously. But isn't that kind of talk getting tired? Once it was us women. Then the endocrinologists came along to show us that men had hormones too. I recall hearing Estelle Ramey, back in the seventies, saying "Women have cycles. Men have cycles. Cabbages have cycles." She was replying to the common wisdom of that time, which was that women's raging hormones unfit them for thoughtful professions and, of course, politics. And, oh yeah, they were crazy when those hormones slowed down, too.

So now it's men's raging hormones. Those hormones don't unfit them for thoughtful professions or politics, never did. But they do justify hiring prostitutes, dumping middle-aged wives for trophies, and other lapses of monogamy.

Please.

Cabbages have cycles, just like humans. That doesn't mean that we all have to send down roots and sit outside fattening up in the cool spring days, then send up a seed stalk in the hotter summer. Swans aren't monogamous. Worms fuse together in sexual ecstasy. Preying mantises eat their mates. Some male fishes take care of the kids while their spouses go out and have fun.

Humans are capable of thought and choice, even commitment. We don't have to be slaves to our biochemistry. Spitzer made a choice every time he thumbed in a text message, pulled out his credit card, signed into a hotel. So do all men. They are no more slaves to their hormones than are women.

Comments

[anon]

It's "Barash."

[CKR]

Corrected!