Does Sexuality needs scientific validation?

Science as any other tool can be used for political purposes.

In that sense several studies about gender, gender identification and diversity in sexuality have been circulating in scientific papers from researches and Universities.  Even when the scientific method is per se, objective, the way results or studies are presented can have a strong political agenda.

So we have lots of studies about gender differences, that to some extend have validated the idea that women and men are different in the way the think, feel and behave.  This has been reflected in popular culture, to give the masses the "scientific truth" that, to put it on the words of a popular book, women are from venus and men are from mars.   Problem is that the studies tend to confuse nature and nurture.  Is the way men and women react to stimuli different because the way they have being educated, or is it something that they are born with?   At least one study seems to think we are actually not that different, and I definitely recomend the reading of  Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference.

Then it came to validate the notion that homosexuality is something people are born with, and not acquired. There was a very powerful reason behind these studies, and it is that the christian right wing insisted (and still does) that homosexuality was a deviation, a perversion that men and women choose to live against their god's teachings.  So various studies were made on the subject, and also in other species, to show that homosexuality was something natural.   How ever the inability of shown that there's a "gay gene" or something specific that triggers homosexuality when people are born, has being used as a weapon to say that as with gender, they studies can't give a conclusive truth about the nature vs nurture debate.

Finally just a few weeks ago, a new study was published, this time was about bisexual men, that branch of sexuality that is famous for it's partial invisibility and attacks from both heterosexual and homosexual communities that "doubt" that it really exists. So  this new study tend to conclude that yes, bisexuals are real.  But not much time passed for the study to start being attacked under the same premises.

Studies and counter studies can be made about gender and sexuality, all along, and change with the political tide that they surf with.  But the question will be:  Do we really need to validate our sexuality or our gender with scientific studies? or is it not a better long term solution to educate people on accepting that even in our differences we are all human and deserve respect, and that stereotypes are just product of ignorance?

I have no doubt that all this scientists have good intentions when they try to prove that men and women are equal, that gay, lesbians and bisexuals are not perverts, etc.  And yes, their work can be used to some extent. But science is useless against prejudice, ignorance and hard religious indoctrination. And some times even counter-productive.  The only thing that can really make a difference is education, in both our homes and schools.

- This post was originally written for Queer UK and appears here.

Inteligent Design and Self-aware Universe

It’s always refreshing to read intelligent people that give you food for thought.  THIS ENTRY on Divine Caesar’s blog was definitely one of those cases, and I would like to dedicate this post as a response, and to share them to all of you as well.


The topic of Intelligent design is a picky one, since is often associated, wrongly, with the fanatic creationist ideas of some Christians.  Science and religion do not need to be necessarily opposites, actually both are daughters of the everlasting mother philosophy, and they can find ways of stand on common ground.


A lot of scientist have refuse to see the Universe (or should I say now the Multiverse) as a random system that is only there by chance.  Even if they don’t embrace the idea of a personal God, they acknowledge that the Universe is a very complex system, actually a group of complex systems that is so fine-tuned, that has so many connexions and coincidences, that is very likely that the universe is doing something purposive.


Science has focus too much and too many times in a materialist point of view, that has loose that from sight, it seemed that there was no need of a transcendent reality, since everything could be down to matter.  However, as theoretical physics go forward, and quantum physics are better understood, it seems obvious that a purely material world has too many paradoxes, and in few words, things that don’t make sense if we only consider this. On the spiritual side, some philosophies tried to get along with this materialistic view, and some pantheistic world views emerge, God is the Universe, and everything on it, but then is limited to the material world, and then again there’s no purpose on it and do not explain things that go beyond matter, as creativity, or love, not  to mention the spiritual transcendence ideas that have being present in almost every culture of the world.


But quantum physics can’t be understood on a materialistic point of view, since things on a quantum level, are not things, they are just possibilities, everything is just a possibility wave, Alain Aspect made an important discovery about this and the action that two photons can have over each other instantly, without depending of time and space.

Of course before him we have Schrödinger's cat principle and we have Everett’s Multiverse based on the creation of different realities by our will.  Just to mention a few.   So reality is not matter, reality is a bunch of waves of possibility, and therefore they have the potential to be transcendent, that is beyond matter.


That leads to a possible conclusion, is not the interaction of matter and energy what shapes the universe, is the consciousness what shapes it.  However given the interaction between consciousness and matter, we really can make the traditional western separation of matter and spirit, we will need to see them both as part of the same.    That could mean that the Great Spirit of the Universe is contained in all the Universe but at the same time it transcends it, what is called panentheism. But to be connected will means that this Spirit will need self interaction, a self aware universe, to be able to shape itself, to shape the reality and pass from a potential one to a factual real one as we perceived it, where there’s time and space.   So probably the big bang was a time when one part of the Multiverse have self-feedback and awareness, and that the expansion, the movement, the evolution of planets and life, is just a process of self-awareness and shape, and this process needs to follow the rules of this fine-tuned machinery, called reality, on which every part, every action, every thought, every creation of the mind or the body has a purpose, a reason.


For example, one of the big mysteries of evolution is what is called the Theory of punctuated equilibrium,  on which there are times where evolution jumps its usual time patter, to rapid epochs of evolution.   If we see consciousness as the primary source then we could explain or at least see a phenomena of creativity, that is shaping the reality to a different path.


This approach, which I favour, not only conciliates spirituality and science, but make them interlink into a common source.   No more the dualism that separates spirit-matter as the usual western monotheistic approach, neither the pantheistic materialistic one who limits the spirit to matter,  nor the atheist materialism who denies any transcendence, but a way to understand different our world, which is also consistent with the way it works in reality.


So, do you think matter is all there is?  Do you think that science and spirituality can get along?  What do you think that an intelligent design that embraces reality and possibilities?