A long term academic controversy boiled up into the New York Times recently. There are dozens of these all the time in every field, but this one, regarding Dr. J. Michael Bailey, who in 2003 published "The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism" obviously made the mainstream press because of its topic.

The portrayal of the controversy is a typical rehash pitting the Nasty Scientist Who Misuses His Credentials To Promote An Unsubstantiated Viewpoint versus the Knee Jerk PC Crowd Who Doesn't Want To Hear The Uncomfortable Truth.

My disclaimer up front is that I have not read the book, just a lot of commentary by both its supporters and detractors. For my purposes this is enough. The existence of the controversy itself brings to mind two separate questions. The first is a question about how we go about conducting science and promoting its results, especially when the research involves human subjects (which by default produce data that are complex and difficult to interpret). The second is a question about the relationship between gender identity issues and society, and will be addressed in the next post.

Any academic discussion of sexual identity will become quickly polarized, because people view statements written in generalities as personal attacks. This is why a book such as this provokes much more emotional responses than controversial books or papers about other health issues. The crux of this controversy is that proponents of the book maintain that any transsexuals who were offended by it just don't want to hear the truth about themselves, while the offended transsexuals are insulted that anyone else would presume to know more than they about their motivations. It is clear from reviews on both sides that Dr. Bailey goes somewhat out on a limb by claiming that there are only two motivations for transsexuals, and every transsexual falls into one of the two groups. It is not surprising that transsexuals who believe they fit one of the categories like the book, and those who do not believe such do not. But what truly matters is whether this book is actually science or merely opinion.

Certainly it is wise to be suspicious of those making sweeping claims about human biology based on their invariably self-selected, self-reporting sample. Such a book, if it purports to be true science, should be absolutely clear in its justification of research methods (e.g. at the minimum, general acceptance of those methods by others in the field), and equally up-front about the assumptions that were made in the analysis of the data. All data analyses, statistical or not (and I have no idea if Bailey used statistics or not), involve assumptions, that if violated, undermine the conclusions the author is drawing.

There is a widespread problem of those with scientific credentials claiming authority in areas such as this that are notorious for requiring many assumptions and inferences that cannot be directly confirmed through observation or experiment. An example of a field outside the realm of human biology is paleontology, in which scientists notoriously cling to their personal theories with a vigor less known in other areas of geology and biology. The reason is that there is a clear limit on what we can ever know about plants and animals that went extinct millions of years ago, no matter how many more fossils are discovered. Thus the field is rife with assumptions and inferences that can never be disproved.

The field of human biology is similar. Our knowledge of how the brain works is growing, and may sometime be sufficient to make well supported generalizations, but the more we learn, the more we discover how little we really know. Every individual is a unique combination of genes and environment, with no way to replicate his or her singular experience (except in the limited case of identical twins-reared apart studies). So even sincere attempts at conducting scientifically rigorous, unbiased research are extremely limited in their real scientific utility. Overlaid on top of this is the problem of distinct personalities conducting the research, with biases (quite strong when the subject is our own species) either blatant or in most cases more subtle and difficult to detect, and the reception of results also by distinct personalities with their own biases. Rigorous scientific methods are a distinct improvement over exhortations from those claiming to converse with a higher being, but even their results are often far from black and white.

Is Dr. Bailey's book science? I cannot answer that question without reading it. But my own bias is that little health research to do with humans is worthwhile at the present time. Its larger potential value is that it will lead to more interesting questions to ask in the future, when we may have better technologies for understanding the interactions between genes and environment that create the deeply complex bags of water and chemicals that we are.

Labels: gender, health, humans