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A recent symposium drew experts
from around the world to UCLA to discuss the latest research
in the field of gender and genomics.
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Did darwin get it wrong?
Tackling sexuality, gender and genetics
BY Sally Gibbons
UCLA Today
Will men one day become extinct? Is Darwin’s theory of sexual
selection a useful tool in under-
standing evolution or is it a “false and unfixable theory,”
as one expert believes, that should be replaced? What can 15th-century
Florence tell us about the history of homosexuality and heterosexuality?
These and a host of other questions were addressed at the UCLA
Center for Society and Genetics’ third annual symposium, “Gender
and Genomics: Sex, Science, and Society,” on Jan. 30 in Covel
Commons.
Discussing everything from the precursors to human sex chromosomes
in our ancestors 380 million years ago to a recent legal case alleging
“gender fraud,” and the spiritual underpinnings of our
reticence regarding sex selection in infants, speakers enlightened
an audience of 300 about the nature of sexuality.
Jenny Graves, professor of comparative genomics at the Australian
National University, discussed her contributions to a growing body
of research that suggests that the human Y chromosome that distinguishes
a male from a female is “quite a pathetic little thing”
that is, in fact, a “degraded relic” of the X chromosome.
Graves maintained that the Y chromosome has been losing genes over
the course of millions of years and is, in her estimate, likely
to disappear in the next 10 million years. Rather than predicting
the extinction of the human species, Graves contends that this event
could lead to the divergence of the human species into two distinct
hominid species incapable of reproducing together.
Variability — not only in the biology of sex but also in
sexual behavior, attitudes and self-understanding — was the
over-arching theme of the event. Professor Joan Roughgarden, an
evolutionary biologist from Stanford University, took on the task
of challenging sexual selection, a core component of Darwinian evolutionary
theory.
Roughgarden challenged Darwin’s view that (in his words)
“males of almost all animals have stronger passions than females”
and that male characteristics evolve because “coy” females
select mates who are “more attractive ... vigorous and well-armed.”
She offered a brief tour through the animal kingdom as evidence
that a more cooperative and variable range of sexual behaviors,
strategies and body types exists that is best described in terms
of social rather than sexual selection.
Randolph Trumbach, a historian from Baruch University in New York,
argued that human sexual arrangements can be incredibly flexible,
according to one account of modern Western history. Until 1700,
he explained, the Western world was not divided into a heterosexual
majority and a homosexual minority. Instead, adult men indulged
in the near-universal practice of having sex with both adolescent
boys and women. Contesting the assumption that Christianity heralded
the end of this practice, Trumbach said that Florentine records
from the 15th century indicate that roughly two-thirds of Florentine
men were arrested at least once on sodomy charges.
Although a simple genetic explanation of human sex differences
might be welcomed in the debate over sexual ethics, the symposium
made clear that our sexual identities emerge from a complex mix
of genes, chromosomes, hormones, physiology, brain function and
social interaction that both the natural and human sciences continue
to struggle to decode.
For more information regarding the symposium and the Center for
Society and Genetics, visit: www.socgen.ucla.edu.
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