Simon LeVay

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Simon LeVay (born 28 August 1943 in Oxford, England) is a neuroscientist and author known for his studies about brain structures and sexual orientation. He is the co-author of a textbook on human sexuality and has also coauthored books on diverse topics such as earthquakes, volcanoes, parkinson's disease, and extraterrestrial life. [1] LeVay has written a novel, Albrick's Gold, whose main character, Roger Cavendish, is partially based on LeVay himself. [2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

LeVay wrote in his first book The Sexual Brain that, 'As a teenager and young adult I accepted the Freudian line [on sexual orientation], according to which a young child's relations with his or her parents play a decisive role...it seemed to be borne out in my own family experience: I remembered my mother as having been very close and possessive, and my father as distant, even hostile...when I came to read Freud I was swept away by his eloquence and the sheer audacity of his theories.' [3]

LeVay adds, however, that he later rejected Freudianism for various reasons, including his experience with gay men and lesbians who seemed too normal to be products of defective parenting and growing doubts about the scientific status of Freud's theories. [3]

[edit] Education and career

LeVay held positions at Harvard from 1974 to 1984, after which he worked at the Salk Institute from 1984-1993. While at the Salk institute he was also Adjunct Associate Professor of Biology at University of California, San Diego.

Much of his early work looked at visual cortex in animals, especially cats. LeVay's textbook on human sexuality (now in its second edition) was described in one review as "an exceptional book that addresses nearly every aspect of sexuality from multiple theoretical, historical, and cultural perspectives." [4]

[edit] Sexuality research

In 1991 LeVay published an article suggesting a difference in size between the third interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) in the brains of homosexual men and heterosexual men. [5] This finding was widely reported in the media. [6] Some critics of LeVay questioned his measurements, noting that the structures themselves are difficult to see in tissue slices, and that LeVay measured in volume rather than cell count. [7] Linda Brannon concluded that we do not know what INAH3 does. [8] Biologist Joan Roughgarden noted that this is the tiniest of four "rice-grain" sized parts of the brain, and that sex and sexual orientation do not uniformly correspond to the hypothesis that "gay" brains are similar to "female" brains. [9] Ruth Hubbard and Elijah Wald noted that, "Though, on average, the size of the hypothalamic nucleus LeVay considered significant was indeed smaller in the men he identified as homosexual, his published data show that the range of sizes of the individual samples was virtually the same as for the heterosexual men. That is, the area was larger in some of the homosexuals than in many of the heterosexual men, and smaller in some of the heterosexual men than in many of the homosexuals. This means that, though the groups showed some difference as groups, there was no way to tell anything about an individual’s sexual orientation by looking at his hypothalamus." [10]

Nancy Ordover noted that "he has also been criticized for his small sample size and for compiling inadequate sexual histories."[11] LeVay has acknowledged that samples of homosexual men's brain tissue were readily available to him because they had died of AIDS-related illnesses. [12] Several of his critics have suggested that the size of the nuclei could have been affected by AIDS, since INAH3 is dependent on testosterone levels. [13] LeVay has rejected this criticism. [14] However, he has noted that, 'To make a really compelling case, one would have to show that these neuroanatomical differences existed early in life - preferably at birth. Without such data, there is always at least the theoretical possibility that the structural differences are actually the result of differences in sexual behavior - perhaps on the "use it or lose it" principle." [14] He also noted that, '...there is always the possibility that gay men who die of AIDS are not representative of the entire population of gay men...they might have a stronger preference for receptive anal intercourse, the major risk factor for acquiring HIV infection. Thus...one could make the argument that structural differences in INAH3 relate more to actual behavioral patterns of copulation rather than to sexual orientation as such. It will not be possible to settle this issue definitively until some method becomes available to measure the size of INAH3 in living people who can be interviewed in detail about their sexuality.' [14]

Critics of LeVay have frequently suggested that he is biased. Some critics of LeVay found his statement in an interview that "if I didn’t find anything, I would give up a scientific career altogether," [15] to be evidence of bias. [16] The fact that LeVay is openly gay has also prompted many accusations of bias. According to what LeVay has described as one school of thought, '...my findings are not to be believed because I am gay.' [14] Other accusations of bias have come from a different direction: 'According to another school, my very engagement in biological research on homosexuality proves that I am secretly out to eliminate gay people.' [14] Historian Roy Porter falsely claimed that LeVay, "...cheerfully looks forward to the day when the 'new eugenics' born of the human genome project will enable women to abort fetuses likely to be carrying any traits they don't much care for, including homosexuality." [17]

Despite the accusations of bias, LeVay has cautioned against misinterpreting his findings: "It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. The INAH 3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than a part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior..." [18] Criticising other scientists, including Dean Hamer, LeVay has also pointed out that genetic studies have so far not proven that homosexuality is not a choice, since '...it is possible to construct a hypothesis whereby both "gay genes" and a desire to be homosexual are necessary for a person actually to become homosexual.' [14] LeVay has responded to the criticisms transsexual activist Andrea James inserted into an older version of this article, and accused her of pursuing a personal vendetta against him because he made positive comments about the work of J. Michael Bailey [1].

[edit] Bibliography

  • LeVay S (1993). The Sexual Brain. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-62093-6
  • LeVay S, Nonas E (1995). City of Friends: A Portrait of the Gay and Lesbian Community in America. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12194-8
  • LeVay S (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12199-9
  • LeVay S (1997). Albrick's Gold. London: Headline Book Publishing. ISBN 0-7472-7687-0
  • Koerner, D, LeVay, S (2000). Here Be Dragons: The Scientific Quest for Extraterrestrial Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512852-4
  • Freed, C, LeVay, S (2002). Healing the Brain: A Doctor's Controversial Quest for a Cell Therapy to Cure Parkinson's Disease. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8050-7091-5
  • LeVay S, Valente SM (Second ed., 2006). Human Sexuality. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates. ISBN ISBN 0-87893-465-0
  • LeVay S, (2008), When Science Goes Wrong, Plume. ISBN 0-45228-932-7

[edit] References

  1. ^ Andriette, Bill (February 2004). Sex on the Brain: Talking with Simon Levay. The Guide
  2. ^ LeVay S (1997). Albrick's Gold. Headline Book Publishing, ISBN ISBN 0-7472-7687-0
  3. ^ a b LeVay, Simon (1993). The Sexual Brain. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-62093-6
  4. ^ Byne W (June 7, 2006). Human Sexuality (book review). Journal of the American Medical Association
  5. ^ LeVay S (1991). A difference in hypothalamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Science 253:1034-1037.
  6. ^ Angier, Natalie (August 30, 1991). Zone of Brain Linked to Men's Sexual Orientation. New York Times
  7. ^ Barinaga, Marcia (August 30, 1991). Is homosexuality biological? Science
  8. ^ Brannon L (1996). Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Allyn & Bacon, ISBN 020540457X
  9. ^ Roughgarden, Joan (2004). Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520240735
  10. ^ Hubbard, Ruth and Elijah Wald (1997) Exploding the Gene Myth: How Genetic Information Is Produced and Manipulated by Scientists, Physicians, Employers, Insurance Companies, Educators, and Law Enforcers. BeaconPress, ISBN 978-0807004319
  11. ^ Ordover, Nancy (2003). American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0-8166-3559-5
  12. ^ Pinel JPJ (2007). Basics of Biopsychology: International Edition. Boston: Pearson Educational ISBN 9780205508891
  13. ^ Byne W, Parson B (March 1993). Human sexual orientation: The biologic theories reappraised. Archives of General Psychiatry 50:3, 235
  14. ^ a b c d e f LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge: The MIT Press ISBN 0-262-12199-9
  15. ^ Gelman et al. (February 24, 1992). Born or Bred? Newsweek ; 46
  16. ^ cf. Harrub B, Miller D (August 2004). This is the Way God Made Me"—A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the "Gay Gene." Reason & Revelation Apologetics Press, 24[8]:73-79
  17. ^ Porter, Roy (August 11, 1996). Born that way? New York Times
  18. ^ Byrd, A. Dean, Shirley E. Cox, and Jeffrey W. Robinson (May 27, 2001), Homosexuality: The Innate-Immutability Argument Finds No Basis in Science. Salt Lake Tribune

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