Scientific Controversy and the Public Face of Science

Abstract

This paper is about a puzzle. The puzzlement is a result of reviewing a large number of articles and reports of research on behavior from both genetic and environmental perspectives. Because empirical study of behavior is not study of behavior in general, but of some specific behavior, my own study of this research has concentrated on research on two behaviors: aggression and sexual orientation. I was drawn to the work on aggression by accounts of several conferences on the biology of aggression that took place in the mid-1990s in the United States. These, especially one hosted by the University of Maryland, sparked a storm of protest, both from within the academy and from without. Sexual orientation was chosen in order to have another behavior for comparison, and because it, too, has been an active area recently. My own interest in reviewing this body of work was to understand the dynamics of critical interaction among scientists advocating or employing different approaches to the same problem. Behavioral research provokes a great deal of critical interaction, both in the general public and among scientists, even as many researchers go on about their own business, producing studies employing their own preferred methodologies. Thus, it has seemed a good site for this investigation.¹

This paper draws on research done with the assistance of NSF Grant # SBR 9730188.