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The media seems to be driven to report in a specific and quite biased direction. |
A new Swedish study about similarities between the brains of homosexual people and those of heterosexual people of the opposite sex has gained much media coverage since the study was first published. Most, if not all, media outlets came to the conclusion that this study is either proof or that it strongly suggests that homosexuality is inborn.
The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, scanned the brains of 90 homosexual and heterosexual men and women to measure the two halves of each person's brain.
The sizes of the brain halves of each group, called hemispheres, were compared with those of people from the other groups. It was found by the study, performed at the Karolinska Institute, that the right half of the brains of the homosexual women and heterosexual men was larger than the left half. No difference was found in size between the two halves of the brain in the gay men and heterosexual women.
Scientists also studied the nerve connections that come out of a small almond-shaped structure, known as the amygdala, deep in the brain. In lesbians and heterosexual men, there were more nerve connections coming out of the right amygdala. In gay men and heterosexual women, more nerve connections came out of the left amygdala.
"An Open Question"
What is alarming about the way this story was covered is the fact that the media seem to be driven to report in a specific and quite biased direction. In fact, after taking a good look at the research involved, one can clearly see that the scientists who conducted the study, although making the suggestion that it is possible that neurobiological entities may be involved in a person's inclination to be homosexual, say that this is still an open question that has not been answered by their study,
The observations cannot be easily attributed to perception or behavior. Whether they may relate to processes laid down during the fetal or postnatal development is an open question.
In a report by the BBC on the study, they quote a certain Dr. Qazi Rahman, introduced as a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, who went as far as to declare, "As far as I'm concerned, there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay." He also said, with no evidence given, that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in fetal development.
One would expect a world-renowned media organization such as the BBC to take a less biased approach to reporting, especially with a study that did not claim to prove anything and one which is, in fact, the first study to find these differences and has yet to be replicated in order to confirm the results.
Neil E. Whitehead, Ph.D. scientific research consultant and coauthor of the book My Genes Made Me Do It!, explained to IslamOnline.net (IOL), "The Positron emission tomography (PET) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods are the most recent in attempts to find differences between SSA (same-sex attracted) and OSA (opposite-sex attracted) brains. Past attempts have not proved reproducible."
"So the question is: What is the probability the present study results will prove any more replicable?" he asked. "In this field, experience has shown it is very, very advisable to be cautious and wait for replication; often, it does not happen."
Behavior Causing the Change?
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Did the brain change cause the behavior or did the behavior cause the brain change?
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Perhaps the biggest argument one might have with this study is the fact that it was performed on adults. The brain size and neural connections within the brain were never measured before the study in these individuals; therefore, there is no record of the size of these parameters in these same individuals during early childhood.
The problem with this is that there was no baseline with which to compare the results. In the paper, the Karolinska team says that the brain continues to mature after puberty, especially in boys, which means that social and/or environmental factors may influence it.
How can it be decided then if the person’s brain changed due to their behavior or if their behavior was caused by the change in the brain without such a baseline? In other words, was the homosexuality caused by the difference in brain size and neural connections or were these differences caused by the homosexuality?
Dr. Whitehead said, "The brain, even as an adult, changes in response to experience. Thus, it was shown in an article published in Nature a few years ago, that a 3-month training in juggling produced measurable micro-structural changes in adult brains, and this could also be reversed."
"In other words, there is definite evidence that experience changes the structure and function of the brain."
Dr. Mamdouh El-Adl, a consultant psychiatrist in the U.K,with a special interest in psychosexual disorders, agrees. "The [study] findings do not put anyone in a position to conclude that these observed differences are unlikely to be directly affected by learned patterns and behavior," he told IOL.
"In my opinion, for drawing such a conclusion, there is a need to follow up a cohort of subjects since birth, expose them to the same environmental factors, and conduct the appropriate serial tests."
Whitehead said that the argument (i.e. that people are born with either SSA-type or OSA-type brains that do not change regardless of subsequent life experiences) is a very hypothetical one.
"Proving this would require doing brain scans on many thousand newborns and following them for 25 years in the hope of correlating birth structures with later sexual activity. The theory is inherently unlikely and experimentally a nightmare."
Good vs. Bad Science Journalism
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"The best evidence is that these differences arose through learning and experience, not innateness."
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Another problem with the interpretation of the results by the media is the fact that the scientists in the study say that they measured the size of the brain halves as a whole. As each brain half is made up of many different regions, each with a different function, it is of major importance in a study like this to find out which of these regions was causing the increase in size.
This would demonstrate whether the enlarged regions in the right half of the brains of the homosexual women were in fact the same regions, with the same function, as those that were enlarged in the right half of the brain of the heterosexual men.
As this is unknown, it is quite possible that the enlarged regions may be completely different with possibly opposing functions. This would lead to a completely different interpretation of the results obtained by the study.
"The best we can say about the Swedish study is that it may have shown differences in gay and straight [person's] brains, but the best evidence is that these differences arose through learning and experience, not innateness," concluded Dr. Whitehead.
"The authors kindly highlighted the points for and against the neurobiology of sexual orientation and made it very clear that their study does not allow narrowing the potential explanations or drawing a conclusion," explained Dr. Al-Edl, who is also a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
"However, the media picked up the study as a definite answer to the neurobiology of homosexuality and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, this has caused more confusion among the public, particularly among those who are unsure about their sexual orientation and preference."
"Those people are likely to be influenced by the media and its style of presenting the news rather than appreciating that these are initial non-conclusive results of a small research project published in a scientific journal," he continued.
In the book, A Field Guide for Science Writers, Shannon Brownlee, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, asks science journalists, "Are we supposed to simply cover the medical news: the new findings, the 'breakthroughs' that appear in medical journals?"
"Or are we supposed to serve as critics of medicine, uncovering corruption and wrongdoing like our colleagues who cover politics, the military, and business?"
This question has to be asked of science journalism when covering homosexuality as well. Has science journalism lost its perspective? Is the new trend to just go with the flow?
Have gay rights movements become so influential that science journalists and scientists alike are afraid to criticize anything that might brand them as being homophobic, which has become the politically incorrect thing to be?
Sources:
Blum, Deborah. “A Field Guide for Science Writers, second edition.” Oxford University Press. 2005.
"Scans See 'Gay Brain Differences' ." BBC News. 16 June 2008. Accessed 27 July 2008.
Savic, Ivanka and Lindstrom, Per. “PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105.27 (2008): 9403-8.
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