Science under attack

Activists are now asking scientistst to put a stop to some biology research. Previously, science has identified many hormones and their role in controlling or regulating human biology. In addition to controlling hunger (ghrelin), growth (GHRH), and happiness (serotonin), hormones such as testosterone and estrogen control sexual behaviors. However, now researchers at Oregon State University have identified hormones that control, at least in rams, homosexual vs. heterosexual behavior. Some think that science has gone too far:

Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

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Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: “These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.”

He said that the techniques being developed in sheep could in future allow parents to “play God”.