Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon put up a post about gender essentialism that starts by citing this post at Mixing Memory on how people’s representations of homosexuality affect their attitudes toward homosexuality. Because Chris’s post cited my two posts (initially sparked by Jessica’s post at Feministing), I came in for some criticism from Greensmile in this comment at Pandagon. As I believed these criticisms to be based on a misunderstanding of my position, I responded. Greensmile then was kind enough to read my posts and to respond that we seem to be having “the most violent agreement”, given that Greensmile has also mused on the the science on sexual orientation (in two thoughtful and detailed posts that you really should read) and has come to substantially the same conclusion I have, that “how we treat gays should not depend on what science eventually understands about that collection of behavior paterns”.
Can I tell you, before we go any further, that I really like how these new technologies make it possible for us to track down what other people are actually saying in order that we may discover where we are in agreement? When people gnash their teeth and say that cyberspace is hosting the world’s largest shouting match, this is just the sort of counter-example I like to have handy.
Anyhow, I do think there is one smallish point of disagreement between me and Greensmile that ought to be noted. But then, I want to turn my attention to a larger issue Greensmile raises in another comment at Pandagon:
Research is not conducted in public. And in fact, publicly funded research can be jeopardized by dimwitted popular misconceptions about the subject of the research…ultimately to the disservice of all. So discussion of research in public may be a matter where discretion is advised. Chris commented that to do otherwise is naive. That may be so. But as this little tempest of unrecognized agreeing has demonstrated, discussion travels far and fast nowdays. So I stick by my guns: scientists and people who follow and defend that way of knowing the world are going to have to deal with toxic idiocy anyway, lets just get good at it as well as, or instead of, trying to avoid it. As I commented back to Chris:
“naive”: Thats me all right. But I do not go back and forth much: dissemination of ideas is virtually impossible to control in this day and age…unless you can make it sound boring [which was Jessica Vallenti’s original faux pas: she sensationalized a routine scientific paper] If senationalism and instant dissemination are here to stay, then we just have to keep learning and calmly explaining what we have learned…and calmly refuting from our facts the distortions others reach from their assumptions and fears.
To boil down the larger issue to a question: What is the best way for scientists (and others) to talk about scientific ideas and findings with non-scientists?