Knowing what we don’t know

Screenwriter William Goldman begins his Hollywood memoir with these memorable words: “Nobody knows anything.” He meant the uncertainty of the movie business, and it’s as true now as it was in 1983 (just ask the makers of Batman v Superman). But the application stretches to other fields, even those dedicated to knowing everything there is to know.

Science is supposed to be the land of objective reality, where all parties can come to agreement if the other side will just be reasonable. The long-running NPR program Ask Dr. Science, where (mostly) facetious questions are answered facetiously, begins and ends with the tagline, “Remember—he knows more than you do.” Funny thing, though: Objective reality doesn’t always cooperate.

Last month, The New Atlantis released an extensive study on “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” authored by Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh. Citing numerous published works, professional articles, interviews, and other studies, Mayer and McHugh came to this conclusion: We don’t know much. Among the uncertainties are: What determines sexual orientation? Why do a small percentage of Americans identify as the opposite sex? Why are mental health outcomes worse for homosexuals than heterosexuals, and why are (surgically) sex-reassigned individuals about 19 times more likely to commit suicide?

The ‘complex human experience of desire’ is fully understood by one person only, and that’s our Maker.

The answer for the last two questions seems obvious: People who feel at odds with their society are bound to have more mental health issues. But not so fast: The authors concede that “social stress” may well be a factor, but other disadvantaged groups don’t exhibit the same pathologies. “More high-quality longitudinal studies are necessary for the ‘social stress model’ to be a useful tool for understanding public health concerns.”

OK, but isn’t it true that same-sex attraction is biological? “[N]o compelling causal biological explanations” exist. Well, isn’t it true that “once gay, always gay”? “[A]s many as 80 percent of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults.” Does that mean it’s simply a choice, then? “Even if volition plays an important role in sexuality, volition itself is quite complex: many, perhaps most of our volitional choices do not seem to come in the form of discrete, conscious, or deliberate decisions.”

So what can we say for sure? “In the picture we are offering, internal factors, such as our genetic make-up, and external environmental factors, such as past experiences, are only ingredients, however important, in the complex human experience of sexual desire.”

And if that isn’t vague enough, the science of gender dysphoria (to use the current accepted term) is even murkier. This is where the authors are especially alarmed. In 1979 Dr. McHugh, then the chairman of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, discontinued sexual reassignment surgeries after becoming convinced that the procedure harmed more than it helped. Along with Mayer, he sees no scientific evidence that gender identity is an “innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex,” or that “all children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior should be encouraged to become transgender.”

Naysayers will naysay: Obviously, the good doctors are biased! Didn’t one of them come to these conclusions decades ago? Isn’t he going to find what he wants to find? Maybe—but if you’re going to make those assumptions without looking any closer, why hook arms with science at all? Just find a “study” that supports what you already think.

The ultimate issue is not who’s right but who is being hurt. Thousands of men and women who feel “oriented” to their own sex may be profoundly disoriented. A generation of children already confused about gender stand to be much more confused by the time they reach adulthood. The “complex human experience of desire” is fully understood by one person only, and that’s our Maker. “The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts” (Proverbs 20:27).

Science is not neutral territory. It’s always been a battleground, as intense as any other, where the most reasonable, least harmful approach begins with admitting what we don’t know.

Email jcheaney@wng.org