Customer Reviews

The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior

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I very much enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot from it both about the way in which these particular researchers are going about their work and about genetics in general.

Hamer is the Chief of the Section on Gene Structure and Regulation in the Department of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute. This book describes in lay terms the work that led to the publication of the scientific paper entitled "A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation". The goal of the study was to determine whether male sexual orientation was "genetically influenced" and what they found was "a statistically significant correlation between the inheritance of genetic markers on chromosomal region Xq28 and sexual orientation in a selected group of homosexual males." The statistical significance was strong: the odds of the correlation happening by chance was only 1 out of 100,000.

Before they started looking at genes, Hamer and his group considered the family histories of the pairs of gay brothers who he used in his study. The researchers found more gay men on the maternal side and eventually realized that this was due to recessive X-linked inheritance. "X-linked traits always are passed to men through the mother's side of the family, which is the pattern we were seeing for homosexuality."

The book carefully explains how the research was done and what conclusions could and could not be drawn from it. They did not find a gay gene; they only showed that one exists. It does not "determine" homosexuality; it is only one factor in the makeup of those gay men who inherited it. There may be other genes that play a role and there are surely many environmental factors that influence the expression of homosexuality. Some of the evidence from Hamer's study "suggests that Xq28 plays some role in about 5 to 30 percent of gay men."

The book closes with a chapter on the social implications of this research. There is also an interesting chapter addressing the question "How could a gay gene survive consistent with the facts of evolution?"

Dean Hamer, the scientist, and Peter Copeland, the writer have produced an informative entre to the complex world of the genome for the general reader. They've done the job in a very interesting but measured manner. While the book is dated, it is not outdated.

A really good piece of scientific writing that is not only good, well researched science, but is also well written. Dean Hamer has proved something that I'd already known since I was knee high to a grasshopper, but its good to see proof for those who dont already know this from personal experience.

Hamer's findings are neither as groundbreaking nor as scientifically faultless as he wanted them to be. In fact, most of his results seem to be misinterpretations. A much better book about this topic is "Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene" by Robert Alan Brookey.