A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation

In August 1991 a neurologist announced the finding of a physiological difference between the brains of heterosexuals & homosexuals. This was science that not only challenged accepted beliefs but carried profound legal, political, & social implications. Two years later a team of geneticists reported finding a likely genetic basis for homosexuality in men. This book explores the rich & varied research that is currently being carried out in neurobiology, endocrinology, & genetics. It also considers the awesome ramifications of research that may well come to explain the origins of one of the fundamental components of our humanity.

If there is one lesson to be taken away from reading this report on "the search for the biological origins of sexual orientation," it's that science at its best is always an ongoing process. Combining profiles of the top researchers of sexual orientation with straightforward explanations of the results of their experiments in neurobiology, genetics, and other fields, Burr provides a fascinating glimpse of men and women for whom science is not the pursuit of definitive answers about the way things are, but the motivation for constant questions. He also gives them a voice to vent frustration at the ways their research has been misrepresented by non-scientists trying to fit objective data into subjective moral and ethical arguments.