Nature Journal Breaks Silence: Sex Differences Matter in Science
Submitted by MAGA Student
Posted 5 days ago
Breaking news: Premier scientific journal Nature acknowledges the importance of studying sex and gender differences.
Nature, one of the world's premier scientific journals, has officially denounced the "climate of fear and reticence" that is stymying research on sex and gender differences.
The journal has launched a collection of opinion articles on the topic to foster honest and courageous discussions.
Some scientists have been warned off studying sex differences by colleagues.
Others, who are already working on sex or gender-related topics, are hesitant to publish their views.
Nature's editorial introducing the series states that "neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk."
The journal argues that male-female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research.
Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist and pain researcher at McGill University, co-authored one of the articles in Nature's sex and gender series.
He told The College Fix that there is an effort underway in biological research to do away with or minimize the importance of the concept of sex and sex as a binary variable.
Mogil stated that this is problematic because sex in mammals is "either binary or it rounds to binary."
Discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would set back important advancements in how many biomedical researchers now do their work.
Mogil noted that discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would impose practical difficulties on how science is done.
He said that there are sex differences in all kinds of traits that we're interested in and where we didn't know they existed.
The reason we didn't know they existed is that until extremely recently, essentially all biology pre-clinical experiments were done with males only.
Since regulatory agencies, funding agencies, have demanded that people start using both sexes in research, lo and behold, we're finding sex differences.
We're finding that what we thought was the biology of a thing was only the biology of the thing in males and the female biology is completely different.
This is in our minds an incredible scientific advance and that advance is at risk of stopping and reverting if people start to believe dividing animals into males and females is inappropriate.
Although Mogil stated he did not know how Nature made editorial decisions regarding the selection of articles for their sex and gender collection, he said that he felt the article he and his co-authors wrote was intended to defend the status quo against those advocating either that gender is much more important than sex or that sex is more complicated than people have made it seem.
Daniel Barbash, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, was more skeptical than Mogil of Nature's sex and gender op-ed collection.
He said that he generally held a positive view of the article Mogil co-authored and appreciated that it explicitly stated "there are only two sex categories in mammals."
However, he noted that he also felt the authors of other commentaries in the series were to some extent "further conflating sex and gender."
Barbash said that he believes the series has "the potential to drive funding agencies and other agencies that are involved in the intersection between politics and research in a particular direction that I don't think would always be helpful."
He said that he feared "this series of articles could have that kind of impact in influencing policy."
In conclusion, Nature's sex and gender series is a welcome development in the scientific community.
It is important to foster honest and courageous discussions on sex and gender differences.
However, it is also important to be aware of the potential risks of conflating sex and gender.
The scientific community should be careful not to let political considerations influence research.
Sources:
thecollegefix.com
nbcnews.com
pymnts.com
Nature, one of the world's premier scientific journals, has officially denounced the "climate of fear and reticence" that is stymying research on sex and gender differences.
The journal has launched a collection of opinion articles on the topic to foster honest and courageous discussions.
Some scientists have been warned off studying sex differences by colleagues.
Others, who are already working on sex or gender-related topics, are hesitant to publish their views.
Nature's editorial introducing the series states that "neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk."
The journal argues that male-female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research.
Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist and pain researcher at McGill University, co-authored one of the articles in Nature's sex and gender series.
He told The College Fix that there is an effort underway in biological research to do away with or minimize the importance of the concept of sex and sex as a binary variable.
Mogil stated that this is problematic because sex in mammals is "either binary or it rounds to binary."
Discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would set back important advancements in how many biomedical researchers now do their work.
Mogil noted that discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would impose practical difficulties on how science is done.
He said that there are sex differences in all kinds of traits that we're interested in and where we didn't know they existed.
The reason we didn't know they existed is that until extremely recently, essentially all biology pre-clinical experiments were done with males only.
Since regulatory agencies, funding agencies, have demanded that people start using both sexes in research, lo and behold, we're finding sex differences.
We're finding that what we thought was the biology of a thing was only the biology of the thing in males and the female biology is completely different.
This is in our minds an incredible scientific advance and that advance is at risk of stopping and reverting if people start to believe dividing animals into males and females is inappropriate.
Although Mogil stated he did not know how Nature made editorial decisions regarding the selection of articles for their sex and gender collection, he said that he felt the article he and his co-authors wrote was intended to defend the status quo against those advocating either that gender is much more important than sex or that sex is more complicated than people have made it seem.
Daniel Barbash, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, was more skeptical than Mogil of Nature's sex and gender op-ed collection.
He said that he generally held a positive view of the article Mogil co-authored and appreciated that it explicitly stated "there are only two sex categories in mammals."
However, he noted that he also felt the authors of other commentaries in the series were to some extent "further conflating sex and gender."
Barbash said that he believes the series has "the potential to drive funding agencies and other agencies that are involved in the intersection between politics and research in a particular direction that I don't think would always be helpful."
He said that he feared "this series of articles could have that kind of impact in influencing policy."
In conclusion, Nature's sex and gender series is a welcome development in the scientific community.
It is important to foster honest and courageous discussions on sex and gender differences.
However, it is also important to be aware of the potential risks of conflating sex and gender.
The scientific community should be careful not to let political considerations influence research.
Sources:
thecollegefix.com
nbcnews.com
pymnts.com
