A Harris novel it ain’t, but if you’ve been following the story about PETA vs. the Oregon State researcher, I’d like to tell you my hero in all of this:
Oregon PR guy Jim Newman, who appeared last week week on the Penn Jillette FreeFM show. You might be able to find the show as a podcast on iTunes.

The NY Times story I just linked to is good, but a bit late. A quick timeline: PETA brought it up in a PR blitz, the Sunday Times of London did a completely credulous story based on the PETA press release (in their defense, I’m sure it quoted renowned science expert Martina Navratilova and , finally, Oregon State fought back. Here’s a quick, light re-cap from the Guardian. This blogger has a good bit on it too.

If you’re a PETA advocate there’s nothing to like here, of course. Well, yes, the Oregon State study did involve the death of sheep — you do kinda need to kill them to study their brain chemistry.

But if you’re gay, a gay advocate or both, don’t worry so much. They weren’t trying to make gay humans straight.

Two points: 1) The fact that a certain percentage of sheep prefer a little ewe-on-ewe action is one more bit of evidence that “gayness” is a natural state. 2) Just because something could be “used for evil” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study it. Roselli is performing considerate peer-reviewed basic science research and I’m a firm believer that every bit of knowledge is useful.
But then, I’m a reductionist at heart.

As the NY Times points out, scientist Charles Roselli might have opened the door to the problem by stating in his 2004 paper that there might be “broader implications” to the research in understanding human sexuality. Well, duh.

First, every researcher — no matter how basic their study — includes something in their grant applications and research articles about implications for human health. It’s a little charade that’s necessary to get grant money from the NIH.

A quick note about animal research. I’m unapologetically for animal experimentation if it is done under strict guidelines. (You’d be hard pressed to find researchers in the US who do not operate under some kind of internal review board — it is a funding requirement.)

I don’t, however, support things like this. Superstitious nonsense.