Monday 29 December 2008

A REAL Biologist

Unlike me, I'm just a gifted amateur, who's learnt a lot in a hurry, out of necessity.

That I have only mediocre knowledge in one particular and very specific area, compared to the "Real Deal" is obvious when you see the work of Dr Veronica Drantz, who I've had the pleasure of corresponding with. She's an educator too, able to explain even the most complex concepts in ways that people like me can comprehend.

Did I mention she's a really nice person too? That helps her do her job, of educating people, and her knowledge is extensive.

Her work that most interests me was the subject of a Special Presentation by her to the Center for Inquiry on November 9th. I wish I could have been there.

The presentation was entitled "Science & Sexuality", and, in her own words:
In this presentation, I answered the following questions:
  • What can science tell us about sexuality?
  • How many sexes are there?
  • What exactly is a female? A male?
  • Is intersexuality normal?
  • What is known about the biology of sexual identity?
  • What is known about the biology of sexual orientation?
Her powerpoint presentations make fascinating reading, and parallel closely - though in even more depth - the lecture by the Professor of Psychology at the ANU who invited me to guest lecture at the end.

I heartily recommend Ronnie's lecture series. It shows just how much evidence there is, and how what had been a mass of unconnected pieces is now coming together.

4 comments:

Bad hair days said...

Is there any chance, that here presentations will be available on the internet?

I recognized one more time how important it is that all the evidence gets collected somewhere when my german collection of links to press articles and studies (for wich I was inspiered by your blog) got mentioned as an evidence in a law case in germany. And I know my collection still lacks a lot of studies.

Bad hair days said...

I think I found the powepoints (via her great blog)
http://science.meetup.com/77/files/

Veronica Drantz, PhD said...

Dear Zoe,
Thanks so much for your kind remarks and for drawing attention to my PowerPoint presentation “Science & Sexuality.” It is an honor to be the subject of your blog.
I would greatly appreciate any input from you or your readers regarding these PowerPoint slides. Please understand that this presentation is a first effort, many of the slides have too much information, and most importantly a lot of what I say when speaking to an audience is not written on the slides. Nevertheless, it is important to put this information “out there.”
For the time being, my presentation “Science & Sexuality” can be found as a sequence of ten PowerPoint files at http://science.meetup.com/77/files/. I will be revising the slides as new information comes to my attention. Readers can comment about the presentation publicly on my Science and Sexuality blog http://drdrantz-sciencesexuality.blogspot.com/ or can communicate with me privately drdrantz@sbcglobal.net. I would be happy to answer questions and would appreciate feedback.

Bad hair days said...

Hello Ronnie.

What hit me with your slides was the ingorence on any in between state according to sexual oriantation and sexual identity (bisexuals, Kinsey scale, transgender, intergender)

Sarah