According to Dr. Young, love between sexual partners may have evolved from mother-child bonding, which is one reason some types of foreplay mimic nursing. Sex and breast touching may stimulate a "cocktail of ancient neuropeptides," such as oxytocin, causing us to bond with the people we bone.

Young speculates that we could one day synthesize this cocktail and slip it into people's, um, cocktails, effectively roofying them with love. Although love-drugging someone else would obviously be immoral, he says, "if you’re in a marriage and want to maintain that relationship, you might take a little booster shot yourself every now and then." But Tierney thinks he has a better idea — a love vaccine, "what humans have sought ever since Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the mast while sailing past the Sirens."

On his blog, Tierney quotes anthropologist Helen Fisher on the love-vaccine capabilities of antidepressants: "Take enough Prozac beforehand, and your emotions will be so blunted that you won’t even get into bed with anyone." But is love, as Tierney claims, the "dangerous disease" that caused "Britney Spears’ quickie Vegas wedding or any of Larry King’s seven marriages"? Or would these people have benefited more from a dumbass vaccine?

Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket To Bliss [NY Times]
A Love Vaccine? [NY Times]

Pinker adds that perhaps if science departments helped women combine family responsibility with hard science careers, they might be more likely to choose those careers. Other opponents of this application of Title IX think "[female scientists] would be marginalized if a quota system revived the old stereotype that women couldn’t compete on even terms in science," Tierney notes.

It's clear that Tierney is against using Title IX to create parity in labs. "Whether or not quotas are ever imposed, some of the most productive science and engineering departments in America are busy filling out new federal paperwork," he said. "The agencies that have been cutting financing for Fermilab and the Spirit rover on Mars are paying for investigations of a problem that may not even exist. How is this good for scientists of either sex?"

On one hand, he has a point — who cares if a man or a woman cures cancer as long as it's being cured? But Tierney's argument also has a smugness about it, since it dismisses gender concerns by belittling them.

A New Frontier for Title IX: Science [NYT]
Male Bias or Female Choice? [NYT]

Earlier: Why Women Are Opting Out Of The Hard Sciences

Tierney, that renowned expert on gender differences, suggests that men are biologically more inclined to be competitive — because, of course, it's always nature over nurture — and that sports were designed with men in mind and so, of course, women's bodies won't be suited for them. Because running and kicking and jumping, well, gosh, that's something girls are obviously biologically unsuited for because we develop hips and stuff. Also, he claims that female cross-country runners are more prone to eating disorders, not that he bothers comparing them with, say, male wrestlers or contemplates the possibility that women prone to eating/exercise disorders are attracted to an endurance sport that doesn't encourage a lot of muscle growth or anything. Oh, and of course he finds a woman anthropologist who says that playing sports isn't necessary to learn anything about life later, since

"You don't need football to learn how to succeed in school or the office. You don't surround a computer and tackle it. You need the ability to read and discuss and compromise- - the kind of skills that women were developing around the campfire while men were off fighting and chasing animals."

Oh, and by the way, Tierney says that women may exercise more after college then men, but that we don't tend to stick with team sports — and it's not because we lack the opportunity — but instead we turn to dancing which is probably safer for our weak and fragile bodies. (I guess I should go tell my sister to get off her ultimate Frisbee team and stop playing co-rec softball and I should totally tell my friend Harry's wife Gail and her teammates that co-rec football is too dangerous and, oh God, my friend Molly really needs to stop playing softball, soccer, volleyball, Frisbee and football because they're going to harm themselves and all the women like me that are concerned with injury are in dance classes. Except that I'm not, because I hurt my hip dancing ballet as a teenager as a way to avoid the competitive sports at which I suck and don't really like.

But, back to Sokolove: he and his questioners point out, rightly, that one of the causes of ACL injuries seems to be a lack of appropriately-supportive muscles in the legs of young women, many of whom don't want to have chunky legs (because, as we've all learned from coverage of Hillary Clinton, that is truly the biggest sin). Also, parents who push their kids to play sports for scholarships suck and are completely misguided; refs who allow more inappropriate violence in women's games might play a role; and pain is there for a reason and playing through it is probably bad. All of which is great, and important information, but it still doesn't add up to "feminists are ignoring injuries to women in a quest for equality," which is the connotation of statements like this one:

Advocates for women's sports have had to keep a laser focus on one thing: making sure they have equal access to high-school and college sports. It's hard to fight for equal rights while also broadcasting alarm about injuries that might suggest women are too delicate to play certain games or to play them at a high level of intensity.

The Uneven Playing Field [NY Times]
Michael Sokolove on 'The Uneven Playing Field' [NY Times]
Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics [US Department of Education]
Politically Incorrect Soccer Injuries [NY Times]