Origin of the Specious

Janine D'Anniballe, director of the Boulder Rape Crisis Team, says her organization's goal is to educate the public about the myths surrounding rape and about gender-role stereotypes that encourage male violence. One of those myths is that "rape is always about sex," she says. In actuality, "rape is an act of power and control, and sex is the means used." She agrees, though, that "the hardcore argument that sex has nothing to do with rape isn't completely true."

Thornhill and Palmer have their own suggestions for rape prevention. They say that young men should be educated about their inherent propensity to rape; rapists should be severely punished and chemical castration considered. (Some rape researchers feel this is ineffective, since men given these drugs have been known to still attack women.) They mull the effectiveness of chaperones, protective courtship rituals and the physical separation of boys and girls -- summer camps at opposite ends of the lake, for example. And, perhaps most controversial, they suggest that women should be warned about where they go and the dangers of dressing attractively.

Some critics charge that this last suggestion smacks of blaming the victim. "But just as often," Palmer says, "the reaction is, 'Duh, of course. You're stating the obvious.' Everyone seems to know this is true, but when you say it, you get condemned. Here's a typical reaction: 'I hate to think I have to worry about how my daughter's dressed because it might increase the chances she's raped.' But hating to think something is true doesn't mean it's not true. If we do live in that world, then probably the worst way to change it is to deny that the world is that way.

"Rape survivors often say, 'When I was raped, I was in a locked house and dressed conservatively.' We're not saying you'll only be raped if you go into dangerous situations. We're saying that things like where you go, who you're with, how you're dressed, how you behave might increase or decrease the chances. We don't actually say in the book that women should not dress a certain way. We say they should be informed about the possible consequences of their behavior. Then it's up to them."

Critics have also suggested that the book's theories about man's proclivity toward rape could be used in court to help rapists escape justice. But Palmer dismisses that possibility, citing Owen D. Jones, an Arizona State University law professor, who believes "an evolutionary defense is not a plausibility," he says.

"We state quite clearly that when a rape occurs, only one person should be punished, and that is the rapist," Palmer continues. "Regardless of the circumstances. Regardless of the relationship between the people and regardless of who's wearing what clothing and behaving in what way. We emphasize that punishment should be as severe and effective as possible."

Palmer, who is 42 years old and married with one child, became interested in the controversial field of sociobiology, which applies evolutionary theory to human behavior, while working on his doctorate in 1984. He decided to devote his dissertation to rape when a friend of a friend was raped and murdered. "In this case, I saw that the social-science explanation that rape was not sexually motivated was interfering with the prosecution of the rapist," he says, "and might even allow him to avoid punishment." He declines to give further specifics of the case.

Randy Thornhill, who had been working with scorpionflies for over two decades, and Palmer teamed up in 1996 to begin work on A Natural History of Rape.

Despite the storm of protest surrounding the book, Palmer says he has experienced nothing but support from students and fellow faculty at UCCS. "I spent half an hour having a wonderful discussion with a student who disagreed with the book and wanted to write a term paper on it," he adds.

Ever since Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson published his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975, there's been a rush to apply biological principles to all human behavior using biology and the social sciences. Proponents celebrate sociobiology as a rich and fertile new field; critics say it has resulted in an oversimplified view of human beings and has largely ignored the role of culture in shaping who we are.

The Darwin Wars are perhaps the most bitterly fought of all current academic disputes, raging in both England and America and enrolling in their ranks such heavyweight popularizers as Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene), Robert Wright (The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are) and Stephen Pinker (How the Mind Works). Most prominent on the other side is Stephen Jay Gould (Wonderful Life), whose view of Darwinism differs from that of the sociobiologists and who has lately come under vicious public and personal attack for it.

Elisabeth Lloyd, who teaches philosophy of science at the University of Indiana, questions the science in A Natural History of Rape. "These authors' claims vacillate between the trivial and the unconfirmable," she says. Their work "fails to meet nearly every requirement for a serious claim to evolutionary science."