Joan Roughgarden
Created by Nylah, Claire, Nia
Biography
- Born March 13, 1946 (Jonathan Roughgarden)
- Paterson, NJ
- Changed her name to Joan Roughgarden March 13, 1998
Biography
Education
- University of Rochester - 1968
- Bachelor of Science in biology
- Bacholor of Arts in philosophy
- Harvard - 1971
- Ph.D. in biology
Education & Career
Career
- U of Massachusetts, Boston, 1970
- Assistant Professor of Biology
- Stanford University
- Department of Biology faculty member
- full professor
- 2011 - retired
Career
Books
Works
- Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
- Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist
- Theory of Population Genetics and Evolutionary Ecology: An Inrodution
- wrote and contributed to several other books
Research
Problem
- She was at a pride event in San Francisco and saw all of the lgbtq+ members and decided that the sexuality spectrum couldn't just be an "accident" by humans
- there must be a biological/natural reason behind sexual diversity
- Studied Charles Darwin's Sexual Selection theory
- Also theistic evolution and evolutionary biology
Evolution's Rainbow
- Book criticising Darwin's sexual selection theory
- Darwin's theory assumes that humans are the only species where homosexuality is evident
- there are species of "gay" lizards and sheep
- Felt that his theory could not explain homosexuality in over 450 species
- challenged Darwin's idea of gender and gender roles and behaviors in mating
- cites numerous studies that show weaker males being accepted
- Homosexuality also helps form community for some animals
- supports the idea that people cannot be divided into two categories: male or female, gay of straight
WoK
Reason - For there to be so many people identifying with genders and sexualities not explained by Darwinism, they couldn't be abnormalities, as people had been taught
WoKs
Impact/Legacy:
- Joan was among the first scientists who were transgender to question/criticize the sexual selection process.
- The WoKs she used include Reason, as she reasoned with the theory, and tried to understand before she criticized.
- Joan criticized based on the knowledge she got from seeing examples that conflicted with Darwins theory which is in a sense intuition.
Real World
Awards because of discovery:
- Even though Joan was highly criticized by the scientific community she recieved several awards because of her discovery.
- She recieved the Stonewall Book award for her book on the critism.
Sources
- https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Nudging-Darwin-over-the-rainbow-Nature-is-2745666.php
- http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/17/science/scientist-work-joan-roughgarden-theorist-with-personal-experience-divide-between.html
- https://zagria.blogspot.com/2014/04/joan-roughgarden-1946-evolutionary.html#.Wpg1JWhKvrc
Sources