Michigan Law Review Volume 99 Issue 6 2001 Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape Elisabeth A. Lloyd Indiana University, Bloomington Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Sexuality and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape, 99 MICH. L. REV. 1536 (2001). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol99/iss6/17 This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. SCIENCE GONE ASTRAY: EVOLUTION AND RAPE Elisabeth A. Lloyd* A NATURAL HISTORY OF RAPE: BIOLOGICAL BASES OF SEXUAL COERCION. By Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2000. Pp. xvi, 251. $28.95. It is clear where the opposition is coming from - it's coming from ideol ogy .... Most of the ideology is coming from certain feminist groups. It's not feminism, per se, that's against us. It is certain groups of feminists that are against the application of science for dealing with this problem. That is a socially very irresponsible position.1 Throughout A Natural History of Rape, coauthors Randy Thomhill2 and Craig Palmer3 resort to what is known among philoso phers of science as "The Galileo Defense," which amounts to the fol lowing claim: I am telling the Truth and doing excellent science, but because of ideology and ignorance, I am being persecuted.4 The authors have repeated and elaborated upon this defense during the si:lablemedia flurry accompanying the book's publication in February 2000.5 * Arnold and Maxine Tanis Chair of History and Philosophy of Science and Professor of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington.