Kinsey's Challenge to Ethics and Religion

Abstract

Maybe its true, but it's not good policy to broadcast detailed truth without some consideration of how people are going to use it. Such is a common reaction to Kinsey. It is not peculiar to traditionalists nor to those lacking reverence for modern science. For example, Margaret Mead, in an eloquent Appendix on Ethics of Insight Giving says: When one writes in a way that is easily accessible to all interested citizens, I believe one should put oneself in those readers' place, and not force them either to accept or to reject [or to choose which to do?] interpretations the implications of which they would not have chosen to hear had they been fully aware of them. sudden removal of a previously guaranteed reticence has left many young people singularly defenseless in just those areas where their desire to conform was protected by a lack of knowledge of the extent of non-conformity. (7) The most important aspect of the Kinsey studies is their challenge to reexamine the relation of science to