XRoads

Wow...

I just finished watching a really touching, eye-opening, and rather disturbing documentary on SBS, entitled Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis.

The documentary examined the highly-controversial experiment on nature vs. nurture, conducted by renowned sexologist Dr. John Money, in which a young boy who lost his penis in a botched circumcision was raised as a girl to test the hypothesis that nurture, not nature, influenced gender perceptions. The experiment unfortunately went tragically wrong, with the subject eventually committing suicide after years of depression.

I'm actually quite shocked that despite the subject's claims that he and his twin brother were photographed naked and against their wishes by Dr. Money during the study, Dr. Money has never been criminally investigated for what could have constituted a very serious crime (paedophilia). He even went on to become a professor in paediatrics.

In addition, Dr. Money has never been charged for research misconduct, despite leading people into believing that his experiment had been successful long after the results had indicated otherwise. Isn't this comparatively similar to the case of disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk?

All in all, I rate this documentary highly as it serves as a cautionary tale of what may happen when researchers fall in love with a beautiful theory and decide to ignore the so-called ugly facts in pursuit of personal fame and glory.