Chapter 1
BY M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D.
THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE SEX PROBLEM IN SOCIETY
CHAPTER
I. THE PROBLEM DEFINED
What is sex? A sexual and mixed reproduction. Origin of sexual reproduction. Advantage of sex in chance of survival. Germ and body cells. Limitations of biology in social problems. Sex always present in higher animals. Sex in mammals--the problem in the human species. Application of the laboratory method.
II. SEX IN TERMS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS
Continuity of germ plasm. The sex chromosome. The internal secretions and the sex complex. The male and the female type of body. How removal of sex glands affects body type. Sex determination. Share of the egg and sperm in inheritance. The nature of sex--sexual selection of little importance. The four main types of secretory systems. Sex and sex instincts of rats modified by surgery. Dual basis for sex. Opposite sex basis in every individual. The Free-Martin cattle. Partial reversal of sex in human species.
III. SEX AND SEX DIFFERENCES AS QUANTITATIVE
Intersexes in moths. Bird intersexes. Higher metabolism of males. Quantitative difference between sex factors. Old ideas of intersexuality. Modern surgery and human intersexes. Quantitative theory a Mendelian explanation. Peculiar complication in the case of man. Chemical life-cycles of the sexes. Functional-reproductive period and the sex problem. Relative significance of physiological sex differences.
IV. SEX SPECIALIZATION AND GROUP SURVIVAL
Adaptation and specialization. Reproduction a group--not an individual problem. Conflict between specialization and adaptation. Intelligence makes for economy in adjustment to environment. Reproduction, not production, the chief factor in the sex problem.
V. RACIAL DEGENERATION AND THE NECESSITY FOR RATIONALIZATION OF THE MORES
Racial decay in modern society. Purely "moral" control dysgenic in civilized society. New machinery for social control. Mistaken notion that reproduction is an individual problem. Economic and other factors in the group problem of reproduction.