Kinsey's Enthusiasm

Alfred Kinsey is famous of course in the field of human sexuality (the "Kinsey" scale), but before this, Kinsey was known as an entomologist.

Kinsey studied large numbers, in order to see the pattern of nature displayed on the bell curve.  The moral here, the moral of the story of nature and natural distribution and large numbers, is that in a continuum of expression, everyone has a place.

Kinsey's specialty at first was gall wasps.  And then, he branched out.   "Men," Kinsey declared, "are just bigger, more complicated gall wasps."

Gall wasps are incredible little creatures.  It had been thought that gall wasps were two different species.  It turned out gall wasps have two distinct life cycles, which alternate expression.  The genetic code takes turns expressing itself as two very different life forms.  In a word, they are bimorphous.

One form is a relatively large grub-like creature, who lives a solitary existence at home inside a plant.  This solitary creature lays eggs, clones itself actually, in a process called parthenogenesis.

These eggs hatch into minuscule wasps.  The little wasps are male and female.  They fly around and mate with each other and then the female wasps deposit eggs inside of plants.   These are the eggs which hatch into the solitary grub-like creature.

These life forms are each very different, in terms of life cycle, size, appearance, and means of reproduction.  It is no more likely a story than a solitary cat being able to clone itself, and give birth to puppies.  Flying dogs, yes, that's the story.  The cat gives birth to male and female flying dogs, who reproduce by mating, and as a result, lay eggs which hatch into giant solitary cats.   Who then lay eggs which hatch into flying puppies.

Kinsey was an enthusiastic collector in the field, although part of the attraction was the all-male trips with his graduate students.  He would supervise their daily bathing, enforce public nudity, and talk unrelentingly about sex.  Being quizzed in detail about one's masturbation habits was all in a day's work with Prok (as Professor Kinsey was called).  Yes, it was a more innocent time.

To this day, at the American Museum of Natural History gall wasps comprise the largest single collection in the entomology department.   Out of 18 million insects, more than 5 million are gall wasps collected by Kinsey.  By mapping so many, he sought to demonstrate his thesis that gall wasps evolved as they increased their range.