4 i Flora Unveiled
prevailed, along with its famous epicycles. It wasn’t until the fifteenth century that Copernicus
proposed the modern heliocentric model. However, Copernicus’s model lacked predictive
power because it was based on perfectly circular planetary orbits, an idea dating back to the
Greeks. Another 200 years were to pass before Johann Kepler validated the heliocentric model
by demonstrating that the orbits of the planets around the sun were actually elliptical.
Why did it take 2,000 years for the acceptance of the heliocentric model of the solar sys-
tem? Clearly, common sense combined with theological teachings posed an impenetrable
epistemological barrier that prevented even the greatest thinkers of the ancient world from
formulating the correct heliocentric model. It seems likely that a similar conceptual obsta-
cle hindered the discovery of plant sexuality and delayed the theory’s universal acceptance
long after it was proposed. We can visualize the relationship between science and culture in
the following simple diagram:
Culture ↔ Belief ↔ Perception ← RealityWhat we call “science” is actually a subset of our overall belief system, in the sense that we
believe that it is based on a correct interpretation of external reality. However, as illustrated
in the diagram, our beliefs are constantly being modified by two major influences: culture
(including religion) and perception. We learn to view the world through the lens provided
to us by our culture. However, our beliefs are capable of being modified by our perceptions,
which are derived from sensory data obtained directly or indirectly from external reality.^6
When our belief system becomes altered, it feeds back into our culture, so the relationship
between culture and belief is a dynamic one. At the same time, our perceptions can also be
influenced by our beliefs. Hence, the saying “seeing is believing” has its converse: “believing
is seeing.”
What cultural biases might have stood in the way of the discovery of sex in plants?
Before addressing this question, we first need to distinguish between two related but dis-
tinct terms: sex and gender. Sex refers to the biologically determined characteristics of
males and females; gender refers to those culturally defined qualities traditionally associated
with either of the two sexes. Despite their somewhat arbitrary nature, ideas about gender
can become such familiar items of our mental furniture that they acquire the patina of
common sense.
The association of gender and color provides a striking example. As everyone knows,
the proper colors for dressing infants and toddlers are pink for girls and blue for boys.
However, the gender color code was once the reverse of the present one. Prior to World
War I, American infants and toddlers of both sexes typically wore white frocks. There
was nothing inappropriate about dressing little boys in essentially the same outfits as little
girls, and no one worried that little boys would become effeminate as a result. According
to Dr. Jo Paoletti of the University of Maryland, who specializes in the history of textiles
and apparel, all that changed “shortly after the turn of the century ... when psychologists
suggested that gender identification was influenced by nurture as well as nature.”^7 Instead
of white frocks, boys now wore trousers and girls wore dresses, and the sexes were further
distinguished by color— pink versus blue. However, the gender/ color associations were the
opposite of what they are today: boys wore pink and girls wore blue. An article published