Ah, sweet mysteries of science

IT HAS BECOME fashionable -- at least in some quarters -- to speak of “the death of science,” the idea that we’ve already finished with the big stuff, so what’s left is just a matter of “mopping up.” In any event, I would like to make my own proclamation: Science isn’t dead. It isn’t even sick. There is a huge amount that we do not know; indeed, we don’t know all that we don’t know. Not only that, many of the things we don’t know are right under our noses.

A surprisingly rich trove of ignorance involves the bodies of women; most questions have to do with sex, but they aren’t so much sexy as connected to reproduction, in ways that modern biology is only beginning to appreciate. Call them “womanly mysteries” -- they comprise an array of perplexities that evolutionary science, combined with anatomy, physiology and who-knows-what-else, will likely begin to unravel in the years ahead.

Never mind what men don’t know; even most women are clueless about the mysteries inside their own bodies.

Take ovulation. Human females release eggs from their ovaries just like other mammals but with this odd twist: They are very secretive about it. Visit a zoo, for instance, and you will have no doubt as to when a female chimpanzee is producing eggs -- it is as clear as the bright pink enlargement on her bottom.

Female humans, in contrast, keep this crucial information very much to themselves. Indeed, it is extraordinary that such a basic biological fact as the time of maximum female fertility -- something so consequential for matters of health and reproduction -- is so difficult to ascertain. Why the deep, dark secret?

There are several possible explanations. Maybe concealed ovulation is a biological ploy to keep men around. After all, if our great-great-grandfathers didn’t know when our great-great-grandmothers were ovulating, they might have been more likely to stick close to home, thereby minimizing the likelihood that some gallivanting neighbor -- instead of themselves -- would give rise to the next generation.

Or maybe the evolutionary pressure worked in the opposite direction, and instead of generating monogamy, concealed ovulation began as a way to give prehistoric women greater flexibility in their reproductive choices. If men knew when women were ovulating, they might have guarded them closely only during those times. But since the men didn’t have clear clues as to when the women were fertile -- and couldn’t be on watch at all times -- our female ancestors might have had greater leeway to reproduce with whomever they chose.

Or maybe the evolutionary pressure to conceal ovulation is a strategy to keep such reproductively relevant information hidden from other females, especially dominant ones who might interfere with a subordinate’s reproduction. Which is correct? We simply do not know. Yet.

And even if one of these rationales is the right one, it doesn’t get close to solving this related mystery: It is one thing to conceal ovulation from others, but why are most women unable to detect their own ovulation? Again, we just don’t know.

There are plenty more unanswered questions. Why, for instance, are women typically the fancy, brightly colored individuals, while in most other species the males are thus endowed?

Or why do women experience orgasm? Could it be a way of enhancing the male-female bond? Does it facilitate fertilization? Is it a means whereby a woman’s body tells her that she is with a desirable partner? Or -- Darwin forbid! -- could it be that female orgasm isn’t “adaptive” at all?

Sometimes I think we teach science incorrectly, as a recitation of what we have learned. This misplaces the focus onto what we know. The disconcerting, alluring, exciting, frustrating truth is that there is a whole lot more that we don’t know, even when it comes to more than half the human population.