Is Deafness Just Natural Genetic Variation?
It is a fact of biology that populations vary. They are never homogeneous. Indeed, this is the very engine of evolution, a process through which natural selection (including sexual selection, which is very relevant to humans) operates on variable populations. Variation from the norm can confer unexpected or unknown advantages—vis-à-vis functioning and surviving the natural environment, including the environment of other conspecifics—on an individual or group of individuals and, thus, difference or variation need not be disadvantageous (disabling). We should be aware of this. On the human lifetime scale, however, evolution is a rather abstract consideration, and any significant disabling variation that is difficult to accommodate in the normal course of life is regarded by virtually every parent and culture as undesirable and not simply as an example of diversity and difference. Most deaf people have hearing parents, and most parents experience deafness in their child as a difficulty. E
