Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on December 10, 2007, 04:01:59 pm
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http://www.livescience.com/animals/071209-fly-genes.html
Coupled with genes like fruitless, retained, and double-sexed, it is becoming more and more evident that homosexual attraction and drive is biologically programmed.
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Isn't that what I've been saying from day 1?
I have been vindicated!!!! :D
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Hang on a sec. You claimed that there were no naturally gay animals and that they simply looked like they were gay too IIRC.
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No.
I claimed that gay animals don't shove it in eachothers arse. And that homosexual inclination is purely biolgical/genetic and has nothing to do with choice.
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So you're saying there's a difference between the inclination and acting on the inclination?
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No.
I claimed that gay animals don't shove it in eachothers arse.
Which they do and I wonder where you got the idea that they didnt. Perhaps you ignored my post where I responded to this.
And that homosexual inclination is purely biolgical/genetic and has nothing to do with choice.
Yes it does, it shows you dont choose who you are attracted to, something I thought was pretty obvious to begin with. With this new research we can see more of the biological factors behind why homosexuality exists in nature.
You can certainly choose not to kiss someone, you can choose not have sex with someone. That was never in dispute. But the fact still remains you cant choose not to be attracted to someone. When will you guys realise that homosexuality is attraction , it ISNT SEX. A gay man wouldnt stop being gay just because he isnt ****ing other men.
Your hatred of homosexuality, your idea that homosexuality is wrong is completely religious in nature and bears no relation to reality AT ALL, which is fine, just dont try and claim it is. If you want to fight me on that you will loose as you have no facts behind you. As we saw in the last thread it came down to you thinking it was offending and hurting your god, which is fine, but thats a religious belief.
Ed
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You always have a choice, if you have the will. That's what makes you human.
And on a slightly lighter-hearted note, I keep hearing about studies regarding gay animals, but I've never seen one covering lesbian critters. I assume the studies are out there, so where are they? :p
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You always have a choice, if you have the will. That's what makes you human.
No it isnt, you can choose a lot of things but not everything. We are still in many complex ways slaves to our instincts. But simply; you cant choose not to be scared, you cant choose not to be hungry or tired and you cant choose to be hetrosexual or homosexual.
And on a slightly lighter-hearted note, I keep hearing about studies regarding gay animals, but I've never seen one covering lesbian critters. I assume the studies are out there, so where are they? :p
"Homosexual" doesnt just mean man on man, you know?
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No.
I claimed that gay animals don't shove it in eachothers arse. And that homosexual inclination is purely biolgical/genetic and has nothing to do with choice.
Sorry dude, many animal species engage in anal intercourse.
There is no such thing as homosexual inclination. There is homosexuality, a same-sex attraction, and homosexual behaviour, same-sex sexual behaviours including kissing, stroking, caressing, mutual stimulation of sexual organs, etc. And before you launch off, sexual behaviours of all kinds are exhibited in over 150 species of animals, not just humans.
You always have a choice, if you have the will. That's what makes you human.
There is a very long and drawn out argument with me citing many different genes and many different examples here that actually argues there is no such thing as free will, but I'll skip the details and give you the summary:
Your genes specify a certain range of behaviours that you are most likely to engage in from birth. These genetic combinations cause you to gravitate toward or actively seek certain environments. Environmental stimuli feed back on your genetics, altering gene expression into a further constrictive pattern which narrows the environmental and behavioural choices you make even further. It's an infinite feedback loop, essentially. While choice may be theoretically infinite, practically speaking we all are given only a very narrow set of choices which our genotype ultimately determiens at birth, and which further reinforce our gene expression and behaviours.
Free will is nonsense. Sure, I have the physical ability to go out and rob a bank tomorrow, but my personality is such that I won't. Of course, I might if it were necessary for the survival of a family member, but that's another personality-determined choice, not a matter of free will.
There's actually a good academic paper on the subject which I can track down the reference for if anyone wants to dig through it.
And on a slightly lighter-hearted note, I keep hearing about studies regarding gay animals, but I've never seen one covering lesbian critters. I assume the studies are out there, so where are they?
Gay is just lay terminology. Most academic papers study homosexual behaviour or homosexuality, and "both" sexes (we'll assume dichotomy for simplicities sake, even if it's not at all accurate) are studied. I saw a paper a few weeks back on same-sex behaviour among the females of a particular monkey species.
Fruit flies study primarily male flies because females don't really have much of a sexual drive, and the genes that control homosexual behaviour have specifically active variants in males. It's only male persistence that actually allows Drosophila species to reproduce =) That said, there are a couple Drosophila mutations that cause the females to get rather frisky and start acting like males, which can be good for a laugh if you're a fly geneticist (and for the record, I'm not).
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Free will is nonsense. Sure, I have the physical ability to go out and rob a bank tomorrow, but my personality is such that I won't. Of course, I might if it were necessary for the survival of a family member, but that's another personality-determined choice, not a matter of free will.
There's actually a good academic paper on the subject which I can track down the reference for if anyone wants to dig through it.
Its not a pretty thought and you will probably confuse people by arguing this. When I came to realise that free will may, may just be an illusion I realised that no matter what you have to go on with life as it it were. Society cannot function when people cannot be held accountable for their actions, and it really is a depressing thought to think we have no control over out destinys and might make you give up and not bother trying.
Its a bit irrelevant to argue this though, we cant not feel hungry for a burger if we are. We can choose not to eat the burger, if we are strong enough to resist it, but we cant resist wanting to eat the burger. Thats how I look at this situation.
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Ive been talking about Bonobo monkeys for years. they freely engage in male-male, female-female and even adult-child sex.
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Free will is nonsense. Sure, I have the physical ability to go out and rob a bank tomorrow, but my personality is such that I won't. Of course, I might if it were necessary for the survival of a family member, but that's another personality-determined choice, not a matter of free will.
There's actually a good academic paper on the subject which I can track down the reference for if anyone wants to dig through it.
Its not a pretty thought and you will probably confuse people by arguing this. When I came to realise that free will may, may just be an illusion I realised that no matter what you have to go on with life as it it were. Society cannot function when people cannot be held accountable for their actions, and it really is a depressing thought to think we have no control over out destinys and might make you give up and not bother trying.
Its a bit irrelevant to argue this though, we cant not feel hungry for a burger if we are. We can choose not to eat the burger, if we are strong enough to resist it, but we cant resist wanting to eat the burger. Thats how I look at this situation.
The problem is that while free will doesn't exist, we are not entirely bound by the genetic complement we get at birth - our choices, limited as they may be by genetics, still shape our gene expression even further. Here's how I conceptualize it:
Picture a normal curve. 68% of the possibilities fall within 1 standard deviation of the median. That's what we're born with - 1 standard deviation from the median is the most likely our choices will deviate from our initial genetic options. However, once a choice is made we now take a normal curve of that original 68%... and so on down the line.
The numbers are hypothetical, because it's just an example of collective decision converging on a gene expression pattern.
At any rate, it's a lot more complex that "I was born this way and can't escape it," but ultimately that's what the argument would be reduced to in simplistic terms by people without a heavy understanding of genetics and gene-environment interactions, so it's true that it's an argument best not propagated by those who don't understand it. The social implications of the facile derivative are scary.
Ultimately, we've all developed through choices made within a framework that our genetics initially provided, and our choices in turn have shaped how we will choose again through shaping gene expression.
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Ive been talking about Bonobo monkeys for years. they freely engage in male-male, female-female and even adult-child sex.
That's the species I was thinking of.
Interesting to note that species still has prohibitions against son-mother sexual interaction though.
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Agreed, I think that's some sort of encoded genetic repulsion in most cases, interbreeding is absolutely deadly to the gene-pool in the long term.
Edit: Just wanted to add, I'm not sure how they are about Father/Daughter relationships, Bonobo society is almost Matriarchal in nature as I recall, so I suspect it would have the same taboos in place.
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Free will is no illusion. But free will is limited by the capacity of one's ignorance.
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Free will is no illusion. But free will is limited by the capacity of one's ignorance.
Come up with a valid argument against, "Every action we take is, in fact, a reaction."
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:lol: Anyone else see the ads triggered by this thread?
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Yeah, seen 'em before, I get an ad for 'Gay Parship', which I keep reading as 'Gay Parsnip', now that would take some scientific proving!
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Come up with a valid argument against, "Every action we take is, in fact, a reaction."
That everything will fall apart if we accept this as fact, therefore, regardless of the evidence, society must assume it is not?
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This makes my brain hurts....
:blah:
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:lol: Anyone else see the ads triggered by this thread?
No, I don't see them. Ad blockers own.
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This makes my brain hurts....
:blah:
It's because you can't comprehend your own system. It is a matter of perspective. One cannot observe and thus cannot analyze a system in which they affect. I call it Box Theory. Essentially there is no free will if looked from outside a box that contains the universe. But inside the universe there is free will (or the illusion thereof) because you are not aware of the choices you will make even if it could be predicted from the beginning of time that you would make them in a certain way. I don't have time to elaborate on it further, but one thing to tie it together: God can only predict the future as we comprehend it in our universe box. He/She can see everything that will happen in our universe under the condition that he does not interfere. But he does not know his actions, so he cannot know whether he will interfere and thus change the workings of the universe.
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lol god
If you look at free will with any scrutiny, you see that it's impossible. Everything that happens today is a result of something else happening before it. Everything is a reaction to a reaction.
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You always have a choice, if you have the will. That's what makes you human.
No it isnt, you can choose a lot of things but not everything. We are still in many complex ways slaves to our instincts. But simply; you cant choose not to be scared, you cant choose not to be hungry or tired and you cant choose to be hetrosexual or homosexual.
Ahh, but you can choose not to run away, not to eat, and not to sleep(for a period of time) even if those choices end in death.
We as humans have the ability to overcome our own natural traits, just because I am afraid does not mean I have to let fear control my actions, I choose not to eat when have food in front of me, and not to sleep as soon as I am tired. It is choosing that makes us men and women and choosing that sets us aside from the animals.
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But whether or not you are the sort of person who would choose that is dependant on your personality.
It's all very well saying "I have free will. I can choose to shoot myself through the head tomorrow" but it's most likely all talk. Unless you're the sort of person who would commit suicide, you won't. You'll "freely" decide that shooting yourself isn't a good idea.
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[troll]I'm going to choose to be homosexual for the day. In fact there's a nice chap sat over there right now. I might give him the eye for a bit and then buy him coffee. Take him into the storage room for a bit of bob's your uncle. I plan on being heterosexual again this evening though as my girlfriend is extremely cute.[/troll]
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If not free will then...will on parole?
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And that homosexual inclination is purely biolgical/genetic and has nothing to do with choice.
Yes it does, it shows you dont choose who you are attracted to, something I thought was pretty obvious to begin with. With this new research we can see more of the biological factors behind why homosexuality exists in nature.
You can certainly choose not to kiss someone, you can choose not have sex with someone. That was never in dispute. But the fact still remains you cant choose not to be attracted to someone. When will you guys realise that homosexuality is attraction , it ISNT SEX. A gay man wouldnt stop being gay just because he isnt ****ing other men.
Dude, why do you think I used the word inclination instead of behaviour?
Exactly for the reasons you posted - homosexual inclination (biological attraction) isn't a choice, but homosexual behaviour is.
Your hatred of homosexuality, your idea that homosexuality is wrong is completely religious in nature and bears no relation to reality AT ALL, which is fine, just dont try and claim it is. If you want to fight me on that you will loose as you have no facts behind you. As we saw in the last thread it came down to you thinking it was offending and hurting your god, which is fine, but thats a religious belief.
erm..no. I don't hate them and it really has to do little with my religion.
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Exactly for the reasons you posted - homosexual inclination (biological attraction) isn't a choice, but homosexual behaviour is
erm..no. I don't hate them and it really has to do little with my religion.
Ok whatever, so then would you mind explaining whats wrong with being gay without any religious arguments?
This should be entertaining, so good luck with this one!
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Dude, why do you think I used the word inclination instead of behaviour?
Exactly for the reasons you posted - homosexual inclination (biological attraction) isn't a choice, but homosexual behaviour is
Wait wait... so if someone is born biologically different from the majority, they should not engage in sexual activity and enjoyment? Is that REALLY what you're saying? Why? Because it offends a prudish society?
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There are two things that come into my mind when talking about this subject.
First, what do the homosexuals themselves say if researchers develop a medicine that can change the behavior of a homosexual person to a heterosexual person?
The second one is more Darwinistic, I'm not a biologist so I'm not really familiar with this, but what advantages could there be for any species to turn a certain amount of its population to homosexuals?
Also, I'm wandering on the dangerous zones, talking about things I have no clue of, so this time it just might be possible that I could actually be defeated in oh-so-serious-internet-debates. I have a feeling that most civilizations that have collapsed had this lack of core values that made the nations great and one of the side effects has been that due to the relaxed moral athmosphere, homosexual people have became more visible in the society. If this is true I don't have a damn clue, but that is something that I have managed to put together from some fragments of history.
And I also had the misfortune to see that commercial at the top of the page. Urgh. Gotta go throwing up. There are indeed some things that the normal man was not meant to see.
Mika
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Dude, why do you think I used the word inclination instead of behaviour?
Exactly for the reasons you posted - homosexual inclination (biological attraction) isn't a choice, but homosexual behaviour is
Wait wait... so if someone is born biologically different from the majority, they should not engage in sexual activity and enjoyment? Is that REALLY what you're saying? Why? Because it offends a prudish society?
Some people are born biologically with the inclination to be violent and hurt/kill other people. Should they give into those tendencies? Are you saying that they SHOULD because that is the way they were born? (an example, nothing more. I am not equating murder with the act of homosexuality)
On the topic of free will - Free will is NOT the ability to control the consequences to your actions. Free will is merely the ability to make a choice.
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Some people are born biologically with the inclination to be violent and hurt/kill other people. Should they give into those tendencies? Are you saying that they SHOULD because that is the way they were born? (an example, nothing more. I am not equating murder with the act of homosexuality)
Lets use a more appropriate example shall we?
How about paedophiles. What if they also cant control being attracted to children? Which I think is probably true, and for the sake of arguments lets assume it is. The reason why they should NOT have sex with kids is because paedophilia hurts and destroys the lives of children. Its societys responsibility to stop them from from hurting people. Homosexuality is NOT hurting anyone and thats the difference.
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Some people are born biologically with the inclination to be violent and hurt/kill other people. Should they give into those tendencies? Are you saying that they SHOULD because that is the way they were born? (an example, nothing more. I am not equating murder with the act of homosexuality)
Lets use a more appropriate example shall we?
How about paedophiles. What if they also cant control being attracted to children? Which I think is probably true, and for the sake of arguments lets assume it is. The reason why they should NOT have sex with kids is because paedophilia hurts and destroys the lives of children. Its societys responsibility to stop them from from hurting people. Homosexuality is NOT hurting anyone and thats the difference.
Well, that would be a different argument now, wouldn't it?
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But whether or not you are the sort of person who would choose that is dependant on your personality.
It's all very well saying "I have free will. I can choose to shoot myself through the head tomorrow" but it's most likely all talk. Unless you're the sort of person who would commit suicide, you won't. You'll "freely" decide that shooting yourself isn't a good idea.
Ye Gods...we make hunderds of choices each day....ranging from important ones to trivial ones.. But they are in fact choices.
Ok whatever, so then would you mind explaining whats wrong with being gay without any religious arguments?
This should be entertaining, so good luck with this one!
It's a genetic fluke, and nothing to be encouraged. I don't have to explain further.. take it as you wish
Wait wait... so if someone is born biologically different from the majority, they should not engage in sexual activity and enjoyment? Is that REALLY what you're saying? Why? Because it offends a prudish society?
As far as I'm concerend they can do whatever tehy want as long as they don't shove it in my face and claim it's perfectly normal.
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Ye Gods...we make hunderds of choices each day....ranging from important ones to trivial ones.. But they are in fact choices.
Yeah, but your pattern of choicemaking, if not the discrete choices themselves, is pre-ordained.
As far as I'm concerend they can do whatever tehy want as long as they don't shove it in my face and claim it's perfectly normal.
This is something you usually hear from homophobes.
1. It IS perfectly normal. Fully between 1/15 and 1/10 humans are not heterosexual. Nevermind heterosexuals that engage in homosexual activites. Go look up the Kinsey Report and educate yourself.
2. "Shoving it in your face" - I'm never met a homosexual that shoved it in my face; most don't go around announcing it. Of those that do make it painfully obvious, they are no different from the heterosexual couple I frequently see on the bus who like to try to eat each other's faces. Good taste and courtesy isn't divided along lines of sexual identitiy. Not to mention, those people who go all out in public displays of affection are relatively rare, and the level of affection acceptable in public is socially constructed for the social norms of a particular society at a particular point in history.
Out of curiosity, are you friends with any self-identified homosexuals, or are you just judging based on media representations and popular rhetoric?
People are people, regardless of who they choose to ****.
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Yeah, but your pattern of choicemaking, if not the discrete choices themselves, is pre-ordained.
Sez you. I've seen nothing that even hints at that.
This is something you usually hear from homophobes.
You must be confusing me with someone who actually cares what you think of me.
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I think all this arguing about free will, while it might be relevant somewhat to the biological vs psychological aspect, is kind of stupid because that's very well something you could get in argument over. Yes, that's happened, right here on HLP, and it didn't get anywhere then either. :p
But mostly I dropped in when I saw this:
You must be confusing me with someone who actually cares what you think of me.
If you're going to express your personal views on a forum, expect people to disagree with them. Don't turn this into an attack on your self-esteem when all people are saying is that you seem biased against homosexuals, and your reasons aren't justified.
Really, if you are biased against homosexuals or believe that they're somehow 'different' from everybody else, you're putting yourself in a poor position to be able to judge them. As a general rule, people don't like to hang out with other people that make them feel isolated or like they're simply being put up with.
I think my favorite story comes from a speaker in a psych class that I took. He constantly dated girls through high school, but never really felt like it was working out. He eventually met a guy several hours drive away, but kept on telling all his friends that he was seeing a girl. Finally, he decided to come out of the closet and called his best friend and told him "You know Julie?" "Yeah." "Julie...is actually Chris." Then silence. Then finally, "Dude, I think you just totally changed my opinion on gay people."
People who talk on cell phones in the theater annoy me a lot more than two men or women holding hands in public.
Of all the gay people I've known in person, I've only known two who were really flamboyant about it, and both were just as quick to use it as a joke.
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Sez you. I've seen nothing that even hints at that.
Hardly surprising since you've shown no evidence that you actually read academic journals or follow complex biology.
There's a great deal of evidence for it from model organisms, and an accumulating body of research supporting that hypothesis for humans as well. As I usually say in response to your posts: look it up, educate yourself.
You must be confusing me with someone who actually cares what you think of me.
I was making an observation based on what you've said so far. If you're not homophobic (and I merely stated that you were echoing a viewpoint they espouse, I didn't say you were) you certainly have a mindset similar to their usual rhetoric. You can feel free to elaborate, or not, at your discretion.
At any rate, thus far all we've seen out of you is a lot of personal opinion and precious little in the way of supported fact (looking back, the only supported fact you've dreged up is the biological connection to homosexual attraction; the rest of your comments are pure erroneous speculation at best and willfull ignorance at worst).
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ok, so, trashman does not like homosexuals, or, pardon, "homosexual behavior". ok, well then, ignoring the obvius question of 'why?', given how we have identified that there is a genetic link then why should you not want people to express this trait? think about it in the long run. if there is no penalty for homosexuality then people with the inclination will more often then not express it, yes? now given that this behavior/personality trait is incompatible with, or at the least a hinderence to, sexual reproduction, in the long run fewer people with the "gay gene" will be having children and thus fewer still being born.
so, as ironically paradoxical as it sounds, the most effective way to rid the earth of this trait you dislike for whatever reason is in fact to be as supportive as you can to people who feel it.
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The second one is more Darwinistic, I'm not a biologist so I'm not really familiar with this, but what advantages could there be for any species to turn a certain amount of its population to homosexuals?
Darwinistic discussions are always interesting if you take it at a strictly academic level which I hope remains in this thread.
I have read it postulated that homosexual behavior is an "advantage" because a certain proportion of the society is "less inclined" to breed offspring and therefore keeps the population levels in check. I don't remember all of the rationale but on some levels that could make sense. Its probably far more complicated than that and as I said thats a strictly academic view of things.
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I'm quoting two separate posts because the reply applies to both:
now given that this behavior/personality trait is incompatible with, or at the least a hinderence to, sexual reproduction, in the long run fewer people with the "gay gene" will be having children and thus fewer still being born.
I have read it postulated that homosexual behavior is an "advantage" because a certain proportion of the society is "less inclined" to breed offspring and therefore keeps the population levels in check. I don't remember all of the rationale but on some levels that could make sense. Its probably far more complicated than that and as I said thats a strictly academic view of things.
Homosexuality persists mainly because it is not subject to strict Mendelian inheritance patterns. For those of you who have forgotten high school biology, that means that homosexuality is NOT a single-gene phenomenon, and it is NOT confined to autosomes (everything but X and Y).
Quantitaive trait locus study for homosexuality-related genes have highlighted at least 4 different chromosomes in humans, including the X chromosome. Note that these studies are thus far confined to male homosexuals only. There are multiple regions containing multiple genes on each of these chromosomes that appear to be involved.
What that means is that homosexuality is not strictly inherited. The complexity also means that normal genotypic variation and mutation during the course of reproduction will produce new mutations that result in homosexual phenotypic traits.
Homosexuality really provides no selective advantage - it's just a spontaneous condition that emerges as a result of the way sexual reproduction occurs. A certain proportion of homosexuals can be expected purely due to random chance in any given population. Resource scarcity and other explanations that bring in evolutionary arguments aren't really relevant. It's like asking why Tay Sachs disease still exists if every individual born with it dies (and we'll ignore the fact that tay Sachs is also recessive, which complicates it further) - you always have a certain number of new mutations that can produce a disorder, and you'll always have carriers that are susceptible to but not affected by a genetic condition.
Please note I'm not medicalizing homosexuality either - it's normal phenotypic variation in any population.
As an aside, from the research out there my personal theory is that homosexuality arises in humans from errors with gene silencing, particularly on the X chromosome, which directly affects neuronal development.
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'gay gene' was in quotes because I was makeing an extreme simplification to make my point clearer.
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Please note I'm not medicalizing homosexuality either - it's normal phenotypic variation in any population.
As an aside, from the research out there my personal theory is that homosexuality arises in humans from errors with gene silencing, particularly on the X chromosome, which directly affects neuronal development.
Isnt it also true that homosexuality has been linked to chemical imbalences in the womb during pregnancy? Which might also account for some cases.
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Meh...I'm not getting dragged into another debate like this. I netiher have the time nor the will. There was a time I would defend my views over the internet vigorously...but I just don't care anymore. Maby I'm just geting old.
Think of me what you wish, write about me what you wish, call me by whatever name you fancy...
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On a slightly different tangent, I've always wondered about the 'Far Right Dilemma', i.e. if it was discovered that homosexuality could be discovered before birth, but could not be reversed, where would the far right stand on abortion?
I get visions of heads exploding over that one.
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Isnt it also true that homosexuality has been linked to chemical imbalences in the womb during pregnancy? Which might also account for some cases.
I don't think so.
What you're probably thinking of is gender identity. The type of brain that develops in a fetus (be it male, or female) depends on the hormones its exposed to... androgens or estrogens. It is possible for a female brain to accidentally be exposed to androgens, and vice versa. It is also possible that while the brain is exposed to the right hormones, the rest of the body isn't. The end result is sexual characteristics that do not agree with either (1) genotype (e.g. XX males, XY females), or (2) personality.
Transsexuality is a developmental condition where you get a brain that is sexually opposite in identity from the body, for whatever reason. It happens surprisingly often. It's also in part due to there being no male or female threshold - we don't really have two sexes, but rather variation between two sex extremes, so we develop on a sex continuum rather than a dichotomy.
What's interesting is that sexual orientation is not linked to sexual identity - you get female-to-male transsexuals that are still attracted to men. You also get female-to-male transsexuals that are attracted to women. The same holds true for male-to-female.
While all that is very interesting from an inquisitive biological point of view, the end result is that everyone has a different personal sexual identity and different personal sexuals attractions. So long as it doesn't actually harm anyone, who am I to tell someone who they can do what with?
Of course, the minute you throw moral dogma courtesy of religion into the mix, some people start making claims that its unnatural, but the fact of the matter is its perfectly natural and perfectly normal, and its been with us since mammals evolved, possibly even before.
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Oddly enough, even the Fox News site states that several animals engage in homosexuality, and they, I would have thought, would have been loathe to admit something like that....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316316,00.html
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On a slightly different tangent, I've always wondered about the 'Far Right Dilemma', i.e. if it was discovered that homosexuality could be discovered before birth, but could not be reversed, where would the far right stand on abortion?
I get visions of heads exploding over that one.
I think that the far right would still disallow abortion. You see, they don't actually advocate killing gays, they just want gays to have sex with women.
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This is something you usually hear from homophobes.
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usually they say "Stay away from me you homo"
or "Im going to f****** stab you"
or "IF YOU HUG ME AGAIN IM GOING TO KILL YOU"
but hey, everyone has a different experience, right?
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This is something you usually hear from homophobes.
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usually they say "Stay away from me you homo"
or "Im going to f****** stab you"
or "IF YOU HUG ME AGAIN IM GOING TO KILL YOU"
but hey, everyone has a different experience, right?
Hay! Those are things I say on a day-to-day basis!
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That's what alcoholics refer to as "A moment of clarity"
Make of it what you will. :p
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There are indications from some statistical studies that alcoholism is genetic. Just because there is a genetic tendency does not mean it is not a choice.
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There are indications from some statistical studies that alcoholism is genetic. Just because there is a genetic tendency does not mean it is not a choice.
Yes it is, its the very opposite of choice. You dont choose to be genetically predisposed to getting hooked on alcohol. You can choose not to let yourself get hooked in alcohol by not drinking, and in the same way you can choose not to have sex with someone of your own sex, but that doesnt mean you arent homosexual. People choosing to be celibate doesnt mean they arent hetrosexual either.
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On a slightly different tangent, I've always wondered about the 'Far Right Dilemma', i.e. if it was discovered that homosexuality could be discovered before birth, but could not be reversed, where would the far right stand on abortion?
I get visions of heads exploding over that one.
I think that the far right would still disallow abortion. You see, they don't actually advocate killing gays, they just want gays to have sex with women.
Good answer, though, I hope this situation never arises, I've heard vague stories about attempts to 're-educate' homosexuals in facilities, kind of brings up images of Psi-Corp for some reason.
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There are indications from some statistical studies that alcoholism is genetic. Just because there is a genetic tendency does not mean it is not a choice.
Alcoholism is a genetic predisposition to respond in certain ways to the physiological effects of alcohol. It's not a personality trait. Different proposition altogether. Alcoholism is reinforced by neural pathways - the genetic correlates of alcoholism are in brain chemistry, not behaviour. Homosexuality, by contrast, exists before reinforcement.
Substance abuse predispositions, much like certain disease predispositions, function in an entirely different way from personality traits. Substance abuse issues and degenerative conditions based on external stimuli require reinforcement to become a problem. Personality traits require no reinforcement whatsoever to develop.
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It's a genetic fluke, and nothing to be encouraged. I don't have to explain further.. take it as you wish
You said your dislike of homosexuality has little to do with your religion. So, what other reasons are there? Figures you couldnt come up with any argument against homosexuality at all.
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Regarding Darwinism and random mutations causing homosexuality, I find it a little hard to believe at the first time. Why? Because when you think about different defects (what is actually the correct word?), one might get something like toes grown together, extra fingers, the eyes with different colors, intestines being flipped horizontally (mirror image) and things like these. But they are relatively rare on grand scale. If the reason for homosexuality is a misread gene, why is it so sensitive (10% of population being homosexuals?), while other genes are not?
According to my understanding, most of animals have their sexual organs quite well protected and all animals go to extreme lengths to reproduce. It seems quite strange to have a mutation in the most important thing of the species, namely reproduction, while other bodily functions are genetically cross-checked.
If the percentage is lower, say 2-3 %, then I might believe mutation as a explanation.
Mika
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Regarding Darwinism and random mutations causing homosexuality, I find it a little hard to believe at the first time. Why? Because when you think about different defects (what is actually the correct word?), one might get something like toes grown together, extra fingers, the eyes with different colors, intestines being flipped horizontally (mirror image) and things like these. But they are relatively rare on grand scale. If the reason for homosexuality is a misread gene, why is it so sensitive (10% of population being homosexuals?), while other genes are not?
First off, everything you listed there except eye colour isn't caused by genetic mutation, it's caused by developmental defects - in essence, gene expression goes awry in particular tissues during development resulting in the visual effects we see. It's not heritable.
According to my understanding, most of animals have their sexual organs quite well protected and all animals go to extreme lengths to reproduce. It seems quite strange to have a mutation in the most important thing of the species, namely reproduction, while other bodily functions are genetically cross-checked.
If the percentage is lower, say 2-3 %, then I might believe mutation as a explanation.
Homosexuality isn't a result of a genetic alteration of the reproduction system - it's misdirection of the reproductive impulse. In short, your sex drive is reprogrammed to respond to a different stimulus. It's not surprising considering the plasticity of the human sex drive anyway - most people have quite a range of sexual stimuli; that range differs by individual. Some people get turned on by members of the opposite sex; some people get turned on by shoes the opposite sex wears; some get turned on by cars; still others get turned on by people of the same sex. Sexual urges aren't by any means static even psychologically.
Now, homosexuality is something that probably results from disruption of neural pathways in multiple locations; in short, someone with a normal variable genotype gets a mutational hit in a critical neural pathway and now their intepretation of sexual stimuli shifts to the other sex. It may also result from erroneous gender identification.
Consider that, biologically speaking, homosexuality is just a misdirection of a correct sexual response to a biologically incorrect sex. There are all kinds of neural pathways that could mess that system up.
Homosexuality is probably a two-hit phenomenon; meaning that you have natural carriers in the population that carry a genotype very close to that which results in homosexuality, and all it takes is a single mutation to knock the system out of whack. This happens with cancer all the time, and many immune disorders, so it's really not rare.
Any condition should result from spontaneous mutation roughly 1/100,000 times; if the condition is not mal-adaptive, it can quite easily be passed dormant through generations and spread in carrier populations before being reactivated by another mutation much later.
Homosexuals don't lose the ability to reproduce; they merely have a misdirected (biologically) sexual drive. That's not something that's going to undergo a lot of selection pressure in evolution, especially considering that it hasn't weeded out of lower taxa of mammals long before now.
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Good answer, though, I hope this situation never arises, I've heard vague stories about attempts to 're-educate' homosexuals in facilities, kind of brings up images of Psi-Corp for some reason.
Pray the gay away?
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This is something you usually hear from homophobes.
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usually they say "Stay away from me you homo"
or "Im going to f****** stab you"
or "IF YOU HUG ME AGAIN IM GOING TO KILL YOU"
but hey, everyone has a different experience, right?
Hay! Those are things I say on a day-to-day basis!
:lol: LMAO
do I work with you?
jk
Im not gay, im just secure and some homophobes think my actions are gay
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Weeee it's so nice all this money and all this time and all this research into "saving the 'gays''". Heaven forbid they do something with let's say.. cancer.
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Researchers are coming out (hah) with new findings on the relationship between mother's age and homosexuality rate.
The trend indicates that older mothers (with older eggs, i assume being the implication) are more likely to produce homosexual children.
And the thing was, after I read that, I thought of all the homosexuals I know (around 20) and I realized a vast majority of their mothers were over 35 when they were born! I suppose I'm more likely to believe this since the trend holds true for people I know at least, but I do think this is a very interesting concept for scientists to grapple with.
Oh, and a closing quote.
"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"
~Ernest Gaines
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Couse we all like gunz :lol:
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Oh, and a closing quote.
"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"
~Ernest Gaines
The line "this is my weapon, this is my gun! This is for killing this is for fun!" comes to mind.