Posted on 07/12/2006 2:07:22 PM PDT by carlo3b
No scientific basis for 'born gay' theory By David Clarke PrudenAlthough the simple "born gay" theory has faded from the science scene, activists continue to misrepresent scientific findings. When you assert that individuals are born gay and cannot change, people naturally jump to the conclusion that same-sex marriage is the only rational choice for same-sex attracted individuals.
However, the innate-immutable theory of homosexuality has no basis in science. The simplistic biological theory has been dismissed by all of the researchers whose studies have been cited to support the notion that homosexuality is so deeply compelled by biology that it cannot change.
Let's examine the words of just one of those often incorrectly cited as providing evidence for a "gay gene." Simon LeVay notes, "It is important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men were born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work."
A new research study by a University of Illinois team, which has screened the entire human genome, reported that there is no one gay gene. Writing in the journal Human Genetics, lead researcher Dr. Brian Mustanski noted that environmental factors were also likely to be involved.
Of the innate-immutable argument, Dr. Richard C. Friedman and Dr. Jennifer Downey, noted, "At clinical conferences one often hears . . . that homosexual orientation is fixed and unmodifiable. Neither assertion is true . . . The assertion that homosexuality is genetic is so reductionistic that it must be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology."
And the fluidity of homosexual attractions is well-established. Dr. Ellen Schecter of the Fielding Institute studied women who had self-identified as lesbian for more than 10 years and who after age 30 were now in intimate relationships with men lasting a year or longer.
Even more prominent was the research by Robert Spitzer, the very psychiatrist who led the charge to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual. His study of 200 gay men and lesbian women who had undergone re-orientation therapy concluded: 44 percent of the women and 66 percent of the men had arrived at what he called "good heterosexual functioning" and 89 percent of the men and 95 percent of the women reported that they were bothered slightly or not at all by unwanted homosexual feelings.
Mainstream gay-affirming publications like The Advocate are changing their terminology to embrace the concept of fluid sexual attractions. Matt Foreman, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, summarizes what the gay movement has done.
"We as a movement can take pride that we opened the door for young people to be much more fluid about sexuality, gender, gender roles, orientation and sexual behavior than any other generation in history. That's what the gay movement has contributed to society, and that's a tremendously good thing."
But is it? If the innate-immutable theory of homosexuality has no basis in science then why do so many activists still insist that individuals are born gay and cannot change? LeVay provided the answer. He notes " . . . people who think that gays and lesbians are born that way are more likely to support gay rights."
This is not to say that anyone chooses homosexual attractions nor do most of us choose many of the other challenges we face in life, but we do choose how we respond.
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David Clarke Pruden is the executive director of Evergreen International, a nonprofit Latter-Day Saint organization that provides resources and educational services for same-sex attracted members.
Studying homos hasn't been on my to do list and I have no time, or desire to research it. As I mentioned in the last post, I could call a couple practicing docs and ask. I know they're busy though and I'd be annoying them. Bailey's paper is quite clear about the matter. The table shows that a physical cause is heritable, even though the variance is high.
"You appear to be saying you believe significantly heritable implies homosexuality is inherited."
The term significance has a quantitative and semi-quantitative meaning in statistics. That is how I use the term and that's how it's used in the paper. In short, it means that some estimation of a statistic for a data set is different than some other statistic for another data set.
As far as pinpointing when a the heritable cause becomes overwhelming, or IOWs giving a size ratio for "born gay" over the size of "born less than half gay + pleasure", I only have a qualitative notion that it's less than half in the US. In my comments above I noted one of your docs spoke to a class and he said, "there are gays in this class." I noted the class size must be greater than 300 from the data given in table 1. Note the occurrance of gay in any population of twins is on the order of 0.3%. Since there is no reason to expect twins are more likely to be gay, that's what I think the prevalence of gay in the gen. pop. is. The rest are pleasure seekers and not really gay.
Would you agree that homosexuality is heritable but it is not inherited?
No. As per #201, heritable means capable of being inherited.
Yes it does. And inherited means passed/determined directly by genes. Because something is heritable does not mean it's inherited, which is what I talking about earlier when I mentioned linkages and associations.
Yes it does; heritable means there's a genetic material foundation.
"which is what I talking about earlier when I mentioned linkages and associations."
There's a single variable here and it's sexual orientaiton, early childhood in particular. Linkages and associations are not involved here. They're treated as covariant environmental factors elsewhere. It's obviously a complex phenotype that appears as a range, not an either or. It's also quite recessive. The Bailey paper mentions the occurance of gay tends to run in families also.
I think it needs to be repeated, that this only applies to those that are born gay. As I previously noted there's a range of strength to this sexual orientation phenotype and pleasure motivations become more prominent as the strength of the natural gay decreases.
heritable means capable of being inherited
I believe that's a standard definition. You've also said:
heritable means there's a genetic material foundation
That makes sense, but because something is heritable does not mean it is inherited. Rather, it's capable of being inherited. So homosexuality can be heritable without being inherited.
That's playing with words. #206 explains the situation in a simple summary. The results given in the Bailey paper show inheritance.
That's playing with words.
No, it's not. You said yourself heritable means capable of being inherited.
Well if it's capable of being inherited, it will be. Since table 1 shows clear inheritance of the trait, the trait was called heritable.
That's an interesting usage of capable.
The phenotype was present afterall.
I'm inclined to think there are combinations of genetics and chemical states in the womb that give rise to a variety of ways that persons "become" - of which homosexual is one. There's no particular reason for Darwinian evolution to quickly weed out combinations that happen 2% of the time when virtually the same DNA also produce 98% people who turn out hetero.
I don't think we should be in a terrible hurry to figure these things out. Look what happened with eugenics - disaster. I doubt there is anything preventive that should be done, culturally or any other way. Let people be how they are.
However, don't change the institution of marriage as an accomodation to homosexuality!
Phenotype or not, because something is heritable doesn't mean it's inherited.
The phenotype is present. Table 1 clearly shows statistically significant INHERITANCE! As I pointed out, the probability in MZ twins is that if one homo is found, the probability the other male is gay also is 0.2. It's directly comparable to the 0, 0.03, 1, 6, 10%s found in the other groups. That's why the abstract says, "...childhood gender nonconformity was significantly heritable for both men and women." Their's a genetic material/mechanistic fundamental foundation here. It's a physical reality!
Twisting words will get you know where. The only way to get the conclusion you want and so desperately desire, is to show 20% is the same as 0-10%.
Amazing! The only way to show something is heritable, is to show it's inherited! It's simple logic.
Good points, though I suspect there are environmental factors that combine with genetic inclinations to produce homosexuality, and if we could identify at least some of those factors, we could reduce the incidence.
I'm not the one twisting words.
Dr. Jeffery Satinover, an expert in the field and author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, also wrote The Gay Gene? which you may find helpful.
At the above link you'll read where Satinover states science is being obstructed from identifying environmental factors, traits, etc, due to the politics surrounding homosexuality.
You sure are! Posts #215,216 show how you are. You have an agenda to push which holds a conclusion that doesn't fit the scientific facts of the matter. That rubbish conclusion is all you're interested in, not the truth of the matter.
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