Homosexuality

[ilikeverin]

The heritability of homosexuality is probably about 50%, so it's at least partially genetic, but is also probably influenced by environment, including prenatal environment.  The opposite of "genetic" isn't "choice", though, and to say that it's a conscious choice is almost certainly untrue.  Despite this, the gaybashers have a bit of a point.  We all have a lot of things we're born with and/or predisposed to that we don't have to act on, and if it is innate that doesn't make it inherently "better" or "worse".  That's why Al's statement is probably the best so far when it comes to the question of the morality of homosexuality; no matter whether you believe homosexuality is moral or immoral, you need to be able to make the argument about its morality regardless of whether it is a choice.

Lifestyle choice.

This obsession with genetics explaining every part of our behaviour is one of the most disturbing traits of modernity.

The refusal to accept genetics explaining any part of behavior is one of the most disturbing traits of the 20th century

[ilikeverin]

Lifestyle choice.

This obsession with genetics explaining every part of our behaviour is one of the most disturbing traits of modernity.

The refusal to accept genetics explaining any part of behavior is one of the most disturbing traits of the 20th century

Really ? I honestly don't see how so.

Well, there's this, but I was mostly being facetious.  However, I do think closing your eyes and pretending that heritability doesn't exist is an outrage in the scientific community.

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It does, for ideological matters. Believing in biological determinations or in free will leads to two very different visions of humanity.
[/quote]

As Al has stated repeatedly, whether you believe any particular trait/action is innate or not should not affect your judgment of the morality of that trait/action.

I'm interested in hearing how my worldview is defective, though, especially since, politically, we seem to be on the correct side

[ilikeverin]

The predisposition to same-sex attraction is probably at least in part genetic, along with some element of socialization, any activity that could affect hormone levels, etc.

But, to act upon those attractions is not genetic at all. People also have the ability to not engage in a sex act or to enter into a certain relationship. So if we take homosexuality to be an act rather than an attraction (the word 'homosexuality' may be ambiguous in this respect, though I haven't met many celibate people who experience same-sex attraction who call themselves homosexuals so I am taking it to imply that one has engaged in said acts and is not celibate), then it must be a choice as long as we accept that we have the ability to make choices, ie. free will. If we have no free will then this is all a moot point anyway, so I'd consider "lifestyle choice" to be a more representative reflection of my view than "genetic" but that I'd rather select "Both" if I could.

Breathing and eating should also be classified as "lifestyle choices" then.

What we eat is largely a lifestyle choice, as is how much we eat.  It isn't absolute free will, but it is close.

That's actually probably untrue.  Obesity has high heritability, somewhere around .80 (higher than height, even!).  A lot of that is likely due to different food preferences which might be essentially hardwired.  I'm somewhat of a supertaster, for example, and my eating habits reflect that; consequently, I'm not overweight.  It's hard to imagine the number of taste buds on my tongue not at least partially being a product of genetics

That's not to say you can't help your weight entirely, of course.  But most people don't try to do things completely out of sync with what their body tells them.

[ilikeverin]

The predisposition to same-sex attraction is probably at least in part genetic, along with some element of socialization, any activity that could affect hormone levels, etc.

But, to act upon those attractions is not genetic at all. People also have the ability to not engage in a sex act or to enter into a certain relationship. So if we take homosexuality to be an act rather than an attraction (the word 'homosexuality' may be ambiguous in this respect, though I haven't met many celibate people who experience same-sex attraction who call themselves homosexuals so I am taking it to imply that one has engaged in said acts and is not celibate), then it must be a choice as long as we accept that we have the ability to make choices, ie. free will. If we have no free will then this is all a moot point anyway, so I'd consider "lifestyle choice" to be a more representative reflection of my view than "genetic" but that I'd rather select "Both" if I could.

Breathing and eating should also be classified as "lifestyle choices" then.

What we eat is largely a lifestyle choice, as is how much we eat.  It isn't absolute free will, but it is close.

That's actually probably untrue.  Obesity has high heritability, somewhere around .80 (higher than height, even!).  A lot of that is likely due to different food preferences which might be essentially hardwired.  I'm somewhat of a supertaster, for example, and my eating habits reflect that; consequently, I'm not overweight.  It's hard to imagine the number of taste buds on my tongue not at least partially being a product of genetics

That's not to say you can't help your weight entirely, of course.  But most people don't try to do things completely out of sync with what their body tells them.

I think it has to do with fat parents passing on their unhealthy eating habits to their kids, who become fats themselves, rather than anything genetic.

That's probably not the case; parents seem to do very little to affect obesity after early childhood according to most studies which take genetics into account (Maes, Neale, & Eaves, 1997; Wardle, Carnell, Haworth, & Plomin, 2008); you'll find very little correlation between the weight of parents and their adopted children, for example.

The predisposition to same-sex attraction is probably at least in part genetic, along with some element of socialization, any activity that could affect hormone levels, etc.

But, to act upon those attractions is not genetic at all. People also have the ability to not engage in a sex act or to enter into a certain relationship. So if we take homosexuality to be an act rather than an attraction (the word 'homosexuality' may be ambiguous in this respect, though I haven't met many celibate people who experience same-sex attraction who call themselves homosexuals so I am taking it to imply that one has engaged in said acts and is not celibate), then it must be a choice as long as we accept that we have the ability to make choices, ie. free will. If we have no free will then this is all a moot point anyway, so I'd consider "lifestyle choice" to be a more representative reflection of my view than "genetic" but that I'd rather select "Both" if I could.

Breathing and eating should also be classified as "lifestyle choices" then.

What we eat is largely a lifestyle choice, as is how much we eat.  It isn't absolute free will, but it is close.

That's actually probably untrue.  Obesity has high heritability, somewhere around .80 (higher than height, even!).  A lot of that is likely due to different food preferences which might be essentially hardwired.  I'm somewhat of a supertaster, for example, and my eating habits reflect that; consequently, I'm not overweight.  It's hard to imagine the number of taste buds on my tongue not at least partially being a product of genetics

That's not to say you can't help your weight entirely, of course.  But most people don't try to do things completely out of sync with what their body tells them.

We still choose how much to eat.

I'm not saying we can't; I'm just saying that our choices are influenced (in the case of weight, quite strongly so) by our genes.

[ilikeverin]

Anyone who claims homosexuality a choice doesn't have a brain. You can't control to what/whom you're attracted to.

Did I ever "choose" to be straight? I don't recall.

There are women walking around Africa with a plate in their lower lip.  They still manage to get laid.  Does that mean African men are genetically predisposed to dig chicks with plates in their lip?

This is why I say this poll makes no sense.  Everyone has an agenda.  Whether or not homosexuality is 100% choice or 100% genetic or something in between is a matter of scientific fact.  It is not an opinion.  And frankly the evidence is inconclusive at best.  If you know more than those of us with "no brain."  Please post the genetic sequence for this "gay" gene.

Though I appreciate your desire for more data, no one will ever find "the genetic sequence for this 'gay' gene"; for one, there's probably many more than one gene which affects sexuality, and, for two, genes are inherently way more complicated than one gene -> one trait.

[ilikeverin]

Anyone who claims homosexuality a choice doesn't have a brain. You can't control to what/whom you're attracted to.

Did I ever "choose" to be straight? I don't recall.

There are women walking around Africa with a plate in their lower lip.  They still manage to get laid.  Does that mean African men are genetically predisposed to dig chicks with plates in their lip?

This is why I say this poll makes no sense.  Everyone has an agenda.  Whether or not homosexuality is 100% choice or 100% genetic or something in between is a matter of scientific fact.  It is not an opinion.  And frankly the evidence is inconclusive at best.  If you know more than those of us with "no brain."  Please post the genetic sequence for this "gay" gene.

Though I appreciate your desire for more data, no one will ever find "the genetic sequence for this 'gay' gene"; for one, there's probably many more than one gene which affects sexuality, and, for two, genes are inherently way more complicated than one gene -> one trait.

Well then this gentleman should have a variety of genetic sequences to post to prove his point.

Of course not; we simply need studies of heritability to prove that some of differences between human in sexual orientation are genetic in nature.  There have been some, which have found mixed results, but most of which find levels of concordance between identical twins higher than those between fraternal twins (see also: the work of Richard Pillard and Michael Bailey.  they're controversial figures, for sure, and I definitely don't believe everything they've said, but they've done a lot.).  You can also see here.

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Watch your mouth

It's really in one's upbringing.

If it is purely genetic, then how can identitical twins have different sexual orientations?

Not 100% genetic does not imply 0% genetic

[ilikeverin]

Anyone who claims homosexuality a choice doesn't have a brain. You can't control to what/whom you're attracted to.

Did I ever "choose" to be straight? I don't recall.

Someone who is straight can choose not to engage in heterosexual activity, however.  That person's heterosexual preference does not to be acted upon.

Choosing not to act on your innate sexual preference doesn't remove the sexual desire.

Why do so many people seem to think that heterosexuality/homosexuality/whatever is determined by who you actually have sex with, rather than who you want to have sex with?

some people form their own identities more in terms of their actions than their desires.

TBH, what a person "identifies as" due to social and religious pressure in this respect is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

It's not irrelevant. It's central. Without identity, a concept of oneself, one cannot say "I am a heterosexual/homosexual"  Is there really an objective standard separate from that to define what someone else is or one isn't?

Not really, which is unfortunate

[ilikeverin]

Anyone who claims homosexuality a choice doesn't have a brain. You can't control to what/whom you're attracted to.

Did I ever "choose" to be straight? I don't recall.

Someone who is straight can choose not to engage in heterosexual activity, however.  That person's heterosexual preference does not to be acted upon.

Choosing not to act on your innate sexual preference doesn't remove the sexual desire.

Why do so many people seem to think that heterosexuality/homosexuality/whatever is determined by who you actually have sex with, rather than who you want to have sex with?

some people form their own identities more in terms of their actions than their desires.

TBH, what a person "identifies as" due to social and religious pressure in this respect is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

It's not irrelevant. It's central. Without identity, a concept of oneself, one cannot say "I am a heterosexual/homosexual"  Is there really an objective standard separate from that to define what someone else is or one isn't?

Yes, there is an objective standard. To whom you are attracted, which is not something that can be changed, although it can be denied. This may not be obvious to the outsider (i.e., one may be "in the closet", maybe even self-closeted), but that doesn't change the objective fact of the situation.

That's well and good, but how do you objectively measure that?  That's the real problem, and why people often use self-identification instead.

[ilikeverin]

These options are disingenuous.

AGREED!!!

It is nice, however, that we can have a civil discussion of sexuality.

Yes!  jmfcst's departure has certainly helped the tenor of discussions about teh gay, at least a bit.

[ilikeverin]

These options are disingenuous.

AGREED!!!

It is nice, however, that we can have a civil discussion of sexuality.

Yes!  jmfcst's departure has certainly helped the tenor of discussions about teh gay, at least a bit.

I don't think it is that.  Human sexually is a serious issue and we've having a serious discussion of it.

I'm not sure he would've let us had such a serious discussion

[ilikeverin]

I think, as others have noted that sexual preference could be shaped by environmental forces and it might be congenital, a trait you are born with, but not a genetic one.

One very strong argument against it being genetic is that, if it were, it would not lead to generational survival.  With some level of involvement of the opposite sex, humans cannot reproduce.  Throughout most of human history, that involved a heterosexual act.

Actually, a tribe having some gay men in it helped survival of the clan group, because they increased the survival rate of the young of the tribe by being sort of a social safety net as it were.

That's a hypothesis, yes, but group selection is junk science   Rather, you want to say something along the lines of "gay men helped the survival of gay genes, because they increased the survival rate of the young of the tribe who also had those gay genes (perhaps latent/recessive/what have you) by being a sort of social safety net".

[ilikeverin]

Yeah, Verily's doing a better job than I ever could at explaining

[ilikeverin]

Sigh.  Just because there is no one gay gene does not mean there are none, or that homosexuality is not heritable.  That's like saying height isn't heritable, because there is no one height gene.  In fact, we hardly have any specific genes we can point to, at all, and call a "height gene", and the one we do know, with a certainty, influences height appears to change it by about a centimeter.

And differences in gross brain size are just correlational.  We don't know if fetal environment changes brain size, or if brain size influences fetal development, or if both brain size and fetal development are affected by some third factor (genetics?).