so, as I said, it is theoretically unrelated but a common mechanism... So you haven't lost me apparently, maybe my point is unclear?
no, they aren't the same thing, and that's not even remotely close to my point.
I'm saying that, in theory, the mechanism by which a phenomenon occurs is not a definitional quality of a phenomenon. So, with evolution, regardless of what the mechanism is, so long as there is something that produces offspring with variation and inheritance, it will occur. The theory of genetics, while helping to explain evolution, is not really related to the phenomenon at a theoretical level (notice my edits specifying "theory").
Similarly, because genetic predisposition simply means the things our genes predispose us for, it doesn't matter how we got those genes. The mechanism of inheritance helps explain things we see in nature, it is not, theoretically, related to genetic predisposition.
ok, but that is just wrong. I'm not sure how else to explain this to you. For something to be a genetic predisposition, it doesn't matter where the genes come from, so long as they are there to predispose.
think of an entirely artificial life form, cooked up in a lab, with genes invented by scientists. That life form would still have a genetic predisposition to do the things its genes dispose it to do, yet would have no inheritance at all. Mice bread specifically to grow tumors are a good example of this. They have the genetic predisposition designed by scientists, yet it isn't inherited through any means, it is artificially inserted.
You are confusing the fact that the common mechanism we see in nature for genetic predisposition is inheritance with inheritance being a definitional quality of genetic predisposition. This would be the same mistake of thinking genes are a definitional quality of evolution, when they are merely the common mechanism by which many forms of life evolve.
twin studies tend to show your speculation isn't the case, and in fact, provide a lot of evidence against kinsey in general
example: almost all studies on people who use drugs sample their subjects from rehab centers and emergency rooms. This biases the results such that drugs look far more dangerous than they are. Because I don't have the information on all drug users (re: this is actually an impossible task, samples vs populations and all that, if you reeeaaaaaally want to argue stats with me again), that doesn't mean there isn't a sampling bias in the initial studies, and it certainly doesn't invalidate the criticism.
Like, what you are saying is that I could run any study I wanted using a deliberately biased sample, and you couldn't criticize it until you have run the identical study with a perfectly representational sample. Really think about that.
I am sure you can think of exceptions to that, but exceptions are not the point, obviously.
I don't want a discussion on, "Well, this is potentially biased because of how it was sampled." I don't want a "potentially biased" discussion because that does nothing to contribute. I want, "Study x shows that this sample is biased because of results Y".
Edit - One of the things I enjoy doing is poking holes in any study. I certainly could rant about how many problems there are with that study but I have nothing substantial to provide to the discussion. It would be one thing if the study was invalid because of how it was sampled or because the conclusions were malformed. That does happen in published works, obviously.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Jun 15th, 2012 at 08:28 PM
No, this is why I keep losing you. Why would it be theoretically unrelated? That's the one word you're using that is throwing off the meaning, entirely. I obviously disagree that it is unrelated.
This is just too hard for me to digest. I do not think I will ever comprehend your point because your point, to me, it seems like you do not know about the things of which you speak. But I have been questioning my conclusion about you on this topic because you seem very confident in what you are arguing and you almost always never argue about things of which you do not know. So what is the disconnect on my end?
Is it that genetic predisposition and the relationship with inheritance has been firmly established but you use things such as "theoretically unrelated"?
How about I approach this differently.
You said:
"The mechanism of inheritance helps explain things we see in nature, it is not, theoretically, related to genetic predisposition."
All university level education I have had disagrees with this statement as it relates to the topic. When we reviewed medical disorders that are inherited (see, this may be the disconnect because you may be referring to all genetic disorders rather than just those that are inherited. Since this topic is about homosexuality, I tend to discuss only that which is inherited because I seem to think that most genetic causes of homosexuality are inherited and not randomly, genetically, influenced) and we covered the probabilities of the diseases 'activating' in the offspring, it was not theoretical: it was based on real world data. Our results were compared against the real rates of occurrences (that was how we were graded). The genetic predisposition to those diseases and inheriting those diseases could be mapped, probabilistically, quite accurately. If by "theory" you mean "there is a 25% chance that your offspring will inherit this disease"................maybe I am on the same page as you are. I do agree that some genetic disorders are not inherited but are just random genetic defects. Is this what you're talking about? Is this why you call it "theory"? Or are you using theory in a different way (a set of explanations that are confirmed with empirical results). In that case, then "theoretically unrelated" does not makes sense because you should word it "theoretically related".
Well, of course, I disagree and I am definitely not wrong.
After getting this far into your post, I know where our disconnect is: you are focusing on the set of random genetic occurrences that correlate to genetic predisposition. I am focusing, most of the time, on genetic predisposition that is inherited. Obviously, the set that I am focusing on is relevant to the topic and much larger than the set you are focusing on. I acknowledge your set of focus but you have yet to acknowledge my set.
But this does nothing to prove your point, at all. This only explains an external, artificial, mechanism by which genetic predisposition can be created. This is an apples to oranges comparison. The topic is "genetic predisposition to homosexuality". As far as I am aware, there is no mad-scientist creating homosexual humans in a lab and then releasing them into the population.
In "nature", those genes are inherited from the parents in sexual species. Some disorders or genetic predispositions are random and NOT inherited, sure: I will give you that.
I do not think so since I clearly stated that it was one of the major contributing factors, seen here:
Lemme be clear: homosexuality. If you want to talk about exceptions, cool: but this is the wrong thread for finding exceptions to general statements I making because my statements are not "general" they are specific to the topic of this thread.
I do not think your evolution point works very well to make your point: it's too much of an apples to oranges comparison.
No, the opposite is true. The twin studies prove my point that despite the genetic dice roll in favor of one or the other, some seemingly defy their genetics.
If even a single identical twin study results in one being straight and the other gay, my point has been proven (and you and I both know that that is the case...and it is not just one). In fact, it was the twin studies that I had in mind while typing that portion of my post.
Just to alleviate any confusion on your part on what my actual point was, here it is again:
"You could be born with a dice-roll of genes that will favor homosexuality but still develop into a heterosexual for life...and vice versa."
"I do not think I will ever comprehend your point because your point, to me, it seems like you do not know about the things of which you speak. But I have been questioning my conclusion about you on this topic because you seem very confident in what you are arguing and you almost always never argue about things of which you do not know. So what is the disconnect on my end?"
To put it in a digest form: you don't seem to know what you're talking about and you're coming off as ignorant. However, I strongly doubt that superficial reading of your point and, instead, conclude that I simply do not know what your point is, still.
No, not say that the data is questionble all I have to do is demonstrate that the sampling process is likely to be seriously biased. However as I mention below their raw data about birth order was found to be significantly different than many previous studies had found.
The study you're citing says otherwise. "For men, homosexual marriage was associated with ... being the youngest child."
Their data for heterosexuals in particular does not reflect the findings of previous studies that have been done about birth order.
The study mentions looking only at first marriages.
And if you want to use this study to talk purely about marriage habits that's fine but you'd better including a massive asterisk every time you do so no one "accidentally" thinks you're talking about sexual orientation.
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Last edited by Symmetric Chaos on Jun 15th, 2012 at 08:48 PM
Just showing that it has the potential to be faulty does not actually show it to be faulty. When establishing something in this discussion, you need to actually establish it. I can poke holes in lots of things(because I like to play devil's advocate), but it does not add anything meaningful to this discussion. I want to see studies, not "potential sample bias" points.
I believe it was 3 out of 4 samples.
Well, no, let's cite what it says:
"Heterosexual marriage was significantly linked to having young parents, small age differences between parents, stable parental relationships, large sibships, and late birth order. For men, homosexual marriage was associated with having older mothers, divorced parents, absent fathers, and being the youngest child. For women, maternal death during adolescence and being the only or youngest child or the only girl in the family increased the likelihood of homosexual marriage. Our study provides population-based, prospective evidence that childhood family experiences are important determinants of heterosexual and homosexual marriage decisions in adulthood."
But I do not know which portion you were quoting. I believe it concludes that there was no correlation to a weak correlation in the opposite direction.
To be more correct, their data for heterosexuals and homosexuals does not reflect the findings of some previous studies. It is not "an island" study.
Strangely, I could not find that.
Yeah.
No.
If you think there is no correlation at all between marriage and sexual orientation, you would be sorely mistaken.
I do not know how strong that correlation is, actually. But it does exist. It gives us a glimpse into how much the environment does influence orientation. It is not purely "genetic" as some would have you believe. This was really my point. Getting married, based on your sexual preference, is an extension of your sexual preference, to be sure, but the union not wholly representative of sexual orientation, obviously.
My interest into this topic was spurred by the notion that the more older brothers you have, the more likely you are to be homosexual (I believe Zamp mentioned it).
Another study, which functioned as a segue to the other study about marriage, was what spurred my interest. A few years back, I read a study that was contradictory to this older brother phenomena.
This study is not without problems but it showed the opposite: if you had an older brother, you were less likely to be gay*.
"In this article, we show that adolescent males who are opposite-sex twins are twice as likely as expected to report same-sex attraction; and that the pattern of concordance (similarity across pairs) of same-sex preference for sibling pairs does not suggest genetic influence independent of social context. Our data falsify the hormone transfer hypothesis by isolating a single condition that eliminates the opposite-sex twin effect we observe—the presence of an older same-sex sibling. We also consider and reject a speculative evolutionary theory that rests on observing birth-order effects on same-sex orientation. In contrast, our results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences."
*Special scenario applies which is why it is not without its own problems.
Wait, what are we talking about, anymore?
The usefulness of that study? It is useful, to be sure. It is not sweepingly conclusive, obviously. It only points us in a direction where we can make observations about factors other than the genetic ones, that play a role in sexual orientation.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Jun 15th, 2012 at 11:12 PM
My conclusion isn't just based on the 2 scenarios I mentioned.
I've been running a business for nearly 20 years now in Darlinghurst, the heart of the gay & lesbian community of Sydney...this is where the Gay Mardi Gras parade happens every year.
So based on my dealings with clients in the gay community for the past 20 years, I've heard many a homosexual laugh & scoff at scientific explanations that they were born that way.
They weren't predisposed, born effeminent or raised by single parents starved of compassion.
Sorry for the late comment. I expected to get torn apart actually.
My lesbian points of view are based upon my life experiences.
I've known girls who said for most of their life were lesbians then turned straight.
And girls who were straight for years and turned gay.
And then back again.
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Last edited by the ninjak on Jun 16th, 2012 at 06:11 PM
This is a really boring topic. Can we move the attention to a different thread?
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
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this tends to be supported by modern studies, though there isn't much explanation for why women are more fluid in their hetero/homo orientation. It could be as simple as social expectation.
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Jun 15th, 2012 07:38 PM
