This is sort of tangential, but I read in one of my textbooks that the heritability of temperament is right about 0.5, or fifty percent. So if half is down to genes, then it follows that the other half is environmental. So I'm really tired of people using the cop-out "That's just my personality." There are people who are pathological, that truly can't help themselves. But I believe on the whole that if you are of sound enough mind to blame your genes for being bitchy or angry or what have you, then you are of sound enough mind to change that. I'm not a fan of the "I can't help it" excuse. Most of these things are malleable.

More to the point of the article, in my Learning Theories class, my professor said "Neurons that fire together wire together." Your behavior can actually change your brain chemistry, like the article says. It seems that for too long we've thought about it being a one-way street: your genes determine how you interact with your environment. I'm glad to see that more attention is being paid to the reverse. If anything, it gives more hope to people that we aren't stuck with what genetics gave us. So even things that we think are so ingrained as to be permanent can be worked with.

So you admit that homosexuals are not "born that way"...

Finally!

Let me congratulate you on taking this important step towards rational understanding of how genes influence, rather than determine, complex human behaviors.

Maybe we can end the stupid "dating tips for chimps" threads as well - and leave the talk of alpha males to the PUA blogs.

So you admit that homosexuals are not "born that way"...

Look, sorry you're a religious fundamentalist who must justify his fear and other negative feelings about gays, but no poster above has said anything of the kind.

Apparently, just as you believe, sans evidence, in god, you believe, sans evidence, in many other things.

I don't understand why Ben-David is concerned about whether homosexuals are "born that way" or not. Who cares? They're individuals, and they're attracted to the same sex. Who gives a damn why? It's not a disease! It doesn't require a "cure"!

BD, you may want to read "Origins" if you haven't already. There's a solid discussion of how epigenetics can influence us from the womb.

So you admit that homosexuals are not "born that way"...

So tell me, Ben David, when did you make the concious decision about your sexual preference?

The writer wasn't saying anything about homosexuality.

On the other hand, what he does say lends credence to the idea that some cases of homosexual attraction are made by environmental factors, rather than the afflicted person being born that way.

Apparently, just as you believe, sans evidence, in god, you believe, sans evidence, in many other things.

Actually, it's a logical conclusion to the premise laid out in the article. Homosexuality is far too common to be explained by a genetic predisposition. If it were primarily genetic in nature, there would not be 1/10th the number who currently claim to be gay. It would be approximately as common as sickle cell anemia, another condition that usually precludes offspring (before modern medicine).

It also surprises me that all the research that indicated that the vast majority of homosexuals were abused as children seems to have disappeared over the last 30 years.

The author's definition of epigenetics is incorrect. Their description of its role in gene expression is wrong as well, as are their conclusions.

Something tells me that this guy was looking for a way to explain the relationship between genes and environment, and has seized on epigenetics as a catch-all.

Epigenetics concerns inherited changes in gene expression that do not arise from the underlying DNA sequence - that's all. Typically these changes are expected to survive cell division. It's not the study of how the environment activates genes, for the simple reason that the environment is incapable of activating genes.

The most commonly used example of epigenetics is cellular differentiation in which the zygote transforms into all sorts of other cells. This has nothing to do with the idea that your experiences are creating different versions of you. I don't know where Mr. Berreby got the idea that genes act in concert to create multiple versions of a person.

There's also research indicating that the more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay -- an effect that applies even when the male is not raised with his biological brothers, which suggests that homosexuality is in part an orientation that takes place in the womb.

I wish "guest" would comment here more often.

I wish "Ben David" would get over his fascination with teh gay.

> So tell me, Ben David, when did you make
> the concious decision about your
> sexual preference?

I too would like the full narrative of that day... Facing down your doubts, summoning the will, and then boldly stepping forward in a heterosexual direction.

Also, if there were moments of regret afterward, we'd like to know about those.

People who are fixated on how others have sex are lacking interests, purpose and passions in their own lives. To avoid their own lackluster reality, they latch onto a "cause" that gives them a sense of accomplishing something. This has been my observation, and I have no scientific data to back it up.

Ben David, let's say that homosexuality is a chosen orientation. How does that impact you and your life?

"Let me congratulate you on taking this important step towards rational understanding of how genes influence, rather than determine, complex human behavior"

Please do explain. Exactly how does that affect a schizophrenics paranoia?

I hate to agree with him, but the implication is pretty obvious.

Surely you can't deny at least that much Amy?

Now as a caveat I'll add that it is probably not universal in either direction, nonetheless, he makes a point, homohating or homoloving has no bearing on the accuracy of the science. And if the genes are only partially influential in one aspect, why not another?

Sexuality is not necessarily 100% static.

As an aside, I doubt anyone consciously chooses their sexuality. People like what they like, genetics probably play an important role, but simply assigning that one aspect of human behavior to be set in stone, unimpacted by life experiences or environmental exposures, is a little...well crazy.

oh c'mon folks, when we were 8 year old boys, you could pretty much point out who was homo or not, and who cares as long as they don't parade down your street demanding special rights

If it were primarily genetic in nature, there would not be 1/10th the number who currently claim to be gay. It would be approximately as common as sickle cell anemia, another condition that usually precludes offspring (before modern medicine).

It also surprises me that all the research that indicated that the vast majority of homosexuals were abused as children seems to have disappeared over the last 30 years.

Posted by: WayneB

3 THINGS
1. How did you determine the mathmatical formula that determines the prevalence of homosexuality in the human genome?

2. Are you looking a sicle cell rates world wide or in localized genetic clusters in areas where sicle cell was evolved as a natural defence to malaria

3. The reseach disapeared? Did the men in black sneak in one night to the only research dipository on the planet and steal it?

We're supposed to have been in the middle of the epigenetics revolution for decades now. The truth is, not much has come of it. It's usually a PC escape hatch to avoid the idea that genes, apart from environment, matter quite a bit. Which underneath surface is always a matter IQ, its heritability, and its strong correlation with race and life outcomes (e.g., crime, occupational status, academic achievement, income, etc).

Sorry - all the feather-fluffing in the world isn't going to obscure my clear inference.

Gay-rights propaganda tells us that homosexuality is genetically-determined, not subject to environmental influence or modification, like eye color.

Now we have an admission - which confirms things I've posted from professional journals of genetics and biology - that genes don't direct complex behaviors in this way.

That the gay-rights claims are unscientific, Al-Gore style lies wrapped in pseudoscience.

> genes don't direct complex behaviors
> in this way.

Don't pretend to be all science-y when discussing a topic as vague and simple-minded as "born that way". Such a folksy locution welcomes all sorts of considerations as formative factors.

Serious, truly edjumicated scientists were never the ones to argue that genetics were determinative... Certainly not about THAT, and usually not about anything. It's the high school graduates who've always been attracted to silly sayings like 'The genetic code contains all the information the organism needs as it moves through life'... Sayings which sounds handsomely thoughtful and studied, but which are flatly, obviously wrong. My favorite metaphor was Gould: Determining the whether happens by genes or by environment is like estimating the area of a box knowing only the width OR the length.

Furthermore, a "clear inference" isn't the rhetorical achievement you imagine it to be.

Furthermore, we're all still wondering why you're so fascinated by teh gay.

Ben-David, your claims are based
- - - - - - - - -
- on science, and how statistical studies and genetic biology do and do not work.

You have finally - if inadvertently - admitted that I am correct: genes do NOT directly control complex behaviors or developmental paths.

Gene expression is a complex interaction of environmental factors and inborn biological potential.

YES - this DOES undercut the pseudo-scientific basis of both the gay-rights agenda and your "dating tips for chimps" leitmotif.

I realize that the only cards left in your hand are the lower PC gambits of name calling ("primitive") and self-righteous hissy-fitting.

But none of your previous attempts to throw sand or smoke at me have worked before, and after preening about how much more rational than me you are - you're just embarrassing yourself.

Again with the misdirection, culminating in:
They're based on your weird fear and obsession with gays.
- - - - - - - - - -
The truth about genetic expression is equally damaging to your theory that hetero mating is inescapably governed by inherited genetic imperatives.

I mentioned both of these in my posts.

No obsession here - except with saving the related notions of human free will and personal responsibility from a Gramscian agenda cloaked in pseudo-science.

Take yer pick, mamaleh - instead of more PC sidestepping, answer either of these questions:

Doesn't the truth of epigenetic mediation of gene expression contradict the "born that way" claim of the gay rights movement? If not, why not?

Doesn't the truth of epigenetic mediation of gene expression contradict your cast species-level evolutionary trends as deterministic of individual human mating behavior? If no, why not?

Take yer pick, mamaleh...

Ben-David: apparently, you cannot use a search engine - or you can only do so under carefully controlled conditions, dictated by prejudice.

Search for the term, "androgen insensitivity". I dare you.

What that will do, should you be capable of thought, is show you that existing genetic diversity produces gender that is not binary among humans. Period.

I don't have to show you a "gay gene". All the information you need is already out there. What I have shown you, with that link, is that people are born with physical attributes that do not conform to your apparent notion of male and female.

As you should know, external physical appearance has little to do with the direction OR magnitude of libido. Well, the search would show you if you don't know already.

Now, I eagerly await your, er, reasoning that someone actually born without gender, or the one you don't approve of has no rights.

Maybe you want to kill them?

More sidestepping:

Do you have a clear-cut, evidence-based notion of why people are gay?

Doesn't matter: we don't have that clear a picture of depression, alcoholism, or anorexia - in fact, as for homosexuality, the experts point to a set of factors - but we know enough about the behaviors themselves to label them dysfunctional. We've done that on other threads (compulsive promiscuity, mental health vectors that don't go away after equality is granted, etc.)

Again: my point in this thread - or rather, your point since you're the one who brought up epigenetics - applies just as well to the attempt to depict heteros as inexorably controlled by genetic programming.

Genes are not deterministic for complex human behaviors.

All genetic/evolutionary arguments for "progressive debasement" are pseudo-scientific folderol.

I'm willing to bet Ben David finds any sex outside of the missionary position or durring menstration to be dysfuntional and evidence of mental imbalance

Oh. So now it's "progressive debasement" that's the star of the show?

Nice tactic: focus on a subjective value.

Until you find out what real people are like (hint: some of them hide from you), you have no hope of recognizing your position.

Androgen Insensitivity: maybe you're affected!

How many vocal opponents of {name subject here} have turned out to be one themselves lately?

By the way, Ben David - you have apparently missed guest's observation that the original article used the wrong definition of epigenetics.

If you're going to argue against a point, perhaps you should pick the right counter.

> but we know enough about the behaviors
> themselves to label them dysfunctional.

First of all, who you callin' we, paleface?

Secondly (and this echoes Raddy's catch of your new concern about "progressive debasement"), who says "dysfunction" is our lowest failure?... Or in turn, that "function" is our highest purpose? This is not a useful term for either statecraft or soulcraft: Sexuality isn't about being "functional".

(And if you're sincerely interested pursuing this discussion in that manner, you should be playing in the Big Arena, where Good & Evil are identified and answered. If you don't have the balls to call something "evil", then you probably shouldn't be pussyfooting around on blogs.)

> the only cards left in your hand are
> the lower PC gambits of name calling
> ("primitive") and self-righteous
> hissy-fitting.

Well, actually, you've given us a few other cards to play. Exactly how infantile is your fear of homosexuality?

Y'know, of all the stupidities at work in public life today, none offend so often as the presumption of intimate and psychologically consummate understanding of the lives of distant people. Dim folks in these generations absorb all the silly pretenses of our time –which are little improved over those of the last 100 generations– and then discuss them with shabby veneers of scientific jargon.

Describing any boundary to gay conduct as "homophobic" is just such a stupidity.

But having people like you around gives me sympathy for the common idiocy. You enoble foolishness.

Funny, looking at that old discussion, you've apparently been fascinated with "dysfunction" for some time. In a world with real evils, this seems quaint....

----OUR STORY SO FAR----

The Goddess has repeatedly posted threads echoing fashionable Gramscian assertions that human attraction and mating are irrevocably driven by genetic imperatives - "men are genetically programmed to be unfaithful" and "women are genetically programmed to seek alpha males" etc.

Similarly, she and others have embraced the gay-rights assertion that homosexuality is genetically caused - and therefore immune from moral or psychological review.

Ben-David and a few other posters questioned the scientific validity of these positions - pointing out that genes don't work that way (and that may of the supposed evolutionary imperatives in the "dating tips for chimps" narrative are conjecture, not science).

Now in this thread the Goddess inadvertently put her foot in it by citing that branch of genetics that proves Ben David right: gene expression is governed and modified by a host of environmental factors, including learned responses.

Ben David pointed this out.

The result has been a straw-man hootenanny (or something like Kiddush at a progressive shul: straw men eating red herrings...).

Every PC diversion tactic has been deployed to avoid addressing this central point - the most frequent being ad-hominem labeling, a charming tactic that reminds us just how "tolerant" most "progressives" really are.

...As if that changes the science.
Like the Jewish vampire in the old joke says: It wouldn't help you.

Sifting through the trash-talk - and ignoring high-minded speculation about which positions my wife and I have sex in - we have:

(... the fixation on homosexuality in the following quotes is not mine - I constantly mention both homo and hetero manifestations of the "I just can't help myself - it's my genetic programming" meme...)

when did you make the conscious decision about your sexual preference?

False dichotomy: the opposite of "born that way" isn't "consciously chosen" or "all your fault". The "born that way" myth is used to sidestep honest evaluation of gay behavior from a mental health and moral perspective. People don't choose to be depressed, either - yet we clearly consider it a dysfunction.

Then there's:

Please explain how all the homosexuality in the animal world is caused by reading the wrong magazines, etc.

Straw man/misdirection. Cite more than 3 examples of permanent, exclusive homosexual mating in the animal world - that is not caused by environmental/population pressures, or a dominance display.

and more recently:

Do you have a clear-cut, evidence-based notion of why people are gay?

Red herring: we don't have this certainty about other behaviors which we clearly judge to be dysfunctional. The APA and other professional bodies will refer to "many contributing factors" for a host of dysfunctional behaviors.

... then there are those desperately trying to re-establish the halo of scientific certainty:

Search for the term, "androgen insensitivity". I dare you.

Already debunked on previous threads - repeated sampling of out-n-proud gays has not revealed elevated rates of these already-rare mutations, just as it has not yielded any gene sequence unique to gays.

Jessica tries a variant of the Al Gore "science-is-settled" approach:

Who cares? They're individuals, and they're attracted to the same sex. Who gives a damn why? It's not a disease! It doesn't require a "cure"!

And the Goddess tries a similar avoidance technique:

Tell that to the gay-rights movement - which is flogging statistics about suicide, depression, and drug-abuse rates that are 4 or 5 times the rates in the general population.

This is the same profile of dysfunction that causes anorexia to be classified as a disorder, instead of an "eating lifestyle".

But we already know the limits of progressive compassion. Among the sh*t that the Goddess hoped would stick to the wall, we have:

if you are low on confidence and need tips about acting more masculine, please just write me privately and ask me

your claims are based on your personal and surely primitive belief-based superstitions

What you have is some bone up your butt about gay people. They bother/frighten/offend you, apparently.

Lovely - and irrelevant.

(... again: the fixation on homosexuality in these posts is not mine - I constantly mention both homo and hetero manifestation of the "I just can't help myself - it's my genetic programming" meme...)

Genes do not deterministically control complex human behaviors.

Such as sexual attraction - homo or hetero.

The guest wrote:

The author's definition of epigenetics is incorrect.

Apparently the word has both broad and narrow meanings. The Wikipedia entry hews to your explanation - gene transmission outside the nuclear DNA/RNA chain.

But other websites use it to cover all the environmental influences on how nuclear DNA is stored, read, and activated.

For example, read some of the quotes here:
http://epigenome.eu/en/1,1,0

> yet we clearly consider it a dysfunction.

We can do another round if you want. Who is "we", and what's your fascination with "dysfunction", especially this one?

Can you name three comparable deficiencies which you'd describe as "dysfunctional" rather than evil? And why do they not hound your concentration as this one does?

Also, for Fuck's sake, son...

> Ben David pointed this out.

Never refer to yourself in the third person. Unless you're Cher.

Or one of her biggest fans.

Me: "Search for the term, "androgen insensitivity". I dare you."

B-D: "Already debunked on previous threads - repeated sampling of out-n-proud gays has not revealed elevated rates of these already-rare mutations, just as it has not yielded any gene sequence unique to gays."

Nice diversion - but you might want to flush that. There is nothing there to debunk. I sent you to learn about this to show you what existing genetic diversity there is. You inserted the idea that there was a direct link between the percentage of persons born without gender and the percentage of those identified as "gay".

You're just locked-on, like an evangelist trying to debunk "evolution" - with a special definition only the evangelist can see - by inventing a false dichotomy between "macro"- and "micro"- evolution.

B-D again: "Genes do not deterministically control complex human behaviors. Such as sexual attraction - homo or hetero."

Wow. My being a genetic male doesn't control my success mating with females? What are you smoking? If my junk was miniscule, that wouldn't be genetic or determine my sexual success? Whew!

And: explain how your personal orientation is a choice, then.

This should be blatantly obvious to you - explain how your "complex human behaviors" will be THE SAME if I chop off your "outie" and install an "innie".

Gaah! You haven't even noticed that the primary barrier to promiscuity is female denial! If the ridiculously difficult ordeal of pregnancy resulted from homosexual encounters, casual banging would come to a screeching halt!

But I digress. You are espousing the idea that being gay is a choice. The easiest way for you to prove this yourself is to make that choice yourself - after you show that gender identity is binary. I've already shown that gender itself is NOT.

YOU can learn that Patrick is cute, and want him with all your... heart. YOU can then, with a simple effort of will, turn around and admire our Flaming Wite-Out® hostess. And there would be NO difference to you! Mmm, tasty love all around!

Well, no.

Maybe you should be pointing at promiscuity instead. I dunno what you're mad about - in my case, it's an idiot who apparently wants to brand some people as unpersons - but that would be nice to know for real.

3 THINGS
1. How did you determine the mathmatical formula that determines the prevalence of homosexuality in the human genome?

That was a loose estimate based on the understanding that, for many millions of years of evolution, when the genes combine to produce homosexuality, they are not passed on, because the practitioners of it do not have children. Prior to modern medicine, most sickle-cell sufferers died before having children, therefore not passing on the gene. I could have picked any other genetic disorder that kills its victims before they can produce offspring, that was just the first one that came to mind. Of course it would be somewhat higher with homosexuality, because there will always be some crossover, due to either denial, rape, or simply recognition that hetero sex would have been the only way to have children.

2. Are you looking a sicle cell rates world wide or in localized genetic clusters in areas where sicle cell was evolved as a natural defence to malaria

I didn't find the rates in Africa, but in African-Americans, the rate I saw was 1 in 500.

3. The reseach disapeared? Did the men in black sneak in one night to the only research dipository on the planet and steal it?

Posted by: lujlp at November 9, 2010 5:25 PM

No. Also, only someone intent on dismissing an argument by mockery rather than evidence would ask that question. The research that was commonly known 40 years ago, slowly stopped being talked about, and I haven't seen any mention of it in the past 30 years. That's what I meant by "disappeared". I never saw it refuted, it just went away from the discussion.

Rad reveals a little to much - or is it a bit too little?

"Genes do not deterministically control complex human behaviors. Such as sexual attraction - homo or hetero."

If my junk was miniscule, that wouldn't be genetic or determine my sexual success?

That's just the point:

Genes may determine the length of your putz more directly than the more complex, emotional/volitional behavior of who you will be attracted to - or how you will act on that attraction.

Having a putz is not a "behavior" - being one is.

Okay. Ben-David. Now you're down to "genes may...".

Keep going. Show me you had a choice about how you were built.