avocationist
Posts: 173
Joined: Feb. 2006
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Thor,
| Quote | | I will agree with you in part. What I see is that science is succumbing to political pressure to find a "gay gene." The whole point is TO USE SCIENCE to refute gayness as a sin and USE SCIENCE to legitimate the behavior. It's an example of providing the conclusion (gayness is genetic/inborn/immalleable) and finding the evidence to fit this conclusion ("gay gene"). |
There could indeed be such pressure. In that case, tho, it won't stand th test of time. But there is more than a gene. What about studies that show birth order has a role? There are also some studies showing a different brain organization, and this is what I consider the most promising. In fact, I am all but sure that this is going to turn out to be the case. The brain of the embryo gets a little different development and this changes the sexual and emotional behavior. There really is a tremendous amount of evidence that sexual behavior is brain-dependent and hormone-dependent. But again, people are complex and there could be more than one type of gayness and more than one cause. There are even more than one kind of left-handedness.
The people who are convinced homosexuality is a sin are unable to look dispassionately at the evidence. The only acceptable evidence is that it is a 'behavior." It actually rather surprises me how men can think that other men are so easily swayed away from being excited by the female body. Could you? When people say that it makes me wonder if the person making the accusation is really fully heterosexual. I don't intend this as an insult but I think you can see the logic. In a normal male, the attraction to the female is strong. If one doubts that another person has a strong hold on their heterosexuality, it might mean that it is weak in their own self.
The thing is, Thor, that research into development and behavior is showing (and feminists of a certain stripe aren't liking it I think) that male and female behaviors and inner feelings are pretty much hard wired from birth. Yet there is a tremendous overlap because actual brain development has a wide continuum of structure.
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Again, it seems that you identify with the problems of a "gay gene" and so you simply propose the next best thing, namely, homosexuality as a congenital development. Again, we can only conclude that homosexuality must be a congenital birth defect because it REJECTS evolution's only purpose. |
I don't assume it is a congenital defect for any other reason than that it makes so much sense in the real world, where I live among gay people and read books about the unbelievably tiny amounts of hormone during embryonic development that it takes to influence an animal's behavior for life, and where I look at men and women and see that homosexuals, especially the more "end of spectrum" effeminate gay men and masculine gay women appear in myriad ways to not have the brains typical of their gender.
Are you aware that the male infant makes his own male brain with his testosterone? That things can interfere with his testosterone?
I am not considering this question from an abortion angle, just a truth angle.
| Quote | | You seem to be saying that evolution devised a congenital birth defect that causes men to be sexaully-attracted to other men men (same for women) and NOT reproduce SO AS TO regulate life's propensity to reproduce and overpopulate themselves into extinction? This is the nature of homosexuality? |
It may or may not be part of nature's natural variation, but it might also be a mistake. Many mistakes get made during embryonic development. Lack of perfect nutrition means a child will not live up to his genetic potential. But producing variety does help in tight situations, because just a few individuals might have what it takes to survive the situation. And humans are the least instinctive and the most capable of varied behavior. Not every individual should have the goal of reproducing as fast and as early as possible. A society is stronger if there are some people with other skills and interests. We are not sea turtles whose main strategy is chucking out as many eggs as possible.
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