B_VinylBoy
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If they discovered a "gay" gene would the public disdain of gay people disappear?
- Thread starter earllogjam
- Start date
That's what I'm thinking.
People hate others because of their skin color. That's obviously genetic, and Michael Jackson has shown us that attempts to change it look ridiculous.
They'd probably also add it to the list of conditions to grant someone with immediate Medicaid coverage and piss off thousands with actual diseases and impossibly high medical bills.
Phil Ayesho
Superior Member
Genetic modification will ultimately result in a race of hermaphroditic shemales with 48 inch bosoms and 29 inch cocks.
Who never get any disease... and live to be 180.
Personally... I can easily see genetic modification, to order, resulting is the splintering of humanity into subspecies.
There will be plenty of folks who will consciously choose for their child to NOT get the "gay gene"
and many gay who would rather raise a gay child in their gay community...
which will simply isolate and intensify the cultural differences .
In truth though, there is no gay gene. Research suggests that homosexual identification is closely related to how many older male siblings you have.
This suggests that homosexuality is the result of some effect of pregnancy on the womb of the mother, that skews their children's sexuality toward the homosexual more with each successive child.
In other words, its congenital, but not genetic... A certain change in hormonal balance or some other subtle feature of the womb... that changes in response to bearing male children.
There is a good chance that this is an evolved feature... that it, that if a female had multiple males that could result in a great deal dangerous competition among siblings.
By successive males being less aggressive, more feminized and less likely to breed, this competition among siblings is reduced.
More importantly... homosexuality being linked to a change in the mother's reproductive environment CAUSED by being pregnant with male children explains perfectly why homosexuality has not been "selected out" by evolution.
If it is a result of reproductive biochemistry... then it is an unavoidable result of reproduction.
Not merely natural, but necessary.
Who never get any disease... and live to be 180.
Personally... I can easily see genetic modification, to order, resulting is the splintering of humanity into subspecies.
There will be plenty of folks who will consciously choose for their child to NOT get the "gay gene"
and many gay who would rather raise a gay child in their gay community...
which will simply isolate and intensify the cultural differences .
In truth though, there is no gay gene. Research suggests that homosexual identification is closely related to how many older male siblings you have.
This suggests that homosexuality is the result of some effect of pregnancy on the womb of the mother, that skews their children's sexuality toward the homosexual more with each successive child.
In other words, its congenital, but not genetic... A certain change in hormonal balance or some other subtle feature of the womb... that changes in response to bearing male children.
There is a good chance that this is an evolved feature... that it, that if a female had multiple males that could result in a great deal dangerous competition among siblings.
By successive males being less aggressive, more feminized and less likely to breed, this competition among siblings is reduced.
More importantly... homosexuality being linked to a change in the mother's reproductive environment CAUSED by being pregnant with male children explains perfectly why homosexuality has not been "selected out" by evolution.
If it is a result of reproductive biochemistry... then it is an unavoidable result of reproduction.
Not merely natural, but necessary.
Hmmm! I read the same piece you might have read, but while I am not dismissing it wholesale (the truth is we don't know shit about the topic yet), I can't help but err on the skeptical side.
For one it didn't work for me. My little brother is straight (in more ways than one) and the study I read about certainly didn't suggest that birth order explained away all homosexuality (by the way, lesbians are always left out, I wonder why).
I am also 100% certain that homosexuality is not always a choice (if ever). I was keenly attracted to boys and hardly at all to girls even in pre-school. You can't prove a theory with 1 example but you can disprove it...
Straight to the point, no bs, and right answer. I like that.
TurkeyWithaSunburn
Legendary Member
No, people will always hate something/someone that is different from themself.
The OP does have a point in that the christian fundamentalists and other dogmatic types use the "choice" tenet as a crutch to justify bias.
Should rock-solid science dismiss the choice assumption, they would have to spend up to a week or two finding another excuse to establish their case for homophobia.
I heard it was older siblings of your gender, suggesting that it's something more psychological. Point in the Nurture column.
That article doesn't address lesbians (unless I missed it). Is their likelihood affected by the number of older sisters? Or is it always brothers. The former means it's psychological. The latter means it's congenital, as Phil put it.
Easy:
Straight scientists outnumber gay scientists.
Straight men don't believe REAL lesbians exist.
:biggrin1:
Phil Ayesho
Superior Member
Well, like all correlative findings, it requires substantive proof...
However, exceptions like your own do not necessarily disprove it.
If a condition within the womb can cause the development of a child that is homosexual... yet genetically no different than heterosexual children, that does not imply that having prior male children is the ONLY thing that can bring about that condition within the womb.
Your mother may have had the conditions to bear a homosexual child, and then have those conditions altered by some subsequent infection... or even thru exposure to your fetal cells.
If, across a large enough population, the odds really do increase with the number of older male children... then that simply demonstrates that its NOT a genetic result, but a developmental one.
It could have more to do with the Age of the mother and her womb... it could have to do with exposure to fetal cells of male children she has borne. ( look into the Sci-Am article on microChimerism.... Most women harbor cells in their bodies from their pregnancies. These cells from their fetuses may cause all kinds of conditions that effect the health of the mother.)
The problem with the gene theory is that, if gay people reproduce less often than hetero people... the genetic trait SHOULD have been eliminated.
And the fact that most mammals exhibit homosexual behavoir in about the same percentage as humans argues strongly that this result may simply be an unavoidable feature of mammalian reproductive biology.
That is, it may be biologically impossible to give live birth to warm blooded offspring without producing a certain number of homosexual offspring.
PS- the articles I have read specifically implicate older MALE siblings.... and it results in higher likelihood of homosexual male AND female children... No correlation between older female children and homosexuality was found. At least- that's my recollection.
There would be no change because it's a 'Jesus' thing. People are taught to believe what they believe about homosexuality.
:684:
Part of my course at University (in England) was advanced genetics. One of my Professors there was part of the human genome project. He believed, as do I, that it is not if we find the gene(s) responsible for homsexuality, but when. When you break it down, we are animals, no better, no worse. Eat, sleep, defecate and procreate, that's all animals do. That's all we do, but animals don't kid themselves that it is anything more than that. We are a product of our genes. We exist purley to pass our genes on to future generations. Love, lust, marriage, orgasms and many other human "traits" are merely the product of natural selection ensuring an organisms desire to pass on it's genes to the next generation. If an organism is not "wired" for this task, as in homosexuality, this can only be seen as an error in the "programming" of the individual. If an organism exists without passing it's genes onto the next generation, then at the genetic level that organsim has failed in it's purpose. I state again, organisms exist purely to pass on their genetic material to the next generation. This is a purely scientific view, in my mind the only view that can be entertained by any intellectual thinkers out there. Religion teaches us that we are here as beings created by God in her image. I use the feminine because, as a devout atheist (and damn proud), it amuses me due to the contempt biblical texts seem to have for females, and homosexuals, which brings me on to my next point. I do believe homosexuality is a genetic flaw. I say flaw only with regards to a genetic level. I have gay friends and do not look at them as any higher, or lower a being than myself, in the same way most people do not look at people of other creeds, downs syndrome sufferers etc in any other way than a fellow human animal. When it has been prooved that there is a genetic causation for homosexuality, it will then be the church that is the only obstacle. Women and homosexuals are denounced in pretty much all major (and some minor) religions globally. Women have only really become equals in the last 90 years or so and there is still a way to go. Here are some dates at which women were granted the vote:
Finland 1906
Norway 1913
USA 1920
Great Britain 1928
France 1945
Belgium 1946
Switzerland 1971
Kuwait 2006
Homosexuals will get there too (equality, not voting rights I'm talking about here), religion is a global delusion that is slowly fading away as people become more aware of the ludicrusies of following a 2000(ish) year old work of, re-written, re-improved, re-edited fiction.
Politics is also an obstacle that must be overcome for homosexuality to be fully accepted. Look at the way the moral Zeitgeist has changed with regards to race. These are the words of Abraham Lincoln, debating with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858:
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Two words for you: Barack Obama
Homosexuals should be looking forward to the day the gene(s) for homosexuality are found. This will proove that "they are made that way", and any religious objections will be quashed overnight as "God will have made them that way". Women, other races and homosexuals have been put down by "sacred" texts since time began. The eradication of religion through the peaceful rise in the number of free-thinking people who choose atheism is the only logical progression for natural selection in the human animal. Only this will bring about the complete acceptance of all of us to and for our fellow (wo)man.
New Zealand 1893
Australia 1902Finland 1906
Norway 1913
USA 1920
Great Britain 1928
France 1945
Belgium 1946
Switzerland 1971
Kuwait 2006
Homosexuals will get there too (equality, not voting rights I'm talking about here), religion is a global delusion that is slowly fading away as people become more aware of the ludicrusies of following a 2000(ish) year old work of, re-written, re-improved, re-edited fiction.
Politics is also an obstacle that must be overcome for homosexuality to be fully accepted. Look at the way the moral Zeitgeist has changed with regards to race. These are the words of Abraham Lincoln, debating with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858:
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Two words for you: Barack Obama
Homosexuals should be looking forward to the day the gene(s) for homosexuality are found. This will proove that "they are made that way", and any religious objections will be quashed overnight as "God will have made them that way". Women, other races and homosexuals have been put down by "sacred" texts since time began. The eradication of religion through the peaceful rise in the number of free-thinking people who choose atheism is the only logical progression for natural selection in the human animal. Only this will bring about the complete acceptance of all of us to and for our fellow (wo)man.
Your professor is, in my opinion, horribly myopic.
Life is not, even among animals, entirely about individual survival and reproduction, but about species survival and reproduction. Many individuals of many species will never mate and thus pass on their specific genes, yet they exist. In terms of the social animals such as ants or bees, reproducing individuals are tremendously low in proportion to those who do not reproduce. These non-reproducing members are far from being gentic errors, but are, in fact, absolutely necessary to the survival of the species. The more complex the animal society, the more non-reproductive activities are essential to the group's survival.
There are numerous theories as to why homosexuality has existed for so long within the human genome and what its function might be. It is only very recently, about two hundred years, that homosexuals have been classified as such in western society and not expected to marry or reproduce. For a very long time, in very many cultures, those who prefer the company of and sexual relations with the same sex have married and reproduced; homosexuality was not something incompatible with marriage or reproduction because neither love nor physical pleasure were considered necessary to have a family. Your professor's theory has not been relevant for 99% of man's existence. He also seems to have little understanding of sociology or anthropology or the role that gay men and women have played in various cultures where they have very definitely filled very necessary cultural roles.
