New Scientific Explaination of Origins of Homosexuality.

[xbuzzerx]

Ok fair enough.

But if it's "just" 70% chances... it means it's a mixture of genetics and environment.

Of course. But almost everything with genetics is that way. You could have tall genes but if you have a poor diet you won't grow as much as you would have otherwise. You may have thin genes but if you live on peanut butter and pizza you're going to be fat. Everything is that way.

I get the feeling you try to believe very strongly in 1:1 causality from genes and really almost nothing works out that way. Breast cancer can run in a family but that doesn't mean every woman is going to get it, even two sisters who maybe were raised the same way and lived more or less the same way aren't necessarily both going to get it, one might or neither might. There's a huge number of variables in how genetics will play out.

 

[Idablows]

I always feel left out of these "this is why you're gay" studies. I'm never statistically aligned with any of them. Being the first not straight guy from both sides of my family for at least the last 3 generations doesn't include me, and not having past sexual trauma/having both a mother and father figure in my life doesn't put me in the "nurture" category either.

 

[Kulindahr]

Too bad it's not based on any actual research -- just a mathematical model.

Don't know where you've been, but mathematical models are research.

That mathematical model brings together a bunch of actual studies in biology; such models themselves are referred to as studies. So it's research based on other research (a lot of other research).

 

[Kulindahr]

Perhaps someone more in touch with the field of study will know the research I'm referring to, but I'm 90% certain when I took psych in undergrad that in a study done of identical twins raised in different households from birth (adoption or whatever other circumstance), if one twin was gay the other had something like a 70% chance of also being gay, even being raised in different households.

I wasn't aware the genetic role in homosexuality was still controversial or surprising.

Ok fair enough.

But if it's "just" 70% chances... it means it's a mixture of genetics and environment.

Other studies have had lower figures, which is why this study worked with the much lower 20% figure. But even 70% is puzzling if it's directly genetic.

But that -- regardless of 20% or 70% or something in between -- doesn't mean it isn't genetics, because epigenetics are a part of genetics. Environment can affect epigenetics, definitely, but the result is genetic because it's carried in the genetic code.

 

[Kulindahr]

Of course. But almost everything with genetics is that way. You could have tall genes but if you have a poor diet you won't grow as much as you would have otherwise. You may have thin genes but if you live on peanut butter and pizza you're going to be fat. Everything is that way.

I get the feeling you try to believe very strongly in 1:1 causality from genes and really almost nothing works out that way. Breast cancer can run in a family but that doesn't mean every woman is going to get it, even two sisters who maybe were raised the same way and lived more or less the same way aren't necessarily both going to get it, one might or neither might. There's a huge number of variables in how genetics will play out.

Okay, but those examples are of the expression of genes being favored or limited by the resources in the environment. This would be one involving expression of a gene based purely on the gene itself, which happens to have its 'switch' thrown in a statistically unlikely way. Once it's set, that's where it stays, on the orientation the gene lands on. Maybe other factors adjust the strength of precise aim of that orientation, maybe social input does as well, but the orientation is set pretty much in stone.

 

[Kulindahr]

I always feel left out of these "this is why you're gay" studies. I'm never statistically aligned with any of them. Being the first not straight guy from both sides of my family for at least the last 3 generations doesn't include me, and not having past sexual trauma/having both a mother and father figure in my life doesn't put me in the "nurture" category either.

That last got discredited a long time ago.

And whether or not there were any gays in your ancestry makes no difference, either: this is a matter purely of hormonal chemistry between you and you mom in the womb. It seems to accurately predict the observed fact that children born from a gay father are no more likely to be gay than anyone else is.

 

[xbuzzerx]

I don't know what your problem with the term "feminized" is; it's a scientific term with a specific meaning. It popped up in my botany courses; you can have feminized apples, feminized poppies, even feminized marijuana. Feminization can occur naturally or be induced. All it means, generally*, is that a genetic male is expressing traits expected from a genetic female. So there's no "implying" going on, just scientific observation. In this case -- to use your analogy -- it means that apparently the "settings on the machinery" are in fact the "machinery of sexual orientation itself".



*I say "generally" because a flower blossom, which has both male and female aspects and parts, can be said to be "feminized" if environmental factors have caused it to exhibit more female traits, just as it can be said to be "masculinized" if it exhibits more male traits (e.g more than the normal number of stamens).

You're talking social level -- this is biological. It has nothing to do with apparent behaviors, it has to do with attraction. That attraction is not to behaviors, but to physical gender. There's no paradox at all.


I thought this was basic biology, high school or college. <sigh>

I can tell you where even I (who didn't get lost in the socialization line of thought) was off-put by this explanation-- and it was probably just your use of example more than anything else--- was that when you started talking about the number of stamens and what not, my immediate thought was since gay men don't grow breasts or develop ovaries, I am not certain how the comparison was parallel.

Not being dense or nitpicking, I'm just saying that in humans when you refer to feminization unless you are strictly referring to gender attraction and no other factor whatsoever, it's difficult to avoid the socialization aspect--- and even gender attraction is something society attempts to massively to influence socially that even that is something difficult to completely isolate as a purely genetic switch or biological lever.

I actually don't believe in a gay/straight lever, I believe in a scale, and I believe we are in many cases more straight than we might have been 'naturally' because of massive social pressures and conditioning.

Okay, but those examples are of the expression of genes being favored or limited by the resources in the environment. This would be one involving expression of a gene based purely on the gene itself, which happens to have its 'switch' thrown in a statistically unlikely way. Once it's set, that's where it stays, on the orientation the gene lands on. Maybe other factors adjust the strength of precise aim of that orientation, maybe social input does as well, but the orientation is set pretty much in stone.

But resources in the environment do affect the likelihood of many genes to come into play, including homosexuality. Ask biologists and zoologists and marine biologists what you begin to see in mammals in enclosed populations or in large herds where getting food or further breeding becomes liability. I know specifically with dogs and dolphins this has been observed. I do not disagree that at least in humans, sexual orientation becomes "set", we don't shift back and forth between hetero and homosexual based on what season it is or how good the time of year is for breeding or anything else. But I do believe many factors outside of our own personal genetic makeup influence the likelihood of many genes emerging-- whether they control sexuality or family diseases or weight or anything else.

 

[Kulindahr]

I can tell you where even I (who didn't get lost in the socialization line of thought) was off-put by this explanation-- and it was probably just your use of example more than anything else--- was that when you started talking about the number of stamens and what not, my immediate thought was since gay men don't grow breasts or develop ovaries, I am not certain how the comparison was parallel.

Not being dense or nitpicking, I'm just saying that in humans when you refer to feminization unless you are strictly referring to gender attraction and no other factor whatsoever, it's difficult to avoid the socialization aspect--- and even gender attraction is something society attempts to massively to influence socially that even that is something difficult to completely isolate as a purely genetic switch or biological lever.

I actually don't believe in a gay/straight lever, I believe in a scale, and I believe we are in many cases more straight than we might have been 'naturally' because of massive social pressures and conditioning.

Stamens is one way it manifests in flowers. They're not very complicated, so there really aren't many ways it can be manifested. The only point was that it happens even in plants, to illustrate that "feminization" is a common scientific term.

Gender attraction is the only thing "feminization" refers to. Remember, we're not actually talking about human beings here, we're talking about strands of chemicals found in the nuclei of cells. Feminization isn't something that happens to an organism, it's something happening to a gene or, more likely, a set of genes. Anything about that is how feminization is manifested, not the feminization itself.

So far the evidence doesn't point to whether this is a purely binary operation or not, although it does (strongly, IMO) suggest that it's a spectrum either in the number of genes involved or in how many "settings" a single gene has (or a combination).


On a different angle: I find it a bit unnerving that they could manipulate the orientation of mice. Some people will look at that and decide there must be a medical "gay cure".

Plus ça change...

But resources in the environment do affect the likelihood of many genes to come into play, including homosexuality. Ask biologists and zoologists and marine biologists what you begin to see in mammals in enclosed populations or in large herds where getting food or further breeding becomes liability. I know specifically with dogs and dolphins this has been observed. I do not disagree that at least in humans, sexual orientation becomes "set", we don't shift back and forth between hetero and homosexual based on what season it is or how good the time of year is for breeding or anything else. But I do believe many factors outside of our own personal genetic makeup influence the likelihood of many genes emerging-- whether they control sexuality or family diseases or weight or anything else.

Sure, but that's not involved here. The only thing we're looking at really is cells in a womb, and from the people who've studied this it appears it's only one environmental factor: hormones.

That exterior influences can 'flip' genes is well established. I'm afflicted with a result of that: thanks to some traumatic crap, a gene that was latent in my makeup got switched on, and left me bipolar. Then one (or more) of the meds I'm taking kicked in a hereditary arthritis about fifteen or twenty years before the doctors expected.

Sometimes they can get kicked back where they were. For example, the doctors keep telling me that if I can live in a supportive, secure, positive environment for a half-dozen years, the bipolar gene could kick back to latent (I thought I was on my way to that, but thanks to certain bankers, the world stopped being nearly so secure or positive).

There are also genes that can flip in response to certain heavy poisons; I don't recall anything about that except that it has been observed. And in some cases, people who experience a truly terrifying event can in fact lose the color in their hair, which is a matter of the genes for color shutting down.