Perhaps the fact checkers were on vacation or simply dozing on the job. Whatever the reason, thanks to the venerable New York Times, I can now add another illustration to my argument in “Same-Sex Science” (First Things, February, 2012) that science is often misrepresented in our debates about homosexuality.
Frank Bruni, in his essay “Genetic or Not, Gay Will Not Go Away“(New York Times, January 28, 2012), makes a broad point regarding which I am in complete agreement: Our societal, legal, and cultural debates will not be solved by science. But when you do cite the science, you ought to get it right.
His essay was occasioned by the recent revelations of actress Cynthia Nixon, who commented in the New York Times Magazine that she is gay by choice. Predictably, she has been savaged by those in the GLBT community who rely on the “born gay” argument, supposedly supported by science, to justify sexual orientation being analogous to race and thus to be accepted and celebrated as a “given” of the human condition.
In support of the argument that at least sometimes sexual orientation is a condition of birth, Bruni describes how “One landmark study looked at gay men’s brothers and found that 52% of identical twin brothers were also gay.” This brief explanation both fails as a description of that 20+ year old study and fails to reflect the better research published since.
Bruni gets the number right; the 1990 landmark study by Bailey and Pillard reported a 52% “probandwise concordance” for homosexual orientation among genetically identical sibling groups, but this does not mean what Bruni says it means. A proband wise concordance is a technical calculation, one that in this case results from the following actual results: There were 41 genetically identical sibling groups (40 identical twin pairs and one triplet trio) and of these 41 groups, only in 14 of the groups did the genetically identical brothers match for sexual orientation; in the remaining 27 sets the identical twin brothers did not match.
But this 1990 study was actually based on a sample that was apparently distorted by volunteer bias and hence not representative of homosexual persons in general. Bailey’s own study of a decade later, and the recently published “gold standard” study by Långström et. al. of the Swedish Twin Registry, both found even lower matching among identical twins with much larger and more representative samples. Both studies reported about 10% matching (for Långström, 7 identical twin pairs matched with both identical brothers gay out of 71 total pairs of male identical twin pairs).
So in plain English, the best contemporary scientific findings are that when one identical twin brother is gay, the probabilities of the second twin being gay are approximately 10%. This suggests that the contribution of genetics to the determination of homosexual orientation is modest at best.
To his credit, Bruni gets a number of things right, including the most important thing: Science will not solve our culture’s struggles about sexual orientation. But when science is cited, we should at least get it right.
Stanton L. Jones is provost and professor of psychology at Wheaton College (IL).
January 31st, 2012 | 2:34 pm
Was this a Nixon in China moment?
Nixon was on the mark when she described her being in a gay relationship as a choice. She has separately described herself as bisexual. Thus, if she is going to be in a relationship with one person, it will either be with a man or a woman.
But her experience as a bisexual does not capture the nuances of what it means to be a gay man or a lesbian and not bisexual. While there is no clear biological cause for homosexuality, there is a biological predisposition. That, coupled with early childhood development, probably accounts for the fact that so many gay men (and some lesbians) describe their experience as always having been gay. It is true that there is a greater degree of sexual fluidity among women to the point where there are many women who write about the choice to love other women. You rarely read this ‘choice’ happening among gay men.
January 31st, 2012 | 2:51 pm
[...] BAD SCIENCE: The Genetics of Same-Sex Attraction. [...]
January 31st, 2012 | 4:46 pm
Is there anybody out there who identifies as heterosexual who can imagine choosing to be homosexual, or anybody who identifies as homosexual who can imagine choosing to be heterosexual? I can imagine someone who is essentially bisexual choosing to live exclusively as either a heterosexual or a homosexual, but I really cannot imagine someone just choosing to switch. I can only imagine such a person experiences his or her sexuality differently from other people.
I would be a lot better off if I could make certain choices. For example, if I could choose to dislike chocolate or chocolate-covered candy (like Trader Joe’s English Toffee), I would find my weight a bit easier to control. But try as I might, I still love chocolate. I wouldn’t say that is exactly analogous to sexual orientation, but I wouldn’t say it is radically different, either.
January 31st, 2012 | 5:04 pm
There’s an interesting review in the New York Timesof a book named Straight: A Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Here’s a quote:
Is heterosexuality genetic?
January 31st, 2012 | 5:05 pm
Actually, it sounds like Bruni’s statement is correct. Prof. Jones notes that out of 40 pairs of identical twins and one triplet in the study, there were 14 (about one-third) in which both men were gay and in the rest (about two-thirds) only one man was gay.
It is easy to see that in such a case, picking one of the gay men at random, the probability that his genetically identical sibling will be gay is indeed about 50%. And that is actually what Bruni’s statement literally says.
Here’s the calculation in a nutshell: To simplify, let us just have three pairs of twins
G/NG
G/NG
G/G
G=gay, NG = not gay.
In one third of the pairs, both men are gay, in the other two-thirds only one is. There are four gay men in this example. 2 of them have a gay twin and 2 have a not-gay twin. Therefore, if you select a gay man at random from this set of people, the chances are 50% that he has a gay twin.
Go back and reread Bruni’s statement. That is what he says, and it is therefore literally accurate. It may be that this statistic is misleading, or the study on which it is based poorly conducted. I am not making any comment on the larger issues being addressed here, only a narrow mathematical one.
January 31st, 2012 | 6:59 pm
Professor Barr is correct, and I am correct as well. The problem is that there are two different ways to calculate genetic “concordance” in behavior genetics: “probandwise concordance” and “pairwise concordance.” What follows is more than anyone wants to know.
Probandwise concordance is calculated exactly as Professor Barth suggests. In calculating probandwise concordance, every single twin pair counts as two matches: twin A’s match with B is one match, and twin B’s match with A is a second match. So the calculation is to count every gay brother that matches (3 triplets + 26 identical twins from 13 pairs = 29 matches), and then divide by every opportunity to match (which means the 29 individuals who have matched + 27 who did not match = 56 total possibilities to match). 29/56 = 52% probandwise concordance.
Probandwise concordance is a legitimate estimate of heritability. The problem, however, is that the public (as I have found over and over) does not think mathematically, as Professor Barr does; they think more in terms of pairwise concordance.
Pairwise concordance does not count a single matching twin pair as two matches as in probandwise concordance. Pairwise concordance is illustrated in the way that I described the original study: Start with an index twin who manifests the characteristic of interest (in this case, homosexual orientation) and then ask the question “how often does the second twin manifest the same characteristic?” This is what I was expressing in stating “of these 41 groups, only in 14 of the groups did the genetically identical brothers match for sexual orientation; in the remaining 27 sets the identical twin brothers did not match.”
I emphasize pairwise concordance because when I clarify what the general public wants to know when they ask about genetic influence, it is clear that pairwise concordance is the better reflection of the question in mind than probandwise concordance. I find consistently that an answer framed in terms of probandwise concordance confuses the public. For this reason, I try to give the simplest descriptive summary of the actual concrete findings.
The bigger issue, of course, is that Bailey’s study was on a flawed sample, and more recent studies reflect lower concordances yet.
January 31st, 2012 | 7:41 pm
“Is heterosexuality genetic?” I would assume so, otherwise our species would cease to exist.
January 31st, 2012 | 9:19 pm
If I might disagree with you both: I think the wrong question is being asked.
Pairwise concordance asks the question, “Assuming that a man is gay, what is the probability that his identical twin brother is gay?” Probandwise concordance asks the question, “Assuming that one member of a pair is gay, what is the probability that the other is also gay?” But the right question is about effect size: “Assuming that we have two people for whom social and cultural factors are the same, how much more likely are they to both be homosexual or heterosexual when they’re identical twins, as compared to when they’re not?” This is a Bayes factor: The probability of concordance conditional on the two people being identical twins, divided by the probability of concordance conditional on the two people not being identical twins.
The presence of a genetic component means that we ought to compute the probandwise concordance of a set of pairs of people who are from the same social, cultural, and economic backgrounds (if we use the probandwise concordance among dizygotic twins then we’re underestimating the effect size). You can’t get an unbiased estimate of this from the rate of homosexuality in the general population because the general population includes twins; but it’s all we have to go on. If 3.5% of the population identifies as homosexual, then the probability that two randomly selected people are homosexual given that one of them is homosexual is 1.8%. So a 52% probandwise concordance corresponds to an effect size of about 28.9, which is very large. Genetics looks to be a very powerful factor in homosexuality, even if its effects have sometimes been overstated.
January 31st, 2012 | 9:43 pm
Very few traits in nature are the effect of single genes, though. Most traits are the result of a lot of interaction among many different genes, and then you add nurture on top of that. Even for conditions with known genetic components, such as diabetes, concordance between twins isn’t 100%. Indeed, “Monozygotic twins are usually discordant (only one twin affected) for type 1 diabetes.” (Note, in that study, the specific mutations involved have a significant effect on the concordance.)
Brain development is more complicated than most bodily systems, and something as complicated as sexual attraction must have lots of components. Rates of concordance by themselves don’t tell a great deal. It’s going to be a while before we have a handle on the causes of homosexuality, and they will certainly involve many different causes to many different degrees.
February 1st, 2012 | 1:01 am
[...] The Genetics of Same-Sex Attraction – Stanton L. Jones, First Things/First Thoughts [...]
February 1st, 2012 | 8:03 am
I work in statistical genetics, and I think Ray is right. At this point in time, most correlations between genetic polymorphisms and phenotypes are so small they are only useful to insurance companies. Small correlations tell the patient almost nothing about his chance of developing the disease, but they do a good job of predicting how many in a large sample will develop the disease. The most promising use of the research is in helping biochemistry labs to find the physiological cause of the disease, for example, by directing their attention to implicated proteins.
But on the larger question, Professor Jones is clearly correct: twin studies can’t establish that a phenotype is entirely heritable; but they can easily prove it is not entirely heritable. In this case, multiple studies have thoroughly refuted the “born this way” theory.
February 1st, 2012 | 9:46 am
“Is there anybody out there who identifies as heterosexual who can imagine choosing to be homosexual, or anybody who identifies as homosexual who can imagine choosing to be heterosexual?”
There are plenty of people whatever their inclination who can imagine choosing to be chaste or unchaste. And “identifying” with one’s sexual tastes is a rather dubious concept.
February 1st, 2012 | 10:04 am
And “identifying” with one’s sexual tastes is a rather dubious concept.
jason taylor,
By someone who “identifies as a heterosexual” I mean someone, who, if asked his or her orientation, would say, “I am a heterosexual.” I believe the vast majority of people would classify themselves as either heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. How this can be a dubious concept is beyond me. It may be a little bit of an oversimplification to classify people into three groups according to sexual orientation, but certainly the understanding of human sexuality in this thread accepts that there are gay people and straight people.
February 1st, 2012 | 10:10 am
In this case, multiple studies have thoroughly refuted the “born this way” theory.
Felapton,
Sexual orientation could be determined before birth without being genetic, although I am not exactly sure what it would mean to be “born gay.” I would not want to say tall people are born tall. But they almost certainly are born with the potential to be tall.
February 1st, 2012 | 1:04 pm
I think David Nickol is right that it is possible to be born homosexual without it being entirely genetic. One theory, for male homosexuality at least, is that during the complex hormonal process in the womb something becomes out of whack. All fetus are default female and XYs get a hormone bombardment in the mothers womb that masculinizes the fetus. This is whyt XYs with AIS turn out to be female.
On a personal note, I suspect this is one of the causes of homosexuality and that there are multiple causes of homosexuality AND a diverse continuum. Some homosexuals genuinely don’t seem able to be meaningfully attracted to any but the same sex. Some are more bisexual and seem to have a “choice” and may even choose to call themselves “gay” not “bisexual” because, for whatever reason, they feel more comfortable engaging in exclusive homosexuality (or vice versa; some folks with the potential to go both ways choose to be straight and so identify). And there are more than you’d think existed predominately heterosexual folks who, at one point in their lives, engaged in homosexual behavior and enjoyed it, but still, in the long run, turned out heterosexual.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to me this diversity of narratives suggests multiple causes for homosexuality. And I think we err when we see one narrative and conclude it applies universally. It does not. Cynthia Nixon has more of a choice than Ellen DeGeneres. Both narratives are valid.
I know to speak the name Kinsey is to poison the well because of “issues” with his work; but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Kinsey was right re sexual orientation existing on a continuum.
February 1st, 2012 | 3:42 pm
I know to speak the name Kinsey is to poison the well because of “issues” with his work; but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Kinsey was right re sexual orientation existing on a continuum.
Jon Rowe,
I think Kinsey was right there, too. And I also think another controversial figure (Dr. John Money) was saying something with a lot of truth in it when he said there are as many sexual orientations as there are people.
February 2nd, 2012 | 6:33 am
A remarkable change occurred in the 19th century.
Traditionally, sodomy had been regarded as a sin and, specifically, as a sin against religion. It is no coincidence that the three crimes of blasphemy, sodomy and witchcraft were abolished by the same resolution, passed, without a debate, by the National Constituent Assembly on 25 September 1791 – Deorum iniuria diis cura [Injuries to the gods are the gods’ business]
Michel Foucault has, rather drolly described the change that took place in the public perception and, particularly that of the medical profession:
“Sodomy, that of the old civil or canon laws, was a category of forbidden acts. Their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The nineteenth-century homosexual became a personage: a past, a case history, and a childhood, in addition to being a character, a life-style and a morphology, with an over-inquisitive anatomy and, possibly, a mysterious physiology. Nothing that he was, escaped his sexuality… It was consubstantial with him, [Rien de ce qu’il est au total n’échappe à sa sexualité. .. Elle lui est consubstantielle] less as a habitual sin than as a singular nature…. The sodomite had been a lapse; the homosexual was now a species.” [My translation]
“Nothing that he was, escaped his sexuality… It was consubstantial with him,” [Rien de ce qu’il est au total n’échappe à sa sexualité. .. Elle lui est consubstantielle] – That is the heart of the change.
From being a sinful action to be repented, or a vice to be overcome, “homosexuality” became a condition to be treated. Now, of course, it is an identity to be validated
February 2nd, 2012 | 8:56 am
Publius
“Is heterosexuality genetic?” I would assume so, otherwise our species would cease to exist.
Clearly language is essential to our species existing. Yet no one thinks there are genes for English or Chinese.
It’s actually not all that hard to imagine how a trait for homosexuality could have some evolutionary advantages if it was a minority of the population.
Kyle,
Good points, I would note that:
You can’t get an unbiased estimate of this from the rate of homosexuality in the general population because the general population includes twins; but it’s all we have to go on.
Since twins are a very small portion of the population, I don’t think they alter the overall percentage of homosexuality very much. It’s probably safe to just use 3.5% of the general population as a guide.
Felapton
But on the larger question, Professor Jones is clearly correct: twin studies can’t establish that a phenotype is entirely heritable; but they can easily prove it is not entirely heritable. In this case, multiple studies have thoroughly refuted the “born this way” theory.
Depends on what one means by ‘born this way’. If you mean a specific ‘gay gene’ that you either have or don’t have then no there’s probably no such thing.
A lot of who we are, though, does not come directly from specific genes. Genes might be thought of as a blueprint or receipe but just like anyone whose cooked from a receipe knows, there’s still a lot of variation in what may come out.
For example, some genes may get switched on or off depending upon the environment in the womb or early childhood. For example, during pregnancy a woman with poor nutrition may ‘signal’ the fetus that it is in a harsh environment with little nutrients. Genes for a low metabolism may get switched on to burn food as slowly as possible. When the baby is born in the developed world full of fast food and cheap calories, he will have a propensity for obesity. He was in fact ‘born that way’ in the sense that he is obese not so much because he eats more or was raised on a more fatty diet but because his development has given him an intrinsic inclination to obesity. Yet you won’t ever find a ‘fat gene’ in his DNA.
Jason
There are plenty of people whatever their inclination who can imagine choosing to be chaste or unchaste. And “identifying” with one’s sexual tastes is a rather dubious concept.
You’re confusing orientation with behavior. I can imagine having more or less sex with women than I currently am. I can imagine my sex drive increasing or decreasing. Yet I’m pretty sure if I choose to be chaste, I would still have desires for women. I suppose I could even imagine having sex with men but I find it very difficult to imagine myself plausibly desireing that. Describing this as merely a taste seems to miss something essential about human nature. It’s one thing to say I like blondes more than brunettes yet that’s simply a taste so I shouldn’t leave my wife for a hot blonde….it’s quite another thing to suggest my inclination towards women itself is just a ‘taste’ like that.
One very important aspect here is that it’s rather easy to accept that my taste for blondes is driven by culture, environment, the media, sex symbols when I was growing up and so on. I can accept quite easily that if I was born and raised in other times and places I might not find blondes attractive at all, I might find them funny and odd looking. But the inclination towards women in general does not feel to be just another cultural artifact. I wasn’t created simply by seeing romances on TV or peer pressure in high school to form couples. It is an aspect of human nature and human culture is shaped by it…not the other way around.
I would suggest reading Steve Pinker’s The Blank Slate which effectively demolished the idea that all of human nature is solely due to the environment and can be infinitly malleable. If it helps, the Blank Slate hypothesis is by no means very friendly to conservatives. Many myths Pinker slashes to shreds are ones from the political left rather than right.
February 2nd, 2012 | 9:03 am
Stanton
There were 41 genetically identical sibling groups (40 identical twin pairs and one triplet trio) and of these 41 groups, only in 14 of the groups did the genetically identical brothers match for sexual orientation; in the remaining 27 sets the identical twin brothers did not match.
Wait a second. If 27 out of 41 sets of twins did not match for sexual orientation, and for the sake of this argument we assume that there are only two orientations possible, that means there has to be 27 gay men out of the 27 ‘sets’ that did not match. Let’s say that of the 14 remaining sets that did match, all of them were not gay. That would make 33% of men who are identicial twins gay! That seems rather odd given that maybe 3.5% of the general population is gay. Almost as if having a genetic twin itself is a cause of homosexuality.
February 2nd, 2012 | 12:03 pm
Boonton – this was not a random sample of twins. It was a study of twins, at least one of whom was gay, to see how many of their twins were also gay. You needed to be a gay twin to have the pair enter into the study. You cannot extrapolate incidence of homosexuality in twins in a general population from this study.
February 2nd, 2012 | 2:39 pm
It seems to me the study assumes that a heterosexual orientation is determined genetically, which is not a crazy assumption, but is there any genetic evidence for it? It has been a long time since I read Freud, but as I recall he had an elaborate theory of how people became heterosexual, and essentially it was by suppressing or abandoning innate bisexuality. I think most of the remaining psychiatrists today who consider homosexuality a disorder subscribe to the Freudian view that heterosexuality develops from bisexuality, not that homosexuality is heterosexuality gone wrong. It has, however, been a long time since I did any significant research on the matter. Certainly it was mainly Freudians who opposed removing homosexuality as a diagnosis from the DSM.
February 2nd, 2012 | 4:47 pm
jim,
Thanks for the clarrification but 33% is still pretty high, even 10% is high. That strongly indicates there’s a real genetic element at play here. I’d be interested to know what the percentage is for brothers who are fraternal twins (like enviroment but different genes), brothers who were split up at birth both twins and not, and non-twin brothers (fewer shared genes but shared environment).
I think this post is built on something of a straw man. There isn’t likely to be ‘gay genes’ anymore than ‘straight genes’. What is probably more the case are genes that may increase the chances that an individual will be gay just as there are genes that predispose an individual to certain illnesses, but do not guarantee the individual will get it.
David
It has been a long time since I read Freud, but as I recall he had an elaborate theory of how people became heterosexual, and essentially it was by suppressing or abandoning innate bisexuality
First off it sounds like a possible hypothesis but just that. I don’t think there’s good evolutionary reasons to believe it (smells to me of ‘blank slatism’). Many animals who are much simplier than humans do not seem to have ‘innate bisexuality’ where they mate with any other member of their species regardless of gender with a 50-50 chance of getting lucky in drawing a M-F combo in order to reproduce. Many mammals have very elaborate behaviors that are gender based which means that long before you have anything like a human, our distant ancestors already had mental wiring laid out that detected gender and had patterns of behavior based on gender. IMO it seems unlikely that humans ditched all that to be ‘blank slates’ letting culture do the work of conditioning behavior. Second it still leaves the question unanswered. Why do some people fail to suppress this ‘innate bisexuality’ and others do not? Is there some trama in growing up that suppresses this habit? Is there a genetic element that makes it difficult for people to suppress it? Why do some people suppress it in the gay direction rather than the straight direction?
February 2nd, 2012 | 5:08 pm
Homosexuality has to be an abnormal condition given the imperative to reproduce to continue the species. It clearly is not entirely genetic. An in-utero hormonal/nutrient cause may be possible due to variations in blood flow and blood content in the two placentas accounting for the differences in twins. The greatest variability between twins is going to be after birth and I think that is likely where the cause(s) lie although hormones, nutrients and genetics may predispose which would help account for the higher incidence of homosexuality in both twins where at least one is gay.
February 3rd, 2012 | 7:47 am
Homosexuality has to be an abnormal condition given the imperative to reproduce to continue the species.
This makes sense if the species you’re talking about is a bacteria or maybe a virus, not if it’s a social animal like humans. Social animals do not simply have traits to reproduce as often as possible but also to limit reproduction. A gene that causes some modest percentage of the population to be homosexual is no more prohibited by evolution than a gene that makes some modest portion of the population chaste.
February 3rd, 2012 | 12:57 pm
Michael PS
From being a sinful action to be repented, or a vice to be overcome, “homosexuality” became a condition to be treated. Now, of course, it is an identity to be validated
There is a distinction between the two words. Sodomy is a act (or type of act). A homosexual is a type of person. A person may be homosexual but not engage in sodomy, just as a person may engage in sodomy despite not being a homosexual.
Your post seems to imply that the shift in language created a new reality. I would say that the language adjusted to accomodate what is, in fact, reality.
February 3rd, 2012 | 1:57 pm
Homosexuality has to be an abnormal condition given the imperative to reproduce to continue the species.
Oregon Catholic,
It is never a requirement for a species that all of its members mate or even be capable of mating. Take a look at honey bees, for example, where all but one of the females (the queen) is sterile, and only a small number of males mate with the queen.
Would you say priestly celibacy is against nature?
February 3rd, 2012 | 2:18 pm
Boonton,
For your argument to be true:
1. evolution would have to be an intelligent design, able to predict that man would have a social need to deal with things like controlling reproduction and introducing a genetic abberation as a solution.
2. Chastity is not genetic. It is an operation of the will. It is available to hetero and homosexuals alike without a need for a genetic cause or even predisposition.
February 3rd, 2012 | 2:24 pm
Booton
I was glossing « Le sodomite était un relaps, l’homosexuel est maintenant une espèce » [The sodomite had been a lapse; the homosexual was now a species.]
I believe the change is not unconnected with the doctrines of Beccaria and Lombroso, who devised the notion of the “criminal type”; again, the subject of an action became “consubstantial with it” and crime became a pathology.
Lombroso, by the by, whilst his theories were generally derided in Europe, had his greatest influence in the US, phrenology and all, which brings us back, by a long detour to heredity
February 3rd, 2012 | 3:01 pm
David,
You are wrongly equating lack of sexual activity with homosexuality. We know it’s a genetically driven social behavior in bees because bees lack choice. Sexual inactivity is common among some members in social groups of animals; homosexuality is not and where it is present is usually the play-acting of seually immature adolescents. The limiting of sexual activity among animals to the strongest members provides a mechanism for survival of the fittest; homosexuality offers nothing toward the survival of a species.
Priestly celibacy is a purposeful choice and as such is not against nature and does not depend on or alter the underlying sexual orientation. Homosexual orientation may or may not be chosen, but regardless it does not change the ability to make a purposeful choice such as celibacy however hard it may be to do so.
Alcoholism may have a genetic component and is certainly a compulsive behavior in which a person has such a strong physical and emotional attraction to use alcohol – they will sometimes even die to continue it. There are a great many similarities between alcoholism and homosexuality. Ask the wife of an actively using alcoholic who her husband’s beloved is.
However, unlike homosexuality, no one makes the case that alcoholism is somehow a normal variation despite being far more prevalent than homosexuality. As yet, no one makes a legal argument for toleration and accomodation for it apart from treatment and certainly no one is making it a cause for celebration. It is still seen for what it is. There are also many, many alcoholics who have chosen to be ‘celibate’ despite how hard it is.
February 4th, 2012 | 6:10 am
However, unlike homosexuality, no one makes the case that alcoholism is somehow a normal variation despite being far more prevalent than homosexuality.
Exploring this analogy really reveals a great deal about the role “value judgments” play in making these categorizations.
Alcoholism is treated as a lifestyle choice, only we don’t use that word ‘alcoholism’ – a word that suggests that someone does not have control.
We tend to base our evaluations on the impression of whether harm is done, and we tend to be of the opinion that alcoholism hurts people whereas homosexuality is harmless.
I do not know if that is the case (or if it can even be proven, really) but I do know that we must be on our guard against arguments that go, basically, something like, “Since we all know that homosexuality is harmless, you must therefore treat homosexuals as equal, even if what they want or intend to do is going to cause harm to someone else.
February 4th, 2012 | 8:37 am
David,
Would you say priestly celibacy is against nature?
I would say it is. But I would also say that’s the point. The intent is to set onesself apart from nature and position onesself in the transcendant order.
Oregon Catholic
In reverse order, chastity may be genetic in some people. There are a few people who define themselves as asexual, with little or no sex drive or interest at all. There’s no particular reason to think that couldn’t be genetic for perhaps some of them. I agree with you a person who takes a vow of celibacy as a priest is exercising a choice, but that’s not really relevant for a discussion of genetics.
1. evolution would have to be an intelligent design, able to predict that man would have a social need to deal with things like controlling reproduction and introducing a genetic abberation as a solution.
Consider a society of humans that is split roughly 50-50 between men and women versus another one that is 53-47. At first in terms of reproduction it seems the first has the edge, since they have more women they can birth more babies….one man can impregnant many women but in any 9 month period you are more or less confined to 1 woman per 1 baby at most (and I’m talking prehistoric societies here, no modern technology to induce twins or more, high risk of death in childbirth etc.). But the other society may have the advantage. With more men they can attack the other society and take their women. But therein lies a problem, men are competitive with each other for mates. A society with more men than woman will fight amonst themselves.
But what if a gene was present that had a 3% chance of causing homosexuality or some degree of bisexuality. A society where such a gene was present would be able to accomodate slight deviations from a perfect 50-50 split between genders. If such a society was present at our ‘evolutionary bottleneck’ (a period where the population went as low as only 10,000 people for reasons that are unknown today, all of our genes today can be traced back to that mini-population), then it would remain today embedded in the billions of humans who inhabit the earth.
However, unlike homosexuality, no one makes the case that alcoholism is somehow a normal variation despite being far more prevalent than homosexuality.
But it most likely is, as is our most noticeable addiction of all; sugar. We all go crazy to one degree or another for sugar and the ability to refine pure sugar has created all sorts of health problems for us. Getting excited by sugar was a sensible variation long ago. Food is hard to come by in nature and finding something sweet was a gold mine. A huge amount of energy packed in a small place. But of course the trait that 50,000 years ago helped us snatch a sweet fruit off a tree now causes us to loose our feet and eyesight from diabetes as we just can’t say no to an extra large piece of birthday cake.
Don’t counfuse a trait favored by genetics or evolution with one that’s good for you. Evolutionary traits are not designed to make your life easier, they are designed to keep getting passed down, nothing more.
February 4th, 2012 | 8:44 am
I believe the change is not unconnected with the doctrines of Beccaria and Lombroso, who devised the notion of the “criminal type”; again, the subject of an action became “consubstantial with it” and crime became a pathology.
Possibly but we still have reality to contend with here. Sexual orientation seems quite real.
I can understand a ‘lapse’ argument. I steal some money from a cash register at the store. I ‘lapsed’ into a criminal act. Normally I desire money but I refrain from getting it by stealing. One day, though, I lapse. OK. But the reason I don’t have sex with men is not the same. Personally there is just no desire there to do such a thing. It doesn’t matter if it would be easy for me to do, if society would encourage it, if rules against it were relaxed. I do desire sex with women and I could see how in certain contexts that could cause a ‘lapse’ into doing something wrong. But even if I’m nowhere near being wrong, that desire is part of who I am, part of my nature if you will.
I don’t really think a ‘criminal type’ works in this regard. We all have various desires that could lead to criminal acts of one sort or another, if a criminal type means anything it would mean someone with less ability to keep their desires from causing them to break the law. A person who desires money who works overtime wouldn’t be a criminal type, another who robs the till would be. But both share a desire for money so that wouldn’t define them as a ‘criminal type’.
February 5th, 2012 | 12:03 am
I do not know if that is the case (or if it can even be proven, really) but I do know that we must be on our guard against arguments that go, basically, something like, “Since we all know that homosexuality is harmless, you must therefore treat homosexuals as equal, even if what they want or intend to do is going to cause harm to someone else.
Why? I see no reason why I should treat a homosexual who may want to harm me differently than a heterosexual who may want to harm me? In both cases, I would respond as I would to any human who intended to harm me (the response, of course, would be driven by the specific context).
Where this argument goes, then, is straight to the bigots’ corner. If you come up with a convoluted ideology that says all members of the class homosexuals, by simply existing, intend to cause harm, then one is free to treat homosexuals unequally from other humans.
February 5th, 2012 | 11:54 am
Booton
What do you make of the classical (Freudian) notion of polymorphous perversity in childhood development, with its oral, anal and phallic stages?
Some post-structuralists – I am thinking of Deleuze and Marcuse – have gone so far as to challenge the Oedipus complex itself.
February 6th, 2012 | 10:11 am
Oregon Catholic – I suggest taking a look at David Sloan Wilson’s “Evolution For Everyone”. It explains what evolution is – and isn’t – and shows by example how organisms (and their behavior) can adapt without an overall intelligent planner.
(Many people have no problem with the idea that overall sophisticate organization can arise without central coordination and planning… so long as one talks about economics.)
February 6th, 2012 | 1:43 pm
Michael PS
My understanding of Freud is only at a HS level at best. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to rephrase your question downwards a bit.
In general I’m perfectly willing to grant that the Oedipus complex is real and general to the human population, what that means, though is unclear. For example, in response to David’s question if Freud’s hypothsis is true, that all children are ‘perverse’ and ‘learn’ to become heterosexual then why does that not happen to all people? We are back to the question of genetics, brain structure, environment etc. I think a flaw that many Freudian types committed is that they formulated a hypothesis and then went to seek out evidence that supported it. For example, the theory that homosexuality was caused by distant fathers and overbearing mothers. What they should have done is tried to find evidence that might refute their hypothesis instead. If they had done so they might have avoided falling victim to thinking they had proved an argument they didn’t, in fact, prove.
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