huevonkiller
Change (Deftones)
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I am posting this article, because in the other (antique) thread about Homosexuality, I mentioned that I would like to review the objective, scientific facts on this issue. My goal was to try to determine whether there is actually evidence of a "gay gene", seeing as I kept hearing people tell me about its existence all the time.
Richard Horton is the editor for "The Lancet" a British medical journal. Now, in this critique (of sorts) he lays into LeVay and Hamer (two men who asserted that there indeed was a "gay gene") for being reckless. However, he doesn't speak fondly of "Katz" either, one who took a completely antithetical position.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">
Indeed, cats, rabbits, and rats all show some elements of "gay" behavior when their brain serotonin concentrations fall. Intriguing and, you might think, convincing evidence.
Yet, although w is found in modified form in human beings, it is a huge (and, it seems to me, a dangerous) leap to extrapolate observations from fruit flies to humans. In truth, when the recent data are interpreted literally we find that (a) the w gene induces male group sex behavior in highly ritualized linear or circular configurations, and (
while these tend more toward homosexual than straight preferences, they are truly bisexual (as pointed out by Larry Thompson in Time). Zhang and Odenwald force their experimental results with fruit flies to fit their preconceived notions of homosexuality. How simplistic it seems to equate genital licking in Drosophila with complex individual and social homosexual behavior patterns in humans. Can notions of homosexuality apply uniformly across the biological gulf that divides human beings and insects? Such arguments by analogy seem hopelessly inadequate.
...
Seven pairs of brothers did not have the Xq28 genetic marker, yet these brothers were all gay. Xq28 is clearly not a sine qua non for homosexuality; it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause by itself.
And what about women? Although the genitalia of women as well as men are clearly biologically determined, no data exist to prove a genetic link, or a link based on brain structure, with female sexual preferences, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Finally, neither study has been replicated by other researchers, the necessary standard of scientific proof. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that the INAH 3 data will be extremely difficult to confirm. Only a few years ago INAH 1 (located close to INAH 3) was also thought to be larger in men than in women. Two groups, including LeVay's, have failed to reproduce this result.
...
LeVay and Hamer on the one hand, and Katz, on the other, evidently have taken completely antithetical positions. But Katz's extreme intellectual reductionism makes him as guilty as the more simplistic biologists and journalists who inflate claims about every new genetic discovery. </div>
Source
My goal was not to tell all of you that Homosexuality is wrong, but to shed light on the issue of a "gay gene".
Edit- I corrected which website was in the "Source" hyperlink.
Richard Horton is the editor for "The Lancet" a British medical journal. Now, in this critique (of sorts) he lays into LeVay and Hamer (two men who asserted that there indeed was a "gay gene") for being reckless. However, he doesn't speak fondly of "Katz" either, one who took a completely antithetical position.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">
Indeed, cats, rabbits, and rats all show some elements of "gay" behavior when their brain serotonin concentrations fall. Intriguing and, you might think, convincing evidence.
Yet, although w is found in modified form in human beings, it is a huge (and, it seems to me, a dangerous) leap to extrapolate observations from fruit flies to humans. In truth, when the recent data are interpreted literally we find that (a) the w gene induces male group sex behavior in highly ritualized linear or circular configurations, and (
...
Seven pairs of brothers did not have the Xq28 genetic marker, yet these brothers were all gay. Xq28 is clearly not a sine qua non for homosexuality; it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause by itself.
And what about women? Although the genitalia of women as well as men are clearly biologically determined, no data exist to prove a genetic link, or a link based on brain structure, with female sexual preferences, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Finally, neither study has been replicated by other researchers, the necessary standard of scientific proof. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that the INAH 3 data will be extremely difficult to confirm. Only a few years ago INAH 1 (located close to INAH 3) was also thought to be larger in men than in women. Two groups, including LeVay's, have failed to reproduce this result.
...
LeVay and Hamer on the one hand, and Katz, on the other, evidently have taken completely antithetical positions. But Katz's extreme intellectual reductionism makes him as guilty as the more simplistic biologists and journalists who inflate claims about every new genetic discovery. </div>
Source
My goal was not to tell all of you that Homosexuality is wrong, but to shed light on the issue of a "gay gene".
Edit- I corrected which website was in the "Source" hyperlink.
