Homosexuality is a choice

[Darat]

I've moved a lot of posts to Deep Storage as they were involved in an exchange that had posts that included cruel and hateful remarks made against other Members. Let's try to keep it civil even if some folk have extreme views that you strongly disagree with.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

We had this post reported yesterday: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6441925#post6441925 - although many people would call that "hate speech" we do not moderate for such comments as long as they are not directed at a fellow Member. Sometimes such general comments are nothing more than someone's attempt to use sophistry to disguise an attack on a specific Member or Members and when we judge that to be the intent we do moderate for that.

Posted By: Darat

 

[PhantomWolf]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/111663.php

Thank you for this. However it doesn't say what you claim it does, and in fact UncaYimmy has already linked to the actual study, not just an article about the study.

Also quote from an actual doctor in there: "A cognitive biology expert told BBC News that he believed these brain differences were decided early in the development of the fetus. There was no longer any argument, "if you are gay, you are born gay," he said."

Yes I'll conceed that he is a doctor, however look at the underlined word. I don't want to know what he believes, I want to know what he can prove. I want evidence that these brain structures are formed in the womb. His belief that they are formed there is not evidence, it's an apeal to authority. "Trust me, I'm a Doctor."

I think if you want to argue the opposite, the burden of proof is on you, not on me.

Did you bother even reading my post? Have you bothered reading ANY of my posts in this thread? No? Thought not.

Just because it's a positive claim of the form "X happens." If you know when or how that can happen, it's your task to show it, not everyone else's to prove that for all brains of all humans that ever lived it didn't.

You made two major claims here, don't blame me that you can't back one up at all and have to rely on an appeal to authority for the other. I would have loved you to have come up with some real evidence, it would have boosted my own possibility that genes switched on and off depending on our gender, are reversed in homosexuals. That would explain why HoW and HeM's brains are similar and why HoM and HeW's brains are similar, but you haven't met your burden of proof to show that what you say is true.

So, how do you call trying to reverse the burden of proof? Because last I heard it's called an "argument from ignorance" fallacy.

The burden of proof is on the claimant, you made the claim, it's your responsibilty to meet the burden. I'm actually saddened at your attitude Hans, I thought more of you.

 

[HansMustermann]

I have seen that claim made or quoted by several doctors. The article I linked for example was written by a Ph.D., who at the very least seemed to have no problem with that.

I hope you'll excuse me if I take doctors talking about medicine as real authorities. More than Random Internet Guy disbelieving it, at any rate.

ETA: and just to make it clear, the "believed" there doesn't mean personal wild guess, but the standard model of brain development. It can, of course, be wrong, but if you want to argue a different model of brain development, the burden of proof _is_ on you. Sorry.

 

[Skwinty]

Yes I'll conceed that he is a doctor, however look at the underlined word. I don't want to know what he believes, I want to know what he can prove..

I thought science wasn't about wrong or right and that science doesn't prove anything. Science explains observations. Just asking, not looking for an argument.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I have seen that claim made or quoted by several doctors. The article I linked for example was written by a Ph.D., who at the very least seemed to have no problem with that.

I hope you'll excuse me if I take doctors talking about medicine as real authorities. More than Random Internet Guy disbelieving it, at any rate.

ETA: and just to make it clear, the "believed" there doesn't mean personal wild guess, but the standard model of brain development. It can, of course, be wrong, but if you want to argue a different model of brain development, the burden of proof _is_ on you. Sorry.

You still don't seem to get it, I'm not arguing for any model of brain development, I'm wanting you to show the evidence for the one you are supporting.

Skepticism (philosophy):

(a) an inquiry,
(b) a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
(c) the arbitrariness, relativity, or subjectivity of moral values,
(d) the limitations of knowledge,
(e) a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment.

I'm not saying you are wrong and something else is true, I'm saying you haven't actually managed to show what you are saying is true. All you have done so far is used repeated appeal to authority.

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.

Just because people (even experts) say something and claim it, doesn't make it true. What I want to see is the evidence, and as of yet I haven't see it. All I have seen is a study on adults which didn't itself speculate on when or how those pathways were developed. Now if you can show something that actually does show that, well and good, I'll be happy, but what you have provided so far is extremely lacking, and "Trust me I'm a Doctor" or what the BBC reported is not scientific enough for me to be willing to throw away my suspended judgment, even if it is for you.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I thought science wasn't about wrong or right and that science doesn't prove anything. Science explains observations. Just asking, not looking for an argument.

Through observation science tells us that hammers have a tendacy to fall down when let go of a few metres above the surface of a planet. If someone told me that the hammer would float away, I'd suggest that they hold it over their foot and see if they were right or wrong.

 

[HansMustermann]

Nobody's asking you to believe anything. I'm not the High Inquisitor of Brain Development, nor the Ayatollah Of Medicine, or anything. If you want to not believe, don't. If you can come up with a better brain development model, please do so. It's how science works, after all.

But, you know, the same applies in reverse too. You'll excuse me if between believing some doctors and believing you, I'll go with the doctors. As the informal logic version of that fallacy goes, the one that is actually wrong is actually an Appeal To Misleading authority. The doctors are real authorities. Random Internet Guy #12345678 handwaving why he doesn't believe them is not.

Plus, you've been shooting your mouth about pseudo-science and such BS, which goes a bit beyond just being skeptical. There is an implicit claim in there, which I'd like to see you support. Or refrain from such BS.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Nobody's asking you to believe anything. I'm not the High Inquisitor of Brain Development, nor the Ayatollah Of Medicine, or anything. If you want to not believe, don't. If you can come up with a better brain development model, please do so. It's how science works, after all.

But, you know, the same applies in reverse too. You'll excuse me if between believing some doctors and believing you, I'll go with the doctors. As the informal logic version of that fallacy goes, the one that is actually wrong is actually an Appeal To Misleading authority. The doctors are real authorities. Random Internet Guy #12345678 handwaving why he doesn't believe them is not.

Plus, you've been shooting your mouth about pseudo-science and such BS, which goes a bit beyond just being skeptical. There is an implicit claim in there, which I'd like to see you support. Or refrain from such BS.

Do you actually read my posts or just make up what you think they say and go for there?

How many times do I have to say I HAVE NO BRAIN DEVELOPMENT MODEL I WANT YOU TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR THE ONE YOU ARE USING!

Do you understand this?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Nobody's asking you to believe anything. I'm not the High Inquisitor of Brain Development, nor the Ayatollah Of Medicine, or anything. If you want to not believe, don't. If you can come up with a better brain development model, please do so. It's how science works, after all.

It's not a case of what I want to believe or not, I follow the evidence. Give me the evidence and we'll be sweet. All you have to do is link to study or paper or even an article that shows how they have determined that these structures were formed in the womb. Do that and I'm happy on your point 1.

But, you know, the same applies in reverse too. You'll excuse me if between believing some doctors and believing you, I'll go with the doctors.

You don't seem to understand that I'm not asking you to believe me about anything. What exactly do you think I want you to believe? Show me were I have made a claim that I want you to accept or believe.

As the informal logic version of that fallacy goes, the one that is actually wrong is actually an Appeal To Misleading authority. The doctors are real authorities. Random Internet Guy #12345678 handwaving why he doesn't believe them is not.

I'm not handwaving, I have spelled out in detail what my issue is, you refuse to a) accept my issue as I state it, and b) meet it with what I ask for.

If Joe Smith arrives on this board and says that "1,000 Architects and Engineers believe that the WTC was demolished" would you simply accept it, or would you question it? Good Skepticism is to question it and demand evidence not just the Expert's word. Excellent Skepticism does the same thing when John Brown turns up and says that the "Engineers of NIST say that damage and fire brought down the WTC."

Sketicism is not just about questioning things that we find hard to believe, it's about questioning the very things we find easy and want to believe. If we don't do that we are no better than the CTs and peudo-scientists out there.

Plus, you've been shooting your mouth about pseudo-science and such BS, which goes a bit beyond just being skeptical. There is an implicit claim in there, which I'd like to see you support. Or refrain from such BS.

Perhaps you need to re-read what I said:

If Hans has further evidence of his claims then all and good, but I'm never just going to agree with someone's claims merely because they support the side I'm on, that is the behaviour of CTs and Pseudoscience.

Please point out exactly what "implicit claim" is in there, and show me exactly what is BS about what I have said.

 

[HansMustermann]

But you've been shooting your mouth about pseudoscience and lack of support before even waiting to see if any is provided. At the point where you can make such claims, it seems to me like you damn better have a model and support.

At any rate, such pathways forming in the womb:

http://shb-info.org/sexbrain.html

(Also has a chapter on the irreversibility of that.)

(Different piece of) wiring from the amygdala causing anxiety doesn't change after birth:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?_r=2&em

Brain dimorphism and asymmetry (one factor mentioned in the gay vs hetero study) being already present at birth (although, interestingly enough, the asymmetry in males was actually the opposite at birth than what it will grow into):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886661/

 

[PhantomWolf]

But you've been shooting your mouth about pseudoscience and lack of support before even waiting to see if any is provided. At the point where you can make such claims, it seems to me like you damn better have a model and support.

You really need reading comprehension lessons. Go and re-read what I wrote, I even re-quoted it for you and you still haven't got it. I said that if I just accepted what you said then it would be me acting like a CT or pseudo-scientist. Exactly what claim is there in this that needs to be supported?

Thank you for finally providing some links, I'll read them and comment once I finish, or tomorrow as it's getting late here.

 

[PhantomWolf]

At any rate, such pathways forming in the womb:

http://shb-info.org/sexbrain.html

(Also has a chapter on the irreversibility of that.)

Thank you for posting this, it was an interesting read. I do have to disagree with them in several places, the main one being that the pathways on various things, including those I have, all activate during puberty. I can clearly remember acting as and dressing as a girl well before puberty (between 5 and 8) before I came to understand that such behaviour was "wrong" and went into the role I was expected to take. As I have said previously, had I understood what was going on, and been in a situation where it would have been accepted and things changed, I'd be a rather different person now.

I also debate that the pathways are totally unchangable. While I certainly regret that I'm not who I could have been, and don't try and kid myself that it doesn't have an affect on me (I still prefer to have long nails and hair as well as having other rather more personal issues, and no I do still wear male clothing) I also understand and function socially based on the fact I have XY genetics, not XX despite what my brain says about it. As I have gotten older I can switch over to a more "Male" brain than I could when I was younger even if I still perfer the female side and being about females rather than males (I also no longer totally detest males and their ways.)

In the end I prefer to see myself as a male not female, as the papers you linked would declare me. I don't believe I am fooling or deluding myself with this, because I have been male so long that, that is what I am, even if some days my brain still tells me it should be otherwise.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Ultimately, we all are as we are, regardless of how we (or anyone else) feels about it, regardless of how we got to be how we are, and regardless of what terminology we use to talk about it. Do we make distinctions that people in other times and other cultures don't? Yes. This suggests to me that while people don't change, the way they think about themselves does. But in the end it doesn't matter. What's important is that we accept our differences and live together peaceably.

 

[HansMustermann]

Dunno, PW, in case it wasn't clear:

1. Yes, nobody said you'd also get an XX body _if_ you have, so to speak, an XX brain. In fact that's kinda the whole point. Some people have an XY body and an XX brain. If they also got an XX body we'd call them hetero women instead of gay men.

2. Nobody said it's all nature. Sure, most of human behaviour is trained/learned and changeable. The fact that some people have some female wiring there doesn't change that. Sure, they'll be attracted to other men and a few other modifier to the instincts, but otherwise being raised as a man still means they won't act or think 100% like a woman. So no big surprise there.

3. That's not stuff you can diagnose in yourself by just thinking hard about it. I mean, sure, you can know what your preferences are and whatnot, but not how your lobes are wired or what kind of symmetrical or asymmetrical brain you have. If you think such wiring is changing in you at the moment, then go get an MRI. That's evidence. What you think your wiring is, isn't.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Dunno, PW, in case it wasn't clear:

1. Yes, nobody said you'd also get an XX body _if_ you have, so to speak, an XX brain. In fact that's kinda the whole point. Some people have an XY body and an XX brain. If they also got an XX body we'd call them hetero women instead of gay men.

Already agree on that

2. Nobody said it's all nature. Sure, most of human behaviour is trained/learned and changeable. The fact that some people have some female wiring there doesn't change that. Sure, they'll be attracted to other men and a few other modifier to the instincts, but otherwise being raised as a man still means they won't act or think 100% like a woman. So no big surprise there.

Actually if you read your linked papers, they pretty much do say that it's all biology.

3. That's not stuff you can diagnose in yourself by just thinking hard about it.

Yes and no. I'm sure you wouldn't tell a gay person they couldn't diagnose it themself.... An MRI might be able to show what's going on, but doesn't change what's going on.

I mean, sure, you can know what your preferences are and whatnot, but not how your lobes are wired or what kind of symmetrical or asymmetrical brain you have. If you think such wiring is changing in you at the moment, then go get an MRI. That's evidence. What you think your wiring is, isn't.

Getting an MRI wouldn't do a lot, if I'd gotten one at 10, one at 20, and one now, that'd be useful because you can compare. All one now would do is prove I'm totally screwy.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, then you could do another MRI in 10 years when you're all manly and we could count the differences, like in those puzzles in newspapers

As for nature-vs-nurture, it depends what you mean by that. As I was saying, at the level of modifiers to basic instincts, like anxiety or gender preferences, sure, those are hard-wired and it's all nature. Human behaviour as a more general and higher level thing, I don't think any of those came even close to saying it's all (or even predominantly) nature.

So basically _if_ you have an XX brain (so to speak,) then sure, your fight-or-flight will be modified like that of women, and you'll be sexually attracted to men, and some stuff like that. But the learned/trained stuff would still be leaned and respectively trained stuff.

 

[Piggy]

Ultimately, we all are as we are, regardless of how we (or anyone else) feels about it, regardless of how we got to be how we are, and regardless of what terminology we use to talk about it. Do we make distinctions that people in other times and other cultures don't? Yes. This suggests to me that while people don't change, the way they think about themselves does. But in the end it doesn't matter. What's important is that we accept our differences and live together peaceably.

And in the middle of the fight, a hockey game broke out.

But only briefly.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Sorry to come in so late on this topic. Here's my own story, others, and what I believe.

I'm a guy and have always been attracted to guys (since I was around 4 years old). However, I also became attracted to girls when I hit puberty. I've never met anyone who had the same story. I still respond sexually to women but have chosen to only date guys because it feels more vital and true to my nature.

I know people who claim to have been straight first then gradually turned bisexual then sometimes exclusively gay. I also know people who've been gay then became straight. I know a woman who claims to be lesbian, had a previous lesbian relationship, but is in a straight, exclusive relationship and still claims to be lesbian by nature.

There seem to be no end of combinations and transformations, but I really never see a choice to have a gay, straight or bisexual nature. Only choices to be what one is, or to pretend to be what one is not.

My favorite hypothesis of the origin of homosexuality is "sexually antagonistic selection" (google it) which has some good science behind it and should be immune to any proposals I know of to reduce or eliminate homosexuality in society.

In a free society, such efforts are inappropriate. The idea that homosexuality reduces reproduction has been refuted by studies I've heard of that found the rate of unintended pregnancies in gay and bisexual teens is higher than in straight teens. Fundamentalist endeavors to curb homosexuality, like the hanging of gays in Iran (google image this if you can stomach it), are profoundly futile.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Men wired as women are wrong. Perhaps you wish to celebrate defectives. Perhaps you have sympathy for these deviants. Good for you.

I'm agreeing with you all. The queer cannot help itself,much like the drunk who has a disease or the obese with their thyroid problem.
The degenerate engaged in homosexual acts are completely blameless for their promiscuous and reckless behaviors. Like a dog humping legs, they simply cannot help themselves. They are slaves to their disordered brains.

Pity the poor pansies.

Okay, so homosexuality is a choice. That means anyone can choose to be a homosexual by their own free will. Fine.

Scenario: I've kidnapped you and I'm pointing a gun at you. I say "Become a homosexual now and really mean it, or I shoot you in the head"

What do you do?

Do you concede my demand and become a homosexual or do you have me shoot you?

 

[kuroyume0161]

The idea that homosexuality reduces reproduction has been refuted by studies I've heard of that found the rate of unintended pregnancies in gay and bisexual teens is higher than in straight teens.

Homosexuality has certainly hurt reproduction. We are *only* nearing 7 Billion homo sapiens sapiens that we and the planet can barely support. We need many more, right!?

That argument used by anybody is very stupid by any measure. It is akin to the argument that gay marriage hurts 'sanctimoniously proper' straight marriage. How exactly?

These are people who have lost their reason totally in a fit of rage, dogmatism, and idiocy. Is there some ecological factor similar to the one posited for the witch trials near Salem, MA?