Dean's World

If I'm understanding this correctly, those attacking Bailey are essentially saying that it is unimaginable and impossible that someone would have a sex-change operation [yes, an impossibility until they can at least add or remove all those pesky Y-chromosomes, I know...] because they find their new transformed self hot (to paraphrase). I can certainly understand an argument that says that virtually everyone who does it does it because they feel trapped in a body of the wrong sex, but how can they say for certain that no one ever does so for less-than-idealistic reasons?

On the other hand, perhaps Bailey should issue a response saying that people never disagree with him based on honest disagreements, and that it is only due to intolerance that they do...

Dean, I'm not sure how this thread relates to homosexuality, rather than transgender. Me, I think transgenders are demonstrably mucked up, as opposed to homosexuals, who merely have opposed sexual orientation.

But that's just me...

I've read about this thread elsewhere, and the takeaway I got was that the establishment is very upset with that professor, mainly because he challenges the current Common Wisdom.

Scientific discussion via harassment is a lovely process, don't you think?

If you are interested in reading more, there's another article about this on my blog.

The really explosive political issue here is that "gender identity disorder" may not be a legitimate diagnosis after all. Sex-change operations might be an entirely elective procedure, not a medical necessity, which I imagine, is how most ordinary Americans see them anyway.

Me, I think transgenders are demonstrably mucked up, as opposed to homosexuals, who merely have opposed sexual orientation.

The field of psychiatry felt homosexuals were demonstrably mucked up until the 1970s. Changing socio-political winds fixed that. Don't think the same thing won't happen with the "transgendered."

And I'm with Dean, attaching sexuality to genetics is a bad idea for homosexuals. As I've said before, sexuality comes down to one of three things: genetics, metal contitioning, or choice.

As heterosexuality is demonstrably superior to homoseuaxlity from an evolutionary point-of-view, logic tells us steps should be taken to correct the homosexual condition.

Now, just you wait and see. Instead of being addressed with logic I'm going to be called a bigot, hatemonger or whatever else. The substance of my point will never be addressed.

And even if a "gay gene" was found that doesn't mean it is a condition to be embraced. Homosexuality is a evolutionary genetic dead end. As most homosexuals I've met also tend to be ardent athiests it would seem to me they've never pondered the irony of that position. They reject religion (at least The Big Three), which tells us homosexuality is a sin but one that can be repented of, but embrace Darwinism which tells us homosexuality is a genetic abnormality that should be bred out within a requisite number of generations.

The human desire to worship their own genetials never ceases to amaze.

Kevin,

I don't know if you'll accept this as responding to the substance of your points, but since many, many other animals also contain a homosexual population that resists Darwinian evolution, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that, from a species point of view, having a homosexual subset has evolutionary benefits.

Furthermore, it seems to me that this is a story of the peer review process working, not failing. The attention garnered by Bailey's attackers has sparked further discussion of the issue and has raised its prominence to a place where it cannot be ignored. There are as many defenders, it seems, as detractors for his book. And, as sherard has mentioned, the book is in no way scientific and makes no attempt at a widespread scientific study with appropriate sample sizes and controls. Thus, drawing conclusions from it would be about as accurate as drawing conclusions about any question you asked to 5 people in your immediate neighborhood.

there's an old joke about several researchers riding a train, and they see a black sheep out the window. "Look," says the psychologist, "all the sheep in this area are black." The biologist says, "No, we can only say at least one of the sheep in this area is black." No, says the physicist, "the most we can say is that one of the sheep in this area is black on one side." But the mathematician has the last word: "One of the sheep in this area is black on one side — some of the time." this would seem to fall into the first category of statements.

"The field of psychiatry felt homosexuals were demonstrably mucked up until the 1970s. Changing socio-political winds fixed that."

No, changing understandings of psychology fixed that. Honestly, it was mostly about old farts who weren't willing to consider new ideas retiring from the profession than anything else, and people that mistook the realities of being a despised minority for a pathology itself.

"but embrace Darwinism which tells us homosexuality is a genetic abnormality that should be bred out within a requisite number of generations. "

Do you ever tire of embarrassing yourself with batty claims like this, Kevin. Say it with me again: biology is a _de_scriptive theory, not a moral theory of shoulds. Nor is genetic difference the same thing as genetic abnormality.

I don't know if you'll accept this as responding to the substance of your points, but since many, many other animals also contain a homosexual population that resists Darwinian evolution,

I think it would be more accurate to say that many other animals contain bisexual populations.

Sure. Just like the genes for cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia ... leave homozygous hosts reproductively unfit yet have *not* been bred out despite many, many generations.

True, but sickle cell anemia doesn't preclude breeding such as true homosexuality would. See my first comment for reasons why a the gene would propogate over genereations.

BK,

isn't that a quibbling point? i'm sure deep down most of us would probably admit to falling near to but not at an extreme of the sexuality spectrum. but in any case there have been documented cases of, for example, penguins taking same-sex mates and obviously displaying a clear preference.

Somewhat off-topic, but also somewhat relevant:

There's another plagiarism scandal going down in Physics that involves some big name journals. This isn't exactly a good way to show that peer review is working... Aren't we paying $4000+ bucks a journal for the editors to notice little things that a Google search or glance at the arxiv would show?

BK,

I think you're sort of missing the point though. The reason that these genes persist in populations (or at least this is the theory) is that they confer an advantage to those who are heterozygous for the gene, even though they're a huge disadvantage for those who are homozygous for it. You don't have to have homosexuals animals or people breeding (or those with cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia) to have perpetuation of the gene; what needs to happen is for people who *carry* the gene to breed. If having one gene for homosexuality confers a big advantage on people who have one copy, it'll get perpetuated even if it's a reproductive dead end for those who carry two copies - and that's assuming that it's as simple as there being a single gene 'for' homosexuality, and it's almost certainly not that simple.

For instance, one fairly well accepted finding is that second or later sons are more likely to be homosexual than firstborn sons, with an increasingly strong effect with an increasingly large number of sons. One theory that a maternal immunization effect causes this, which means that mothers get increasingly sensitized to proteins encoded on the Y chromosome and develops antibodies to them, which then affect fetal development in subsequent sons. How could this be a *good* thing if the mother wants to pass down her genes? Well, it could be that this effect only occurs in women who have exceptionally good (and heritable) immune systems, meaning that even if they're at risk of having non-reproducing later-born sons, they're likely to have exceptionally healthy daughters and firstborn sons, or are less likely to succumb to infection after childbirth, or something like that. The point is, the gene for this effect could get perpetuated even if the homosexual sons never sire any kids of their own.