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An exhaustive, meticulously researched scientific look at sexuality and gender. I haven't gotten past the executive summary yet, but just reading that tells me that the SJWs will hate this report with every fiber of their beings. Can they refute it? We'll see.
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+Jay Maynard I do enjoy watching Republican politicians twist and turn when asked questions about evolution. You're right, though, in that creationism is not in the official Republican Platform.
I'll bypass your comments on climate science because it would sidetrack the discussion, and for that reason alone.
I've never been a supporter of the "born this way" slogan. I still think all humans have a right to self-determination, and I think you do too. So let the kids have their fun. If I had to guess why some people cling to the position, I'd suggest it might be a handy response to religious arguments against homosexuality, and as I'm not religious those arguments aren't interesting to me.
I'm not at all interested, since you mention it, in arguing with those who want to go back to the bad old days when homosexuality was marginalised, criminalised and medicalised. The genie is out of the bottle.Aug 25, 2016
Yeah, and I'm inherently suspicious of religious freedom arguments for those who wish to discriminate against same-sex couples - because those same arguments were used to discriminate against mixed-race couples. I agree that the genie is out of the bottle. I'm not at all sure that the way it got out of the bottle is good; the Supreme Court can make changes to the law, but it cannot change people's hearts. But that's water under the bridge.
With all of that said, though, the fact remains that there are lots and lots of SJWs who fervently argue that sexual orientation and gender identity are fixed and immutable and therefore beyond the reach of people's opinions. The science says otherwise, at least for the first part. While one cannot suddenly choose to be a different race (Rachel Dolezal notwithstanding), there is some evidence that some, at least, can choose to change their sexual orientation.Aug 25, 2016- As usual, I think we're in danger of turning this into yet another social justice hug-fest. We both want the same things, though the details of other people's poorly founded opinions seem to bother you more than it does me.
I'd say I feel that other people's opinions are problematic only when they prevent somebody acting as they wish. So somebody who prevented another adult trying reparative therapy and somebody coercing another into cooperating in it are two sides of the same coin, at least in principle. In practice, there are far more prominent cases of the latter. Who can be surprised if a lot of LGBT people frown on something that has been used far too often as a tool to stigmatise and persecute non-heterosexuals?
I'm one of those people who can form a satisfying heterosexual relationship without any great effort. Not everybody is the same. Nor should we all be.Aug 26, 2016 - As +Margaret Leber and +Ken Burnside pointed out on Eric's page, this study is pretty much a naked attempt to sciencewash conservative Christian views on homosexuality, and does not rise to the level of being "exhaustive" or "meticulously researched".
To me the provenance of homosexuality or transgenderism matters little. "An ye harm none, do what ye will" is the only right principle when it comes to whom you seek out sex or relationships with or how you present gender-wise. And if they be mental illnesses, who cares? Everything is a mental illness -- depression, ADHD -- and they could all be froot loops and still be entitled to their choices as long as they're not harming anyone.Aug 28, 2016 - Sorry, +Jeff Read. The right answer to that paper is not to scream "but Christians!". It's to produce papers they didn't include, and explain why they refute their conclusions. That's how science works, you know. But then, you've been ignoring how science actually gets done for years, so why should I expect you to do differently now?Aug 28, 2016
- The great geneticist and sexual orientation researcher Dean Hamer has responded to this paper. Briefly, he makes three important points: it's not peer reviewed, it's published in a journal that's regarded as essentially vanity press in the scientific fields it purports to cover, and its coverage is very far from being comprehensive. In particular, on his own field, Hamer states: "Of the six studies using proper probability sampling methods that have been published in the peer-reviewed literature in the past 16 years, they include only one — and it just so happens to be the one with the lowest estimate of genetic influence of the entire set."
He links to the following page, which does indeed appear to list twelve peer reviewed research papers on twin studies in sexual orientation, of which six have been published in the last sixteen years.
http://m.psi.sagepub.com/content/17/2/45/T4.expansion.html
That's the kind of problem that would normally be picked up in peer review.
Hamer's critique can be read in The Advocate.
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/8/29/new-scientific-study-sexuality-gender-neither-new-nor-scientificAug 29, 2016
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