That’s utter nonsense, as what I’ve highlighted in blue should have made clear to you if you thought about it more carefully. There’s only one possible explanation for such a widespread and strict statistical pattern in biological nature: genetics. A merely congenital explanation would see wildly divergent patterns, or, no real pattern at all. The ultimate cause has to be something deeply fundamental and remarkably consistent across cultural and local-environmental factors, which means genetic rather than congenital.
It also, of course, doesn’t begin to address all those “exceptions” that are only or eldest sons who are gay. Or all those nth sons who are straight. Those populations are more than statistical outliers - they’re a significant portion of the homosexual population for whom the hypothesis doesn’t hold.
Sigh – another sad case of math & statistics illiteracy! I have encountered such very sloppy “reasoning” far too often. Engage your brain and see if you can follow me: For the purpose of exposition, say (arbitrarily) that the probability of the first son being a homosexual is 1 percent. Will that boy be a homosexual? The odds are strongly against it, but it happens in once every 100 cases (duh). But science tells us that the next son has a probability of up to 1.44% of being homosexual. And the third up to about 2.1%. But according to you, if the first born son is homosexual, the statistical pattern simply disappears or becomes invalid! That’s just statistical silliness!
It also, of course, has never been empirically tested in humans. It’s been modeled in rodents and does look like a pretty strong hypothesis, but it’s far from proven, as you seem to think it is. Therefore, reporting it as a given is not scientifically accurate.
Still more self-confident ignorance on display, I see. Too bad you haven’t read, for example, one of many references similar to this:
The most consistent biodemographic correlate of sexual orientation in men is the number of older brothers (fraternal birth order)…
In this article, I demonstrate that the number of biological older brothers, including those not reared with the participant (but not the number of nonbiological older brothers), increases the probability of homosexuality in men. These results provide evidence that a prenatal mechanism(s), and not social and/or rearing factors, affects men’s sexual orientation development…
Only biological older brothers, and not any other sibling characteristic, including nonbiological older brothers, predicted men’s sexual orientation, regardless of the amount of time reared with these siblings. These results strongly suggest a prenatal origin to the fraternal birth-order effect.
I’ve got quite a few additional citations that show this has been compellingly demonstrated in the peer-reviewed scientific literature over and over again in human beings, not just animals!
It’s a hypothesis I personally believe will be borne out as accurate with time, but we’re not there yet.
We emphatically are already there, as has been confirmed numerous times all over the world.
And, as I already said, the very fact that I think homosexuality probably is congenital (not genetic) is why we should *stop *basing our demands for equality on it.
That’s a straw man. I’ve never heard anyone ever advocate for equality on genetic grounds. What a nightmarish can of worms such a ridiculous argument would unleash for everyone, not just homosexuals! Instead, the argument is that since homosexuality is genetic, it can’t be a “choice”, and since it’s not a choice, it is morally wrong for others to morally denigrate homosexuality as a “sin” or as being “immoral”.
As you say, what if we’re right? What if we develop hormonal treatments for mom during pregnancy so that her boys are all born straight? I think it’s perhaps ethical to offer the option, but would it be ethical to mandate it - legally or through social pressure? What if the babies can be “fixed” with hormone injections shortly after they’re born? Should we make a “homo test” mandatory during postnatal care, the way we do now for HIV?
I think if we make decent treatment of homosexuals predicated on a medical condition, then we’re setting the stage for even more horrible treatment of those who chose not to treat their homosexuality. And again, since their “condition” is one that impacts no one besides other consenting adults, I find that abhorrent.
Ah, the “argument” from X-Men 3: The Last Stand (which, for those who may not be aware, was actually the root topic of the film). Is that you, Magneto?
That argument is profoundly flawed, of course. Lies and cover-ups are no defense from tyranny. Reality cannot be changed by falsehoods, no matter how noble or ignoble the goal (although conservatives apparently refuse to accept that fact).
We should be decent to gay people because they’re people. That’s it, really. That’s all the reason a decent person needs to accord gay people the same rights as everyone else.
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, do not live in any utopia. If that were truly all that was necessary, we wouldn’t be in this situation and we wouldn’t be having this debate. Ideals cannot succeed without a vigorous defense, and Nixon’s statement was no help to that cause, and neither are yours, alas.
(The bisexual argument was just so full of strawmen I’m not going to bother tilting at that windmill today. Don’t feel like choking on the chaff…)
Words matter. Definitions matter. Factual arguments matter, but I don’t see anything there that matters.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, July 11, 2006 vol. 103 no. 28 10771-10774