You’ve been making comments like this throughout this thread (starting with the OP) and done nothing to support them.
Yes, I think I actually have. If we take the issue as whether homosexuality is innate or not (rather than genetic, which was my confusion, though many people in the public sphere talk about it this way), I guess I boil my argument down to it’s anti-science and destructive to certain groups of people to make the unambiguous claim that homosexuality is always innate.
The Saletan (who happens to be gay) piece I quoted above makes the same argument.
And as an example of advocacy trumping science, look up a few posts at the unambigous statement saying homosexulity is not chosen by the person. Cythia Nixon (among others) says for her it was–are you going to attack her for saying something you know can’t possibly be true (just because, you just know; oh and some researcher have made some hypotheses you find appealing.)
The claim that it’s a choice is anti-science and destructive. The claim that it’s entirely innate goes beyond what the evidence can support at this point, but there is a good deal of evidence that it is largely innate. It’s absurd to put that on equal footing with the claim that it’s a choice, and I see no evidence that that claim is destructive.
The backlash against Nixon was harsh and I felt it was unnecessary since she was only speaking about her personal experience, but no, that’s not advocacy trumping science. She’s not a scientist, and she agreed she phrased it badly.
Your post is like a greatest hits of rhetorical fallacies.
No one (in this thread) said it’s *always *a choice… but many people in the general public and in this thread have said it’s always innate. That’s the argument.
“There’s a good deal of evidence…” is advocacy; you stridently insist on seeing overwhelming proof for any claim you don’t like, but then fall back on “lots of evidence, though not conclusive,” “scientists in the field believe.” This is just an appeal to authority. (And the “authorities” in this case are usually strongly invested in one particular viewpoint.) Further, when looked at closely, much of the evidence appears tangential, agenda-driven, and very speculative.
Read the Saletan piece–he pretty clearly explains why dismissing people’s experiences who may be on the cusp is destructive. (And he is good at explaining the anti-science aspect of many liberal activists.)
How is it relevant whether Cynthia Nixon is a scientist or not? That is pretty extreme and unhinged argument. And exactly gets to the point of why it’s destructive to confuse advocacy and science–you’d be willing to dismiss her (as many did) if you could just find a full-proof authority to say her experience of herself is not valid.
p.s., I do acknowledge that the one piece of evidence about innateness that seems compelling is idea that birth order affects likelihood of homosexuality even when subject didn’t grow up in their original home (i.e., so that family dynamic / psychological development issues don’t come into play.) If someone could point to that actual study, that’d be interesting to see…
But my punctuation is solid. 
And I did not say anyone in this thread had made that claim. But you obviously know some people make that exact claim. That’s what I was referring to.
As I said, the evidence does not support the view that it’s always totally innate. But there is evidence that innate factors play a very large role.
That’s not advocacy. It’s an assessment of the evidence.
I have not stridently done anything, and I have not made any unreasonable demands. I don’t think the opinions of Cynthia Nixon and Camille Paglia mean very much in this context and I guess you do, because that’s about all the evidence you’ve contributed to this point.
I thought you’d appreciate the fact that people admit the evidence does not go all the way to proving that sexuality is totally innate. (I think the idea that experience plays no role at all is kind of farfetched.) Apparently it annoys you instead. Oh well. And this is not an appeal to authority. Your citation of Camille Paglia was an appeal to authority (she’s gay and well known, so her opinion on the causes of homosexuality must be valid). A description of the status of scholarship isn’t an appeal to authority, it’s an assessment of where the evidence is.
Again, you keep making claims like this and you’re not backing them up. What is your basis for saying the scientific research here is tangential and agenda driven, and how can you dismiss it as speculative when it’s much more solid than the limited anecdotal experiences you’ve cited? This goes all the way back to the OP, where you accused people of “mindlessly parroting a propaganda point.” Since you’ve accepted that sexuality appears to be at least partly innate, it turns out they weren’t mindlessly parroting anything. But you’ve stuck to your guns on claims with weaker evidence.
Because you keep conflating science and the personal experience of individuals:
You’ve got a very long climb ahead of you if you are expecting to convince people here that individual impressions are better than scientific studies on issues like this.
Cite? I’m not aware of any really strong consistent studies that show that human emit or react to pheromones.
Yeah, I think this borders on a linguistic argument. “Being gay” is a phrase that covers too many different things (behavior, feelings, identity) generally to be useful, especially since the various different components of sexuality aren’t guaranteed to be tied together. Who you are visually attracted to, which gender you enjoy having sex with, which gender you choose to have sex with, which gender you have interpersonal chemistry with, which relationship model you were taught or observed growing up or intellectually decided works for you, which pheromones you respond to, which gender you have feelings for, how you choose to self-identify, etc.
And all of these things don’t necessarily correspond with each other. And they don’t necessarily exclusively or even primarily relate to gender. For many people other factors may be as much as or more important than gender, such as ethnicity, perceived position or relative power level, cultural background, intelligence, shared interests or values, religion, etc.
In all cases, depending on the person, there are levels of choice involved all the way from totally optional to impossible to change.
I consider myself to be primarily attracted to guys on most levels, but given certain contexts where I had no outlet for those feelings, I’m sure I could have a mostly fulfilling relationship with a woman. There are plenty of components of attraction that aren’t strictly tied to gender, and while women’s bodies generally don’t fire up all my brain’s horny buttons it’s not like they disgust me. I can definitely understand aesthetically how they are beautiful, and if hardpressed I think I could make the leap from aesthetic to sexual. And it’s not like I find all men attractive anyway.
But because an intimate relationship is, well, intimate, it seems to make sense to me that one’s primary intimate relationship should be as close to ideal for that particular component, since all of the other components have much more freedom to be met by other types of relationships.
As I’ve pointed out, I think you see examples of “mindless parroting a propaganda point” in this thread–i.e, “sexual preference is always innate.” I accept it’s partly innate, in the same way you accept experience plays a role. Others don’t seem to accept this (what to me) obvious reality–that’s what I find disturbing.
I brought up Nixon and Paglia partly in the context of falsifying the “100% innate” argument (in the same spirit of holding up a blue blade of grass to someone who says unambiguously all grass must be green), and partly to show toxic effects of absolutist ideology (toxic = attack on Nixon). Saletan gives additional examples…
You’ll have to go back to see where I think I have pointed out evidence is very speculative at this point. One key point is that no one knows enough about the brain to say what might influence sexual preference. (For every other “high order” human behavior, experience and upbringing play a role.) Just because such and such protein might affect such and such brain structure that controls certain functions related to sexual differentiation is a long long way from validating a theory about prenatal hormone exposure related to sexual preference. (My sense is that you believe it’s strong evidence.)
Another key point, is there is a crisis in the integrity of epidemiology when it comes to hot topics. If 40% of the studies in a field are shown have poor methodology or not be repeatable, I think it’s logical to be skeptical.
Yes, there are some people out there who think sexual preference is 100% choice, but if you want to argue that point, you should go find them…
“Important” in the sense that homosexuality is not a choice and people pretending that it is a choice are harmful to society by attempting to stigmatize and marginalize an entire segment of that society.
As to youir links, neither makes the point that I suspect that you are trying to make.
The first link discusses the errors made by two separate groups attacking the work or statements of Dr. Robert Spitzer. You did not actually explain what you thought this asrticle might have proved, so I will guess that you are hoping it supports the notion that it might be possible for people to change their sexual orientation.
It does not. The point of the article was that both the homophobes and the gay rights advocates have both overreacted to what was said, both in the initial report and in the later apology. The article makes it very clear that the original study was flawed, (thus not justifying the hoopla raised by the anti-gay faction), and that the apology does not say what the pro-gay faction took it to mean more recently.
However, looking at the actual study in question, several things stand out. The most important being that the study was based on 200 men who were already conflicted about their sexuality. Regardless how many of those men ultimately turned away from homosexual behavior, the point was that every one of them was unsure of his sexuality prior to the treatment. The article also notes that it took an enormous amount of effort to even find 200 subjects for the study. So out of the millions of gay men in the U.S. at that time, after significant effort to find 200 men who were already unsure of their sexuality, there was a flawed study that demonstrated that some smaller number of them could, under treatment, resolve that uncertainty by turning toward heterosexuality.
This study does nothing to assert that sexual orientation is a choice. It only notes that for some limited number of people, sexual orientation is not settled and may be influenced.
The second link also fails to say what it appears you were hinting at, (since, again, your cryptic comment does not actually explain what you think it said). In it, one flawed study is condemned by politicized groups. OK, so what? Has the study been retracted or removed from publication? No. Have the people performing the study been fired from their jobs or prohibited from publishing further? No. Has the APA condemned or dismissed the study? No.
So, basically, we have the typical case of non-scientists protesting a (flawed) scientific study that remains in the scientific literature without harm or penalty to the persons conducting the study.
(And in regards to the question asked by the study, the Slate author’s re-analysis says that the study actually confirms earlier claims that family stability trumps the sexual orientation of the parents–a point that provides more support for than opposition to same sex marriage if it would lead to more stable homes.)
So, it is OK for you to post a straw man argument in the OP, but you bridle at the suggestion that you be held accountable for the straw man you posted? 
Your post again supports the point that because, politically, you think the way to prevent gays from being stigmitized is to deny any influences on sexual preferences other than “innate” ones, you keep claiming it’s “100% innate,” in spite of the fact that’s an unscientific and unsupported statement.
The point of Saletan’s article is his argument against absolutism, which I see reflected in your absolutist statement that it’s important we say this can’t be a choice. Second Saletan study just shows how advocates can easily dismiss any data or reality they take as hostile to their cause (as I said, in a general sense, not directly related to this issue).
Can I ask you as a moderator to moderate your own post. What “straw man” did I offer? There’s a difference between posing a hypothetical which I say I’ve heard in the general press, etc. versus ascribing a specific argument to a specific person that didn’t make it.
I think that may be ill-informed, but I don’t find it disturbing.
You didn’t hold up a blue blade of grass, though. You quoted someone else saying grass is blue. That’s much less convincing.
This is thoroughly overdramatic, and again, it continues to paint only one side of the argument as ideological. The ideological side is the side of the debate that insists (without evidence) that sexuality is a choice and people who choose to be gay are sinful or something of that type. People who say sexuality is totally innate are overreaching, but there’s a significant amount of evidence it’s largely innate. And Nixon suffered no “toxic” effects. She said something people disagreed with, there was some criticism, and she apologized. It was much ado about nothing and the story was over in about two days.
There’s a big disconnect here–how is Nixon not a blue blade of grass?
Maybe saying attack on her is overdramatic, but maybe not. It was bullying and vehement (e.g., blaming her for any case of gay teen sent away to be reprogrammed) and it was a deliberate attempt to silence a dissenting voice. I think that’s pretty serious, partly because I think the anti-science tendencies on the left are more insidious than anti-science tendencies of the right. (If someone doesn’t accept evolution or the basics of global warming, they’re just dumb and out of touch. If a smart person twists data and talks persuasively about something that’s not factually correct, that feels more dangerous.)
Nicely put and could be applied to all aspects of human experience.
P.s., and it wasn’t a fabricated straw-man argument (though sounds like it’s been superceded for many, which I wasn’t aware of). Quick web search shows:
Dean Hamer of the National Institutes of Health performed and published the research most widely cited as pointing to a “gay gene.” Dr. Hamer testified in the Colorado Proposition 2 court case that he was “99.5% certain that homosexuality is genetic.”
Her initial comment was that she chose to be gay. How does that speak to the role that biological factors or environmental factors influence sexuality? It’s her opinion, and doesn’t address the possibility that biology and other factors played a role in her experience and her choice in the first place.
And in point of fact, a few days later she said she felt she did not choose her sexual orientation. She’d made a choice to be in a relationship with a woman (after years of being in a relationship with a man), all of which is obviously true. The whole thing began because when she had the experience of being straight and of being gay and that she preferred the later, and that she was annoyed that people sometimes objected to that comment because they felt it implied sexuality was a choice. While the inference that sexuality is a choice could be drawn from that comment, what she says is also an accurate face-value representation of her experience.
Yes, it was very much overdramatic. She didn’t lose money, jobs, or anything else as far as I know. People criticized her for a couple of days, she modified her point somewhat, and the controversy quickly ended because there wasn’t much to it in the first place.
I think you could not be more wrong about that, but I think if we get into it, it’s going to hijack this thread.
Since I’m at it, going back to original statement on “100% genetic”–here’s more evidence this was in fact an argument:
“Some gay rights activists insist that homosexuality is genetic, hoping that proof from that domain will lead to greater acceptance.” (Discover Magazine, 6/2007)
but point still stands on similar, politically driven argument of “100% innate.”
I have nowhere claimed that it was “100% innate.” (Until this post, I have not even used the word “innate.”) I have noted that it is not a choice. We have, so far, the example of 200 men (out of millions) who were conflicted about their sexual orientation, some of whom later resolved that conflict in the direction of heterosexuality. There are outliers on nearly all psychological states among the 7 billion or so humans currently on Earth. Pointing to outliers, (those with conflicted sexuality), as an indication that sexual orientation is a choice is less than persuasive.
As to your claim that the lack of choice is not supported or scientific, you seem to have grabbed that out of the air. (Again, I have made no claim that it was “innate,” so I have no need to support a claim I have not made. On the other hand, given your own exaggerated claims, I would prefer to see what evidence you would accept that orientation is not a choice before I do the research only to have you dismiss it.)
So, you are willing to admit that those who are making the “choice” claim are pretty much ignoring evidence? Why this thread, then?
I have never said that it cannot be a choice. I have noted that it is not a choice. For the overwhelming majority of humans, that is a true statement. That there may be conflicted persons in the world who actually made a choice in one direction or another does not invalidate the general nature of the observation. Noting that men urinate while standing is a general observation that is not invalidated if you happen to find a few men who prefer to sit or squat. Noting that sexual orientation is not a choice is a general observation that is not invalidated by a handful of people who are conflicted over their orientation. Finding a few people who announce that they have made a choice, (even excluding misleading claims such as the silliness over Ms. Nixon), does not change the reality for the other 6.999+ billion people on Earth.
Your “absolutist” charge is simply your projection onto my views that are inferred from things I have not said.
Fine. I will moderate my claim to that you only posted an unsupported claim in order to kick off a misleading thread. It is nice that you have now provided a few (so far, two) references to your original claim, although it is unfortunate that you waited three pages into the thread to do so and it remains true that your OP was grossly exaggerated in comparison to the actual claims that you have made. Please recall that your original claim was for “100% genetic,” a view held by only a tiny fraction of even those who hold that it is “100% innate” (among whom I am not). You started with a straw man that has been modified to come closer to something real, but you still started with a straw man.
= = =
I am curious, by the way, when did you make the choice to be heterosexual?