On the contrary, roughly 3% of men are homosexual but only 1% of women. Probably this indicates that male toddlers are more likely to be abandoned or mistreated by their fathers than female toddlers by their mothers. In a world in which nearly all single-parent households are headed by women, this is undeniably the case.

Yes, that's simple mental illness among those men, while the 1% is naturally occurring.

PJ:

It may well have something to do with the fact that all mammals start gestation on the female template.

Developmentally, the males have further to go along a complex process with more opportunities for things to go wrong. Including brain wiring.

"Wrong"? That's awfully judgmental, isn't it?

"Wrong" is not a judgement, it's an observation. One thing that defines human homosexuality that does not apply to the rest of the animal world is the very strong taboo that humans have evolved over homosexuality. The taboo against homosexual behavior is as universal among human societies as the taboo against canibalism. Going against a taboo is a sign of pathology. At the least, any member of a society who refuses to participate in procreation is freeloading, and not holding up his end of the bargain (be fruitful and multiply).

And those who would compare human with lesser animal sexual behavior conveniently forget that in human males, the homosexual behavior becomes exclusive. The entire conflict over homosexual "marriage" is based upon the homosexual's claim that they are unable to copulate with members of the opposite sex. This is or course observably false, since many closeted gays have children, but we are talking politics here, not science.

You are assuming that the revulsion that you describe is directed against male homosexualilty specifically and not male sexuality in general. American culture is much more afraid of male sexual desires in general than are others.

Not "fairly dubious." Just plain dubious.

Jeff's right that human embryos alll start as girls and some develop as boys. Birds work the other way around.

Does this have any effect on sexuality? Sure. Because of the rate of developmental mistakes. Some girls don't completely turn into boys, only partway.

My father was one of the first fish fanciers to breed Oscars. About 1% of his baby fish swam upside down, as a result of developmental mistakes.

It's called darwinism.

It's funny how a taboo developed around a kind of human behavior which has produced something like AIDS as the taboos were weakened? Just wondering...

When Japanese macaques can tell us why they are exhibiting 'consortship' behaviors towards members of the same sex, then maybe I'll believe these folks are on to something. Until then, we only have the human analysis that certain behaviors are related to sex (excepting the obvious, of course) and not the animal equivalent of 'Have a nice day'.

The revulsion has an obvious source--even dogs have sense enough not to sleep where they defecate..

There was a very interesting article in Nature or Science in the last month or two talking about how most of our currently accepted notions of the brain and sexuality are based on hormones being the dominant factor (i.e., all our brains start out the same, but when the testes begin releasing testosterone, that's what causes brains, and bodies, to become male). However, recent research shows this is a major oversimplification, and that gender is more hard wired than that.

One example they gave was some sort of bird that is actually physically half male-half female, in that the left half (say) has the plumage of a female, and the right half that of a male. And they have found that the corresponding halves of the brain are developed differently, and resemble male/female brains (with larger sections for different mating responses), which is not what one would expect from the hormone theory, since the whole brain is bathed in the same hormones.

They gave some other cool(?) examples like bird embryos that have had their brains switched with one of the opposite gender before the hormones really kick in, and the birds do not demonstrate proper mating behavior, so again there is something innate that we don't know about yet.

It was quite interesting, although I'm not sure I understood much of it. Rather like humans and how our brains work...

As Churchill said of the royal Navy, it was "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash."

"...male and female He created them..."

Gosh, am I confused.

There is, apparently, a right and a wrong path of neonatal development. One result of a wrong path can be homosexuality, implying that heterosexuality is the norm. No moral consequences flow from this distinction of the right and wrong paths, however, though it is implied that, if the wrong path could be identified and corrected, it would be proper to do so.

Harry describes this as Darwinism, but its not, is it? A developmental mistake is not genetically coded and thus won't breed true. Thus, while introducing random variation into individual phenotypes, developmental differences leave the genotype alone. If it doesn't affect the genotype, then it can't be Darwinism.

On the other hand, having a developmental mechanism that allows for (more or fewer) developmental mistakes is partially genetic and thus could be a survival mechanism, or at least not incompatible with survival.

But why is homosexuality a "wrong" result of embrionic development. Certainly, a species with too high a level of homosexuality won't survive (a truism, I suppose, as "too high" could only be established with respect to "won't survive"). Isn't this, though, unacceptably teleological? Darwinism is a description of the mechanism by which different animals become differentiated, not a method of designing life to fit any particular criteria, including survival.

Even if we are allowed, as homo sapiens to be unDarwinistically parochial and root for the survival of our species, on what scientific basis can we say that homosexuality is wrong. Homosexuals are no less able to be productive members of society, or to enjoy their lives, or to reproduce. There have been homosexuals, as near as we can determine, as long as there have been heterosexuals (well, I guess within at least one generation), and humanity has survived just fine.

So, why "wrong"?

Sorry. In my second paragraph I meant "embrionic", not "neonatal".

A developmental mistake is not genetically coded and thus won't breed true.

Homosexuality appears to be a particularly interesting case example of the interaction between Nature and Nurture. There is ample evidence that male homosexuality runs in families. Dean Hamer has published evidence that the genes which predispose one to male homosexuality reside on a particular bit of the chromosome-- I can't recall which offhand. But, there is also evidence that birth order affects homosexuality-- The more biological older brothers one has, the more likely one is to be gay. The chances increase by ~ 30% above the very low chance of being gay. This birth order effect has been replicated several times and even manifests itself in biological markers. Note that this could be a combination of environment (mother's womb) and genetics (creating, e.g., susceptibility to whatever factor is in the womb that interferes with sexual differentiation, or making the mother more sensitive to the maleness in her womb).

Use PubMed to look up "Bailey M" or "Blanchard R" or "Breedlove SM", to name a few, for evidence that male homosexuality has both a genetic and environmental basis. The environment in this case, though, appears to be the mother's womb.

I defy anyone who thinks being gay is a choice to explain why someone would choose that kind of lifestyle in this society: "even dogs have sense enough not to sleep where they defecate.."

I also defy those who think homosexuality can be "cured" through prayer to explain why natural selection would permit the reproductive brain to be so malleable to experience that one could alter sexual orientation merely by wishing it so. Hominids that could do that wouldn't reproduce. But I forget-- those who believe in reparative therapy often believe that the earth was created in 7 days ~ 2000 years ago by a white bearded old man.

Because they despise themselves, presumably for being sexually attracted to their mothers (note that it is also only children as well as youngest boys and families without fathers, or, in other words, those boys most likely to be smothered by their mothers).

David, developmental meanderings are darwinistic because they affect the inclusive fitness of the individuals.

At one extreme, sterility resulting from development gone awry obviously affects fitness.

On the other, as you say, merely being homosexual doesn't mean you can't reproduce.

Orrin's notion that they despise themselves for being attracted to their mothers is as psychobabbly as anything he's ever made fun of here.

yet an eerily consistent observation--it's why folks get so confused over birth order, looking for nature when it's really nurture.

Hey Bradley - you defied us, so here it is: the fact that male homosexuality is genetically inherited presupposes that these "homosexual" men can reproduce. Otherwise they could never pass on the gene for their syndrome.

I submit that, if these men can reproduce without too much trouble, then they are sexually capable with both sexes. In that event, their decision to have sex with a man is a choice; otherwise, why doesn't he have sex with a woman? If a man can have sex with either a woman or a man, then his "homosexuality" is a priori a choice.

Michael Gersh,

Actually, the gene can continue to be expressed whether homosexual men reproduce or not; it could be recessive in a heterosexual man or woman and then be dominant in his or her offspring. This is fairly basic Medelian genetics here, BTW, (which is what you are trying to discuss) and does not take into account the far more complicated ways genes are expressed in most circumstances.

David

Good questions. But I think you allow three semantic meanings of 'wrong' to become confused.

1) 'wrong' which carries some political/moral weight, hence your comment "if the wrong path could be identified and corrected, it would be proper to do so".
2) 'wrong' as in a genetic mistake necessarily detrimental to the survival of the individual phenotype and thus it should have been selected out long ago (but as you say, homosexuals have been around for a long time and still are)
3) 'wrong' as in 'different from the norm' (which may be detrimental to the survival of the phenotype, but not necessarily)

I assume Jeff meant only number 3 in his original post, which is quite compatible with Darwinism. Homosexuals can have children.

Remember also, as Harry implies, that we now know that the 'object' of natural selection is the individual, not the gene itself.

sorry, obviously in 2 and 3 I should have added "detrimental to the survival and/or reproductive capabilities" of the individual...

Brit:

You are right. I meant "wrong" in terms of developmental anomalies that led the phenotype to diverge from the genotype.

In the same sense that cleft palate is "wrong."

Brit,

Also, you do realize that the term phenotype refers to things like skin color and the like, right; observable traits of organisms? The term you are looking for is "genotype."

Jeff Guinn,

You are not using the terms phenotype and genotype correctly here. All phenotypes are observable characteristics of an orgasm; they don't "diverge" from the genotype, indeed, they are dependent on the genotype.

Now if you are claiming that there is some "ideal" genotype, well, I would also have a problem with that; as that it is a wholly subjective assessment at best.

Gary

I'm reasonably confident that I'm using the semantics correctly. I understand the term 'phenotype' to mean the sum total of all observable features of the developed or developing individual. Including not just biochemical and anatomical features, but behavioural characteristics as well.

The phenotype is the result of interaction between the genotype and the environment.

By the way, you want to be careful with your own semantics: " All phenotypes are observable characteristics of an orgasm"…I think you mean "organism"!

I would suggest that might be a Freudian slip but we've had enough psychobabble already in this thread….

Brit,

Well, the problem is that the phenotype doesn't really matter; its not the survival of the phenotype you are concerned with, but the survival of the genotype.

I like orgasms as much as the next person.

How many angels can fit on the head of a pin though?

Gary

In answering David's question, I deliberately left untouched the question of whether homosexuality could be something commonly latent in the genotype, or whether it could be the result of developmental errors in the ontogeny, as I don't know what the answer is. Either way I think my answer to David stands.

I suspect Bradley Cooke has it about right in his post above - homosexuality might well be both nature and nurture.

OJ

Indeed. Or better, "where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"

OJ -- Either all of them or none of them.

Gary:

I think I was using the terms correctly. The phenotype is what you observe, the genotype is the plan.

As an example, there is no gene for cleft palate, but inidividual phenotypes may include it. Hence, the phenotype and genotype diverge.

Similarly, insufficient nutrition will lead to average heights less than the genotype would produce in the presence of adequate nutrition. That is a good example of the environment interacting with the genotype to produce a divergent phentotype. (One, by the way, that can only be known statistically at the population level.)

We don't -- at least I don't -- have any idea how many people are homosexual to what degrees, so Orrin's statement about observation is nonsense.

There is at least one society where all the men are homosexual, though they also marry.

Ranging down from there, we can imagine that there might be some genetic component, which would produce a base rate of homosexuality in all societies.

Then add to that an unknown developmental component (perhaps the one Bradley identifies), which would be different among different societies. (You would expect more gay Mormons, for example.)

Then a learned component, which can run as high as 100%.

Harry:

Your position--that the answer lies between 100% nature and 100% nurture--is Darwinian/Creationist in its irrefutability. I agree.

Remember Rumsfeld and the known knowns, unknown knowns etc.?

No doubt the actual number of homosexuals (once you've defined that) is a positive integer number.

It's just that I don't know what the number is, and neither do you.