While reading Jonathan Weiner’s book – Time, Love, Memory, I ran across several topics that are quite controversial. I thought that the book did an excellent job of presenting the science of these subjects while remaining neutral. One such topic is the genetic component of homosexuality. Studies have shown a tenative link between certain genes and homosexuality. Other studies have shown no such link. The thing about genetics is that genes interact with one another in very complex ways. It has taken decades to work out the mechanism of genes involved in circadian rhythm, and new discoveries are still being made. Working out the genetic component of homosexualiy is going to be difficult, and until more is known about how genes influence sexual orientation I am going to withhold judgment as to how much of a role they play.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I am interested to see what hard physical data reveals, but the data collected from different societies across many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds seems conclusive. With both homo and hetero populations in all major cultural regions, it seems clear that environment can’t be the sole cause. There must be some sort of inheritable tenancy.
Then again, doing science with a preconceived result is just bad science. Thats what peer review is for.
Either way, this tiny percentage of the population gets more public attention, good and bad, than is necessary.
This book happens to be on my wishlist. I ran into evolutionary psychology/sociobiology in an anthropology course I took on the topic. I thought the topic to be very interesting and have been searching for other books on the topic. We used Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal as a supplement text along with our own presentation of published peer-reviewed research articles (which I think took away from the course to some degree). What are your overall thoughts on this book so far, assuming your not finished?
This reminds me of how homophobes and supporters of gays get into arguments about whether or not homosexuality is a choice. It’s an argument that misses the point, really. Whether it is a choice or not, it is not immoral.
It is philosophically interesting what a result one way or the other would mean. Would it change anything? The fundamentalists appear to dislike the idea of a ‘gay gene’, but they might just as well claim that its the result of a genetic disease.
If it transpired that there was no genetic or biological basis for homosexuality then homosexuals would surely be able to claim that it was still their right as an adult to make a social choice.
I guess part of the debate hinges on whether its possible to change someone’s orientation, and a genetic cause would make it look as though homosexuality is much less yielding to social pressure. Still, it doesn’t follow that innate behaviors are good and easily changed behaviors are bad.
P.Zed. –
That’s what you would expect from either Type I or Type III errors.
There was paper by Ioannidis earlier this year (I think, but I can’t find it now!) showing that QTL analysis often couldn’t be replicated.
Bart Mitchell –
True, in so many ways.
Bob
One thing I’ve never quite understood about the “Gays are born, not made” theory is when you get a pair of twins, one of which identifies as gay, and the other of which identifies as straight.
Has science figured this problem out yet?
I think this is a common question, but I’ve never heard a plain English answer before.
(I’m not a scientist, sorry)
Kevin, the theory, as I remember, is that the genes predispose some to being homosexual but the environment determines if they actually are. So someone with the genes may have a 50% chance of being homosexual.
A textbook from a psychology class I took a few years ago said that if one identical twin is born gay, then there is about a 50% chance of the other being gay too.
In regards to being ‘born gay’, there is some evidence that hormone levels before birth affect the chance of homosexuality. This would be a case of someone being ‘born gay’ without any direct genetic modification.
While nobody has found a defined gene variant ‘for’ homosexuality, it is clear that there is a genetic component. It is also clear that there are environmental influences, and I am not talking about ‘cold’ mothers. The more older brothers you have the higher your chance of being gay, and they don’t have to be raised with you, so it is something in utero:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/28/10771
This is why the genetics is hard to pin down. It may also mean there is more than one way of becoming gay and remember you get different sorts of gay men.
Kevin Murphy, the answer to the twins is that human sexuality is not black and white, it is a continuum. Politically nobody likes people who are bisexual, but that is just one point on a continuum. If a pair of identical twins are in essence bisexual then one becoming under societal pressure gay and the other similarly straight is not that hard to understand.
Remember it is in the interests of theists for you to think about the issue in terms of black and white. LBGT groups have an interest in categorising people for resource allocation reasons. Neither of those relates to biological reality.
Anyone remember Dean Hamar who wrote a book on this about a decade ago? I remember when he came to my university in 1996-ish. Huge furor! The christists didn’t want to hear it because it would mean that it wasn’t a choice and the gay community didn’t want to hear it because it would mean that it was a genetic “disease” that may eventually be “cured” through genetic therapy. It was kinda funny watching both groups protesting him. Regardless, I recall him being very balanced about his findings: it seems there are genes associated with homosexuality though causation wasn’t established, there was a lot more research that had to be done, and it would take more technological and understanding of genes to make the case one way or the other. And I specifically remember him stating that whether a gay-causing or gay-influencing gene were found or not, the social implications should only be to reinforce that homosexuals were just as human as heterosexuals and just as valuable.
Off topic, but could you all please use a uniform font and size when posting on PZ’s blog. PZ’s font and point size is satisfactory, but this post shows up as miniscule.
That complaint noted, interesting post.
What gets me is that so many people seem to think that it’s either genetic or a choice.
It’s a false dilemma.
Whatever science may show the origin of homosexuality to be, gay people themselves can vouch that they did not choose their orientation any more than straight people do.
The only real hard and fast source of data on the issue of the origins of sexual orientation is lost (tracking the sexual development of a child who is gay) because of the shame society imposes. Unfortunately, the fact of life that gay people are aware of at a young age is suppressed in a “closet” because we are told repeatedly that it is shameful and to fit it, we deny it, sometimes for decades. If these barriers could somehow be dropped, the answers would be crystal clear to anyone who wanted to listen. Sexual orientation is determined very early in life, whether it be genetic or environmental, and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to change it other than hide. I knew exactly who I was as far back as my brain would function, however, it went unacknowledged until the age of 23 due to ingrained homophobia, which is very much a learned behaviour.
I can’t think of a more stupid and wasteful area of research than looking at the “genetics” of homosexuality.
We have just the barest glimmerings of cell level signaling and of developmental biology, and someone has the chutzpah to imagine that they can actually do productive research into the genetics of the most complex and integrating behaviors like the sexuality of human beings (unlike say zebrafish, where it might be tractable)? The genetics of behavior that is cultural, economic, political, sensual, hormonal, olfactory, cognitive, religious, stochastic, and state-dependent, just to name a few fields involved? Really?
It’s like studying the quantum basis of economic exchanges – obviously at bottom selling used cars is composed of atoms, electrons and photons evolving according to quantum physical equations. But you’d have to be a first-class moron or con-man to attempt to sell that research product.
What a waste of precious research funds. What a sign of propagandistic vapidity that any government or institutional funds are wasted on these hopeless and useless projects. What a reflection of mindless and narrowly educated reviewers that these projects can find any legitimacy or be published.
I can’t take seriously any “scientific” efforts to discover the “cause” of homosexuality in humans, because none of them seem to be carried out in a scientific way.
A lot of people have sexual feelings for their own gender. A lot of people have sexual feelings for the other gender. A lot of people have sexual feelings for both genders. That’s about all we really know about human sexual orientation. We can guess from the facts (1) there is no human culture known where this was not true of human beings, and that (2) this is true of our closest primate relatives, bonobo chimps – that sexual feelings for both genders are natural and innate.
Assuming that there is any genetic component to sexual orientation, it’s presumably the cause of some people being sexually attracted only to the other gender, as well as the cause of some people being sexually attracted only to the same gender. That scientists seem to be fixated on the “cause” of only one end of the normal human sexual orientation spectrum is understandable, given the bigoted climate which presumes that same-gendered sexual attraction is the end which is “not normal” and which therefore must have a specific “cause”. But it’s not scientific.
Ironically, it is only when no one cares about the “cause” – because the whole spectrum is rightfully regarded as normal – that I think scientists will stand any chance of finding out what genetic link there is to human sexual orientations. (It will also help that, by that time, scientists will be able to examine a human population with no reason to lie about their sexual feelings…)
The closest thing I’ve encountered to a meaningful explanation for nonheterosexual behavior is that, as a species, we just don’t go “in heat” any more — or more accurately we’re never really out of rut. That, plus minimal sexual dimorphism, tends to make for some pretty heady (!) responses to almost-incessant hormone flows.
In fact I believe it was PZ who posted that explanation on the subject.
So the “cause” might not be a selection for homosexuality in the genes; it could just be because of our status, as a species, as being relatively oversexed. (This ignores, of course, nonheterosexual behavior as well-documented phenomena in many other animal species besides our own.)
What any individual does with his or her responses to sexual behavior is 100% social, but that’s another discussion entirely.
The only useful application I could see coming from establishing a genetic cause for homosexuality would be to legally declare sexual orientation a “protected class”, akin to race, sex, etc. because those tend to rely on traits that cannot be changed and were not chosen. Otherwise, it’s pretty silly. On the other hand, if a biological cause if found to be linked to homosexuality, I would not be surprised to see bigots put huge amounts of resources into finding a “cure” and imposing that “cure” on people.
I have begun reading up on epigenetics, and I wonder if sexual orientation may have ties to a field like that, one that exists between pure genetic and pure environmental factors. The “male sibling” hypothesis can make sense if you think in terms of limiting the number of males vying for females in a population.
Politically, I support research into homosexuality so that gays can eventually live free in our society.
When people ask me about the topic, I usually offer them the ‘sexual antagonistic selection’ hypothesis of homosexuality. So far, it does a decent job of bringing together all the twin/sibling data with the reproductive statistics of mothers/sisters/aunts of gay males.
Frog you are wrong about the practicality of finding biological ’causes’ of homosexuality due to the complexities involved. We are doing very similar things successfully wrt to multi gene and environmental influences on Type 2 diabetes. However what that takes are very large scale, case controlled studies. The disconnect in the research on homosexuality is that here in Europe you would not get such a study funded at the present time because here being gay is only a problem if you are an Anglican priest or a Catholic priest who insists on talking about it. So other things, like diabetes and cancer and heart disease that are problems get funded way ahead.
Whereas in the US where being gay is seen as being a problem by many people your chances of having a compliant population large enough to do significant research and without problems with protesters et al even if you could get the funding mean you couldn’t do the research. So you would have to get funding in the US to do the study in Europe and then the fundies could simply ignore the findings as not being relevant…
So they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. But it will get done, in the era of the genome sequence and the Hap Map there will be variants for which a function will need to be found. But I bet it will fall out by default.
My “model” of same-sex attraction (eg. what I’ve conjured in my head through reading the journals and everyday experience) is multi-faceted.
I think the twin studies look at only one variable and miss a crucial point of human development period. Twins develop differently in utero, even identical twins. I’m willing to bet dollars to pennies that a comprehensive analysis of twin birth data would indicate a skewed distribution over a significant weight difference (eg. ~1 lb.). It is just a fact of life that a twin may not develop similarly to the sibling based on the relative positions of the two (if I recall, I’ve heard of cases of a twin literally blocking the umbilical chord of the other in utero).
The genetic part may predispose an individual, but it isn’t the driving force. The driving force is the development of the hypothalamus, that portion of the brain that releases the various necessary hormones to control body function (and evidently, sexual urges). Post-mortem exams and MRI have shown a different structure and response to visual stimuli of the hypothalamus between men who identify straight and men who identify gay (it was that infamous study which showed that straight men have a high brain response to images of lesbian sex regardless of stated preference).
So, when people say “environment”, I only agree to the ability of the environment shaping brain development from whatever the genes predispose the individual. So, I typically say “development” versus environment so as not to confuse a biological term with a weaker colloquialism that may give the impression of same-sex attraction being some sort of “disease” or “afflication” that can be cured through proper “family values”, faith education, etc.
(But really, some people give genes too much credit/blame. There’s more to biology than genes; how an organism with a neural network actually develops, both in utero and through the juvenile stages, affects their behaviorisms. I’ll cite human-elephant relations PZ mentioned earlier as an indicator of such development over genetic as driving force of behaviors)
NOTE: To end my long rant, I’m in agreement with other posters that regardless of whether it is an a fortiori determination that gender is rooted in biological origins versus a freedom of choice or not, the social implications do not change. If gender is a free choice, then it is synonymous with religious conviction, or lack thereof; that is, sexual orientation becomes protected under the concept of free conscience and any established hindrances to such free conscience flies in the face of the founding philosophy of this nation. Yes, I just equated ones ability to choose their religion with the ability to choose one’s gender. That’s how the government ought to view gender. We’ll see where the future leads.
Peter: Frog you are wrong about the practicality of finding biological ’causes’ of homosexuality due to the complexities involved. We are doing very similar things successfully wrt to multi gene and environmental influences on Type 2 diabetes.
You honestly believe that Type 2 diabetes is a model for research into sexuality? Diabetes is, relatively speaking, simple. You have one major feedback loop between glucose and insulin production. Diabetes is a disruption of that feedback loop. It can be caused at a number of points since it is a large loop: receptors, insulin production, death of cell types, interactions with other loop, and so forth.
But it is still relatively simple. Yes, it can degrade over time and involves gene/environment interactions. Compare that to human sexuality. There is no clear single central feedback loop. Diabetes does not directly include cognition; diabetes does not directly respond to human thought. Insulin production is fairly uniform throughout the human species, excepting some small populations such as the Pima. Diabetes is homeostatic; is sexuality homeostatic except in the most vague sense of being a small element in human reproduction (99% of human sex has no bearing on reproduction).
It could easily be argued that a human society needs a variety of “sexualities” for social integration and robustness – but no one would argue the same for diabetes.
Look for gay genes is like looking for the Christian gene. I’m sure you could produce a study that shows a genetic predisposition for small-town white Americans to be predisposed to becoming Christian. But those genes wouldn’t be “Christian” genes, they would just be genes that in a tiny population with a very fixed cultural matrix, economic matrix, historical matrix and physical matrix has a tendency to be associated with a particular response. There would be no mechanistic link.
Why would you believe that a gene that would be a “gay” gene among Texas football players would be a “gay” gene among New Guinea highlanders? Does a “gene” cause almost all men among the Kakuli in the 50s to get serviced by teen-age buys, or did a gene lead to ancient Greek aristocrats to practice pederasty? Did a “genetic change” then lead to the end of that practice? Do American men prefer skinny women, while 18th century French men preferred chunkier women, due to some “gene” or “gene complex”?
Or is it clear yet that this is all a fantasy? It’s like asking which transistor in the computer allows you to look at pr0n on the internet. There do exist some disorders that are basically either failures of some small component, or the misuse of some component in the wrong environment – these things are tractably studied by focusing on genes. Then there is almost everything else.
You can study (to a large extent) the trajectory of a wolf when he falls off a cliff by Newtonian physics, but it would be the height of foolishness to apply those same principles to study the trajectory of a wolf when meeting another wolf.
Shawn: Post-mortem exams and MRI have shown a different structure and response to visual stimuli of the hypothalamus between men who identify straight and men who identify gay (it was that infamous study which showed that straight men have a high brain response to images of lesbian sex regardless of stated preference).
Which men? American men? German men? Chinese men? Australian aborigine men? Men raised by their mothers? Their fathers? Men starved as children? Fat men? Old men? Young men? Boys? Are there “gay” chimps, and do they show the same changes? Do Eskimo Shamen show the same changes? How about Marquesan Mohas?
It’s like the studies of brain difference between men and woman. You grab a highly constrained subset of all historical human variations, then you grab a small subset of that, then you grab a tiny random sample of that. You can’t control for almost anything, such as unknown developmental differences (which we know we know nothing about). Then make a claim on some fairly gross anatomical features.
Don’t leave me laughing. That’s not science. That’s magic in scientific language. It’s like studying a bucket of refined gasoline and a diamond and claiming you know all about carbon-based molecules.
#1:
They aren’t separate populations…
#16:
Not really, since evolution does not work for the good of the population, as far as we know. What benefit would the mothers gain from developmentally biasing younger sons towards homosexuality?
Windy: What benefit would the mothers gain from developmentally biasing younger sons towards homosexuality?
Easy. If the gay sons had a tendency toward forming more social bonds and had a tendency to help their brothers out, that could be a powerful force by kin selection. Particularly if the gay sons still produced some children, even if not as many on average. On top of that, remember that most human evolution occurred in small bands of nomads, so focusing on getting a few males some high-quality mates rather than more mediocre mates might be selected for. And on top of that, in bands there could be a high tendency to share females, and the brothers would be more closely related than the norm today.
So what you’re saying is what Batman has been saying all along, “Hair spray won’t do it alone…but hair spray mixed with lipstick and perfume would be toxic and untraceable…”
frog (#21): Don’t leave me laughing. That’s not science. That’s magic in scientific language.
Yes, sampling issues should be addressed in such studies, I agree. But it isn’t “magic” dressed in scientific language. It’s a conjecture based on present evidence. That is science.
Certainly, a larger data set may render the previous conclusions and the current conjecture incorrect. But that is how science works. Knowledge is provisional. “Work with what you got” mentality is sufficient for building hypotheses; hypotheses which go against current data must be justified.
I assumed using quotes around “model” and the qualifying parenthetical statement would’ve been enough to convey the non-absolute state of what I was saying. Resuts aren’t conclusive nor definitive, but they are promising (if I recall, the researchers of the original MRI studies are attempting to build a large data set by spanning the world for twins and siblings of different sexual orientations).
But I guess it’s my fault for assuming everyone on this board knows how science works *shrug*
hypotheses which go against current data must be justified.
Yeah, but no one seems to be even trying to justify the hypothesis that justifies investigation into the “cause” of homosexuality.
The hypothesis that homosexuality has a “cause” – that the “normal” human being develops with the capacity only to be attracted to the opposite gender – goes against all current data.
That so many people on this thread are accepting this untested hypothesis, contradicting all data, unquestioningly, and using it as a justification for further research, says that none of them really understand how science works…
so it is something in utero
yet another request for PZ, a developmental biologist, to spend at least a couple of threads going over the latest work on epigenetics. Especially, since it very likely is key to understanding the development of sexual orientation.
amidst the hoopla surrounding the Nova episode discussing the Kitzmiller case, overlooked was a far more interesting episode reviewing the status of epigentic research that aired on the 16th of Oct.
I encourage those looking at the results of twin studies when considering potential genetic components to a behavior to take a gander at how identical twins can be influenced by epigentics:
A Tale of Two Mice-
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/mice.html
this is true of our closest primate relatives, bonobo chimps
Bonobos aren’t our closest relatives. Bonobos and chimps jointly are our common relatives, and more closely related to each other. You can’t pick one and ignore the other.
Oh, come on. Something can have a cause and yet be part of normal, healthy human variation. If we think that something causes an individual to develop male sexual characteristics, are we saying that only women are normal human beings?
It’s good to question our assumptions and see if we are phrasing the question right, but asking questions about possible causes of stuff is a normal part of science not only reserved for studying pathology.
frog (#21): Don’t leave me laughing. That’s not science. That’s magic in scientific language.
Shawn: Yes, sampling issues should be addressed in such studies, I agree. But it isn’t “magic” dressed in scientific language. It’s a conjecture based on present evidence. That is science.
I just saw a story on “fan death”. It appears that many Korean believe that leaving the fan on in a closed room will lead to your death. They have newspaper reports and doctors who will diagnose it. They have a sample, for God’s sake!
Of course, the logic is nonsense. The “sampling” is complete insanity. The mechanism is just magic.
You don’t publish papers based on conjecture. You don’t fund grants based on conjecture with flimsy evidence. Oh, you might throw it around in a lab meeting or journal club. You might have a small side projects. But when your experiments can’t possible get enough data to come to a reasonable conclusion, when your samples are too small to be meaningful, when your experimental conditions bias your results past the point of meaningful recovery – that’s not science but magic. Or worse yet, a rationalization of pre-conceived idea by throwing a flimsy cloak of science over it.
These experiments can not possibly find the “gene” for homosexuality, any more than one can find the “gene” for science. You could “conjecture” that there is some genetic predisposition for science – I’m sure MRIs would show some difference in “scientific” brains, and you could do twin studies showing a heritability index for “scienceness”. I bet first-borns have a higher tendency to become scientists – maybe it’s “in utero”?
Wouldn’t such research be insane? Then why isn’t this culturally and politically motivated “research” given the same disdain?
Like I said, this makes as little sense as analyzing the behavior of a hungry dog primarily on the basis of hard-body interactions. Of course they exist, but they will lead you nowhere. And isn’t at the heart of science the selection of meaningful and tractable problems, instead of spinning your wheels (and my tax dollars) with just-so stories?
Or is it clear yet that this is all a fantasy?
Frog, I believe you’re both underestimating the ability to test for genetic components to a behavior, and overestimating the complexity of sexual orientation as a behavior in and of itself.
As I mentioned above, it could very well be the case that a relatively small subset of genes are involved in sexual orientation, but that isolating these through things like twin studies are likely to be complicated by epigenetic effects.
hence, there is a push right now to “map” the human epigenome, much as we did with the genome itself.
To assume that there aren’t genetic components to a behavior, simply because you think a behavior is not comparable to a physiological effect like diabetes, is the grander assumption at this point in history.
obviously, just like with any particular morphology or physiology, different behaviors will show greater or lesser variability given different environments. However, once we have both maps of the genome and epigenome, I don’t see how it would be all that difficult to rule out whether any regularly definable behavior had specific genetic components.
It could also be that whatever trait we are looking at might be tied to genes linked to other traits as well, so purely selective explanations might be rather hard to apply without understanding past selective pressures on all the traits involved.
Moreover, when we are speaking of a trait that has apparently consistently been found in a small (10-15%) of most studied populations historically, one should also consider a LACK of selective pressure against the particular trait in explaining its continuing presence.
could just be an example of drift.
And isn’t at the heart of science the selection of meaningful and tractable problems, instead of spinning your wheels (and my tax dollars) with just-so stories?
*sigh*
most attempts to elucidate genetic components to behaviors first try correlative studies to narrow the field and suggest areas to further study specific gene sets.
this is the function of twin studies, for example. They aren’t meant to define the specific genes involved with a specific trait, merely to suggest traits that might indeed have a genetic component that would be worth trying to isolate.
these studies aren’t wastes of your “tax dollars”, quite the contrary, in fact, they are very monetarily efficient ways of identifying areas likely to be productive in looking for more specific underlying mechanisms.
Besides which, many things are learned from twin studies aside from potential genetic contributions to specific traits; again, I recommend that you might want to take a look at the links to twin studies in mice I linked to earlier.
look at what has resulted from the studies before you discount them as “a waste of your tax dollars”.
Icthyic: To assume that there aren’t genetic components to a behavior, simply because you think a behavior is not comparable to a physiological effect like diabetes, is the grander assumption at this point in history.
obviously, just like with any particular morphology or physiology, different behaviors will show greater or lesser variability given different environments. However, once we have both maps of the genome and epigenome, I don’t see how it would be all that difficult to rule out whether any regularly definable behavior had specific genetic components.
This is not about whether there are “genetic components” to behavior. It would be foolish to assert otherwise. It’s whether a mechanistic link can be established at that level of analysis.
Did you miss my little tale of the physicist trying to explain a used care sales with Schrödinger’s equation? Or using Newtonian physics to explain the behavior of a hungry dog? Or the story of the electrical engineer trying to find out which transistor lets him surf for pr0n on the net? This is simply the worst kind of reductionism.
Yes, you can “try” to reduce sexuality to something called “sexual orientation”, something similar to taste-bud cell response, but it’s a foolish endeavor. If you constrain your experiments enough and look at a reduced enough population at some superficial physical response, you’ll find something to justify your research.
Diabetes is caused by either a genetic error, or by a genetic program that fails to properly work under some external conditions. It’s a simple mapping from a small set of components (relatively) to an error condition. That’s like looking for the broken transistor on your motherboard which keeps you from surfing for pr0n. There you can find a low-level mechanistic explanation. Or it’s like dropping a dog from a cliff – his behavior will roughly be Newtonian, because the problem has a simple low-level cause that overrides all the higher complexity. And sexuality is a higher-level, complicated thing, if you bother to research the history of sexuality; it’s one of those things that have little cross-cultural continuity unless you reduce it to a parody of the full concept.
You can probably find genes that lead to impotence, or some forms of anorgasm, or a complete lack of sexual response. All those things are something being broken, and a simple thing can break a complicated system.
The other way around is completely different. Which genes “cause” walking? Or thinking? Or eating? The answer is, almost all of them. They have a genetic component – a full working system. At best you can look at which subset of genes transforms something like a non-thinking ape into a thinking one, for example. And that still won’t tell you which genes cause thinking, since other genes are hijacked into the system.
In short, unask the question. Homosexuality isn’t a “thing” like diabetes is. It’s a full adaptation. You can ask things like which genes are directly involved in smell reception and closely linked to sexual arousal – that’s a good question. The resulting physiological effects may be involved in the social state of homosexuality, just like genes for potassium receptors are involved in the production of thoughts – but they don’t cause them.
Asking a question that is a typological error is a waste of resources. It’s an essentially unanswerable question, because it is no question at all. What is the genetic component of happiness? On what chromosome are the English literature genes?
On what chromosome are the English literature genes?
have you ever considered you might be asking the wrong question?
or even making horrendously erroneous comparisons?
meh, probably not.
have you even bothered to review the vast amount of literature researching sexual orientation that already exists? if it was an entirely unproductive endeavor, one might think there wouldn’t be such large body of literature devoted to it, yes? No, wait, make these rhetorical, as your answer to them is already obvious – you haven’t bothered to read the literature itself.
This is not about whether there are “genetic components” to behavior. It would be foolish to assert otherwise. It’s whether a mechanistic link can be established at that level of analysis.
at the level of analysis of a twin study, no, but I already specified such studies are meant as correlative analyses, not causative. do you then assume no causative studies of behavior have ever been done?
Homosexuality isn’t a “thing” like diabetes is. It’s a full adaptation.
exqueeze me? after berating scientists for “just so stories”, you feel justified in trotting out the contention that sexual orientation is fully explained as an adaptation?
sweet jeebus, you do seem quite confused from my perspective.
After reading your latest missive, I seriously can’t figure out what you are trying to say in the slightest.
What is the genetic component of happiness?
ask the pharmaceutical companies, there is quite a bit of research on this already, though looking at it from the opposite viewpoint of the causes of depression. Again, it appears the situation revolves around controlling which genes are turned off/on via the epigenome, for the most part.
AFAICT, you seem to be completely divorcing physiological and morphological traits from behavior wrt genetic contribution to each type of trait, despite your initial statement to the contrary in your last post, and that just reflects a gross ignorance of the literature on the subject.
further suggesting you need to spend more time reviewing the literature on the subject is this statement:
Diabetes is caused by either a genetic error, or by a genetic program that fails to properly work under some external conditions. It’s a simple mapping from a small set of components (relatively) to an error condition.
no, it’s quite a bit different than you seem to imagine it. Again, there is quite a bit of literature on the subject, much of which you can easily find with a simple search on Google scholar, for example.
I really think you are making rather gross assumptions based on very little actual research on your part. I suggest you make a concise statement of whatever your point is and move on, if you don’t think you actually need to spend the time reviewing the pertinent literature itself.
Bottom line, sexual orientation is a well-defined and eminently studiable behavior, just like like picking one’s nose, or aggression towards rivals, etc. I personally think your error lies in the area of actually realizing what constitutes behavior as a trait to begin with.
I would suggest, as a starting point, that you might find reading Alcock’s “Animal Behavior” to be rewarding in helping to define behaviors as traits; to see how the field of ethology, and later, behavioral ecology developed. Once you’ve read that, you might try reading some of Hamilton’s work (some excellent collected work volumes available now), and also try checking out some of the literature readers like Krebs and Davies: “Behavioral Ecology, an evolutionary approach”.
then you might have a clearer picture on how behaviors are isolated as traits, just like any morphological trait is.
past that, I see little point in continuing, as all i would be doing is repeating myself in trying to correct your categorical errors.
Icthyic: “What is the genetic component of happiness?”
“ask the pharmaceutical companies, there is quite a bit of research on this already, though looking at it from the opposite viewpoint of the causes of depression.”
Are you high? Are you not reading my comments? Is this your field of research so you are so invested in misrepresenting and misunderstanding my comments that even a ball peen hammer couldn’t crack your thick skull?
I point out repeatedly the difference between finding the causation of a broken system, and the causation of a working system. The point is exactly that yes, Virginia, you can find genes for depression (hopefully), but that the inverse isn’t true. Some depression may be a failure of a fairly simple system leading to complicated behavior. Like pulling out a gas line – the gas line doesn’t cause your car to go, but it’s failure will cause your car to not go.
past that, I see little point in continuing, as all i would be doing is repeating myself in trying to correct your categorical errors.
Do you even know what a categorical error is? You should open up a dictionary before you try to use the ten dollar words. You wouldn’t have been caught by the previous one if you had looked the concept up, and seen that “Why are Polynesians Happy?” is one of the textbook examples of nonsense questions due to categorical error. Do you need a link to Russell, or can you google it?
Here you try to categorize “sexual orientation” among animals with “homosexuality”. That is such a flagrant categorical error (an error of analytic level) that it could be another textbook example. Among most animals, as you know, sexual behavior is fairly simple, focused primarily on reproduction. That is not the case among human beings. You can study most animals sexual behavior as a (relatively) simple series of physiological responses. Again, not the case for human beings which have a sexual flexibility that only bonobos and dolphins are competitive with, and which is embedded in a culture and economy. How many other species do you know that have pair-mating, polygyny, polyandry, intentional celibacy and group marriages exhibited? You gonna find the genes for all of those too? The receptor for mathematical talent too?
Really, take your unfounded arrogance and stick it. If you think that homosexuality is a “behavior”, like duckling imprinting, then I guess an ethological approach also explains the US Constitution. Happy hunting looking for that gene. Stick to your fish until you’ve had a little education outside your sub-specialty, and quit fantasizing that the same techniques that are fruitful in studying the physiology of stickle-backs applies to French gastronomy – eating sufficient calories is a behavior, preferring heavy white sauces to stir-fry is not. The man with the hammer sees only nails.
I bet you also think that empathy is amenable to MRI studies.
I point out repeatedly the difference between finding the causation of a broken system, and the causation of a working system.
because in looking at how systems break, we learn how they work to begin with.
why am I even bothering to explain this? I must be really bored tonight.
Here you try to categorize “sexual orientation” among animals with “homosexuality”. That is such a flagrant categorical error (an error of analytic level) that it could be another textbook example. Among most animals, as you know, sexual behavior is fairly simple, focused primarily on reproduction.
like i said, you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about. Have you even bothered to look at examples of homosexuality in animals? please, cite ONE paper you have read in this field, so I can figure out if you understood even the smallest part of it. aside from the fact that homosexuality is classified as a sexual orientation, so your decrying it as a “category error” makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
I bet you also think that empathy is amenable to MRI studies.
again, since you mention that specifically, I suggest you read Hamilton’s work on the evolution of empathy and altruism.
you keep demonstrating your complete ignorance of the entire field of animal behavior, just for starters.
Stick to your fish until you’ve had a little education outside your sub-specialty
sounds like projection on your part.
one of my advisors was a specialist in studying animal cognition and psychology; he is the primary researcher studying the sexual and social behavior of hyenas at UCB (Steve Glickman). I had to understand his area of research fully and completely for my orals exam. that count?
and you?
it’s YOU that are continuing to expose your ignorance to the relevant research, and continuing to make asinine categorizations like this:
…then I guess an ethological approach also explains the US Constitution
Your ad hominem attacks on the rest appear to be just defensive mechanims on your part, attempting to cover the fact that you really DON’T have the slightest clue what you’re on about.
I gave you very basic references to help you clarify your own thinking on the issue, based on your apparent level of knowledge of the field itself. if you choose to see that as somehow condescending, perhaps you might want to categorize your inane response along with the rest.
Again, not the case for human beings which have a sexual flexibility that only bonobos and dolphins are competitive with
and yet you wouldn’t say that sexual behavior/orientation in either of these animals is beyond study, would you?
’cause if so I certainly would again have to repeat you appear to have failed to read much of the literature regarding the species you mention.
look, if you wish to remain defensive and ignorant, that’s your choice, but either say something that makes sense, based on the actual research that HAS been done in the field, or STFU already until you actually DO know something about the field you think is a “waste of your tax dollars”.
seriously, why don’t you waste time attacking the myriad other things your tax dollars are really wasted on, eh?
Since I am, on occasion, paid by YOUR TAX DOLLARS to do my own research, I suppose I really shouldn’t be wasting any more time on the likes of you.
hell, you might get mad and call your congressman to tell him I’m wasting my time responding to the likes of you.
How many other species do you know that have pair-mating, polygyny, polyandry, intentional celibacy and group marriages exhibited?
I wanted to add to this, since I’ve studied that area particularly rigorously.
The answer is, even just in fish, LOTS. Well, excluding the “marriage” issue, for whatever that’s worth.
many species of gobies are entirely monogamous, as are some cichlid species, and most butterflyfishes.
some species of wrasses are not only polygynous (nests where multiple females mate with a single male), but also exhibit “sneaking”, where smaller males mimic females and mate with females without the territorial male noticing, and even piracy, where “super” males displace territorial males with eggs already in their nests, mate with more females, then let the original male take care of all the eggs. You find the entire range of these sexual behaviors IN THE SAME POPULATION of this species of fish, even.
the selective advantage of each modality has already been studied in depth and published in the literature. Did you wish to contend that there are no identifiable genetics involved in which modality an individual within that population expresses?
again, here we have what YOU would call a very “complex” set of sexual behaviors, but in something as “simple” as fish, and each is readily quantifiable.
add:
protgyny/protandry into the mix for effect as well – many fishes exhibit this, not the least of which would be the very wrasses mentioned just above (protogyny).
seriously, go bury your head in the lit before you embarass yourself further.
humans ain’t nothing special.
Icthyic:
Lord almighty, you are a mighty educated moron.
I point out repeatedly the difference between finding the causation of a broken system, and the causation of a working system.
because in looking at how systems break, we learn how they work to begin with.
Yeah, you learn a lot about the internal combustion motor by taking a hammer to the crankshaft. I bet your big on knockout studies too – just can’t figure out why you only get 10% changes on genes that should be important, like P95, but get all kinds of phenotypic effects from genes you thought were trivial.
Again, not the case for human beings which have a sexual flexibility that only bonobos and dolphins are competitive with
and yet you wouldn’t say that sexual behavior/orientation in either of these animals is beyond study, would you?
And yet again you show your complete inability in reading comprehension when it touches on justifying your interests. Imagine, why am I throwing ad hominems? Why could that be…
I have said repeatedly that these things are amenable to research. I have given a long list of things that are obviously amenable to research, such as used care sales (economics), the behavior of a hungry dog (ethology), computers (computer engineering), then distinguished them from inappropriate ways to research them, by looking at the wrong level of analysis. I have stated repeatedly that complicated sexual behavior, as in bonobos, chimps and humans, are amenable to study, when studied at the right level, which doesn’t happen to be at the single gene or gene complex level for the most part, outside of pathologies or the simplest underlying drives (smells good/smells bad).
What have I gotten back? Appeals to authority – “Prove to me that you know as much about this field as I do.” Not an argument why this kind of analysis would actually be tractable, but at best arm-waving. Statements of the kind that human sexual behavior isn’t that complicated, something that the most cursory examination of the anthropological and historical record would disprove. By contemporary standards, all Athenian men were gay – just read some Aristophanes (which also shows that all Athenian men were simultaneously raging heterosexuals). Did Socrates 50%/50% split in “orientation” change due to genetic drift?
In short, fuck your claims to authority. You tell me first what Russell’s mathematical expression of categorical error, and I might bother to list my “authority”. Otherwise put up with clarifying examples that show how human sexuality is driven primarily, in most cases, by extremely primitive drives that don’t interact at cognitive levels with other domains – that it’s just a few hormones and receptors like in chickens or diabetes. You want to claim that that human sexuality is like peacocks mating? Then you explain how polyandry be explained by a few genes. “Polyandric orientation”? As vapid as a dormative principle.
You want to know why you keep up this flame-fest? Because you know that you’re missing something. You’ve had your head buried so long in a small domain, you haven’t heard these arguments before. Otherwise, you’d have a pat answer – but you can’t find one. It’s like electrophysiologists who have studied depression and potentiation for so long, that they imagine that those phenomenon are “memory”, instead of the barest building blocks for what people actually mean with memory. It’s not like this argument is new – it’s been going on for a century! At least give me a few references back to the 30s, will ya? To let me know you know what the fuck I’m talking about? (Now wouldn’t that be rude?)
And I don’t have to bother to call my congressman, since all bio research is going to see funding cuts until the next presidential elections – we’re all somehow or other funded under the HHS bill, which will stay under continuing resolution under the threat of veto. For the NIH, only the top 5% of new grants have gotten funded and not sent for another round, and almost none of those grants have actually seen hard cash. So why should I waste your tax dollars calling congress, when I can waste them instead here with you?
Yeah, you learn a lot about the internal combustion motor by taking a hammer to the crankshaft.
again, incorrect comparison.
correct would be to say someone could learn about how engines work by looking at ones that had specific breakages.
like a clogged exhaust port might reveal how gases move through the combustion chambers, for example, or how a clogged artery might reveal how blood supply to the heart works, jumping to a relevant biological comparison.
like i said though, since you can’t even get the simplest of concepts right, I see no point in further intelligent conversation with you.
we could just call each other names if you wish, that would perhaps be more productive.
here, I’ll start:
You’re an ignorant, defensive, moronic twit who thinks that somehow he controls the purse strings of research because he pays taxes, all the while yelling about shit he hasn’t the slightest comprehension of. You’re entirely like a creationist complaining about money spent looking at the evolution of any given trait, like the immune system, say.
your turn.
Add:
protgyny/protandry into the mix for effect as well – many fishes exhibit this, not the least of which would be the very wrasses mentioned just above (protogyny).
And did you miss the point that in human populations these can be either all exhibited simultaneously, none exhibited, only one exhibited, by different genetically “identical” populations?
Do you have a single species of wrasse that does that, under identical conditions? Sometimes they’ll all pair-mate, sometimes they’ll all be polygynous, sometimes they’ll all be polyandrous, sometimes they’ll have a combination, under identical environmental conditions, with identical genetics? Are there large celibate populations of wrasses?
You’re really reaching when you try to claim that human marriage patterns aren’t significantly different from wrasse mating. I guess all the anthropologists can stop wasting our tax dollars now, since the genomists will take care of it all!
And did you miss the point that in human populations these can be either all exhibited simultaneously, none exhibited, only one exhibited, by different genetically “identical” populations?
did you miss the point where all the variations on polygyny i listed are from a SINGLE POPULATION, not even a single species, of fish?
meh, of course you did.
twit.
I guess all the anthropologists can stop wasting our tax dollars now, since the genomists will take care of it all!
considering the amount of money and effort that went into the human genome project, which entirely dwarfs all the money spent on anthropology, it looks like it’s already happened based on your “logic”.
I feel for the anthros though, I really do. but then, anyone sane already knows that money spent on anthropology has nothing to do with money spent on genetics.
(read that last as a not-so-subtle poke at your sanity)
by different genetically “identical” populations?
oh, btw, did you also miss the link to the twin studies in mice I linked to early on?
of course you did.
tell me, moron, what would you conclude if you saw two genetically identical mice with entirely different morphologies and behaviors?
would you conclude genetics had nothing to do with it?
well then, you’d be wrong. You’d know that if you ever bothered to read any of the literature you seem to decry having “paid” for, or hell, even bothered to check out the tiny little interactive I posted the link to.
moron.
Yeah, you learn a lot about the internal combustion motor by taking a hammer to the crankshaft.
again, incorrect comparison.
correct would be to say someone could learn about how engines work by looking at ones that had specific breakages.
No, you learn about internal combustion engines by building them. A 17 year old doesn’t try to break daddy’s car by sticking a cloth in the muffler to learn how it works. He takes the components apart and tries to rebuild it. He measures pressure in the oil lines while it’s properly running. He actively avoids breaking things – that’s the negative hypothesis, not his positive hypothesis. Even when you do do something that intentional breaks the machinery, it is solely to isolate other elements of the system – it is not the center of the experiment. And that’s in a system that’s vastly simpler than even a cell.
Being that the simplest concepts of experimental design and the scientific method appear to escape you, I’m not sure what to add. You’re mired in the biological consensus that has been oh-so-productive: lot’s of papers means a lot of understanding, right? The things that have been good (productive genetics research) are the exact opposite of knockout experiments. You don’t wonder why in the fifties we saw the basic outline of neuron behavior solidified, with fifty years of basically working out a few details of the HH model, rather than really grasping neuron communication? Why we have a huge laundry list of signaling molecules with no understanding of how they work, other than hand-waving? Why population genetics moves so quickly with so little funding, while the areas of massive funding in apoptosis are basically just repetitive variations on a theme, with no predictability produced (“science”)?
Strange how the most productive areas of science are the least funded. Might reflect a little on the “consensus”.
by different genetically “identical” populations?
oh, btw, did you also miss the link to the twin studies in mice I linked to early on?
of course you did.
tell me, moron, what would you conclude if you saw two genetically identical mice with entirely different morphologies and behaviors?
would you conclude genetics had nothing to do with it?
And yet you continue to show the amazing lack of reading comprehension that would fail a kindergardener out (on top of a vocabulary of about the same level). Let’s count how many times I’ve distinguished between having a genetic component and being able to usefully study it, by that method, shall we? Ah the thread is just too long for that now.
Rarely, you’ll get lucky and it is determined by a fairly small low level difference. Usually and most likely, you are talking about long range dynamic systems that are not amenable to that.
You do know that water boils in two different directions? And that the direction is determined by the collective behavior of water molecules? And that you get nowhere by trying to model single water molecule to high fidelity – you’re much better off treating it as a bulk and developing a stochastic equation to describe it? You did know that?
Or that weather phenomena are determined by the behaviors of single O2, CO2 and nitrogen molecules – but you get a lot farther by studying the bulk properties except in very exceptional cases. I’m sure you did, because you’ve shown such clarity in distinguishing levels of analysis, and a sophisticated handle between proximate and ultimate causes.
No, you learn about internal combustion engines by building them.
and how would you know how to build one if you didn’t know how it worked to begin with, eh genius? even taking an already constructed, working engine apart wouldn’t teach you how it worked, unless you tried to tinker with things to see what would happen. read: break shit to see what happens.
LOL
you really are a moron.
Strange how the most productive areas of science are the least funded.
um, you mean like the well funded human genome project I mentioned earlier?
they just keep going right by you, eh?
*whooosh*
Being that the simplest concepts of experimental design and the scientific method appear to escape you, I’m not sure what to add.
and what evidence do you project that from, moron?
published scientist with advanced degree in zoology here. funny, I must know something about experimental design to have published research on animal behavior.
you?
project much, do you?
I’m guessing you’re a retired engineer. am i right?
damn kids using up all your tax money.
LOL
and this, of course, says it all about how you view the scientific method:
He actively avoids breaking things – that’s the negative hypothesis, not his positive hypothesis.
funny, but the scientific method is about DISPROVING hypotheses, not confirming them. are you seriously going to try and tell the people on THIS board, that advances in understanding how biological systems work have not come from studying broken versions? How did we learn to understand genetic regulatory mechanisms to begin with? do you even recall in your dotery?
i rather think the medical community, for one, might have a bone to pick with you about the idea we don’t learn from breaking stuff, or studying already broken stuff.
you’re just making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself by continuing, but if that’s your desire, far be it from me to curtail your jester’s tirade.
just assume that I continue to post a negative, mocking response to your idiocy every time you post something on this topic, and just go on like that.
seriously, I’m listening…
by that method
one last poke…
if by “that method” you mean twin studies.
uh, LOOK AT THE LINK, moron, before you conclude anything about the relevance of twin studies in studying trait development. Especially when we can manipulate the situation at many different levels.
you simply don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. It’s entirely clear to anybody who has even taken a cursory, freshman level biology, glance at the issue of genetics.
why you continue is beyond me, but it is rather humorous to see you continue to pretend you know something about the issue.
thank the FSM you don’t teach, or make enough money to warrant concern about what you “think” is worthwhile research or not.
you’re just a loon on an internet forum, spouting inanities nobody paid any attention to but myself, for a brief moment.
which is now over.
and how would you know how to build one if you didn’t know how it worked to begin with, eh genius? even taking an already constructed, working engine apart wouldn’t teach you how it worked, unless you tried to tinker with things to see what would happen. read: break shit to see what happens.
Half-twit, you don’t just “break shit” and watch what happens. You avoid breaking shit if you possibly can – the breaking of shit is an experimental failure, not success. You find out shit by making it work – that’s the unexpected state, the state that gives you information. It’s easy to break shit – therefore, next know information.
You have heard of entropy right? Cause I’d expect a biologist to at least have a glimmering of chemistry.
And that’s completely different from the medical approach of looking at “already broken stuff.” Again, the goal is to fix it! Breaking it further shows that you haven’t learned a damn thing yet.
published scientist with advanced degree in zoology here. funny, I must know something about experimental design to have published research on animal behavior.
And there you go again with the claim from authority. What a dipwad move. Actually, published biologist here too. Who’s doing the projecting?
And you do know that the most important work in genomics wasn’t the human genome project – the big funded stuff. That’s the fucking rat’s tail of the work. If you want to spend your time chasing the number of hairs on the legs of a beetle, go ahead. Even though I did credit the work. You’re right though that there is some good, highly funded stuff, like the NIH groups research into DNA and RNA classes published earlier this year. Of course, for the cool stuff you have to read between the lines – nine out of ten biologists miss the earth shaking data in that paper, which will get someone in the group a Nobel thirty years from now. Can you guess what it was? I’m guessing not. I believe it was buried in the next to the last bullet of the summary.
And there you go again with the claim from authority. What a dipwad move. Actually, published biologist here too.
uh, genius, it’s not a claim from authority if I actually HAVE published. Or do you not believe in the peer review process, either?
here’s the first paper I ever published:
A Test of the Function of Juvenile Color Patterns in the Pomacentrid Fish, Hypsyspops rubicundus.
Pacific Science (1993), vol. 47, no. 3: 240-247.
now if you actually know something about experimental design, you should quickly be able to figure out the flaw in the design in that paper, right?
your turn.
I can answer any and all questions about the papers I have published by the way (duh), so if you post a random cite, I’m going to quiz you on it, because I seriously don’t believe you are a biologist, have a biology background, or have ever published a scientific article in your entire life.
seriously, you are such a hack I’m going to enjoy ripping you a new one.
so go on, prove me wrong. show me your first publication in biology so I can marvel at it.
Of course, for the cool stuff you have to read between the lines
Actually, I’m still waiting for you to read the lines themselves, first.
still convinced you are an engineer (or at least studied to be an engineer), given your absolutely abysmal understanding of genetics, behavior, and how science in general actually works.
oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll repeat this question you obviously don’t know the answer to, just for fun:
How did we learn to understand genetic regulatory mechanisms to begin with?
simple question.
hell, I can’t think of a frosh level college bio course that doesn’t cover this.
of course, I know you don’t know the answer, because if you did, you would understand what I mean by “break shit to learn about it”
you might even have that level of understanding simply by going to the link on the twin study in mice i provided, but you even refused to do that.
LOL
and you call ME arrogant.
One thing i have always wondered is how homosexuality could be genetic when genetic traits rely entirely on propagation of DNA, Which in humans requires offspring to be produced through sex with a lady (so I’m told).
I’m a bit surprised too – frog, if you find the kin selection explanation plausible (#23), what is it that was selected for, if not a heritable tendency for homosexual behaviour in certain situations?
I don’t think frog is an “engineer”, though.
One thing i have always wondered is how homosexuality could be genetic when genetic traits rely entirely on propagation of DNA, Which in humans requires offspring to be produced through sex with a lady (so I’m told).
GBG, same-gendered attraction never made anyone sterile. And
the statement “Which in humans requires offspring to be produced through sex with a lady” suggests that you think all humans are male. Fairly unscientific of you.
frog: Wouldn’t such research be insane? Then why isn’t this culturally and politically motivated “research” given the same disdain?
Because the scientists who carry it out share the cultural assumptions.
Has anyone else read A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation by Chandler Burr?
It is actually an excellent exploration of the subject of biological variation behind sexual orientation. He doesn’t really come to a specific conclusion, which is probably why the book isn’t more popular and well known, but he is very good at teasing apart the research and making clear the complexities and complications, as well illuminating as a few of the personalities behind the research. Well worth the read.
I don’t think frog is an “engineer”, though.
I’ll take that bet. Sounds very much like every engineer I have ever taken to task on an internet forum. Now, let’s be clear, that DOES NOT mean that all engineers behave in similar fashion, it’s just quite common that I see similar arguments in form and “substance” as those Frog put forth coming from the fingers of web posters with engineering backgrounds. Obviously, we don’t hear from the vast bulk of reasonable engineers, because, well, they’re reasonable.
the silence is deafening though, and I doubt we will ever hear from him again in this thread. No doubt Frog will pop up again in a different thread, hopefully on a subject he is far more educated about (IIRC, he has posted far more thoughtful things on other threads in the past).
In this instance, I can only conclude he is a liar (he’s certainly no biologist, and I highly doubt he has any biology background at all for that matter, let alone being published in the field). He is also quite ignorant about basic biology and genetics, let alone behavior.
to hear someone like that going off about how his “tax dollars” are being misspent on ANY avenue of research is entirely laughable, and I truly enjoyed ripping him a new one.
However, I won’t hold this exchange against him in the future, should he have something actually intelligent to say on some other thread.
we all have our blind spots, it’s just REALLY stupid to open air them as if speaking from authority, let alone suggest one knows enough about subject to say whether it is worthy of funding or not.
Frog is a she, and I don’t doubt she is somehow involved with some branch of the biological research community, although her view on what whole-organism biologists can and should do seems very biased. Remember this discussion?
don’t doubt she is somehow involved with some branch of the biological research community,
no, i had forgotten that thread, but it actually supports my conclusions here. read her (thanks for the correction), suggestions on biology curriculum. Note the nod to engineering curriculum as a reference, and the incoherent conclusions about “the bulk of funding going into Protein-X255 without any hope of producing coherent understanding” and “most developmental biology can’t even see that its about the topology” (from post 34 in that thread)
both of which are utter BS.
know any actual biologists, or even biology majors, who speak like that?
not me.
know any biology majors, let alone published biologists with such a horrendous understanding of genetics and behavior?
not me.
heck, even Behe in his dotage appears to have a better grasp of genetics.
…and you even laughed at her conclusion as those being the reasons “biology is at a standstill”.
did you laugh because you found the conclusion warranted, but humorous, or because it was entirely without merit and rather looney?
of course, aside from the reasons as to why she thinks “biology has become stagnant” being oversimplified versions of the dreck she posted here… biology as a field is rather NOT stagnant to begin with.
sorry, I’m still betting on Frog being a disgruntled ex-engineering student.
I think you need to re-read that thread you referred me to.
did you laugh because you found the conclusion warranted, but humorous, or because it was entirely without merit and rather looney?
…or did you think she was joking?
uh, in case it isn’t clearer from this thread…
she wasn’t.