It empowered a movement but existed only in their heads? A huge study involving nearly half a million people suggests so.
The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality has revealed five spots on the human genome that are linked to same-sex sexual behaviour — but none of the markers are reliable enough to predict someone’s sexuality.
The findings, which are published on 29 August in Science and based on the genomes of nearly 500,000 people, shore up the results of earlier, smaller studies and confirm the suspicions of many scientists: while sexual preferences have a genetic component, no single gene has a large effect on sexual behaviours
.Jonathan Lambert, “No ‘gay gene’: Massive study homes in on genetic basis of human sexuality” at Nature
This is probably not the result many were looking for or could even report straightforwardly:
The five genes each explained less than 1 percent of the variation in whether or not an individual reported participating in same-sex behaviors. When they included all sequences in the genome associated with same-sex sex, the researchers estimated that genes account for a maximum of 8–25 percent of the variation in the population’s behaviors, suggesting that much of what drives sexual activity is beyond genetics.
“Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior but it’s still a very important contributing factor,” Ben Neale, a behavioral geneticist at the Broad Institute and a senior author on the study, said during the press conference. Still, the genetic associations he and his colleagues observed could not predict the likelihood that an individual would report having sex with partners of the same sex.
Emma Yasinski, “Giant Study Helps Clarify Role of Genes in Same-Sex Sex” at TheScientist
Some simply deny the obvious conclusion:
However, the finding that there’s no single gay gene does not mean that sexual orientation is not genetic or biological, and is therefore a lifestyle choice.
“This is wrong,” study co-author Brendan Zietsch, a geneticist at the University of Queensland in Australia, told Live Science. “We find that there are many, many genes that predispose one to same-sex sexual behavior. Each of them individually has a very small effect, but together they have a substantial effect.
“Another possible misinterpretation is to think that if same-sex preference is genetically influenced, it must therefore be totally genetically determined,” Zietsch added. “That is not true. Genetically identical individuals — twins — often have different sexual orientations. We know there are non-genetic influences as well, but we don’t understand these well, and our study does not say anything about them.”
Charles Q. Choi, “The ‘Gay Gene’ Is a Total Myth, Massive Study Concludes” at LiveScience
Identical twins having the same sexual orientation used to be the gold standard for claims about the gay gene so if the researchers are backing away from that, we can be sure that the case for genetic determinism about sexual orientation is in ruins, even if this researcher insists that that is the “wrong” interpretation.
Why are people so uncomfortable with the idea that they are not ruled by their genes?
Bet we haven’t heard the last of this.
See also: There’s a gene for that… or is there?
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Nobody is uncomfortable about that. But nice strawman.
The claim has largely been that sexual attraction develops very early. Their is obviously a genetic component, as sex implies, but what we are is not all about our genes. It is about the interaction of our genes and our environment. We have known this for longer than I have been alive.
Brother Brian:
Except for those millions of determinists, of course.
Too vague and wishy-washy to be part of science. But that is the extent of evolutionary biology.
So there should be plenty of peer-review on it- nature vs nurture? The environment made me do it?
Whatever excuse works, I guess…
When did this happen? Perhaps some people have claimed this existence of a simple Mendelian gene for homosexuality was an important for gay rihts. But i’ve never heard this.
What do you think the obvious conclusion is? The quoted text is very straightforward and true. If you think there is not genetic contribution to homosexuality (or same-sex sexual behaviour in the case of this study) then you should maybe read the paper.
The write-up at ars technica was a little more explicit, for whatever that’s worth:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/the-genetics-of-sexual-orientation-are-about-as-complex-as-sexual-orientation/
“Studies of twins have suggested that genetics can influence homosexual behavior, accounting for roughly 20% to 30% of its frequency. But attempts to find specific genes that mediate this influence have come up empty. Now, an absolutely enormous study has found a number of genetic sites linked to homosexual behavior. But collectively, they account for a tiny amount of the total genetic effect, and their influence is complicated: different in men and women, and different even across the spectrum of sexual attraction.
By comparing this relatedness to who had same-sex partners, the researchers were able to estimate the total genetic contribution to this behavior: 32%. That suggests the rest is some combination of environmental and social influences.
And collectively, the authors suggest that the genetic influences they could track via GWAS correlated with a maximum of 25% of homosexual behavior—that’s lower than the 32% figure calculated by relatedness. So, it’s possible that there are also some more complicated genetics yet to be sorted out.
Not only is there no “gay gene,” but males and females have genetic influences that only partly overlap.”
All of which would appear to vindicate those of us who never did accept the existence of a single gay gene…
You should never say never when it comes any alleged genetic component of human behavior, including sexual preference. Our brains are ruled by chemicals. So any chemical imbalance caused by genetic entropy would have an effect. The same goes for the way any specific brain develops- genes control and influence that.
The science is still young and it is way too early to call it a day. Who knows what else will be uncovered along the way?
ET @ 5,
Yes, the jury is still out on the whole picture of sexual preference. But I think it’s relatively safe now to predict that one-gene-one-characteristic is on the way out for lots of traits: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/do-all-genes-affect-every-complex-trait/
EDTA,
Did anyone claim such a gene existed?
mimus @ 7 see medical definition of gay gene
My understanding is that the number of males who are born attracted to other males instead of females is in the neighborhood of 3%. The number of females born attracted to other females instead of males is less than half that. The reason we have public discussions of the topic is that increasing numbers of heterosexual men find it naughty, and therefore more fun, to do it with other guys. For Catholic priests, the advantage of raping altar boys is that the boys won’t get pregnant. And arguing “it was all just a misunderstanding” is a whole lot easier if the accuser isn’t holding a baby.
In Classical Greece and Rome, ALL males were expected to have male lovers. It was a social custom, and fathers looked for nice young men to introduce their sons to. A man still took a wife with whom to breed heirs, but you were never supposed to LOVE her.
See also the “Theban Band” (the Sacred Band of Thebes): 150 pairs of male lovers who formed one of the most elite military units in Ancient Greece, until Philip of Macedonia wiped out the entire Band in 338 BC.
Also, life for wives and female slaves in harems (Solomon’s “1,000 wives”, etc.) might involve intercourse with the man who owned them once a year or less, perhaps only once in their life. So lovemaking between the women was allegedly common, since it was the only sexual gratification the women could get.
Xq28 is where the term got into journalistic cliche, but even that study did not claim to show a single-gene for homosexuality .
The ‘gay gene’ was used for years to justify the claim that orientation was a genetically-determined thing–not necessarily among the medical/psychological community, but among ordinary folk. It was a common talking point in arguments over the subject back in the 90’s in particular.
Google lists 73M search results for the term (in the singular). Of course today, the top results are about the overturning of that concept.
mimus- you asked if someone thought the gay gene existed.
The article is evidence that they did. And I bet some people still do
Being born gay sand there being a gene for gay are not the same thing.
A useful read (which this result further confirms): http://www.mygenes.co.nz/mgmmd.....llBook.pdf (see esp Ch 1)
–> Note the lack of accountability over massive manipulation of public, professional, legal and legislators’ opinions.
Homosexuality and bisexuality is not genetic. They are psychological. 100% of homosexuals and bisexuals have been seriously abused. They need psychological help, not a pat on the back to encourage a delusion.
The main lie from Atheistic Materialists is not their claim that people are ‘born gay’,,,
No, the main lie from Atheistic Materialists is not that you are born gay. The main lie from atheistic materialists is that you are a deterministic ‘meat robot’ with no free will of your own and that there is therefore nothing you can personally do to change any particular behavior that you may be predisposed to do, but is a behavior that you, none-the-less, would like to change if you could.
As evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne stated, “You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today”.
Jerry Coyne is not alone. Many other leading Darwinists also make the insane claim that we are nothing but ‘meat robots’,
Simply put, the main lie from Atheistic Materialists is that you have no free will to choose to do otherwise than what you may be predisposed to do.
But the fact that we can choose to do otherwise than what we may be predisposed to do, i.e. the fact that we do indeed have free will, regardless of what Atheistic Materialists may claim. is now established by experimental science. Specifically, it is established by experimental evidence from both neurology and Quantum Mechanics.
In neurology we find, from the work of Benjamin Libet and others, that we have the ability to veto a “unconscious decision”, i.e. to veto a predisposition to a certain behavior that we might have. As Dr. Egnor notes, “Libet even observed that his experimental confirmation of free will accorded with the traditional religious understanding of free will”:
Libet’s work verifying the reality of free will and/or ‘free won’t’ was further replicated, and refined, here
Free will is also further experimentally established by advances in Quantum Mechanics. Specifically, Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
On top of the fact that experimental evidence from both neurology and Quantum Mechanics have now established the reality of free will, Dr. Jeffery Schwartz has gone even further.
Dr. Jeffery Schwartz has had much success in treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCDs) by changing the ‘chemistry of the brain’ through the ‘focused attention’ of the mind of the patient. This ability to modify our brain, i.e. ‘neuroplasticity’, would not be possible if our thoughts were determined solely by our material brains as Darwinists hold.
In fact there is now even tentative evidence, besides changing the ‘chemistry of our brain’ via neuroplasticity, that our minds can also reach all the way down to the genetic level of our brains and bodies and have a pronounced ‘epigenetic’ effect on the gene expression of both our brains and our bodies,
Thus the fact that we have free will and that we are not completely helpless victims of whatever predispositions we may have is now established by experimental science.
Perhaps the most direct evidence against the materialistic claim that people are ‘born gay’ and that they therefore cannot change, comes from the fact that many deeply homosexual men have now found freedom from their homosexual behavior through Christ. In fact, many former deeply homosexual men are now in, of all things, devoted and loving heterosexual marriages.
Here is a documentary that interviews many former deeply homosexual men who are now Christians:
And here are extended Interviews with 29 former homosexuals who are now Christians
Verses:
Brother Brian:
Do tell how that can happen without a genetic component
Like every other perversion, homosexuality (even through a failure of identification and bonding) is often simply a matter of incontinent lust – in principle (!), like the affection some of our family’s dogs had for our shins.
It sure makes sense of G K Chesterton’s saw to the effect that tolerance is the last virtue of the man without principles, yet in the homosexual’s lexicon, ‘tolerance’ is the all-purpose virtue, than which there can be no greater.
We can all appreciate that some members of our own sex are better-looking than others (although ‘looks’ are understandably considered an insane criterion of a person’s worth), but where the morality dimension arises is in the choice to ignore the ugliness of homosexual relations. I’m not so much talking about women here, as I think with them, it’s more sad than anything else.
Christian scripture states that God’s thoughts are as high above ours as the heavens are above the earth, and this is an area, where one doesn’t have to scale the heights of God’s divinity to understand that moral beauty is as high above sensual beauty, as the heavens are above the earth. Nevertheless, Yahweh did feel it necessary to command through Moses that the Israelites should not ‘seethe a kid in its mother’s milk’, its being a clear example of an offence against moral beauty. When a people’s leaders totally lose that sense (in short supply at that level, at the best of times), only trouble can ensue.
We speak, for instance, of ‘the milk of human kindness’, but in its association with the tenderness of motherhood, its symbolism runs far deeper than that, doesn’ it? ‘This is what the Lord your God asks of you: to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.- Micah 6:8
Nor should the demonic component be understimated in sexual deviancies, as in so much else in our ordinary day-to-day lives. We have to make make choices all the time. Little wonder that growth in our spiritual lives should so closely mirror our observance of what J_P de Caussade designated, ‘the Sacrament of the Present Moment’, e.g. putting a piece of scrap-paper in the waste-paper basket, if that is what God wants of us at a partiular moment – rather than giving our lives to be burnt at the stake, if is not what God wants of us at that particular moment.
But don’t forget this gem:
BA77@22, so at one time God says that it is morally imperative to kill homosexuals, and the next moment he says that it is morally imperative not to kill them. Doesn’t sound like the actions of a inerrant God.
You forget, Jesus himself died for the sins of the world. i.e. He is perfectly consistent in the grace He, the Son of God, extended to the woman caught red handed in adultery since He died for her sins too.
BA77
That doesn’t explain why God said it was morally imperative to kill homosexuals one day and then morally imperative that we don’t the next day. Was he wrong in giving his first command, or wrong in giving his second?
A little theology 101
Sin separated man from God. Yet God is the source of all life. Therefore the penalty for all sin is death, not just the sins of adultery and homosexuality.
God bridged that infinite chasm between us and Him, i.e. between death and life, by having his Son die for our sins so that we may be reunited with Him and inherit eternal life.
It is called propitiation.
Is Brian really conflating adultery with homosexuality?
BA77
Again, you are not addressing the issue. Why is it morally imperative for humans to kill homosexuals one day, and morally imperative that they don’t do so on the next? Did God change his mind? And, if he is inerrant, why would he find it necessary to do so? Obviously, at one time, he thought that it was good for people to kill others who sinned. Was he wrong?
Reference, please.
All sinners?
Unlike you, who isn’t even wrong.
Jesus saw that if they were to stone all the sinners then all would be stoned. That is when the word changed to mean “to get drunk or high”. Then they all obliged.
God is perfectly consistent. He required the penalty of death all along for sin. Since Jesus Himself paid the penalty of death in full on our behalf, (since we were, and are, unable to pay the penalty ourselves), then He is and was free to forgive the adulterous woman. Moreover, Jesus made the overriding point that all of her accusers were also guilty of sinning under the Mosaic law and therefore they were also under the penalty of death for their own sins. i.e. “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”.
The point being that ALL have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, and we ALL therefore need Jesus so that we may receive forgiveness and stand righteous before God almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and all that is therein.
Of supplemental note: Since you are so concerned that God might be inconsistent in His morality, it might first behoove you, as an atheistic materialist, to not be inconsistent in your own morality. Simply put, without God you have no objective moral basis to judge whether anything else may be evil or good. As Dawkins said, atheism entails the morality of no good or evil just ‘blind, pitiless, indifference”.
That is to say that all morality within atheistic materialism is subjective and even illusory. Yet, in your argument that God is being inconsistent in His morality, you yourself, although you have no basis for doing so, are presupposing that there is some objective moral basis that you can judge by. Yet, only if God exist can good and evil objectively exist and can you have a objective moral basis to judge by.
i.e. You are making a self refuting argument!
So you tell me how anything can possibly be objectively good or evil in your atheistic materialism in the first place, and then we will start to mull over whether it is morally inconsistent or not for God to forgive our sins through Jesus Christ..
BB, surely, you understand the difference between a civil penalty at law (which in key part depends on ability of a given society to withstand chaotic acts) and the moral nature of an underlying act; and again, the further matter of the attitude of the heart. At no point is arsenokoitai or malakoi or the like ever approved of, and indeed is viewed as against nature and inherently chaotic — something it seems we are determined to learn the hard way at cost yet again as a civilisation — but something that can be repented of and transformed from. One of those things the modern myths refuse to acknowledge but of which there are a great many examples. The recently announced study results are consistent with this, and we all know the difference between proneness, habituation in and breaking out of; where the 12 step type approach shows that while spiritually motivated existential struggle can succeed in breaking out of destructive habituation, it is patently far better not to get caught on a hook in the first place. A point now well known and accepted in regards to drugs and alcohol. Hence too, the responses to adultery as seen, duly noting the intent of entrapment by dilemma in a noted case. KF
BB,
>Why is it morally imperative for humans to kill homosexuals one day,…
Not all, just the Hebrews and only prior to Christ’s coming, as BA77 has well explained.
>Did God change his mind?
If God is going to work with temporal beings, then at least some things will have to change over time, as a plan unfolds in our realm. God’s underlying nature is what remains constant.
>Being born gay and there being a gene for gay are not the same thing.
Along with ET, I’m really curious about this one.
EDTA
How we develop is affected by our genetic makeup and the environment we develop in. In most cases it is not as simple as there being a “gene for A.” Two turtles with the exact same genome can develop such that one is male and one is female.
I assume that you are heterosexual. If homosexuality is a choice, as many here believe, do you believe that you can decide to be sexually attracted to your own gender? I know I couldn’t. Why do people think that homosexuals are capable of doing what heterosexuals can’t (ie, decide do change their sexual attraction)?
> If homosexuality is a choice, as many here believe, do you believe that you can decide to be sexually attracted to your own gender?
If someone was having a hard time finding heterosexual relationships but did find a band of same-sex friends that made them feel welcome and desired, and these same-sex friends knew ways to encourage the person to go the homosexual route, and if homosexual sex acts were accompanied by rushes of dopamine/oxytocin/etc–which they are–then, yes, it would be very possible for someone to essentially (but not in a single day) choose to become homosexual.
But even if a tendency to same-sex attraction were entirely genetic, it would not clinch the case. There are characteristics/desires/tendencies of people that are most likely innate, yet which are still wrong. Hypothetically, say I had an attraction to stealing (kleptomania maybe) that turned out to be innate. It would still be wrong to act on the urge.
Yes, as finite and imperfect beings, we are sometimes shackled with wanting things that are wrong for us to want/obtain.
Too vague and utterly useless. And no one has ever demonstrated an environment that turns someone into liking the same sex.
They were going to be turtles regardless.
They should investigate if homosexuality is related to materialism. A psychological test which scores points on objectifying emotions as being material, and free will denial.
Homosexuality may not be predicted by genes but it may still be a epigenetic phenomenon triggered by child abuse at an early age.
Wasn’t there a good study that showed most that ‘turned’ gay changed back away….. some people struggle with personal choices… some with less moral guidance don’t…. seems to explain it right there