Baby, you were born this way So a study finds that sexual orientation dates from the womb and doesn't develop later in childhood. I understand the point of doing a scientific study on this. But I don't see why the author of the article seems to think this is so surprising?? If she'd asked me I would have told her I was born this way! Surely this is known to everyone who has any gay friends?
True but the observation given about your sexual orientation would only be considered a personal experience not backed up by any facts or science based hypothesis. Much like the a God argument: "I know God is real because I can feel him inside me" is purely based on personal experience that only the person saying this quote would be able to understand first hand. "I know I was born gay because I have been like this for as long as I can remember" again another personal experience that cannot be shared with anyone else much like the previous quote. These statements are purely "TAKE MY WORD FOR IT" Science doesn't like that. But now with this find we can test and retest to see if there are any inconsistency with these findings giving even more justifiable reasons on why we should be allowed to have the same rights as everyone else, not just based on personal and moral opinions but scientific fact as well. I can relate to how you fell "Duh we've been saying it all along!"but with documented science everyone else can now "experience" our point of view through science.
But I'm not complaining about the study. Just the fact that people seem to be surprised and think that this is some kind of new previously unknown information.
Well, while I may know my homosexuality isn't a choice, I certainly couldn't tell you, without backing it up scientifically, if it's because I was "born this way". Maybe it's something that happened when I was younger than 3, and can't remember anything? It's hard to claim "Born this way" with any personality trait as environment has incredibly powerful effects on psychology. This study is significant because it relates homosexuality to brain development in the womb. It's not really news though; studies of this nature are years old. On that note, I can't help but thinking that the "Kinsey 6s" is a large deal nurture and not nature. I am 0% attracted to female genitalia and would never, ever, ever think about heterosexual sex. That's incredibly maladaptive. While bisexuality makes a lot of evolutionary sense, homosexuality just doesn't. And while I might expect homosexuality to appear incidentally-mistakes happen-it's incredibly prolific. I just think there's a bigger story behind homosexuality than "It's prenatal hormones!" Someone should get studying sexuality in monkeys or something. Yeaaah.
It makes total sense to me. Producing your own children is not the only way to spread your genes. Your sibling's children share 1/4 of their genes with you - same as a grandchild. I can easily imagine cases where it's more advantageous to support them than to produce competing children. On the other hand I do not see why bisexuality makes so much evolutionary sense to you?
There are lots of cases in other species where homosexuality directly relates to better survivability of both parents and offspring. For example, giraffes that 'practice' having sex with other males are more able to impregnate females. Homosexual male pairs of swans (that either steal eggs from other pairings, or impregnate a female and then steal the eggs from her) are more successful at rearing the hatchlings as they can more easily defend their territory and collect food. Maybe you can argue that both of these are cases of bisexuality, but bisexuality is essentially just the presence of homosexuality along with heterosexuality; i.e. you can't be bisexual without being homosexual.
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in any of this. I have an undergraduate understanding of evolutionary theory and primate evolution. That's about it. It might make evolutionary sense to support your sibling if you can't reproduce and your sibling can, true. However, being homosexual doesn't really give you any advantage in caring for your kin over if you were heterosexual. Also, what really doesn't make any sense is that a mother would dedicate 9 months of pregnancy and years of raising a child to someone who wouldn't reproduce. Bisexuality makes sense in a number of cases. Female bisexuality makes the most sense to me: so I'll start there. I came up with this idea after reading about female-female pairs in albatrosses. Generally, in humans it takes more than one person to rear a child to adulthood. Theoretically the woman takes care of the child and the man gathers resources. Now, let's imagine that there are less men than women in a group (a likely occurrence if men are going out more), a single woman can easily get herself a kid, but she couldn't raise it alone. However, what she could do, is make a bond with another single woman, and take turns having babies. Male bisexuality commonly shows up in dominance displays in nature. So it certainly makes sense as far as that goes. It's useful to build relationships with your fellow males in a group. If Joe and Tim are too young to compete for any women, then maybe it's better for them to cement their bond by having sex with each other until they're old enough to compete with the other males: then their bond will make it so that they can compete for females together. I have other random theories about how/why bisexuality makes sense...but why would it ever be evolutionary advantageous to not want to mate ever. Our fluid sexuality I'm sure has a lot to do with cementing bonds in a group and all that jazz, but complete homosexuality seems like it's probably a developmental ooopsie, or a product of our western society, or whatever.
Well, the easy answer is: "publish or perish". Every researcher in university lives by this maxim. If you wrote an article, which journal is going to take it if all you claim is proving stuff everyone believed already? So you have to make claims of radical innovation and discovery before they'll even read past your abstract. Then, some reporter picks it up, goes with the sales pitch, and suddenly the newspaper reports that this is a hugely remarkable find. And if the newspaper says it, it must be true! Next week: scientists measure the wavelength of non-dispersed rays in the upper atmosphere and discover the shocking truth that the sky is, in fact, blue! :icon_wink
We all knew it, now we have the scientific proof to back it up, the cherry on the top really. think of it this way as it is now scientifically proven the homophobic idiots have no reason to say it is a choice, now it is fact. Were born this way. Why could of they figured it out earlier
In skimming the article, it actually looks like there's nothing new at all, and it also doesn't look like the author is definitively stating that sexual orientation is solely defined prior to birth. Additionally, it seems to be stated as theory, not fact; no evidence seems to be offered up to prove this is the case; if anything, the reference to inconsistent outcomes in identical twins would tend to indicate otherwise. I happen to believe that it is mostly if not all determined prior to birth, but I don't think this article (or the sources from which the article is written) really confirm that.
