[Natoma]

Originally Posted by Vince

My gosh man!

While this argument is nolonger Biological in nature, I'll still comment just because.

Psychology defined a Behavor as an "aggregate of the responses or reactions or movements made by an organism in any situation." If we do away with any fairytale of a mind-brain duality, we could reduce the problem to one of dynamically assigning (by whatever mechanic) a given output per stimuli recieved - this output is manifested in a person's Behavor.

So, if you truely changed your behavor - by definition you would have changed your responce to a given input at a more fundimental level. What you're doing in this case is mimicing a fundimental change and then proclaiming, "Hey, look! I still like guys!"

Just because an American kid adopts the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of, say, an Italian Mafia Boss - doesn't make him one. Similarly, there is no information construct in the genome that I've seen which dicates someone as a Mob Boss - but it's something you grow into because of the enviroment and mentality which surrounds you since the sperm and egg did their thing.

What you're doing - pretty god damn often to boot - is playing off fallicious arguments rooted in pseudo-semantic games and blatent inaccurancies such as this to give the illusion of a counter argument.

If I change my behavior toward women in a sexual situation, I wouldn't wretch at the physicality. Am I capable of holding in my distaste and giving the appearance of a behavioral change? Certainly. Does that mean that I am truly attracted to women? Most certainly not. You defined a behavior as an aggregate of the responses and reactions or movements made by an organism in a situation. If I hold in my physical distaste for, have I not in fact changed my behavior by your very definition? That's not semantics at all. That's the definition you provided.

Originally Posted by Vince

I'm not stating this as a true argument or counter-point, but I wonder about this. For example, it's pretty clear to myself that pop culture has been breeding a sub-group of the current adolescent female demographic into believing that bisexuality is acceptable at any age.

Now, while I have no problem with bisexuals of either gender myself, I can't help but feel that the media and entertainment sectors have really hyperinflated the concept into the mainstream at a younger age.

Simply because it's presented on TV doesn't mean that people will do it Vince.

If that were the case I wouldn't be gay. Up until a few years ago, i.e. mid to late 90s, there was nary a "gay influence" on TV or in other Media that I was exposed to. People naturally experiment. Many have normal sexual outlets. People are saying that this is ok now, that's all. Experimentation is fine. If you like having sex with both sexes, then so be it. If you like having sex with the same sex, so be it. If you like having sex with the opposite sex, so be it. But just because a heterosexual man tries kissing another man or thinks it's ok doesn't mean that he's going to "become" bisexual or gay. He'll be bisexual or gay if he is, not because he was "turned" or whatever.

[Legion]

Originally Posted by MfA

That is a strange question, you speak as if we have a choice.

Really? is it any stranger then the question implying the opposite.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Natoma

If I change my behavior toward women in a sexual situation, I wouldn't wretch at the physicality. Am I capable of holding in my distaste and giving the appearance of a behavioral change? Certainly. Does that mean that I am truly attracted to women? Most certainly not. You defined a behavior as an aggregate of the responses and reactions or movements made by an organism in a situation. If I hold in my physical distaste for, have I not in fact changed my behavior by your very definition? That's not semantics at all. That's the definition you provided.

First off, it's not my definition as I didn't asseble it myself. It's been accepted by the psychology community, look it up and you'll come across analogous definitions.

Second, the rest of your argument is full of holes and your arbitrary opinion of your condition. Bud, common' now... my argument was clear and you've yet to address it.

Simply because it's presented on TV doesn't mean that people will do it Vince.

Again, you're not looking at what I am. Please forget about TV alone and go a search on the net for female bisexuality in highschool or gradeschool.

[Natoma]

Originally Posted by Vince

First off, it's not my definition as I didn't asseble it myself. It's been accepted by the psychology community, look it up and you'll come across analogous definitions.

Second, the rest of your argument is full of holes and your arbitrary opinion of your condition. Bud, common' now... my argument was clear and you've yet to address it.

You know, it's rather difficult to have a discussion with you and Legion since you two insist on discussing my sexuality as "my condition" or "deviance" or "mutation". :?

I know what you were stating Vince, but that definition you provided doesn't in any way shape or form contradict or refute anything that I've stated at this point. I could have sworn I did address your argument, but if I haven't I apologize. Please restate it, but maybe in a different way.

Originally Posted by Vince

Again, you're not looking at what I am. Please forget about TV alone and go a search on the net for female bisexuality in highschool or gradeschool.

Are you sure this is permanent bisexuality or just experimentation Vince? I experimented with girls in high school and according to what you're saying I would have been defined as a bisexual, despite the fact that I wasn't aroused by girls at all. That certainly didn't "turn" me straight or capable of an arousal response by both sexes. I was still gay despite my experimentation.

[Legion]

Cultural perceptions, i.e. stereotypes, are in large part based on truth Legion. The bad that comes from it when people try and paint an entire segment of society based on a tiny sliver of experience.

And largely false. You can't possibly think this is a sound argument Natoma.

My life story. My boyfriend's life story. Other gay friends life stories. Many have a common denominator. The parents and other family members "knew" that person would be gay. Whether or not they admitted it to themselves is another story.

Ad populum fallacy. The same story of this christian is the same story of that christian etc etc...ergo God exists.

You're not reading again. I said as far as we know, the rate of homosexuality in the human population has been constant. Based on what we know, that prevalence cannot be explained by mutation.

Oh i am indeed reading. I am asking you to provide one shread of evidence to back the rate of homosexuality is constant assertion. Most certainly it can be explained by a mutation. How infact do you think we evolved? Small mutagenic processes Natoma.

Sigh. I thought you would have rightfully concluded that "control" is that which is not mutual, i.e. forced. Why would I talk about rapists, prison homosexuality, and pedophilia in the same breath? Because they are forced sexual acts

control:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=control

Whether they are or are not forced acts isn't in question. It the behavior itself. I would have to disagree with you again strongly, pedophilia has been practiced throughout history.

Lets us also keep in mind not all pedophiles go around raping children Natoma. Often they have child pornography.

To say these relationships are souly about control and children simply act as the object to control is flat out wrong.

Btw hold your condescending expressions Natoma.

We outlaw them because they are not mutually agreed upon.

No, we outlaw pedophilial relationships because we perceive they can not be mutually agreed on. History on the other hand tells us a different story of past relationships.

We do not believe an animal can make a decision to have sex with a human. We do not believe a child can make a sexual decision to have sex with an adult. And we certainly know that those who charge "rape" did not want that sexual encounter forced upon them.

Again this is irrelevant. You are simply trying to force a square peg into a round hole by enginering this "control" relationship argument. All pedophiles do not perceive children as sexual objects for the sake of merely controlling them. I do not know where you gathered information leading you to this conclusion.

If you notice, sexual encounters that are mutually agreed upon are not illegal in our society. Sadomasochism is the most obvious example of this.

This has no baring on our discussion.

There was nothing to admit. It's an obvious conclusion that something that violating would change your perspective on things. Look, you're always asking for "proof" about other people's assertions. I want proof of your statement that many of those who are molested as children magically become homosexual. From what I've seen, especially in public cases such as priest abuse, that was certainly not the case. And in cases of rape, that is certainly not the case either.

So please, enlighten me on this regard.

There is a lot to admit. Its rather common knowledge molestation is a tramatic experience which often leaves a child confused about his/her sexual orientation. This is a commonly accept fact in the field of psychology. No one stated it causes one to become a homosexual magically.

Back it up with what and where please?

I think this ought to come to you as common knowledge. It is often reported by homosexuals seeking therapy.

Can they change their behavior? Yes. Is that changing sexual orientation? No. I can change my behavior tomorrow and become the straightest of the straight men you'd ever know. Would I still be sexually oriented toward men? Yes.

Again i disagree with you. You have yet to provide evidence sexual orientation is predetermined. Thusly i can not see how you can argue, factually, that no orientation change can be made.

No just making a sarcastic comment about your alluding "control" in a relationship as no different than that expressed in rape or pedophilia.

No, i don't think it was just sarcasm. I think the bulk of your argument comes from your "experiences" and likewise the perception of them. Control exists in all relationships, obviously to different digrees. You can't simply exclude a form of sexuality simply because you don't agree with it.

http://members.cox.net/kenny50/moles..._pedophile.htm

I never argued that sadomasochism wasn't a form of sexual expression.

You argued control was not apart of relationships. It is infact apart of relationships. That was just an extreme example i provided you.

There is an obvious difference between the control exerted upon someone by a rapist or a sexual molester, and the mutually agreed upon give and take in a healthy relationship Legion. Sadomasochism is indeed healthy in a relationship as long as both parties agree and enjoy it. If one party forces another into sadomasochism then a crime has been committed.

They are simply slightly different definitions of the word control or different applications. None the less control is apart of relationships. Such is unavoidable.

Have you ever had a successful relationship? I don't ask that condescendingly or sarcastically. I'm just shocked that you could equate a healthy relationship in any way to forced sex.

I do not take your questions as offensive. Yes, i am currently engaged. I am not equating healthy relationships to rape. I am just relating control is a part of relationships. Sadomasochism is simply an extreme example i'd imagine compares to rape on various levels.

There are different connotations with it Legion. Much is made of pedophilia today as an abuse of the child. In that society, it would have not been taught as such.

Actually pedophile and child abuser are not interchangable terminology. A pedophile refers to some one with a child sex fixation.

Again i disagree with your perception of history. I see this is just a manner in which pedophiles justified their perversion by trying to make some sort of right of passage.

That wasn't the point I am discussing with you.

That has been the topic of this conversation has it not?

Is that what you're discussing with zidane1strafe? Certainly not me as I haven't made any statement on that matter in the first place. But since you ask, I think sexual arousal of the child form is certainly possible, but most accepted forms of molestation/pedophilia are about forced sexual control and power, just as rape is about the forced sex, and not the actual sexual act.

Again i disagree. You are using the terminology incorrectly. Pedophiles, again are often people who suffer from child sex fixations. They are also likely not to pursue or have desires for relationships with mature women.

I simply do not understand why you continue to try and equate what happened in Roman society with what goes on in our society in the same terms.

Because i just simply see this argument as bunk. As i mentioned before many cultures have practiced pedophilia.

As for this "mounting evidence", please provide some. If that were the case, homosexuals would be a growing population, and I don't think you'll find evidence of that anywhere.

Again where did i stated molested children will undoubtedly become homosexual.

Actually yes, it was a culturally understood norm. I learned about this activity in Roman culture in AP European History in text books.

Actually no, i have read the same material and have come to the exact opposite conclusion. This was merely a way for them to justify their sexual perversion.

It was as accepted in Roman culture as the bequeathing of pubescent girls to males much older than themselves, or pre-arranged marriages whereby the participants would be married as soon as they were born.

It was likewise accepted behavior for cultures around the wold for men to marry young girls. They simply didn't refer to it in terms of pedophilia as we do do to the subjective nature of the behavior.

Who are you to say what one culture does is right or wrong?

A good point. Likewise who are you to decide pedophilia is a behavior outside the bounds of genetic predisposition?

I don't agree with bequeathing a child girl to an adult man as some cultures do today, but that doesn't mean it's perversion or that it isn't normalized. You should watch how you categorize things you don't agree with.

I am perfectly fine with my summation of the behavior for the most part as i see it as unhealthy in many cases. However, i am more than willing to admit pedophilia is predispositioned orientation if homosexuality and heterosexuality are as well.

The society as a whole condoned and participated in those activities Legion. As I said just above, you should watch how you categorize them.

Societies as wholes have condoned stoning of disobedient children and unfaithful wives as well as the murder of homosexuals. Should i watch how i categorize those behaviors as well?

[quote]Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. [/quot]

Likewise just because you can't see doesn't mean you should make something up.

[Legion]

I just said that everyone is saying you don't have to be taught in order to have sex. Two beings that are sexually attracted to one another will sexually interact with one another and figure it out. But no one has implied that there wasn't some form of sexual education in our history. You've been saying that animals have to have that in order to procreate when there is proof in practically every species to the contrary.

I don't think you realize Zidane did imply this with a comment you reinforced by stating my refutation of it to be bollucks.

No Natoma. I am saying tht humans require sexual education of some kind to recognize sexual differences between male and female. We are far more cognicent being then other animals and do not obey set instinctual mating rituals. What i have been trying to get across to you and others is humans while not suddenly gather some instinctual knowledge of male and female or for that matter. How to have sex or its purposes.

All species have existed without teaching sex at some point Legion. How do spiders know how to procreate? How do Lions know how to procreate? How do butterflies that migrate thousands of miles know where to go and how to procreate? They certainly aren't taught by their parents and the society around them.

Natoma i have already responded to a similiar argument.

I do agree that the likely hood the vast majority of living things obey a strict adherence to instinct. This includes sexual behaviors. However, i believe as evidence suggests during the process of human evolution humanity became increasing less dependant on instincts and more on cognicents.

Human beings haven't always lived in societies. There was a time when our ancestors, if you believe in evolution and not creation, were completely instinctual.

Yes. I agree, infact i said this...However i believe we have moved on from that state via evolution.

And when do people generally start masturbating and interacting sexually with one another? After they enter puberty.

Actually children masterbate themselves often as a part of infatile development.

Do you have any?

I could probably dig up some.

Legion, the majority of people do not engage in masturbation or other sexual stimulation until they're in puberty.

I firmly disagree with this statement. Children obviously masterbate more often after puberty but masterbation is apart of the infantile development.

The point I was making before you split up the two paragraphs is that children enter puberty. They begin masturbating and interacting sexually with one another. Sex will happen between them anyways if they're sexually aroused by one another.

Again this coincides with my arguments. The drive to have sex would be pleasure not some genetic predisposition.

I don't agree with your position that they wouldn't know what to do and would never sexually engage because they haven't been taught what to do by society.

That is not exactly what i am saying. I am sure they could logically deduce what to do. Over even come to the conclusion in the thrawls of the sexual encounter.

Sigh. Let's take this step by step Legion.

1) Did humanity always exist in societies like today? No.

What relevance does this have to the subject of learned sexual behavior? Do you for some reason believe nomadic tribes had not means by which to teach their children about sexuality?

2) Has humanity been procreating since the beginning of our species? Yes.

Yes indeed it has. However there were prehomosapiens with intelligence who might have already escaped the limitations of instinct. We clearly have come as the next step in the evolution of cognicents over instinct. I see nothing wrong with the concept sexuality, as recognized by the evolving sapien mind and taught rather than having preconceived notions of what it is.

3) Do "lower" animals such as spiders, crocodiles, butterflies, lions, whales, sharks, et al procreate and go through extensive sexual rituals for the purpose of procreation without ever teaching their progeny how to do it? Yes.

You don't actually believe humans have instinctual mating rituals, do you?

How else do you explain this constancy through all species on this planet whether they have a society or not?

How else do i explain what constancy? I have already provided for human sexual orientation not being predipositioned in previous arguments.

You haven't proven what i asked you to. I do not hold in contention "lower" animals are highly subject to instincts. I disagree that humans are and i see the bulk of evidence verfying my position.

Uhm, the hypothalamus, thalamus, brain stem, and other "primitive" parts of our brain are far more than just vestiges Legion.

What exactly is your point Natoma? Many portions of the brain are apart of the indocronology. None of which i'd say definatively determines sexual orientation.

Sex is the instinct Legion

Not, its a drive and pleasure is an incentive. Again refer back to the definition of instinct.

As I've said before in other discussions. Sex itself is genetically linked. How that gets expressed is dependent on many different factors.

You've never proven this statement, but yes you repeat it. Being genetically linked at some level doesn't equate predisposition.

Instinct does indeed coexist with Intelligence.

No, i'd say you are simply misappropriating drives and reflexes as instincts.

Sex (lust) and Hunger are both instincts that are handled by the primitive portions of our brain, for instance.

No they aren't. Hunger and "lust" are drives. Hunger and "lust" are drives or incentives is not a instinct. Try again.

We can decide when we want to have sex because we are not completely beholden to our instincts as lower animals are. But we are strongly influenced by those instincts.

Let me refer you back the appropriate definition of instinct

in·stinct st )
n.
An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals.

An instinct can not be altered or adjusted. Sex itself is not an instinct.

We've had this exact discussion before. If you want me again to consult my psychology texts book on the matter i can to resolve.

It is a fact that our intelligence, our capacity for intelligence, is a filter of our instinct. I never said to what degree that occurs. I just said our intelligence is a layer on top of it.

I don't know of a psychologist who agrees with this (especially wrt to your beliefs concerning instincts). If you'd like to cite a reputable source i'd be more than willing to discuss it. You beliefs are more inline with the outdated and circular reasoning of William McDougall. You ought to remember this name as i brought him up one of the last few times we had this debate. He too attributed sex along with a whole wide range of emotions to instincts: jealousy, greed, pugnancy, etc. You ought to pay close attention to the words within my text as they provide excellant examples of the circular logic imployed by Instinct theorists:

"Why are people aggressive? Because human beings possess a powerful instinct to aggress. How do we know humans have this instinct? Because there is so much aggression."

Now we can just superimpose your instinct model of sex apon aggression:

"Why are people sexual? Because human posses a powerful instinct to have sex. How do we know humans have this instinct? Because humans are so sexual."

They arise from the instinctual part of our brain Legion.

And what praytell is the instinctual part of the human brain. I have never heard such a discription. Will please inform me?

They are indeed very much the same. Every human being is born with a sexual instinct. That motivation or impulse, that inborn pattern of behavior of all human beings to be sexually active, activates during puberty. Most people speak of it as becoming sexually aware when they hit puberty. You're just reading the definitions incorrectly.

No, actually they aren't and no i am reading them incorrectly. Infact the first definition i provided was a more scientific one the other was a more general form of the word. Infact my text book, Psychology Third Addition (by Saul Kassin) describes instincts as such:

Instinct is a fixed pattern of behavior that is unlearned, universal within a species, and 'released' by a specific set of conditions.

Sex clearly doesn't fit that mold. Infact, I'd argue Drive, Arousal and Incentive Theories provide far more rational explanations for human behavior then the now defunct Instinct Theory.

You get hungry and want food. Does anything in the environment tell you that you need to eat, or does your body just let you know and you know that you have to get something, anything?

Um yes. Hormones incourage you to eat. Does that mean you have to? No.

You're making all of these allusions when they're not pertinent at all to this discussion.

Quite to the contrary you are opperating around incorrect definitions and an improper understanding of various psychological terminology.

There have been a few studies chronicled in TIME and Newsweek last year that show that Meditation, irregardless of Religious affiliation, changes brain chemistry and has a calming effect on the human body

This is an example of an enviromental factor not a genetic or instinctual one. Its rather common knowledge that the brain itself is impacted by how we use it.

Christians 'feel' that sensation as God. Muslims 'feel' that sensation as Allah. Yogis 'feel' that sensation as inner self, or whatever. There is a very strong biological component to this.

What in God's name does this have to do with my point? Their feelings hardly equate the accuracy of their testimony or for that matter the existance of God. Just as your homosexual testimony in your way supports your claims about homosexuality. As i mentioned before your testimony and assertion many others believe as you do as some validation of your perception is an ad popullum fallacy.

Indeed there is a biological component in everything we do if you wish to reduce everything to its most miniscule levels. No one disagreed with this Natoma. Do you by chance feel i have been arguing emotions are determined and regulated by a soul? Having a biological component is vastly different from having a genetic predisposition. You really need to pick the terminology you are using to debate and stick with it. You are trying to hard to interchange words that don't share the same meanings.

Simply because you derive sexual pleasure from both men and women doesn't mean that everyone else can choose either sex equally.

Likewise it doesn't mean they can't.

I can't choose to derive sexual pleasure from women anymore than any of the heterosexuals here can choose to derive sexual pleasure from the same sex.

I would say you have simply have conditioned yourself not to.

Bisexuality in and of itself is not the end all be all of sexual choice.

Here i was thinking i was some one special...

Not everyone is aroused by both sexes and can choose whoever they please.

Prove there isn't any conditioning factors involved. You can't. Such is impossible. Thusly you can't possibly make this statement accurately.

As I've said earlier, there is a proven biological component to religious belief

As all emotion have a biological component. What you proved had nothing to do with what i was stating and i think you are aware of that fact. For the sake of clarification i was stating christian testimony is in no way evidence of the existance of God.

There is one irrefutable aspect regarding homosexuality Legion. It exists in every species that we have documented. It is not a human only activity in any way shape or form that is determinate on environmental influences such as being molested or whatever.

You keep stating this and it keeps bringing the McDougall's circular reasoning to mind:

"Why are there so many gays? Because humans have a powerful desire to be gay. How do we know humans have this desire? Because there are so many gays."

...damn, I think i will go build a web now that i have learned web building is an instinct in one of the largest populations of life forms on earth...

Simply because certain animals have certain instincts doesn't mean animals as a whole do Natoma. Stop trying to revive a dead chapter in psychological history.

In every case of homosexuality, there are different environmental circumstances. Not every homosexual has been molested just as not every heterosexual has been molested.

Eegads! You mean they could possibly have many motives? How could we ever perceive the human to be so dynamic?

Not every homosexual has been abused just like not every heterosexual has been abused.

Whoa. Did i imply all homosexuals were sexually abused?

If you take away environmental factors and go to the lowest common denominator inherent to everyone for our sexuality, it is our DNA.

Yes...essentially, if you erase all other possibilities you are truly left with only one...Needless to say i consider this assertion from you as much bunk as when you used it on me months ago. How can you possibility limit reasons for sexual orientation change to only a few mitigation factors who's validity you decide?! How can you possibly brush aside enviroment as a massive contributor to psychological development in one single wave of the hand? That is patently ludicrous.

I'm actually not referring to any experience wrt this. I learned about this in the Human Sexual Response portion of Psychology 110 in college.

WIth the manner in which you are mistaking psychological terminology?

You can't choose who you're aroused by. Either you get a woody in your pants looking at a chick or you don't. Either you get a woody in your pants looking at a guy or you don't

Now this is just bullshit. if i went to a foreign with foreign custom and sexual behaviors i'd more than likely not be attracted to either men or women of those said cultures. Infact i am rather repulsed by african tribal cultures ideals' of attraction. What we find to be attractive is without a doubt monsterously affected by enviroment. I am sorry, but human sexuality just isn't as digital as you are trying to make it appear.

If people could choose their sexuality there wouldn't be any homosexuals in this world. Why? It just isn't worth it to deal with all the societal problems that come with being homosexual.

Oh cut this cock and bull sob story homosexuals so often turn to. The same could easily be said for rapists, pedophiles, necrophiliacs, etc. The fact is they exist. Ergo they must exist because of genetic predisposition.

Natoma plenty of people ingage in sexual behavior frowned on by societal norms.

You can choose who you want to have sex with because you are bisexual. I am not bisexual. I am not sexually oriented towards women. I am only sexually oriented toward men. You obviously have it both ways. Most people do not.

Right....sounds to me you are conditioning yourself even now...

You still haven't explained to me how instinct interact with the human psyche to lead you to persue men - a sexual object they couldn't possibly begin to perceive.[

So you just woke up one morning and decided that you would be aroused by men? Right.....

don't be obtuse. I said choices. This implies times as a variable.

[Natoma]

You know I had this really long response to both of your posts. Unfortunately I accidentally hit the damn back button on my mouse and everything was erased.

Now I'm happy that happened. The problem with this discussion is that my line of argumentation is predicated on homosexuality not being a sickness or a mutation or a deviant behavior or a condition. Your line of argumentation and Vince's line of argumentation is predicated on homosexuality being all of those things. I can come up with study after study after study after study and write increasingly long posts backing up my assertions. You can of course come up with the normal bullocks you do to back up your assertions in response. A never ending cycle.

The point is that no matter what happens you and Vince simply will not change your viewpoint. Science could solve the riddle of sexuality tomorrow and you two would still view homosexuality as this "condition" to be cured. No matter how much I sit here, there's no getting to that core belief of yours, and fair enough the same can be said of me. So instead of proceeding to retype that ridiculously long post again, I'm going to bow out here. Of course, knowing that I'm completely 100% right and you and Vince are utterly wrong in many of your assertions.

p.s.: Instinct isn't immutable as you defined it earlier btw.

Originally Posted by Legion

An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals.

Nothing in that definition says that instinct can't be altered or adjusted, and is utterly immutable. You're inferring a meaning that simply doesn't exist in the definition you provided. That is much of what many of your arguments are based upon, and it's pretty incorrect.

[zidane1strife]

Not true. Your enviroment affects even from birth.

Indeed, that is why I said culturally, as in its effects on your culture.

This doesn't mean their work is at all accurate. notice it doesn't appear in acadamia today.

Well, they primarily dealt with the personal experiences, and showed how many of those who're in the border, in the fringes of the definitions of society, feel. Many of those programs dealed with what are known as hermaphrodites, people whose gender is ill define, and since academia said they could be molded, so it was that society attempted to do so. But many a times society went against what nature desired, and thus its intentions ended in failure.

Some of these programs also dealt with those who didn't meet the standards, and as such where deemed worthy of inhuman experimentation. Is a boy with a recessed gen!tal!a not better off as a girl? Is the same true for a girl, if her cli466ris is too large is she better of as a man?

Can you provide me with their research so i may know who you are refering to and what their research was concerning? I have read quite a bit on this issue and have come to the rightful conclusion most of the so called evidence up to this point is bunk. The rest remains highly contested.

I wouldn't call dozens upon dozens of lives ruined do to erroneous believes, simply bunk.

What the programs focused mostly was on the accounts of those who'd been butchered. I'd assume these people wouldn't go public, just for the sake of publicity, after all what they've gone throught is considered taboo by many.

I'm sure a search on "hermaphrodite", "early child sex change surgery", and the like could provide some info. I'd do so myself, but it'd take a while to screen through the different sources for appropiate ones.

There's also that experiment which appeared I think either in nature, cnn, or newscientist, etc. In the experiment t-shirts from several men, were given to some females. They were asked to rate which men was the most attractive, or something like that, based on the smell of the t-shirts. Females in this experiment chose as most attractive the t-shirts of those most symmetrical, as you know symmetry is an indicator of good genes. Thus we could assume info about the quality of genes, and probably more, can be transmitted in non-verbal-visual ways.

But that wasn't really the question i was asking you...I am wondering if genetics affects other forms of sexuality. Which logically, if it affects ones hetero/homosexuality there isn't any reason other rejected forms of sexual behavior couldn't be genetically influenced.

I'm assuming that it would take significant alteration to provide something, akin to the attraction between the sexes, toward another non-human form. Now I could make the hypothesis that maybe if in some way one was less influenced by nature, one might become more succeptible to develop strange desires towards cars, dogs, or some other thing. In such a case you might say one is genetically influenced to do something like that. But to say become akin to some of the less developed(int.) animals in sexual attraction might require changes to pheromone receptors, and to many areas in the brain.

But I wouldn't rule out the possibility that if something goes wrong here or there, one might find oneself confused, not able to relate to the strange social and mating rituals around one. Maybe even intrigued by the bias that is mostly present in each of the sexes. One could say that such individuals could end up being bisexual, pedophiles, necrophiles, etc...

Again i disagree. If anything enviroment affects our views on attraction more so then genetics. I think you can do a simple cross section of world cultures and see exactly what i am talking about.

Well, in many cases that is not so, this indicates to me, that either the influence is as strong or slightly more so.

For example there are regions where for generations people have done barbaric things to their lips, ears, etc in order to be considered more desirable to the other gender(hint). Now that many people in many of these regions are learning of the modern world, they are abandoning that which was taught to them. They are abandoning what is expected of them, what was taught since they were children, it seems THEY DIDN'T agree with their culture, with their local enviroment.

Can you provide me for how genes conceive breasts, phallic objects, etc as sexual? How do genes translate this information to the working psyche of the mind?

Somehow they translate facial features, at least from what I've heard. The brain has special h/w to do so, IIRC. Seeing how there are similar things in other areas, like the inclination towards fat and sweets, it is not hard to imagine something similar involved in sexual attraction.

Decades ago, I didn't understand why men where so into looking at females back, or at females in swimsuits... clearly even when their peers are not looking, they seem to have strange urges to seek the female figure, even in the privacy of their own homes... Why do boys seek images of nude girls, and not of nude boys, there is no one around, what is it that compels them?

Of course they won't develope attraction to random objects. They aren't incouraged to. It is much like learning the value of money. A purpose or worth has to be instilled in the object first. This may come through experience or through incouragements from peers/parents.

True, the brain is malleable, it is meant to adapt and to survive. Experiences and traumas can mold the mind beyond what is acceptable in society. Thus it is not hard to imagine that they can alter or distort sexual perception.

Well, no one has encouraged me, and I value many things that are outside the realms of what is expected of me. Yet, I cannot brake free from these chains. But they can be broken to a certain degree, drugs, age, alterations to caloric intake, and the like are said to influence sexual libido, among other things.

I would still like for you to provide a more indepth response.

hmmm, Ok. Many young children tend to have no notion of what sex is, they at most tend to play with each other and the like. Even when nude, they might make a joke here and there, but no (advanced)sexual intentions tend to develop. As they grow, many a times parents don't even mention sex, they begin to be more attracted to the opposite sex... even those that tend to be secluded, the small gangs, the geeks, antisocials, etc. From my personal experience, even people with little exposition or guidance towards sexual attraction, develop it, and even more intriguing this tends to be towards the opposite sex.

Again i disagree. Whether it tends to be one way or the other has little barings on the subject. Many cultures of the past and present welcomed homosexuality and accepted it. Based on what you have said could i say that do to the fact most cultures frown on pedophilia there must be a genetic predisposition for those who practice it? As that could be the only explanation for it?

Yes accepted, but do we know to what degree this influenced the homosexual to heterosexual ratio. If influence was minor, than it doesn't mean much.

Many things, even creativity(comparison between human ancestors, some created the same exact tools, but others were able to make alterations, etc), is said to have some genetic root, so I don't know.

Why couldn't enviroment completely explain sexual behavior? It is an absurd suggestion that most people within a culture will behave similiarly because they are all provided with similiar instructions?

Well, our ancestors were not as capable at handing down information as we now are, yet they managed to reproduce. Those who're inclined to seek the other sex, and reproduce are most likely to leave offspring, their traits are more likely to pass on. Sexual selection is seen throughout the natural world, it seems likely that there exist components beyond those that a parent teaches his offspring that influence the sexual attractions of this offspring. As I've said it's clear that genes influence other animals in their attraction, it is clear that this was so in our ancestors, it is clear that this is beneficial to the species, why tend would this be lost in humans? If it is beneficial, it will tend to remain regardless.

You have even mentioned yourself that people can change their sexuality. WHy couldn't these people who are homosexual be as the disobendient children in your analogy? What good would a poll be? I could say it is as much an example of my enviromental hypothesis as it is your genetic hypothesis when taken at face value as you have presented it.

Well, from my understanding my genetic hypothesis is more a theory when it comes to less mentally developed species, that would include our ancestors. Traits that are beneficial tend to be passed on. I'm not saying the enviroment can't influence people, that would be foolish, what I'm saying is that genes also provide some influence, and in some areas that influence can be overwhelming most of the time. Look at the desire for sweets and fats, that is something that many cannot easily overcome.

Again, if the enviromental influence was so great, then why are there dozens upon dozens of cases where this is not the case. Why are those whose genit@l!a is ill defined, not easily molded?

not establish which prior incarnations of sapiens had these preprogrammed rituals or behaviors it comes to me as father evident with the evolution of intelligence came with it the reduction of instinct. I am willing to argue NS rendered preprogammed sexual behavior obsolelete long before there were even humans.

I'd say I beg to differ. The difference in the sexes remain, physically, from outside to inside, and even mentally here and there. The desire that arises when a child reaches his early teens, is not one that can be easily controlled or molded by parents, and it is one that is distinctly different in boys and girls. Those who've believed that this is not so have performed surgeries on those at the edge, in between the sexes, only to see disastrous consequences from what I'm told.

Well, I've seen many groups, and I'd say there seems to be reward mechanisms for socializing and engaging in mating rituals...

You haven't yet provided for how it is built in to any degree.

Well, I think it's obvious. Some experiments like...

In 1998, Kathleen Stern and Mary McClintock from the University of Chicago, Illinois, published the first definitive evidence that the reason why women living together synchronise their menstrual cycle must be because they secrete an odourless chemical in their sweat.

Rodriguez and his colleagues at Rockefeller have cloned what looks like the first bona fide human pheromone receptor. Using a combination of molecular approaches, they screened a human genomic library and found a sequence 28% identical to the mouse V1ra2 gene. This sequence, which the authors called V1RL1, contains key amino acid reisdues that are conserved in every rodent pheromone receptor, and is expressed predominantly in the human olfactory mucosa

and the t-shirt one have hinted it.

It is obvious IMHO, that something is there, have you not seen the primitive, IMO, social and mating rituals in which people engage? Have you not seen that even against what is expected of them kids sometimes have sex?

Many a times girls, and boys are left alone with others of the same sex, and even allowed to be naked together in baths and the like... yet they don't tend to go into sexual orgies or the like why? Don't tell me it is reason, it may have been decades ago, but I recall these people having hyper sex drives, talking 24-7 about sex, and overall being very very horny... Yet, they could not wait to be left with a girl on weekends, or even in school, but that was not so for boys.

men don't tend to seek men, and women don't tend to seek women, when looking for a sexual partner... why is that? Do you think this bias is merely something that is taught?

Is it really bullocks? Can you provide evidence humans are born with predetermined sexual behaviors? Again, enviroment explains this. Sexual pleasure is without a doubt the major drive to have sex.

Yet there are devices, and ways to obtain it, yet it is mostly seeked in the company of a member of the opposite sex. Even amongst those who care not about society and have received little education about such things.

Parents and society expect one to excel in schools, and in life, often a child is encouraged to be a doctor or a lawyer... yet many times he does not follow or is happy with this path, but when it comes to sexual attraction it seems that even without significant influence he tends to follow more willingly.

The argument you have presented has yet to provide evidence for how genetics relates to the human cognicants what male/female are and what sex is. Children often ask questions ie "where do babies come from." If they were born with this knowledge why ask the question? Remember, simply providing a counter attack doesn't reinforce your position when so many could be correct.

That knowledge has nothing to do with the built in desire to have sex or with the fact people tend to be attracted to the opposite sex regardless of what you teach them.

There are ways obviously to do this, and there are ways to do many things, you can open their minds, etc.

Lol, how do you equate irrelevance to the behavior being illegal? Nonsense. It is a sexual orientation/behavior just as is homosexuality or heterosexuality. Same with lusts for animals and the dead, or for that matter anything else. If you are willing to perceive sexuality is predetermined then all forms of it are as well.

If we wish to believe sexual orientation can be determined by genetics then why not any other forms of behaviors or orienations outside of hetero/homosexuality? No one has yet provided an answer to this question.

In other animals, AFAIK, desire to engage in sexual acts with the dead or animals from other species is not so. I'd say whatever mechanisms there are, are likely quite complex, something that is probably outside the realm of realistic probability to occur from one generation to the next. Neither is it likely for a non-beneficial complex mechanism to be attracted to such things to be developed many thousands of generations if it's not beneficial.

Thus we're left with mistakes that can occur, and would leave them succeptible to develop so. So it might be possible for someone to be slightly susceptible to other sexual behaviors... I wouldn't rule out that possibility.

That as time progressed this behavior continued for matters of reason and not instinct.

Is a twelve year old child doing things based on reason? What reason is there for him to tend to chose a member of the opposite sex as opposed to the same to begin his sexual exploration? You at least admit that the desire to have sex is at least not something that arises for matters of reason, right?

If it was based up to reason... then what is the compelling reason for people to remain attracted to members of a particular sex throughout their lives? Why do they not engage in relationships with members of either sex, that is disregard the sex of their partners, even after multiple failed relations of such kind? Are you suggesting that there is a logical reason for the g3n!tal!@ of humans to be so influential in the choice of a mate?

The basis for desire does not appear to be reason, the inherent focus of this desire, I'd say too, is not up to reason. It can be influenced by the enviroment, I've not denied that, but it's components that go beyond simple enviromental stimuli. It is difficult for some to imagine a way to code for such things, but it would be difficult to imagine a code for machine out of which consciousness could arise, yet it is so done.

I have major problems with how you have written this statement. I am not sure you are meaning to be vague or not but simply discovery of sexual organs and the pleasures of masturbation would more than likely lead to sexual interactions

Sexual interactions between members of the opposite sex most likely. Now, why is it that a parent feels safe leaving his child with a friend of the same sex, but not with a member of the opposite? Why is ok, for a girl to spend the night alone with her female friend, but not with her male friend? Why are boys and girls kept separate during bathing sections, and in bathrooms? What is it that drives these things?

Many schools have no sex'ed where I live, heck many children are not taught anything about these things. Yet, the boys are interested in the girls and the girls in the boys in unusual ways especially after they reach their early teens, why is this?

argument that humans are affected by instincts comes to me as rather dubious.

Babies have an instinct to suck, if they didn't they'd die of hunger. I've heard they also have swimming instincts early on. At least they've been called as such by many professionals.

For example, it's pretty clear to myself that pop culture has been breeding a sub-group of the current adolescent female demographic into believing that bisexuality is acceptable at any age.

From what I've heard from specialists, etc in the news, is that it's more of a thing out of curiosity or game than anything serious.

Sex will happen between them anyways if they're sexually aroused by one another.

Indeed, and from my experiences... and from what I believe is occuring throughout the nation, it doesn't tend to occur between same sex children... God!!! Imagine the sexual orgies that would be occuring in the showers, and cloth changing sessions that occur in many a school's gym throughout the country... Yet, it doesn't happen? Why? Why not, why is a boy not sexually attracted to his best friend Johnny doe, in the shower... but he is to Suzie?

Why, because he was taught so? By whom? Yeah, now we have the net, and the like... But decades ago that was not so, and sex was even more taboo back then. Surely 10 year old boys and girls weren't being taught sex either in school or at home... but still they were attracted to members of the opposite sex, and not to members of the same sex... they could even change their cloths together, and sleep in each others house no worry, eh?

Again i disagree with you. You have yet to provide evidence sexual orientation is predetermined. Thusly i can not see how you can argue, factually, that no orientation change can be made.

Well, besides the entire societal structure, the dozens of accounts of those who've unwillingly become part of surgeons who believed the same as you, and the fact that one often chooses ones partners based on their genetic quality... The fact that at least the impulse is obviously predetermined, along with the biological gen!t@l!a, and differing brain structures, and physiques, should suggest it's not outside the realm of possibility.

However, i believe as evidence suggests during the process of human evolution humanity became increasing less dependant on instincts and more on cognicents.

I agree, but having seen many a groups of society, and many a humans, and many a debate, I've come to a slightly different conclusion. We're not as advanced or as far of from the animal world as you'd like to think.

You don't actually believe humans have instinctual mating rituals, do you?

Well, it is true that the mating rituals vary from culture to culture, but pointless, boring, dare I say idiotic behavior seems to predominate human social and mating activities. I wouldn't doubt that we're a little more primitive than you actually think... heheheh...

[Legion]

Well, they primarily dealt with the personal experiences, and showed how many of those who're in the border, in the fringes of the definitions of society, feel. Many of those programs dealed with what are known as hermaphrodites, people whose gender is ill define, and since academia said they could be molded, so it was that society attempted to do so. But many a times society went against what nature desired, and thus its intentions ended in failure.

I woud like very much to see these reports.

Some of these programs also dealt with those who didn't meet the standards, and as such where deemed worthy of inhuman experimentation. Is a boy with a recessed gen!tal!a not better off as a girl? Is the same true for a girl, if her cli466ris is too large is she better of as a man?

I believe i've read something about this in a book. A biography of some sort.

I wouldn't call dozens upon dozens of lives ruined do to erroneous believes, simply bunk.

What the programs focused mostly was on the accounts of those who'd been butchered. I'd assume these people wouldn't go public, just for the sake of publicity, after all what they've gone throught is considered taboo by many.

I would very much like to see them so they could be discussed.

I'm sure a search on "hermaphrodite", "early child sex change surgery", and the like could provide some info. I'd do so myself, but it'd take a while to screen through the different sources for appropiate ones.

I have probably already read them in the course of my psychological education.

There's also that experiment which appeared I think either in nature, cnn, or newscientist, etc. In the experiment t-shirts from several men, were given to some females. They were asked to rate which men was the most attractive, or something like that, based on the smell of the t-shirts. Females in this experiment chose as most attractive the t-shirts of those most symmetrical, as you know symmetry is an indicator of good genes. Thus we could assume info about the quality of genes, and probably more, can be transmitted in non-verbal-visual ways.

It is indeed rather common knowledge a lot of animals prefer objects of symmetry over objects lacking some form of symmetry. However, this isn't always true. Notice not all the women chose the shirts with the most symmetry. Art itself is an example of objects often lacking in any symmetry. Other objects in nature often considered beautiful are plants and trees, most of whom lack any form of symmetry. I wouldn't go as far to say this is an example of genetic reference to symmetry either. Infact, most of the objects we are surrounded by in life have symmetry. It would be a safe assumption that on a subconcious level humans would recognize this early on (as would many other animals) and in a more developed state later. However, it is also clear that people can find objects without symmetry beautiful as well. So, if they are infact incouraged by genetics to consider objects with symmetry automatically attractive then there is also the possibility that can be changed. Now, I completely disagree with the notion this is genetically determined. I believe it to be a relation to an infant's first exposures to enviroment and to its parents; their shape and form.

We can not assume that humans are inborn with information concerning the visual appearance of male and female. A simple recognition of symmetry is a far cry from an understanding of anthropomorphism.

I'm assuming that it would take significant alteration to provide something, akin to the attraction between the sexes, toward another non-human form.

Depending on the time and place in a person's life it could indeed by difficult.

Now I could make the hypothesis that maybe if in some way one was less influenced by nature, one might become more succeptible to develop strange desires towards cars, dogs, or some other thing.

Which i would say is an example of a person is suffering from some pathology. However, pedophiles do fixate on children. This is to say they only consider sex with young children and can not carry on sexual relationships with adult women. This is generally attributed to psychological developmentary problems.

In such a case you might say one is genetically influenced to do something like that. But to say become akin to some of the less developed(int.) animals in sexual attraction might require changes to pheromone receptors, and to many areas in the brain.

They might require it, but that could also be a form of enviromental influence on the animal. Humans on the other hand do not have such mechanism by which they determine their sexuality. We a clearly far more advanced then that, or rather more complex.

But I wouldn't rule out the possibility that if something goes wrong here or there, one might find oneself confused, not able to relate to the strange social and mating rituals around one.

Mating rituals? Humans don't have instinctual mating rituals ergo it would be impossible to confuse them. So yes, i would rule this out right from the start. The absolute lack of credible evidence in the fields of Indocronology that hormones determine sexual orientation is profound. Much has been reported throughout the 90s to be contributors to sexual orientation. However, the reports couldn't be duplicated with same results. two of the most exaggerated and flawed reports were of the "finger length test" and Simon Levay's research on the INAH3 neural receptors in the rat/human brain.

Maybe even intrigued by the bias that is mostly present in each of the sexes. One could say that such individuals could end up being bisexual, pedophiles, necrophiles, etc...

Again this would be an example of of brain changes do to the enviroment.

Well, in many cases that is not so, this indicates to me, that either the influence is as strong or slightly more so.

For example there are regions where for generations people have done barbaric things to their lips, ears, etc in order to be considered more desirable to the other gender(hint).

Thats not a hint at all. They are taught to do this by their society. Unless of course they are all born with the instinct to persue ear rings...

Now that many people in many of these regions are learning of the modern world, they are abandoning that which was taught to them. They are abandoning what is expected of them, what was taught since they were children, it seems THEY DIDN'T agree with their culture, with their local enviroment.

Which is undeniably the source of their past sexual behaviors. I don't see how you consider this a hint to anything genetic. Are you trying to suggest that since they didn't agree with their culture they have some genetic predisposition which differs from their ancestors?! Don't you find that a tad bit absurd? Did they some how envelope the western versions of sexuality through the contraction of the "western sexuality" gene?

Somehow they translate facial features, at least from what I've heard.

I would say there is still more enviromental aspects to the comprehension of facial movements then simply recognizing an infant reflex. Other things like a baby crying when it is frowning add to a learned response (conditioned response). This is a behavior the baby learns to utilize to get something it wants.

The brain has special h/w to do so, IIRC. Seeing how there are similar things in other areas, like the inclination towards fat and sweets, it is not hard to imagine something similar involved in sexual attraction.

Again i disagree. What you are describing is a drive/incentive. Not everyone enjoys the tastes of sweets either. However, there is an incentive to having sweets - there taste! Clearly, no one is born with an understanding of how vanilla ice cream tastes. However, do to its generally nonoffensive flavor, an often appreciated flavor, people have an incentive to consume it. There are also those who do not like it.

What you are describing here is a reference to the brian's portions used to process tastes. Something quite a bit different from understanding and processing of images. Even vision at its base is something that is developed through associations. We are not born with the capacity to understand and perceive what we are seeing. So, again i find it impossible to make this illogical jump from configurations in taste bud/etc to a preconfiguration for the understanding and perception of all objects we view. There just isn't any evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Decades ago, I didn't understand why men where so into looking at females back, or at females in swimsuits... clearly even when their peers are not looking, they seem to have strange urges to seek the female figure, even in the privacy of their own homes... Why do boys seek images of nude girls, and not of nude boys, there is no one around, what is it that compels them?

Very basic psychology here.

1) All humans (assuming they are not malfunctioning) have a sex drive.
2) The conceptualization on your part of their view of nude women is a contamination of enviromental factors of culture that you are allowing to distort your conclusion. Not all cultures through the process of history have had the profound desire for female "private parts". Infact, in many cultures (even nudist colonies) nudity is considered normal. Likewise, they (those in nudist colonies) don't go around all the time with eractions or being sexually aroused. The inundation of images eventually desensitizes them to what they are seeing.
3) What compels them? Sex drive based on their desires for sex. WHy do they persue women. Because they are taught to by their parents and their society that is what they should do. In order to fufill the sex drive which of course they associate with the incentive of pleassure they persue sexual images of women. Do boys not persue images of nake boys? Well, first off that would be difficult task as most western cultures outlaw child pornography...Do some of them persue sexual images of naked men or perhaps incounters with other boys there ages. Probably so. Many of them might even have fantasies about it from time to time which they may reject.

True, the brain is malleable, it is meant to adapt and to survive. Experiences and traumas can mold the mind beyond what is acceptable in society. Thus it is not hard to imagine that they can alter or distort sexual perception.

I wouldn't call what i discribed as trauma or for that matter is causes distortion.

Well, no one has encouraged me, and I value many things that are outside the realms of what is expected of me.

Bullshit. You incourage yourself.

Yet, I cannot brake free from these chains. But they can be broken to a certain degree, drugs, age, alterations to caloric intake, and the like are said to influence sexual libido, among other things.

These things are not set in stone. They can be altered, easily. therapy often helps...

hmmm, Ok. Many young children tend to have no notion of what sex is, they at most tend to play with each other and the like. Even when nude, they might make a joke here and there, but no (advanced)sexual intentions tend to develop.

Again you are allowing for your perception of western esque sexuality to distort your perception of norms. In cultures where nudity is considered the norm nudity wouldn't have a vast impact like it does in western cultures.

As i said before, infants often engage in a form of masterbation apon discovering their sexual organs provide them pleasure. This is an incentive. I would also input that many children do have sexual encounters with each other on some level.

As they grow, many a times parents don't even mention sex, they begin to be more attracted to the opposite sex...

Now i am just going to reject this. I think its utter nonsense to suggest their parents have said nothing about sex to them.

For that matter enviroment is not encompased by parental relationships. Peers, images on tv, magazines, etc influence children and their behaviors as well.

even those that tend to be secluded, the small gangs, the geeks, antisocials, etc. From my personal experience, even people with little exposition or guidance towards sexual attraction, develop it, and even more intriguing this tends to be towards the opposite sex.

I doubt that you perception is as clear as you think. Peers and likewise gender roles in society influence children as they age. How you can possibly guage they have little guidance or exposition is totally beyond my grasp to understand. Just about everywhere you look you can find examples of heterosexuality. Mass media saturation! Such behavior is considered the societal norm and is unavoidable. Now perhaps if you knew someone stuck in the artic alone and completely without exposure to the realities of human life throughout the course of their existance who suddenly developed the lust for women i'd be willing to carry this discussion further...

Yes accepted, but do we know to what degree this influenced the homosexual to heterosexual ratio. If influence was minor, than it doesn't mean much.

It obviously was enough to develop the cultural norm of homosexuality...

Many things, even creativity(comparison between human ancestors, some created the same exact tools, but others were able to make alterations, etc), is said to have some genetic root, so I don't know.

By whom?! I have never heard this in my life! I have only heard paleolithic cultures learned how to make tools from their ancestors. Are you trying to tell me, some where in my DNA there is a genetic code to create stone arrows and stone axes? You jest!

Well, our ancestors were not as capable at handing down information as we now are, yet they managed to reproduce.

As i said before, i believe we evolved from lower more instinct based life. How could you possibly believe evolution and not take this to be a logical assumption? However, as we evolved our ancestors began developing more and more awareness and intelligence/cognition.

Those who're inclined to seek the other sex, and reproduce are most likely to leave offspring, their traits are more likely to pass on. Sexual selection is seen throughout the natural world, it seems likely that there exist components beyond those that a parent teaches his offspring that influence the sexual attractions of this offspring.

This is circular logic. You only assume that humans have these instincts because other animals do. Should we likewise assume all animals have an instinct to build webs or honey combs?

As I've said it's clear that genes influence other animals in their attraction, it is clear that this was so in our ancestors, it is clear that this is beneficial to the species, why tend would this be lost in humans? If it is beneficial, it will tend to remain regardless.

This is a rather weighted question. You seem to be asserting, incorrectly i might add, that at some level nature has intelligence. Do you think it is aware of the fact that mutations take place? No. Mutations are random occurances completely uncontrolled by some mystical third party. All beneficial mutations do not stay. Check for example flightless bird.

Why would it tend to be lost in humans? That is a simple question to answer. The same reason other instincts in humans have disappeared also through evolution and the development of the sapien mind. The disintrigration of instinct is probably what allows for our cognition today!

Well, from my understanding my genetic hypothesis is more a theory when it comes to less mentally developed species, that would include our ancestors. Traits that are beneficial tend to be passed on.

And there are traits that aren't passed on. this is apart of evolution. Its rather clear humans are far more seperated from instinct then more primitive primates and our ancestors. You can't simply ignore this trend infavor of supporting a "possibility" for which you have no direct evidence.

I'm not saying the enviroment can't influence people, that would be foolish, what I'm saying is that genes also provide some influence,

You haven't provided direct evidence. You haven't proven this at all. All you have done is try to make human - animal associations and rather flawed generalizations of human sexuality. You have no substantial evidence to believe there is any predisposition to human sexuality at all. You, as you have stated, have made assumptions.

and in some areas that influence can be overwhelming most of the time. Look at the desire for sweets and fats, that is something that many cannot easily overcome.

Oh come on. This is ridiculous. How can you possibily associate the desire for sugars and fats with an association of precognition of anthropomorphism? The desire for sugars and fats can be easily broken down into incentive theories of realizations based on taste. Agian, drives are not instincts. They can be altered.

Again, if the enviromental influence was so great, then why are there dozens upon dozens of cases where this is not the case. Why are those whose genit@l!a is ill defined, not easily molded?

I think a better question is what explains those who do change. They break the mold completely. Defeating the notion that genetics predefines one's sexuality.

Zindane it should strike you, if you bothered to think about it, the level of influence psychological conditioning has. Living a certain way for a long time makes it far more difficult to change one's life styles.

I'd say I beg to differ. The difference in the sexes remain, physically, from outside to inside, and even mentally here and there.

Thats just flat out wrong. The existance of sexes is a moot point. The mentallity of sexes is generally a reflection of gender roles which are culturally installed.

The desire that arises when a child reaches his early teens, is not one that can be easily controlled or molded by parents, and it is one that is distinctly different in boys and girls.

Again you are refering to gender roles which are enviromentally installed.

Those who've believed that this is not so have performed surgeries on those at the edge, in between the sexes, only to see disastrous consequences from what I'm told.

I completely disagree. It would depend on the level of influence the child has had in the form of sexuality and gender. There are plenty of people who have sex changes. Are you suggeting to me they have a female mind? Would you care to provide evidence for this?

Well, I've seen many groups, and I'd say there seems to be reward mechanisms for socializing and engaging in mating rituals...

Incentive theory...not instinct theory. Incentives are enviromentally installed.

Well, I think it's obvious. Some experiments like...

Its not obvios and it is still highly contested in academia. Why do you think this? Generally because the research is highly flawed.

In 1998, Kathleen Stern and Mary McClintock from the University of Chicago, Illinois, published the first definitive evidence that the reason why women living together synchronise their menstrual cycle must be because they secrete an odourless chemical in their sweat.

Rodriguez and his colleagues at Rockefeller have cloned what looks like the first bona fide human pheromone receptor. Using a combination of molecular approaches, they screened a human genomic library and found a sequence 28% identical to the mouse V1ra2 gene. This sequence, which the authors called V1RL1, contains key amino acid reisdues that are conserved in every rodent pheromone receptor, and is expressed predominantly in the human olfactory mucosa

I am sorry but this test doesn't prove what you are thinking. Again, the perception of these chemicals come as a enviromental association.

and the t-shirt one have hinted it.

Again, a test which doesn't prove what you are thinking.

It is obvious IMHO, that something is there, have you not seen the primitive, IMO, social and mating rituals in which people engage? Have you not seen that even against what is expected of them kids sometimes have sex?

Its not obvious at all. Which is why it is so highly contested in academia. When attempted later tests fail its a damn good example that the original reseach was highly flawed.

Zindane, drop the mating rituals gunk. Humans do not have instinctual mating rituals. There isn't a sound minded psychologist in the world who believes such. Infact that is throw back to a long dead area of pscyhology. What relevance does the final question you ask have to this converstation? SO far your proported evidence is nothing more than generalizations you are trying to use to justify the belief in a certain instinct though there isn't a shread of direct evidence to back your claim.

Many a times girls, and boys are left alone with others of the same sex, and even allowed to be naked together in baths and the like... yet they don't tend to go into sexual orgies or the like why?

What in god's name do you think you are implying? Do you realize that morality is a form of enviromentally installed constructs?

Don't tell me it is reason, it may have been decades ago, but I recall these people having hyper sex drives, talking 24-7 about sex, and overall being very very horny... Yet, they could not wait to be left with a girl on weekends, or even in school, but that was not so for boys.

Zindane do you not grasp that drives are NOT INSTINCTS. THEY CAN BE ALTERED. How then can you possibly argue a genetic predisposition?! We aren't even talking about genetics anymore! We are talking about indocronology! You are jumping from topic to topic striving to find evidence for your claims when there just isn't any.

men don't tend to seek men, and women don't tend to seek women, when looking for a sexual partner... why is that? Do you think this bias is merely something that is taught?

Yes! Yes! i think enviromental influences affect peoples choices! Why don't we steal when we want something? Why do people choose not to rape when they want sex?! Reason! Think about it. Do you honestly think morality is a genetic construct?!

Yet there are devices, and ways to obtain it, yet it is mostly seeked in the company of a member of the opposite sex. Even amongst those who care not about society and have received little education about such things.

You haven't provided any devices, any research to back these claims. Do you think this remains highly contested and outside the educational field of pyschology simply because scientists refuse to accept what appears to you to be obvious? Hardly. They have reasons to reject the bulk of the so called research done into genetic prediposition in homosexuality. The research was often deliberately corrupted, misrepresented, etc. None of these test could be replicated.

Parents and society expect one to excel in schools, and in life, often a child is encouraged to be a doctor or a lawyer... yet many times he does not follow or is happy with this path, but when it comes to sexual attraction it seems that even without significant influence he tends to follow more willingly.

Zindane, again you are speaking about incentives and drives which are enviromental factors.

That knowledge has nothing to do with the built in desire to have sex or with the fact people tend to be attracted to the opposite sex regardless of what you teach them.

And the built in desire to have sex has NOTHING to do with genetic predisposition! It is a drive which is enviromentally influenced and likewise has a biological component! You are extrapolating meaning where there is none. You haven't proven people are born with a desire for opposite sex and will continue to deny this assertion until you prove it.

There are ways obviously to do this, and there are ways to do many things, you can open their minds, etc.

I have opened my mind and i have done my own research thank you very much.

In other animals, AFAIK, desire to engage in sexual acts with the dead or animals from other species is not so.

Dogs are a good example. Horses and donkeys are examples. They are all different species but will enter bread.

I'd say whatever mechanisms there are, are likely quite complex, something that is probably outside the realm of realistic probability to occur from one generation to the next. Neither is it likely for a non-beneficial complex mechanism to be attracted to such things to be developed many thousands of generations if it's not beneficial.

Considering you haven't proven these mechanism for predisposition there is simply no reason to reflect on this.

Thus we're left with mistakes that can occur, and would leave them succeptible to develop so. So it might be possible for someone to be slightly susceptible to other sexual behaviors... I wouldn't rule out that possibility.

Zidane, do you honestly believe there is gene coding for the desire for pedophilia? if so you are stand against the bulk of academia who classify it as completely psychological laking any genetic cause.

Is a twelve year old child doing things based on reason?

NOO!!! A 12 years old plays Nintendo because he has the Nintendo Gene! He can't help it, its in his DNA.

What reason is there for him to tend to chose a member of the opposite sex as opposed to the same to begin his sexual exploration? You at least admit that the desire to have sex is at least not something that arises for matters of reason, right?

How many times must i repeat this? Can you please try and think about htis yourself?! Peers, culture, family all of which are apart of enviroment aid to the construction of his image of himself as a male and to his future sexual partners. This is common knowledge. Where do you think gender roles come from?

If it was based up to reason... then what is the compelling reason for people to remain attracted to members of a particular sex throughout their lives?

Not everyone does. I haven't remained that way.

There is not just one compelling reason Zidane and if you bothered to think about it you could easily come to the same conclusion. In Psychology 101 you learn about the installed value or want to be accepted in society. Along with this come the stipulation of fitting in with the norm. This desire is reflected strongly in society. So, adhereing to cultural norms are exactly what most people do. Why do you think most people go through life without raping anyone? Or stealing? or murdering? For the exact same reasons.

Why do they not engage in relationships with members of either sex, that is disregard the sex of their partners, even after multiple failed relations of such kind?

I engage in both...

please rephraze the quetion.

Are you suggesting that there is a logical reason for the g3n!tal!@ of humans to be so influential in the choice of a mate?

Are you suggesting you have proven this beyond cultural understandings of gender?

The basis for desire does not appear to be reason, the inherent focus of this desire, I'd say too, is not up to reason. It can be influenced by the enviroment, I've not denied that, but it's components that go beyond simple enviromental stimuli. It is difficult for some to imagine a way to code for such things, but it would be difficult to imagine a code for machine out of which consciousness could arise, yet it is so done.

No i disagree. Has a code created consciousness? Or did it arise from a configuration? Science does not know. It is hard for people to believe this because it makes no sense. In order for the genetic argument to work far to many subjective factors must be included which are all ultimately tainted by enviromental factors. it is impossible to isolate sexual orientation as an instinctual behavior. If it were, we'd already have done it and have answered these questions.

Sexual interactions between members of the opposite sex most likely. Now, why is it that a parent feels safe leaving his child with a friend of the same sex, but not with a member of the opposite? Why is ok, for a girl to spend the night alone with her female friend, but not with her male friend? Why are boys and girls kept separate during bathing sections, and in bathrooms? What is it that drives these things?

I have answered this over and over and over again...

Again you are letting your cultural perceptions of sexuality taint your conclusions. Not all cultures value nudity the same. There are very obvious reasons for this.

What are the drives? Probably thousands...one i could name is sex drive...

Many schools have no sex'ed where I live, heck many children are not taught anything about these things. Yet, the boys are interested in the girls and the girls in the boys in unusual ways especially after they reach their early teens, why is this?

Of course, they go through life without any idea of how to have sex and then suddenly genes pop all information required into their minds...right. You speak of genes as though they themselves are intelligent.

You are creating a strawman/false scenerio. It would be impossible for these children not to conceive in some way an intention of human sexuality from their enviroment.

Babies have an instinct to suck, if they didn't they'd die of hunger. I've heard they also have swimming instincts early on. At least they've been called as such by many professionals.

No, they have the reflex to suck. There is a difference. Later in life that reflex disappears. Instincts do not. If they did they'd cease to be instincts because instincts can't be altered. They are fixed. Again allow me to provide you with a psychological definition of instinct:

"an instinct is a fixed pattern of behavior that is unlearned, universal within a species, and 'released' by a specific set of conditions." -- Psychology Third Addition, Saul Kassin, pg. 299

From what I've heard from specialists, etc in the news, is that it's more of a thing out of curiosity or game than anything serious.

I totally agree with his statement. Look at pro lesbien glorifications by feminism.

Indeed, and from my experiences... and from what I believe is occuring throughout the nation, it doesn't tend to occur between same sex children... God!!! Imagine the sexual orgies that would be occuring in the showers, and cloth changing sessions that occur in many a school's gym throughout the country... Yet, it doesn't happen? Why? Why not, why is a boy not sexually attracted to his best friend Johnny doe, in the shower... but he is to Suzie?

the answer to your assertions is easily sumed up in one phrase: "Indeed from my experiences"

Why, because he was taught so? By whom? Yeah, now we have the net, and the like...

You deny enviromental factors are key parts to psychological development? You deny that this child had incouragement from outside influences? You are just repeating yourself.

But decades ago that was not so, and sex was even more taboo back then. Surely 10 year old boys and girls weren't being taught sex either in school or at home...

Bullshit! Sex has been taught to children for ages. Where do you get this notion that "Surely" they weren't being taught? Is this just based on some stereotype of victorian culture or do you actually have some proof to back this up?

but still they were attracted to members of the opposite sex, and not to members of the same sex... they could even change their cloths together, and sleep in each others house no worry, eh?

I think the overly conservative nature of those times did lead to sexual frustation and confusion. Its evidence in the literature.

Well, besides the entire societal structure, the dozens of accounts of those who've unwillingly become part of surgeons who believed the same as you, and the fact that one often chooses ones partners based on their genetic quality...

And what of those who willingly have their sexes changed? Are you still denying enviromental factors affect psychology?

The fact that at least the impulse is obviously predetermined, along with the biological gen!t@l!a, and differing brain structures, and physiques, should suggest it's not outside the realm of possibility.

We aren't discussing sex drive Zidane. No one denied it has a biological component in the libido and sex organs. Again, this is a far cry from the biological reductionist thinking you propose.

I agree, but having seen many a groups of society, and many a humans, and many a debate, I've come to a slightly different conclusion. We're not as advanced or as far of from the animal world as you'd like to think.

No, we are more advanced then the animal world then you think. Our intelligence alone is a factor they don't have.

Well, it is true that the mating rituals vary from culture to culture, but pointless, boring, dare I say idiotic behavior seems to predominate human social and mating activities. I wouldn't doubt that we're a little more primitive than you actually think... heheheh...

uh...right...

[Legion]

Originally Posted by Natoma

You know I had this really long response to both of your posts. Unfortunately I accidentally hit the damn back button on my mouse and everything was erased.

I am sure you did. You generally do. You seem to find it impossible to give up though you lack the ability to defend your point.

Now I'm happy that happened. The problem with this discussion is that my line of argumentation is predicated on homosexuality not being a sickness or a mutation or a deviant behavior or a condition. Your line of argumentation and Vince's line of argumentation is predicated on homosexuality being all of those things.

Nope. You are misrepresenting my argument. I am a bisexual. Why would i like to call myself a deviant freak?

I can come up with study after study after study after study and write increasingly long posts backing up my assertions. You can of course come up with the normal bullocks you do to back up your assertions in response. A never ending cycle.

And we will continue refuting and refuting and refuting all the while presenting our own reports and evidence that you will simply deny, avoid, or just completely dodge.

The point is that no matter what happens you and Vince simply will not change your viewpoint. Science could solve the riddle of sexuality tomorrow and you two would still view homosexuality as this "condition" to be cured.

This sounds more an example of yourself.

I have never stated homosexuality is a condition to be cured. You are misrepresenting my argument deliberately in order to dodge points i have made to you.

No matter how much I sit here, there's no getting to that core belief of yours, and fair enough the same can be said of me. So instead of proceeding to retype that ridiculously long post again, I'm going to bow out here. Of course, knowing that I'm completely 100% right and you and Vince are utterly wrong in many of your assertions.

For some one who makes such blatant errors when refering to human psychology these are very big words. But as you say, you have convinced yourself you are 100% right ergo supporting my theory you have conditioned yourself to believe what you do.

p.s.: Instinct isn't immutable as you defined it earlier btw.

Nothing in that definition says that instinct can't be altered or adjusted, and is utterly immutable. You're inferring a meaning that simply doesn't exist in the definition you provided. That is much of what many of your arguments are based upon, and it's pretty incorrect.

Some how you must have over looked the definition i provided you from my psychology books:

"An instinct is a fixed pattern of behavior that is unlearned, universal within a species, and 'released' by a specific set of conditions."

Psychology Third Addition by Saul Kassin, pg. 299.

PS - This is not a defense of your misappropriations of psychology terminology.

[zidane1strife]

We can not assume that humans are inborn with information concerning the visual appearance of male and female. A simple recognition of symmetry is a far cry from an understanding of anthropomorphism.

Hey, what I meant was that the women tended to choose those most symmetrical without looking at them, just by smelling their shirt. Symmetry can be an indicator of good genes or good health, IMO, since it should be harder to develop symmetrically than to develop assymetrically, usually I'd say.

Humans on the other hand do not have such mechanism by which they determine their sexuality. We a clearly far more advanced then that, or rather more complex.

Yes like some of our fellow primates, we've got color vision, which has apparently aided in the mate selection process enough to diminish the pheromonal paths.

Complexity does not arise out of thin air, sure our brains are sligthly bigger, and faster at processing, but we're not as far as you'd like to think. Genetic comparisons to other primates should tell you something like....

this...

biologists discovered in the late 1990s that the DNA in humans and chimps is 98.7% identical.

In Friday's issue of the journal Science, the first team to report findings is unveiling the results of a genetic comparison of human brains with those of their closest evolutionary relatives.

The results are a bit embarrassing for anyone trying to explain human superiority through genes.

The researchers, an international team from Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S., removed gray matter from the left prefrontal cortex of three men and three chimpanzees, all of whom had died of natural causes. In people, this part of the brain is in charge of abstract thinking.

Then the scientists took silicon chips holding about 12,000 human genetic sequences. The chips reveal which genes are "on," or active. The finding: "175 genes differ significantly in [this] area of the brain," said molecular biologist Svante Paabo of the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study. That's out of some 34,000 human genes. As he had predicted, the likeness of human and chimp genomes "will be both a source of humility and a blow to the idea of human uniqueness."

Even more humbling, we differ genetically from the hairy guys in zoos in quantity more than quality. That is, our brains aren't made of very different stuff -- genes and proteins. What distinguishes ours from theirs, rather, is which genes turn on and how much. (Genes make proteins; a gene turned to "high" makes more of its protein than one turned to "low.") The kinds of proteins produced by chimp genes differ from ours by only 7.6%. The amounts of those proteins differ by 31.4%.

Take virtually the same batch of genes, dial up the "on" switch and you get a human brain; dial it down and you get a chimp brain.

So, it seems that only a few genetic changes spell the difference between chimps and humans. That's a good argument for the power of genes: Change just a few and you get Bonzo instead of the guy sending him to bed. The human brain is about twice the size of the chimp's. A genetic program that instructed neural stem cells in the fetus to churn out just one more generation of neurons would produce that much of a difference, said geneticist David Nelson of Baylor College of Medicine. That, of course, raises the possibility that genetically engineering superhumans wouldn't take much.

The power of these so-called regulatory genes is fascinating on several levels. My favorite is this: Whether genes are on or off, and how high they're on, often depends on what your senses are taking in, what you're feeling and even what you're thinking.

"Immediate early genes" turn on in response to sensory stimulation. Exposure to light at certain times of day switches them on. In birds, hearing a particular song activates certain genes. Without that melody, the genes stay off. In men, thinking about sex turns on testosterone-related genes, with the result that their beards grow faster.

DNA, like neurons in a baby's brain, responds to its environment. "If [outside] events can affect hormone levels, and hormones can control genes, then the events of our daily lives can effectively control our genes," said developmental psychologist David S. Moore of Pitzer College in California, in his new book "The Dependent Gene."

...

Which is undeniably the source of their past sexual behaviors. I don't see how you consider this a hint to anything genetic. Are you trying to suggest that since they didn't agree with their culture they have some genetic predisposition which differs from their ancestors?! Don't you find that a tad bit absurd? Did they some how envelope the western versions of sexuality through the contraction of the "western sexuality" gene?

NO, my point was that their so called cultural influence was so easily changed, but not so when it comes to sexual orientation.

However, do to its generally nonoffensive flavor, an often appreciated flavor, people have an incentive to consume it. There are also those who do not like it.

Yeah, but at least from all the nutritionists I've heard, they say we've evolved to seek these things. Surely the addition of simple sugars and fats to most modern foods is an indication that there is some truth to this or no?

Infact, in many cultures (even nudist colonies) nudity is considered normal.

Yet, from what I've heard and seen. Men either tie their "you-know" or cover it, or msturb@t3 in order to avoid being embarrased in front of females. This is not so in male bathrooms, or cloth changings.

Likewise, they (those in nudist colonies) don't go around all the time with eractions or being sexually aroused. The inundation of images eventually desensitizes them to what they are seeing.

My investigations show, that they resort to msturb@t!ng in order to avoid such an embarrasing situation.

Bullshit. You incourage yourself.

I don't think so... It is called divine inspiration...

In cultures where nudity is considered the norm nudity wouldn't have a vast impact like it does in western cultures.

Yet, again my experience indicates that the males tie their thingys or tend to cover it up, or resort to mstbtion.

By whom?! I have never heard this in my life! I have only heard paleolithic cultures learned how to make tools from their ancestors. Are you trying to tell me, some where in my DNA there is a genetic code to create stone arrows and stone axes? You jest!

NOT to create stones axes or the like, my God, that'd be a preposterous claim. What I mean is that somewhere there seems to be a gene or genes that allows you to change your behavioral pattern more easily, to make alterations to what you've learned, that which is called human creativity...

Thousands upon thousands of years, generation upon generation, making the exact same tools with no minor alterations by some of our ancestors, until something happened... something changed... and minor alterations, and personalizations began to appear.

Now, surely you should pay attention and keep up, archeology is based on what's there, and I can't make up hundreds of fossils now can I?

You haven't provided direct evidence. You haven't proven this at all. All you have done is try to make human - animal associations and rather flawed generalizations of human sexuality. You have no substantial evidence to believe there is any predisposition to human sexuality at all. You, as you have stated, have made assumptions.

Let's assume for fun that by some miracle the sexes aren't attracted to each other... Even, if that were the case there exists genetic influence, in their physical shape. The male is designed to copulate with the female, and it's only through this that offspring can be obtained. That should at least influence the mate selection don't you think?

SO far your proported evidence is nothing more than generalizations you are trying to use to justify the belief in a certain instinct though there isn't a shread of direct evidence to back your claim.

Dude, I've spoken with many of my peers, and they agree. Things could be changed, but just like the desire to socialize, the desire to mate with a member of the opposite sex, is something that has more than cultural influence. Look, at my previous example with primitive cultures, etc.

What in god's name do you think you are implying? Do you realize that morality is a form of enviromentally installed constructs?

Morality, shmolality!!! Girls and boys have been known to kiss, and even engage in sex in public, even around these people. Sometimes I'm surprised these teens don't go boom, and engage in such acts, when I say they speak about sex 24-7 I mean it!!!

Have, you not seen how adolescent boys act when they see a hot girl in lycra? I've never watched them act the same way for fellow boys... Oh, yeah right, they're thinking about their culture and their parents when acting and speaking in such immoral ways...

Do you honestly think morality is a genetic construct?!

NO, but I know when a boy pays a girl to touch her... but doesn't do the same with other boys... He's engaging in an immoral act, but he cares not about doing so with members of the same sex.

Zidane, do you honestly believe there is gene coding for the desire for pedophilia? if so you are stand against the bulk of academia who classify it as completely psychological laking any genetic cause.

Look, again I'm not saying that for each individual form of attraction there is a gene. What I'm saying is that look, for example, there was a recent LARGE study on twins that found that most mental illnesses tended to fall in either of two groups of genetic differences, or something like that. What I'm saying is that a defect here or there could open the doors, that is make it more likely, to wide range of diseases.

I engage in both...

please rephraze the quetion.

Again, as I think you've said personal experiences are not that indicative.

No i disagree. Has a code created consciousness? Or did it arise from a configuration? Science does not know. It is hard for people to believe this because it makes no sense. In order for the genetic argument to work far to many subjective factors must be included which are all ultimately tainted by enviromental factors. it is impossible to isolate sexual orientation as an instinctual behavior. If it were, we'd already have done it and have answered these questions.

The neurons, and the brain, machinery, they were constructed based on the blueprint that is present in the genetic code... whether it is through configuration or not is meaningless, the machine were consciousness occurs is the brain... and the brain is the product of evolution.

Heh, people used to think that there was a ton of genetic junk, that only the genes that coded for proteins were actually working... Yet, that is not so, gigantic portions of the code of life, that code for very subtle things, have been ignored for ages, now it is beginning to be better understood.... and there are other things besides genes that are thought to play a role....

In time you will likely learn how many handicaps, and shorcuts were likely taken by the primitive process that gave rise to us... and you'll hopefully accept the next era in gm to the human race.

"Indeed from my experiences"

And those of everyone I know.

Bullshit! Sex has been taught to children for ages. Where do you get this notion that "Surely" they weren't being taught? Is this just based on some stereotype of victorian culture or do you actually have some proof to back this up?

Maybe I've been living on another planet all this time... I mean, hey I don't even know what's going on around here, or maybe this was done in the areas I've been to by coincidence... It's a statistical anomally that I've been experiencing, why doesn't this happen to me with the lottery?

And what of those who willingly have their sexes changed? Are you still denying enviromental factors affect psychology?

I never denied enviromental factors affect psychology, I'm just saying there is more than that. It was no long ago we were without society, and before that we were basically no different than animals, do you actually think that a few millenia of microevolution are enough to change us much from what we were thousands of years ago? Or that what we were back then was as advance as you suggest?

No, I'd say, thousands of years isn't enough time to change us and what we were back then, was quite primitive. Again, Do you think such creatures are as advanced and culturally sophisticated as you think they are? Surely, you're not blinded by modern technology, for it arose out of the information that continued to be passed on from generation to generation outside the genepool.

edit 2( to clarify, I do not mean that prior to society we were like animals, I mean that prior to that period prior to society we were more like animals.)

Again, this is a far cry from the biological reductionist thinking you propose.

I do not propose such things.

PS

I've never suggested that genes or NS is intelligent. All I've said is what I believe is currently accepted, features that are beneficial tend to be passed on, and those that are not tend to not be.

As for genes, no I don't believe them to be intelligent, what nonsense is this. But I do believe them to be influential in many things... hopefully, you're just making up the stuff you're about genes, in a satirical way. For you surely realize those suggestions, are ridiculous, and not only that... Someone with my level of knowledge, or anyone with a decent level of knowledge would never believe such things for serious.

PPS

Please keep up with developments in archeology, science, etc. Many people even experts in their fields often fail to do so, and sadly leave it to the next generation. Hopefully you'll not follow suit.

PPPS

From my understanding, many in high places, are beginning to agree that genes due influence many things to a certain degree. As things continue to develop, this is a trend that is likely to continue, and hopefully you'll join us, once you're satisfied with the ever growing body of evidence.


PPPPS

I really don't want to look for all the msnbc, discover, net, etc... info, I've got other things to do right now, but If I've got free time and feel motivated I might do so in the future.

ed2

[Natoma]

Originally Posted by Legion

I am sure you did. You generally do. You seem to find it impossible to give up though you lack the ability to defend your point.

This coming from a guy that believes human beings can't have sex without it being taught to them. Yea.

Originally Posted by Legion

Nope. You are misrepresenting my argument. I am a bisexual. Why would i like to call myself a deviant freak?

I'm misrepresenting your argument? You've never referred to homosexuality as any of those things? Then again I shouldn't be surprised. You also "forgot" in the Iraq/Syrian firm thread about misappropriating many phrases to me, and still haven't apologized about that even when presented with rock hard evidence. So I guess I'm not surprised that you "forgot" here too.

Originally Posted by Legion

And we will continue refuting and refuting and refuting all the while presenting our own reports and evidence that you will simply deny, avoid, or just completely dodge.

You've, unfortunately for your case, never refuted anything that I've presented. Just silliness such as human beings can't procreate unless we're taught how to.

Originally Posted by Legion

This sounds more an example of yourself.

I have never stated homosexuality is a condition to be cured. You are misrepresenting my argument deliberately in order to dodge points i have made to you.

You have spoken on many occassions about how homosexuality can be cured with therapy and how homosexuality is a condition. Also how many homosexuals "turn" that way because they were molested. Of course I'll provide your own words on the matter just as I have in the Iraq/Syria thread, and you'll just ignore them or say "Oh I was misunderstood" or some other silliness.

Originally Posted by Legion

For some one who makes such blatant errors when refering to human psychology these are very big words. But as you say, you have convinced yourself you are 100% right ergo supporting my theory you have conditioned yourself to believe what you do.

Yup. This is about as stupid as me telling a white supremacist that I'm just as good as him, and him telling me that I've just conditioned myself to believe that rather than it being true.

Originally Posted by Legion

Some how you must have over looked the definition i provided you from my psychology books:

"An instinct is a fixed pattern of behavior that is unlearned, universal within a species, and 'released' by a specific set of conditions."

Psychology Third Addition by Saul Kassin, pg. 299.

PS - This is not a defense of your misappropriations of psychology terminology.

Instincts: Preprogrammed tendencies that are essential to a species’s survival.

From the APA website that you so love to quote. Nothing about it being fixed and immutable. So just like anything else in the psychology world as you've said, it's all up for interpretation.

[Legion]

This coming from a guy that believes human beings can't have sex without it being taught to them. Yea.

Again you are misrepresenting what i said. I said we aren't born with the knowledge or what sex is, its intentions, or how to have it. I likewise stated, through the realization of masturbatory pleasure would more than likely lead to certain conclusions... Despite what you may think, your personal homosexualt testimony isn't scientific proof of predisposition Natoma.

I'm misrepresenting your argument? You've never referred to homosexuality as any of those things? Then again I shouldn't be surprised.

No, i haven't and yes you are misrepresented my argument. What i stated to you was, implying that there was a genetic cause would also imply mutation. When did i ever stated i believe homosexuality is a deviant mutation?

You also "forgot" in the Iraq/Syrian firm thread about misappropriating many phrases to me, and still haven't apologized about that even when presented with rock hard evidence. So I guess I'm not surprised that you "forgot" here too.

Doubtful, i think you are just trying to excuse an obvious misrepresentation of what i was saying by trying to dig into the past. Nice try though.

You've, unfortunately for your case, never refuted anything that I've presented. Just silliness such as human beings can't procreate unless we're taught how to.

Oh, indeed we have. Not just in this debate but in past ones. You consistant fail to explain exactly what you reports mean and how certain mechanism operate within the human psyche to explain sexual orientation predisposition. Your consistant misuse of psychological terms is also quite telling. The last time we had this debate I presented for you material commonly used in defense of the homosexual predisposition argument and refuted each one of them. You hadn't anything left to present and i am not surpised you don't have anything now...

You have spoken on many occassions about how homosexuality can be cured with therapy and how homosexuality is a condition.

Please show me where i have stated i believe this. You are more than likely taking sarcasm to be a factual acount of what i believe just like you did with the issues of deviant mutations. I do not believe homosexuality is a behavior having to be cured. I can't for the life of me gather where you would have acquired such an understanding of my words.

Also how many homosexuals "turn" that way because they were molested. Of course I'll provide your own words on the matter just as I have in the Iraq/Syria thread, and you'll just ignore them or say "Oh I was misunderstood" or some other silliness.

Right Natoma, again you are just trying to excuse blatant misrepresentations of my words by trying to dig into the past.

you know you are completely full of shit and a hypocrit for these very reasons:

1). I have argued agains Joe's natural argument against homosexuality
2). I have stated on many occassions the genetic defense is uneccessary because there is nothing innately wrong with the behavior to go to such great lengths to try and justify it.
3). I have stated i agree with gay marriages.
4). I happen to be a bisexual! If i thought homosexuals were a deviant mutation to be cured wouldn't that imply myself as well?

It seems you are trying to demonize me.

Yup. This is about as stupid as me telling a white supremacist that I'm just as good as him, and him telling me that I've just conditioned myself to believe that rather than it being true.

Right, as if people don't condition themselves on a regular basis . THe fact remains you haven't presented anything to validate your points which a merely throw backs to has been era of psychology.

Instincts: Preprogrammed tendencies that are essential to a species’s survival.

From the APA website that you so love to quote. Nothing about it being fixed and immutable. So just like anything else in the psychology world as you've said, it's all up for interpretation.

Right, and my psychology book is jsut flat our wrong... Nice try though natoma. If by suggesting instincts are programmed tendencies in behavior that can be altered then so could sexual orietation if you so wish to state it is instinct.. You aren't wining anything by trying to alter the definitions of word in the debate. This is the whole point. Yes, i would trust the definition within my APA endorsed text book more so then the one on their website because the definition is rather out of context with regards to its influence in psychology. Even if my text were wrong you still are attempting to overlook glaring errors in your arguments: how instinct drives the human mind, what human instincts are, why instinct theory was completel disregarded in human psychology over 50 years ago, and the rather circular nature of your reasoning which is inline with past pushers of Instinct Theory such as William McDougal.

[Natoma]

Originally Posted by Legion

Again you are misrepresenting what i said. I said we aren't born with the knowledge or what sex is, its intentions, or how to have it. I likewise stated, through the realization of masturbatory pleasure would more than likely lead to certain conclusions...

Uhm, no one knows what "sex" is unless they're taught. But they certainly know they get that aroused feeling "down there" by members of the opposite sex or members of the same sex.

Btw,

Originally Posted by RussSchultz

You could take two children and separate them from humanity at birth. They'd eventually figure out how to mate. I imagine right around the time they hit puberty.

Originally Posted by Legion

They'd eventually figure out? Would the idea suddenly pop in their heads say at the age of 13? If so then why on earth bother with sex ed. Hell, all the info is right there is just has to wait for their biological clocks.

Originally Posted by RussSchultz

We as a species don't need sex ed so that we can have offspring. We need sex ed so that we make correct/informed choices.

Originally Posted by Legion

Well part of that is making one aware of his/her genitalia. Something children aren't completely aware of at young ages.

Just a snippet of your conversation with Russ on this particular matter from the Free speech falls prey to 'human rights' thread.

Also,

Originally Posted by Legion

What was implied was that people would obtain the knowledge of having sex without having to be taught.

Of course people learn about having sex without being taught it. How? By doing it.

As Russ said, if you leave two individuals on an island, if they are sexually aroused by one another, they will learn on their own how to sexually interact. That is how our species has existed even without our higher intelligence.

Originally Posted by Legion

No, i haven't and yes you are misrepresented my argument. What i stated to you was, implying that there was a genetic cause would also imply mutation. When did i ever stated i believe homosexuality is a deviant mutation?

This was the fastest one to find, in this thread alone. Man you really do say things and have no idea you've said them do you....

Originally Posted by Legion

Unless of course you believe were predispositioned to be homosexual then you might as well refer to yourself as a deviant mutation...

You have also on many other occassions referred to homosexuality as deviant.

Originally Posted by Legion

Doubtful, i think you are just trying to excuse an obvious misrepresentation of what i was saying by trying to dig into the past. Nice try though.

Ahem.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewto...=210702#210702

You stated that you never made any direct attributions to me, when you clearly did, as I quoted in that link. Is this yet another misrepresentation of what you stated?

Originally Posted by Legion

Oh, indeed we have. Not just in this debate but in past ones. You consistant fail to explain exactly what you reports me and how certain mechanism operate within the human psyche to explain sexual orientation predisposition. Your consistant misuse of psychological terms is also quite telling.

Show me where please.

Originally Posted by Legion

Please show me where i have stated i believe this. You are more than likely taking sarcasm to be a factual acount of what i believe just like you did with the issues of deviant mutations. I do not believe homosexuality is a behavior having to be cured. I can't for the life of me gather where you would have acquired such an understanding of my words.

You stated how homosexuality can be cured with therapy and that it's a "condition".

Originally Posted by Legion

Many homosexuals who were malested in the past have been determined to have had malestation as the determining factor which lead them to their later sexual choices. I would say yes, their orientation did change.

Aside from this the APA has conducted research, which i have presented to you in the past demonstrating people, under therapy can change their sexual orientation.

And I refuted that completely when you first brought it up in that other thread.

Originally Posted by Legion

Right Natoma, again you are just trying to excuse blatant misrepresentations of my words by trying to dig into the past.

you know you are completely full of shit and a hypocrit for these very reasons:

1). I have argued agains Joe's natural argument against homosexuality
2). I have stated on many occassions the genetic defense is uneccessary because there is nothing innately wrong with the behavior to go to such great lengths to try and justify it.
3). I have stated i agree with gay marriages.
4). I happen to be a bisexual! If i thought homosexuals were a deviant mutation to be cured wouldn't that imply myself as well?

It seems you are trying to demonize me.

You say all these things, and then you go on for pages and pages arguing completely the opposite. I'll take what you present over and over and over.

Originally Posted by Legion

Right, as if people don't condition themselves on a regular basis . THe fact remains you haven't presented anything to validate your points which a merely throw backs to has been era of psychology.

I knew I was gay when I became sexually aware. I was 12 years old at the time. How could I have conditioned myself to believe there was nothing wrong with it at the time? I certainly didn't believe there was anything wrong with me until I encountered society's interpretation of homosexuality, not my own.

Originally Posted by Legion

Right, and my psychology book is jsut flat our wrong... Nice try though natoma. If by suggesting instincts are programmed tendencies in behavior that can be altered then so could sexual orietation if you so wish to state it is instinct.. You aren't wining anything by trying to alter the definitions of word in the debate. This is the whole point. Yes, i would trust the definition within my APA endorsed text book more so then the one on their website because the definition is rather out of context with regards to its influence in psychology. Even if my text were wrong you still are attempting to overlook glaring errors in your arguments: how instinct drives the human mind, what human instincts are, why instinct theory was completel disregarded in human psychology over 50 years ago, and the rather circular nature of your reasoning which is inline with past pushers of Instinct Theory such as William McDougal.

No one ever said sexual orientation is the instinct. I said that sex is the instinct. How we act on sex is determined through any number of factors such as development during the womb, as well as society's pressures to "be a certain way".

[Legion]

Uhm, no one knows what "sex" is unless they're taught. But they certainly know they get that aroused feeling "down there" by members of the opposite sex or members of the same sex.

How could they have a clear view of what makes them get aroused down there at such a young age. You are asserting something that cna't be proven. There may be many reasons why they get aroused which may not have anything to do with exact situation.

Just a snippet of your conversation with Russ on this particular matter from the Free speech falls prey to 'human rights' thread.

Yes indeed they are snippets of me saying the concept wouldn't suddenly pop into their heads. This was inreference to genes some how relating the matter to the children.

Of course people learn about having sex without being taught it. How? By doing it.

I have never contested the possibility people could learn to have sex on their own. i constested that it was linked to instinct as an instinct based behavior associated with ones genes.

As Russ said, if you leave two individuals on an island, if they are sexually aroused by one another, they will learn on their own how to sexually interact. That is how our species has existed even without our higher intelligence.

What i sated was the idea wouldn't suddenly pop into their heads through a manner of genetic intervention.

This was the fastest one to find, in this thread alone. Man you really do say things and have no idea you've said them do you....

This was the fastest misrepresentation you could find? Read what i stated. If there is a genetic predisposition to homosexuality it could easily be refered to as a negative mutation. I discussed this with you in yahoo PM. You have yet to illustrate where i have stated homosexualit is a deviant mutation. Wouldn't that be rather paradoxical considering i don't believe in genetic ties?

You have also on many other occassions referred to homosexuality as deviant.

Care to point this out to me?

de·vi·ant ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dv-nt)
adj.
Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society.

Ahem.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewto...=210702#210702

You stated that you never made any direct attributions to me, when you clearly did, as I quoted in that link. Is this yet another misrepresentation of what you stated?

Ahem is right, this has nothing to do with what we were talking about. Yes you have been misrepresenting what i have been saying in this argument.

Show me where please.

Your use of Instinct
your misunderstandings of drives
etc etc.

Examples are throughout your posts. Read for yourself there are all over.

You will deny them of course because you see yourself as 100% correct without any flaws in your reasoning what so ever.

You stated how homosexuality can be cured with therapy and that it's a "condition".

You are just extrapolating. If they came into be cured they feel they are suffering from some condition and likewise would be said to be so.

It wasn't to long ago when homosexuality was actively refered to as some form of pathology.

And I refuted that completely when you first brought it up in that other thread.

No you didn't. IIRC you presented your personal testimony on the issue.

You say all these things, and then you go on for pages and pages arguing completely the opposite. I'll take what you present over and over and over.

I havne't been arguing the opposite.
I have nothing against homosexuality, at all.

You knew from the start i supported you in the your arguments against Joe. i just disagreed with the nature of orientation being predetermined. It may turn out that it is but it certainly hasn't been proven. A lot of research needs to be done to explain a large number of mechanisms.

I knew I was gay when I became sexually aware. I was 12 years old at the time. How could I have conditioned myself to believe there was nothing wrong with it at the time? I certainly didn't believe there was anything wrong with me until I encountered society's interpretation of homosexuality, not my own.

I know i made a choice to be bisexual...lets just leave at that...

No one ever said sexual orientation is the instinct.

Zidane directly stated this if not directly implied it.

I said that sex is the instinct. How we act on sex is determined through any number of factors such as development during the womb, as well as society's pressures to "be a certain way".

Sex is not an instinct. It is fueled by a sex drive.

[zidane1strife]

Zidane directly stated this if not directly implied it.

What I've meant to convey is that, sexual orientation is significantly influenced by genes. From what I've heard, people have not succeeded at raising a boy as a girl or viceversa with no prob., some twisted individual tried to prove this was so with misleading info a long time ago.

Those notions(that one can be raised as a member of the opposite sex with no prob.), have been disproven, at least that is what I've been lead to believe from reputable sources. There are many accounts of failed attempts at doing this, among other things.

Now, here's a quote from somewhere...

Still, while the data has problems, it is piling up — there are at least seven studies on twins. If there is a genetic component to homosexuality, one would expect identical twins to share sexual orientation more than fraternal twins, and that is indeed the case. An identical twin of a gay person is about twice as likely to be gay as a fraternal twin would be.

Earlier this year, the journal Personality and Individual Differences published an exhaustive review of the literature entitled "Born Gay?" After reviewing the twin studies, it concluded that 50 to 60 percent of sexual orientation might be genetic.

Now I dunno if that was published or not, but It sounds reasonable don't you agree?

"There is now very strong evidence from almost two decades of `biobehavioral' research that human sexual orientation is predominantly biologically determined," said Qazi Rahman, University of London researcher

Ok, that might be a little too far for your tastes...

But, all I've claimed is that the influence of genes cannot be ignored and is part of the puzzle. That is to say they have a part in sexual orientation, I've not said they're absolute or anything similar. As has been suggested by some of my previous quotes, genetic activity can be altered by enviromental factors, and it is not the "ONLY" thing that influences, but "ONE" of the things that provides significant influence.

But the researchers said in their report the data is relevant and "there is a variety of evidence in vertebrates, including humans, suggesting that male sexual behavior, including sexual orientation, has a genetic component."

Obviously social and environmental influences can also have a major impact on human sexual preference and behavior, she said, but the genetic component must be considered seriously.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/news...er/sexgene.htm

ed

[Legion]

Hey, what I meant was that the women tended to choose those most symmetrical without looking at them,

How could they choose an object without looking at it? What are the implications of this? What of those who didn't choose the most symmetrical objects? Do they have some kind of negative mutation? This is rather silly.

just by smelling their shirt. Symmetry can be an indicator of good genes or good health, IMO, since it should be harder to develop symmetrically than to develop assymetrically, usually I'd say.

Whether or not it can be is neither evidence that it is or for that matter anyone is predeteremined to enjoy symmetry. Also, you haven't proven humans are born with an understanding of anthropomorphism. I would like for you to provide me a report that supports this line of reasoning.

Yes like some of our fellow primates, we've got color vision, which has apparently aided in the mate selection process enough to diminish the pheromonal paths.

It would be nonsensical to assert at this point genetics predetermines sexuality.

Complexity does not arise out of thin air, sure our brains are sligthly bigger, and faster at processing, but we're not as far as you'd like to think. Genetic comparisons to other primates should tell you something like....

This is a nonsensical comparison. We share over 97% genetic similiarity with fruit flies. Do we have wings? Do we have six legs? Are we even remotely similiar in appearance?

Again repeating a rather foundationally meaningless report. If we are 98.7% similiar then there are more than likely still over some hundren million lines of genetic code which are different? These lines account for nothing?

Take virtually the same batch of genes, dial up the "on" switch and you get a human brain; dial it down and you get a chimp brain.

Right off the bat you have something more complex. Right dial us both down and we become fruit flies...right...

So, it seems that only a few genetic changes spell the difference between chimps and humans.

Lol a few? try over 10,000,000 million.

That's a good argument for the power of genes: Change just a few and you get Bonzo instead of the guy sending him to bed. The human brain is about twice the size of the chimp's. A genetic program that instructed neural stem cells in the fetus to churn out just one more generation of neurons would produce that much of a difference, said geneticist David Nelson of Baylor College of Medicine. That, of course, raises the possibility that genetically engineering superhumans wouldn't take much.

This isn't however a good argument infavor of genetic predisposition of any behavior through instinct. What you have provided are similarities in code. What do these similiarities in verying different animals account for? What do their differences account for? Its also something completely outside the bounds of modern psychology.

The power of these so-called regulatory genes is fascinating on several levels. My favorite is this: Whether genes are on or off, and how high they're on, often depends on what your senses are taking in, what you're feeling and even what you're thinking.

This is a matter of perception. Please explain "what you are thinking" this is a subjective statement.

"Immediate early genes" turn on in response to sensory stimulation. Exposure to light at certain times of day switches them on. In birds, hearing a particular song activates certain genes. Without that melody, the genes stay off. In men, thinking about sex turns on testosterone-related genes, with the result that their beards grow faster.

DNA, like neurons in a baby's brain, responds to its environment. "If [outside] events can affect hormone levels, and hormones can control genes, then the events of our daily lives can effectively control our genes," said developmental psychologist David S. Moore of Pitzer College in California, in his new book "The Dependent Gene."

Now again we are more discussing indocronology then Genes. This in no way discusses how genes relate to human instincts or for that matter the predisposition of human sexual orientation...i have read most of these before Zidane. Most of this isn't knew.

NO, my point was that their so called cultural influence was so easily changed, but not so when it comes to sexual orientation.

But you admit it can be changed! There could be a million and one reasons how conditioning could easily account for people's reluctance to change.

Yeah, but at least from all the nutritionists I've heard, they say we've evolved to seek these things. Surely the addition of simple sugars and fats to most modern foods is an indication that there is some truth to this or no?

No isn't. This is a meaningless extrapolation for the various reason i presented in the last post.

Yet, from what I've heard and seen. Men either tie their "you-know" or cover it, or msturb@t3 in order to avoid being embarrased in front of females. This is not so in male bathrooms, or cloth changings.

This is again a culture construct of shame. There are plenty of places you can go and see sex in public. Try rave parties and night clubs.

My investigations show, that they resort to msturb@t!ng in order to avoid such an embarrasing situation.

Zindane sexual shame is a cultural construct.

I don't think so... It is called divine inspiration...

You are telling me you talk to spirits?

Yet, again my experience indicates that the males tie their thingys or tend to cover it up, or resort to mstbtion.

this just isn't true. There are such things as nudist colonies and many cultures do not share our construct of sexual shame. Your experience doesn't count fo evidence.

NOT to create stones axes or the like, my God, that'd be a preposterous claim. What I mean is that somewhere there seems to be a gene or genes that allows you to change your behavioral pattern more easily, to make alterations to what you've learned, that which is called human creativity...

No, thats not true. I don't think that anywhere there are genes that allow you to change your behavior other than genes possibly associated with the developement of human awareness. Your behaviors are largely generated by enviromental factors. You learn to fit into society, you aren't born with this knowledge. Human creativity is a reflection of our thought processes not of genes. You haven't even begun to explain how genes manipulate thoughts or generate them.

Thousands upon thousands of years, generation upon generation, making the exact same tools with no minor alterations by some of our ancestors, until something happened... something changed... and minor alterations, and personalizations began to appear.

What you are realizing is an increase in intelligence or an increase in resourcefulness. Do you honestly believe genes controlled people's desire to make these tools? That would be ridiculous. The use and creation of these tools is a reflection of an evolution intellect not of some genetic predisposition to engineer.

Now, surely you should pay attention and keep up, archeology is based on what's there, and I can't make up hundreds of fossils now can I?

What importance do you think this had in our debate?

Let's assume for fun that by some miracle the sexes aren't attracted to each other...

No i refuse. I have argued enough with these supposed scenerios...

Even, if that were the case there exists genetic influence, in their physical shape. The male is designed to copulate with the female, and it's only through this that offspring can be obtained. That should at least influence the mate selection don't you think?

From an enviromental standpoint i do feel it would influence people especially wrt to their basis for understanding gender.

Dude, I've spoken with many of my peers, and they agree.

I am glad for you.

Things could be changed, but just like the desire to socialize, the desire to mate with a member of the opposite sex, is something that has more than cultural influence. Look, at my previous example with primitive cultures, etc.

You haven't proven there is anything more than an enviromental factor. Your last account again can be explained from an enviromental standpoint as a realization of one's gender. Needless to say your exmaple depends on cognition for it to be apart of selection of a mate.

Morality, shmolality!!! Girls and boys have been known to kiss, and even engage in sex in public, even around these people.

And a lot don't. What accounts for this is personal morality. How in God's name can you associate their behavior with a genetic inclination to do so? Are you aware your beliefs are completel contention with modern psychology?

Sometimes I'm surprised these teens don't go boom, and engage in such acts, when I say they speak about sex 24-7 I mean it!!!

How can you deny morality, which influences there behavior, is a genetic construct?

Have, you not seen how adolescent boys act when they see a hot girl in lycra? I've never watched them act the same way for fellow boys...

What difference does it make what you have seen? Are you all knowing and all aware of everything around you? Could you simply have rejected the very notion these things are occuring...outside of these statements what on earth does this have to do with our debate?

Oh, yeah right, they're thinking about their culture and their parents when acting and speaking in such immoral ways...

quite possibly, unless you consider guilt an enviromental construct...Morality is what often prevents these people from doing what others do; murder, rape, steal etc etc. Do you believe genes control people's desire to do or not do these things? If so why not argue our entire perception is an illusion of some enternal mechanism and that we are nothing more than machines who are slaves to our genes?

NO, but I know when a boy pays a girl to touch her... but doesn't do the same with other boys... He's engaging in an immoral act, but he cares not about doing so with members of the same sex.

What on earth are you trying to prove? That the child your are refering to is heterosexual? Fine. Do you deny other children DO have homosexual encounters? You are the one arguing for genetic predisposition but what you seem to be suggest is that we all start off heterosexual but some then alter to become homosexual

Look, again I'm not saying that for each individual form of attraction there is a gene. What I'm saying is that look, for example, there was a recent LARGE study on twins that found that most mental illnesses tended to fall in either of two groups of genetic differences, or something like that. What I'm saying is that a defect here or there could open the doors, that is make it more likely, to wide range of diseases.

I feel uncomfortable discussing this wrt to this topic. This is ground where i fear to tread. I am not at all amused by the possibility homosexuals, bisexuals (my fiance and I), among others could be regarded as genetic freaks and treated as pariahs. It is possible there is some fact in what you say especially wrt to schizophrenia; a disease associated with dilusions. I suppose it possible such delusions or rather the susceptibility to them could alter one's mindset and even their sexual orientation which might find its basis in a chemical embalance in the brain. I certainly wouldn't go around preaching something like this without doing a hell of a lot of research and tests first.

Again, as I think you've said personal experiences are not that indicative.

I agree, so why do we keep discussing them. I didn't take it that we were dicussing experience. I thought you were looking for an example of something so i provided myself.

The neurons, and the brain, machinery, they were constructed based on the blueprint that is present in the genetic code... whether it is through configuration or not is meaningless,

No it is not meaningless. The structure of the brain has a lot to do with transfering of information through the brain.

the machine were consciousness occurs is the brain... and the brain is the product of evolution.

So therefore you are correct because there is a link to genetics on the most miniscule levels?

Heh, people used to think that there was a ton of genetic junk, that only the genes that coded for proteins were actually working... Yet, that is not so, gigantic portions of the code of life, that code for very subtle things, have been ignored for ages, now it is beginning to be better understood.... and there are other things besides genes that are thought to play a role....

I still wouldn't say it has been proven the wide variety of Introns do anything. A lot of them are often removed in the state of protein synthesis.

This leads me back to the genetic similiarity argument. Simply because we share 97% genetic similarity (how they proved this i do not know as most of the test seem to come before the human genome project was even finished) to fruit flies doesn't equate 97% likeness in appearance or behavior. This renders the argument wrt to human instinct derived from genetic similarities to other animals rather moot.

In time you will likely learn how many handicaps, and shorcuts were likely taken by the primitive process that gave rise to us... and you'll hopefully accept the next era in gm to the human race.

uh...ok...

Maybe I've been living on another planet all this time... I mean, hey I don't even know what's going on around here, or maybe this was done in the areas I've been to by coincidence... It's a statistical anomally that I've been experiencing, why doesn't this happen to me with the lottery?

Maybe. Bad luck i guess..

I never denied enviromental factors affect psychology, I'm just saying there is more than that.

I don't think anyone of us has denied biological factors likewise apply. What is in contention are the nature of existing biological mechanism for bahavior to humans, called instincts, and the level in which they impact people.

It was no long ago we were without society, and before that we were basically no different than animals, do you actually think that a few millenia of microevolution are enough to change us much from what we were thousands of years ago? Or that what we were back then was as advance as you suggest?

First off i think your conclusions are flawed. How do you conclude we were "no different than animals" (this is to say driven by animal instincts) 10,000 years ago? Based on what information do you conclude this? Incase you hadn't noticed over 10,000 years ago there were cultures that existed. I haven't seen any findings on lessor evolved forms of sapiens and the bulk of earlier ancestors to suggest even they were instinct driven. So, in the process of 250,000 to 500,000 years or more i definately could believe, especially with the evidence of the dynamics of human psychology, that humanity's behaviors are not driven by instincts or at least widely so. Are you implying the existance of civilization is some how an example of a process of evolution wrt behavioral genes? Wouldn't this be like saying all of those who live in more primitive cultures and or often nomadic societies are some how genetically inferior?

No, I'd say, thousands of years isn't enough time to change us and what we were back then, was quite primitive.

Quite primitive in relation to the level of technology they had, i wouldn't say this reflects on their behaviors being instinctual...I highly doubt if you cloned a human from 10,000 years ago you'd have a problem intigrating him into society. You are asserting being primitive wrt to technology is some how an example of being more beast like (being more instinct driven).

Again, Do you think such creatures are as advanced and culturally sophisticated as you think they are?

Undoubtedly. I would go as far to say if you took early Homosapiens and cloned them they'd be unrecognizable in society.

Surely, you're not blinded by modern technology, for it arose out of the information that continued to be passed on from generation to generation outside the genepool.

Seems based on your perception of primitive you are blinded by modern technology.

edit 2( to clarify, I do not mean that prior to society we were like animals, I mean that prior to that period prior to society we were more like animals.)

In the likeness we were living in the wilderness and incaves yes. Interms of behavior. No. Even then we were far more sophisticated then them.

I do not propose such things.

I beg to differ. Modern psychology doesn't persue instinct as the basis of many human behaviors. They are simply to dynamic to be explained in such a manner.

PS

I've never suggested that genes or NS is intelligent. All I've said is what I believe is currently accepted, features that are beneficial tend to be passed on, and those that are not tend to not be.

The development of awareness and intelligence certainly was beneficial. However as i described it there are such things as flightless birds...

As for genes, no I don't believe them to be intelligent, what nonsense is this.

If you propose the notion they some how manipulate our thinking wrt to our sexual orientation at some level they'd have to interact with our conscious mind and or possess the knowledge of anthropomorphism.

But I do believe them to be influential in many things... hopefully, you're just making up the stuff you're about genes, in a satirical way. For you surely realize those suggestions, are ridiculous, and not only that... Someone with my level of knowledge, or anyone with a decent level of knowledge would never believe such things for serious.

I believe genes are also influential in many ways. Eye color is a good example. However, i disagree that genes in humans enforce instincts which govern varieties of our behaviors.

PPS

Please keep up with developments in archeology, science, etc. Many people even experts in their fields often fail to do so, and sadly leave it to the next generation. Hopefully you'll not follow suit.

I think you need to do some research and thinking yourself. i just find your gene influence arguments to be based on corrupted and convoluted reasoning.

PPPS

From my understanding, many in high places, are beginning to agree that genes due influence many things to a certain degree. As things continue to develop, this is a trend that is likely to continue, and hopefully you'll join us, once you're satisfied with the ever growing body of evidence.

This is such a wide and open statement its virtually meaningless in context. Genes do affect affect us. Especially wrt our appearance. This is common knowledged. I would only join you if the body of evidence you provided wasn't so corrupt and that your thinking didn't arise from a has been era of psychology trying to resurrect itself in the modern era.

PPPPS

I really don't want to look for all the msnbc, discover, net, etc... info, I've got other things to do right now, but If I've got free time and feel motivated I might do so in the future.

ed2

You are free to do so. I am still looking for you to provide evidence of human instincts and their relations to sexual orientations as well as a description of the mechanism.

[Legion]

What I've meant to convey is that, sexual orientation is significantly influenced by genes.

This is a very open statement. I am sure on some level orietation is. For example, it would be rather difficult to persue sex without a sex drive. For that you'd need a gland like the libido to produce a chemical that would incourage such behaviors.

From what I've heard, people have not succeeded at raising a boy as a girl or viceversa with no prob., some twisted individual tried to prove this was so with misleading info a long time ago.

You'd have to present me with his test and procedures as well as a detailed look at the child's life.

Those notions(that one can be raised as a member of the opposite sex with no prob.), have been disproven, at least that is what I've been lead to believe from reputable sources. There are many accounts of failed attempts at doing this, among other things.

Considering there are not any tests i can name off my head i'd wonder where your sources acquired this understanding.

Now, here's a quote from somewhere...

Now I dunno if that was published or not, but It sounds reasonable don't you agree?

I can tell you where the quote was most likely derived: Bailey & Pillard's research on the homosexual incartions within twins.

http://www.newdirection.ca/a_biol.htm
http://www.inqueery.com/html/science...sexuality.html
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/la...s/14_2Byrd.doc

B. Bailey and Pillard: Twin Studies
The next significant study often quoted by gay activists was conducted by Bailey and Pillard. It is known as the “twin study,” since Bailey and Pillard focused on homosexuality in identical twins, nonidentical twins, and regular siblings. They studied the incidence of homosexuality in one twin and then correlated it with whether the other twin also displayed homosexual tendencies. Bailey and Pillard studied fifty-six sets of identical twins and fifty-four sets of nonidentical twins. They found a correlation of 52% in identical twins, meaning that for every homosexual twin the chances were about 50% that his twin would also be homosexual. For nonidentical twins, the rate of concordance was 22%, thereby showing only one in five twins had a homosexual brother. The concordance for non-twin brothers was only 9.2%. These findings were hailed as showing that homosexuality is genetic, since identical twins have the exact same genetic makeup, and there was a much higher likelihood of homosexuality where all the genes were about the same.
Since it is so important and prevalent in the work on twin studies, a definition of “heritability” is needed. Neil Whitehead explains that heritability is
not a measure of how much a trait is inherited. It is, more accurately, a measure of the balance between environment and genetic input into a trait at any one place at a point of time. Heritability is something that rises and falls in direct response to the amount of environmental intervention. An opposite environmental influence can reduce a genetic effect to something negligible.
Even substantial heritability does not equate to inevitable inheritability. Heritability is expressed as a percentage; the higher the percentage, the more likely that genetic influences predominate over other influences.
There are several caveats that the study by Bailey and Pillard failed to explain. As Byne and Parsons point out, although identical twins have the same genetic code, nonidentical twins and regular siblings share the same proportion of genetic material. This is because nonidentical twins and two siblings of different ages are each conceived from a different egg and a different sperm. Therefore, the genetic theories should show a similar proportion of homosexual concordance between nonidentical twins and regular siblings. The different rates, that of 22% for the nonidentical twins and 9.2% for siblings, is puzzling if only genetic factors are determinative. The low 9.2% factor should reflect the higher rate of the nonidentical twins. Byne and Parsons also criticize the validity and findings of the study in other ways. First, they note the fact that the study rests on the assumption that the relevant environment is the same for identical twins and nonidentical twins. Second, the effects of potential bias in the sample are called into question, as Bailey and Pillard recruited their homosexual research subjects by advertising in various homosexually oriented publications. This may affect the truth of responses or at least result in an unknown, and therefore uncorrectable, bias in the results. Third, there was no way to separate the intermingling of environmental and genetic effects, since all sets of twins in the study had been raised together and were presumably subject to most, if not all, of the same environmental effects. Fourth, all that the study really showed was that there was a “non-zero heritability,” or that some traits were genetic.
The most interesting question, however, is that if there is something in the genetic code that makes a person homosexual, why did not all of the identical twins become homosexual, since they have the exact same genetic code?
Furthermore, William Byne explains how the Bailey and Pillard study is a strong argument for environmental influences on the development of homosexuality:
Moreover, Bailey and Pillard found that the incidence of homosexuality in the adopted brothers of homosexuals (11%) was much higher than recent estimates for the rate of homosexuality in the population (1 to 5%). In fact, it was equal to the rate for non-twin biological brothers. This study clearly challenges a simple genetic hypothesis and strongly suggests that environment contributes significantly to sexual orientation.
Byne goes on to conclude,
Indeed, perhaps the major finding of these heritability studies is that despite having all of their genes in common and having prenatal and postnatal environments as close to identical as possible, approximately half of the identical twins were nonetheless discordant for orientation. This finding underscores just how little is known about the origins of sexual orientation.
What if Bailey and Pillard are correct, in spite of the flaws in their study, and there is a 50% heritability rate of male homosexuality? Neil Whitehead tabulated other twin studies on other topics and those traits’ heritability:
Characteristic Studied Heritability Found
(often +/- 20%)
Smoking 0%
Hostility 0%
Cynicism 0%
Paranoid Alienation 0%
Obsessive-compulsive Disorder 0%
Narcissism 0%
Anxiety 20%
Attitude to Family 24%
Schizophrenia 28%
Multiple Sclerosis 28%
Fertility 30%
Neurosis 36%
Psychosis 39%
Lying 43%
Anorexia Nervosa 44%
Fear of the Unknown 46%
Psychological Inpatient Care 47%
Extroversion 50%
Depression 50%
Criminality 50-60%
Alcoholism 0-60%
Altruism 50%
Religiosity 50%
Fundamentalism 50%
Homosexuality (male) 50%
Divorce 52%
Self Realization 58%
Racial Prejudice, Bigotry 70%
Dyslexia 76%
Height 90%
Phenylketonuria 100%
Whitehead noted that phenylketonuria is a genetic disorder dealing with enzymes and that it was added to the table to show the contrast between a “genuine genetic condition and a behavioral trait.” He recognizes that even height is influenced by environmental factors such as poor nutrition (which reduces a person’s height). Whitehead points out that “we know that divorce, alcoholism, religiosity, criminal behavior, and inpatient care are not genetically destined. The authors of the paper which found such a high heritability for divorce were apologetic. Obviously, they remarked with some embarrassment, divorce does depend on another person.”
Whitehead also explains the rules of twin study analyses which need to be followed to obtain accurate results.
For twin studies to be accurate in their conclusions about homosexuality, it would have to be shown that:
the identical homosexual twins did not volunteer for the study at higher rates than fraternal homosexual twins,
families really do treat each twin identically (the “shared environments” assumption),
homosexuality has a statistically “normal” distribution in the population,
there is no interaction between genes and environment,
people with the “homosexual gene” very rarely mate with others carrying the “homosexual gene,”
the twins do not imitate each other—particularly, identical twins, do not encourage each other to be homosexual,
the twins, apart from being twins, are very similar to the rest of the population (e.g., in physical characteristics and in incidence). By incidence, it is meant that because about 1% of the population is exclusively homosexual, about 1% of people who are one of a twin pair should also be exclusively homosexual.
Whitehead then explains how homosexual twin studies violate most of these rules to varying degrees. There is a degree of “volunteer error” with twin studies, as more identical homosexual twins will volunteer than normal if they know the study is about them. Also, fraternal twins are not treated the same, by family and others, as identical twins. The environment interacts with genes in organisms. For instance, if a man had a genetic predisposition to become homosexual, would that predisposition become a reality in an all-female environment? No, of course not. How could he become homosexual without other men present? However, if the same man were in an environment where the expression of homosexual attractions was encouraged (via pornography or advances from other men), would that environment increase the probability that he would embrace homosexuality? Of course it would! Twins imitate each other frequently, and they typically are different from the general population. For instance, they are significantly more likely to remain unmarried and have a higher incidence of homosexuality than the general population (around four times higher). Whitehead concludes that these problems with twin studies could reduce the heritability rate to as low as 10% instead of 50%.
There are enough flaws with Bailey and Pillard’s study to prevent them from making any valid claims. The only essential point that surfaced from Bailey and Pillard’s research actually proved that environmental influences play a strong role in the development of homosexuality.

Bailey & Pillard: Twins and Other Brothers

Bailey and Pillard studied pairs of brothers -- identical twins, non-identical twins, other biological brothers, and adoptive brothers -- where at least one was gay. At first glance, their findings looked like a pattern for homosexuality being genetically influenced. Identical twins were both homosexual 52% of the time; non-identical twins, 22%; other biological brothers, 9.2%; and adoptive brothers, 10.5%. A closer look reveals significant problems with a "born gay" conclusion to this study:

"In order for such a study to be meaningful, you'd have to look at twins raised apart," says Anne Fausto Sterling, a biologist. The brothers in this study were raised together in their families.
All the results were different from what one would expect if homosexuality was directly genetic:
Because identical twin brothers share 100% of their genes overall, we would expect that if one was homosexual, the other would also be homosexual, 100% of the time. Instead, this study found that they were both homosexual only 52% of the time.
Although completely unrelated genetically, adoptive brothers were more likely to both be gay than the biological brothers, who share half their genes! This piece of data prompted the journal Science to respond: "this . . . suggests that there is no genetic component, but rather an environmental component shared in families" (Vol. 262 Dec.24, 1993).
If homosexuality were genetic, one would expect each number in the column "Results from the B & P study" to be identical to the corresponding number in the "Expectation if genetic" column. Each one is significantly different!
Both are Homosexual:
Shared genes
(overall) Expectation
if genetic Results from
B&P study
Identical twin brothers 100 % 100 % 52 %
Non-ident. twin brothers 50 % 50 % 22 %
Other biological brothers 50 % 50 % 9 %
Adoptive brothers 0 % 1-4 % 11 %

Finally, Bailey & Pillard did not use a random sample. The men in the study were recruited through advertisements in gay newspapers and magazines.

John M. Bailey and Richard Pillard published a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry in December of 1991 on the prevalence of homosexuality among twins.

They studied 56 pairs of identical twins where at least one brother was homosexual and found that 29 of them (52%), were both homosexual. They also found that: 12 of 54 pairs of fraternal twins (22%) were both homosexual, and 6 out of 57 pairs of adopted brothers (11%) were both homosexual. Bailey and Pillard, therefore concluded that homosexuality has a genetic cause.

Some theories on sexual development claim that homosexuality is developed after birth as a result of a persons environment. Environmental factors such as a child’s relationship to his same-sex parent, a child’s relationship to his peers, and the existence of sexual abuse or molestation can affect sexual development. It would be impossible for Drs. Bailey and Pillard to determine whether it was genetics or environment that caused the twins homosexuality unless they were separated.

Biologist Anne Fausto-Stirling of Brown University stated:

“In order for such a study to be at all meaningful, you’d have to look at twins raised apart.”8

If it was, in fact, genes and not environment which caused their homosexuality, one would expect 100% of identical twins to both be homosexual, instead of 52%.

Dr. Bailey seemed to agree, he wrote:

“There must be something in the environment to yield the discordant twins.”9

In March of 1992 The British Journal of Psychiatry published a report on homosexual twins, this included both identical and fraternal, and found that only 20% of twins were both gay. The researchers concluded:

“Genetic factors are insufficient explanation of the development of sexual orientation.”10

Here is an interesting link from a psychiatrist with a different perception of human biology and its influence:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...challenge.html

I found these critiques as well as the obvious exclusion of lesbiens from these individuals research do to the completely incompatability with their "findings" to be telling of the nature of their research.

How can one not laugh when reading quotes like this:

Unfortunately, Hamer's team did not examine the Xq28 region of its gay subjects' heterosexual brothers to see how many shared the same sequence. Hamer suggests that inclusion of heterosexual siblings would have confounded his analysis because the gene associated with homosexuality might be "incompletely penetrant"--that is to say, heterosexual men could carry the gene without expressing it. In other words inclusion of heterosexual brothers might have revealed that something other than genes is responsible for sexual orientation

"There is now very strong evidence from almost two decades of `biobehavioral' research that human sexual orientation is predominantly biologically determined," said Qazi Rahman, University of London researcher

I would suggest the evidence shows otherwise, hense the matter is still widely in contention in psychological fields. He is without a doubt pushing a personal agenda.

Ok, that might be a little too far for your tastes...

But, all I've claimed is that the influence of genes cannot be ignored and is part of the puzzle. That is to say they have a part in sexual orientation, I've not said they're absolute or anything similar. As has been suggested by some of my previous quotes, genetic activity can be altered by enviromental factors, and it is not the "ONLY" thing that influences, but "ONE" of the things that provides significant influence.

No one has denied biology impacts behaviors. Even those who are infavor of biological predisposition of sexual orientation have to admit its not as dimorphic as they have tried to make it appear.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/news...er/sexgene.htm

ed

And without a doubt Bailey and Pillard, Simon Levay, Dean Hammer etc all stated their material was revelant and correctly represented human sexual orientation. Time and research told a vastly different story. It wasn't long their research was revealed as highly flawed or fraudulent with a wide variety of critiques from all sides of the issues. This is the very reason you can go through a modern text book and find no mention to their research inside.

The line of reasoning within your report is also based off a rather flawed assumption genetic similarity equates behavioral similarity. As i have said before variations of fruit flies have up to 97% genetic similiarities with humans yet we do not share even remotely close to 97% physical or behavioral similiarities. Another assumption this report relies on is that the 200 some odd million lines of genetic code that differs from us and the fruit flies accounts for nothing and that all genes are equally active.

here is a reference to a similiar test done on rats from the last link provided (in descending order) which is very similiar to the test you presented on the fruit flies:

According to this hypothesis, high prenatal androgen levels during the appropriate critical period cause heterosexuality in men and homosexuality in women. Conversely, low fetal androgen levels lead to homosexuality in men and heterosexuality in women. This hypothesis rests largely on the observation that in rodents early exposure to hormones determines the balance between male and female patterns of mating behaviors displayed by adults. Female rodents that were exposed to androgens early in development show more male-typical mounting behavior than do normal adult females. Males deprived of androgens by castration during the same critical period display a female mating posture caused lordosis (bending of the back) when they are mounted.

Many researchers consider the castrated male rat that shows lordosis when mounted by another male to be homosexual (as is the female rat that mounts others). Lordosis, however, is little more than a reflex: the male will take the same posture when a handler strokes its back. Furthermore, the male that mounts another male is considered to be heterosexual, as is the female that displays lordosis when mounted by another female. Applying such logic to humans would imply that of two people of the same sex engaged in intercourse only one is homosexual--and which member of the couple it is depends on the positrons they assume.

In addition to determining rodent making patterns, early hormonal exposure determines whether an animal's brain can regulate normal ovarian function. A male rat's brain cannot respond to estrogen by triggering a chain of events, called positive feedback, that culminates in the abrupt increase of luteinizing hormone in the bloodstream, which in turn triggers ovulation. Some researchers reasoned from this fact to the idea that homosexual men (whose brains they allege to be insufficiently masculinized) might have a stronger positive feedback reaction than do heterosexual men.

Two laboratories reported that this was the case, but carefully designed and executed studies, most notably those of Luis J. G Gooren of the Free University in Amsterdam, disproved those findings. Furthermore, the feedback mechanism turns out to be irrelevant to human sexual orientation: workers have since found that the positive-feedback mechanism is not sexually dimorphic in primates, including humans. If this mechanism is indistinguishable in men and women, it is illogical to suggest that it should be "feminized" in gay men.

Moreover, a corollary of the expectation that luteinizing hormone responses should be feminized in homosexual men is that they should be "masculinized" in lesbians. If that were true, homosexual women would neither menstruate nor bear children. The overwhelming proportion of lesbians with normal menstrual cycles and the growing number of openly lesbian mothers attest to the fallacy of that idea.

If the prenatal hormonal hypothesis were correct, one might expect that a large proportion of men with medical conditions known to involve prenatal androgen deficiency would be homosexual, as would be women exposed prenatally to excess androgens. That is not the case.

[zidane1strife]

How could they choose an object without looking at it? What are the implications of this? What of those who didn't choose the most symmetrical objects? Do they have some kind of negative mutation? This is rather silly.

Hmmm, well I dunno much about that experiment. But the thing, assuming it's conclusions have any truth... It's easy to see what the implications are, that through non-visual ways the women where able to asses the genetic quality or the health of their possible mates. Now, you might find that silly, but such abilities would be beneficial to them, and are present in other animals.

This is a nonsensical comparison. We share over 97% genetic similiarity with fruit flies. Do we have wings? Do we have six legs? Are we even remotely similiar in appearance?

I think you've got your %s wrong, dunno but IIRC, they are.

I, mean that is higher than numbers I recall for other mammals. IMO,Only way it could be that high is if it’s of a segment/portion of their code, probably areas with some basic shared genes. No way that’s a whole genome comparison.

I would like for you to provide me a report that supports this line of reasoning.

Well, that was a summary of a report that seems to agree with the idea that information about a mate can be obtained in non-visual ways.

If we are 98.7% similiar then there are more than likely still over some hundren million lines of genetic code which are different? These lines account for nothing

Well, there are several tens of thousands of genes, as the article suggest only a few hundred differ, and not much.

Lol a few? try over 10,000,000 million.

Ten quadrillion?!? Maybe if we have fanthom interdimensional secrety God given genes, that is.

Now again we are more discussing indocronology then Genes. This in no way discusses how genes relate to human instincts or for that matter the predisposition of human sexual orientation...i have read most of these before Zidane. Most of this isn't knew.

Well, it indicates how gene activity is altered by the enviroment, and their abilities. Just an example to show you that even if influenced by genes that influence can be affected.

There are such things as nudist colonies and many cultures do not share our construct of sexual shame.

Hello, have you not heard what I said. It was from members of nudist colonies that I found that bit out.

What you are realizing is an increase in intelligence or an increase in resourcefulness. Do you honestly believe genes controlled people's desire to make these tools? That would be ridiculous. The use and creation of these tools is a reflection of an evolution intellect not of some genetic predisposition to engineer.

I’m not talking about developing the ability to use tools, just to personalize them. The capability to construct and give meaning, without the ability to do even the most minor of changes of personalizations is something that occurred. That after a minor period, suggesting a small mutation or mutations, this developed. No grand increase in intelligence or the like… just a minor change and you go from not being able to personalize your primitive tools to being able to.

Are you aware your beliefs are completel contention with modern psychology?

Yeah, maybe with a few of the old geezers, who’ve been unable to keep up. The mayority of respectable researchers from the top universities seem to agree, that there is a genetic component, it’s its strength, that is contended. That is the reality.

You are the one arguing for genetic predisposition but what you seem to be suggest is that we all start off heterosexual but some then alter to become homosexual

Hello, what I’ve said from the beginning is that a boy and a girl’s sexual perception has factors that are beyond simply those of the enviroment around them. You seem to be denying this. Maybe not, so is it truly not?

I am not at all amused by the possibility homosexuals, bisexuals (my fiance and I), among others could be regarded as genetic freaks and treated as pariahs.

What the? Don’t be making unnecessary connections, my friend. It’s not been my intention to suggest what it seems you’ve understood. Those are example of genetic influence on mental illnesses, an example, not that I’m saying that those are the same mechanism involved in bisexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality.

Just an example, to indicate how a similar change in the mechanisms that influence sexual orientation might too be changed. These changes could probably allow one to be more open towards partner selection or the like outside the standard homosexuality or heterosexuality.

So therefore you are correct because there is a link to genetics on the most miniscule levels?

NO, this was to back up my prior example. That the brain machinery is constructed based on information encoded in genes. An example whose point was to showcase that complex things out of which even more complex things arise can be coded in the genetic code.

With regards to that particular example, I think I’m most likely correct, the genes do carry the blueprint to construct such complex machinery.

I still wouldn't say it has been proven the wide variety of Introns do anything. A lot of them are often removed in the state of protein synthesis.

It has been seen in many cases that non-protein coding regions are INDEED significant. Changes to these regions have had significant impact in the development of organism, they seem to code for other rna, that are behind some very complex mechanisms. This has been shown so in mayor scientific journals, and even in mainstream science mags.

I don't think anyone of us has denied biological factors likewise apply. What is in contention are the nature of existing biological mechanism for bahavior to humans, called instincts, and the level in which they impact people.

Nope, what I’ve been arguing for is a genetic component to sexual orientation. One that could provide significant influence towards sexual orientation, and could be in part behind the decision of many to be homosexual or heterosexual.

I hypothesized that maybe differences in this area, could provide influence in ones decision to be bisexual, or more open sexually than most.

First off i think your conclusions are flawed. How do you conclude we were "no different than animals" (this is to say driven by animal instincts) 10,000 years ago? Based on what information do you conclude this? Incase you hadn't noticed over 10,000 years ago there were cultures that existed. I haven't seen any findings on lessor evolved forms of sapiens and the bulk of earlier ancestors to suggest even they were instinct driven. So, in the process of 250,000 to 500,000 years or more i definately could believe, especially with the evidence of the dynamics of human psychology, that humanity's behaviors are not driven by instincts or at least widely so. Are you implying the existance of civilization is some how an example of a process of evolution wrt behavioral genes? Wouldn't this be like saying all of those who live in more primitive cultures and or often nomadic societies are some how genetically inferior?

No, and when I mean few millennia I mean periods of time spandind from a few dozen to a few hundred millennia. I was referring to some of the oldest of humanesque beings and their differences from those before.

Quite primitive in relation to the level of technology they had, i wouldn't say this reflects on their behaviors being instinctual...I highly doubt if you cloned a human from 10,000 years ago you'd have a problem intigrating him into society. You are asserting being primitive wrt to technology is some how an example of being more beast like (being more instinct driven).

No, I’m saying that even now we’re not that different from those that came dozens upon dozens of thousands of years ago. Our technological advancement has not been due to further grand genetic changes, but to the passing of information.

Seems based on your perception of primitive you are blinded by modern technology.

Heh, I consider primitive, the behavior of most animals with less mental capacity… thus I consider that which resembles this behavior as akin to it.

The development of awareness and intelligence certainly was beneficial. However as i described it there are such things as flightless birds...

Yes I know, such things can be influenced by other things. This quote does not go against what I said, I said "tend" not that it was absolute.

I think you need to do some research and thinking yourself. i just find your gene influence arguments to be based on corrupted and convoluted reasoning.

No, it’s based on modern research. Surveys, and studies on groups of people are not the sources I consider most trust-worthy. It is more solid and mounting evidence on the genetic side, from reputable sources, aka nature, science, gov, high-end universities, that's convinced many.

I would only join you if the body of evidence you provided wasn't so corrupt and that your thinking didn't arise from a has been era of psychology trying to resurrect itself in the modern era.

Still, you entirely dismiss any evidence based on genome comparisons, and gene activity. This is the most influential of the research, IMO. You cannot affect what's already down there inside the cell, there's no survey, or bias to corrupt mounting evidence in here.

You can't change what's there, just as you can't change hundreds of fossils, the genetic evidence is also mounting, dismiss it as you will.

found these critiques as well as the obvious exclusion of lesbiens from these individuals research do to the completely incompatability with their "findings" to be telling of the nature of their research.

Yeah, sadly, that is why I said a quote from “somewhere”, research on humans is far more difficult, and many of them seem to be unreliable.

But, even ignoring such research, due to the fact that most of it seems to be compromised, that which is arriving from genetic research seems more compelling. The mounting evidence of genetic evidence continues to grow, it’s convinced most modern researchers, and it will eventually reach a point where it can be classified as more conclusive.

I would suggest the evidence shows otherwise, hense the matter is still widely in contention in psychological fields. He is without a doubt pushing a personal agenda.

I’d say It’s in contention amongst those with no modern knowledge of genes, and pre-conceived notions of them.

No one has denied biology impacts behaviors. Even those who are infavor of biological predisposition of sexual orientation have to admit its not as dimorphic as they have tried to make it appear.

Well, then? You agree that there is genetic influence in sexual orientation, that that which most anyone finds obvious, that females and males tend to have a sexual inclination towards the opposite sex?

It seemed you argued against this.

The line of reasoning within your report is also based off a rather flawed assumption genetic similarity equates behavioral similarity. As i have said before variations of fruit flies have up to 97% genetic similiarities with humans yet we do not share even remotely close to 97% physical or behavioral similiarities.

Again, that % seems awfully wrong, I mean IIRC, the fruitfly genome has only a few hundred million bases, while the human carries a few thousand million ones, IIRC. Also that % seems higher than even amongst some mammal comparisons, which goes against logic, since mammals are more closely related to each other than to insects.

As I've said I'm more into biology than to psychology, and it's evidence from biology that I find most compelling. That primate human comparison is just one of many, and as they continue to accumulate, and show what's inside the cells, what's in the genetic code they'll show you just how similar we humans are.

Additional complexity, as I've pointed out previously does not arise out of thin air in biological organisms, it's seen in the genes... and it is at this level that we are seeing that we're not as far as you think. A few minor changes in a few hundred genes, particularly in activity is not what I'd call the root of unparalleled complexity.

[Legion]

Hmmm, well I dunno much about that experiment. But the thing, assuming it's conclusions have any truth...

The test itself, even if assumed true, says nothing about one's genetic predetermination toward objects with symmetry, Zidane be realitistic! Think about it! The test itself is horribly corrupted by enviromental input. There is no way in hell they could say this shows a direct relation to genetics. What of those who didn't choose objects with symmetry? Are they genetic mutants? Come on! This is just crap. We haven't see the report to seee exactly what they concluded and why in the first place.

I think you've got your %s wrong, dunno but IIRC, they are.

No, its not. Natoma and I confirmed this.

I, mean that is higher than numbers I recall for other mammals. IMO,Only way it could be that high is if it’s of a segment/portion of their code, probably areas with some basic shared genes. No way that’s a whole genome comparison.

Pretty interesting find isn't it? It says a lot about the quality of the information in general doesn't it?

Really, its not a whole genome comparison? Interesting addmition. How many comparisons are full genome comparisons?

Well, that was a summary of a report that seems to agree with the idea that information about a mate can be obtained in non-visual ways.

These are enviromental factors which are learned. Unless, of course you'd like to demonstrate to me human sex mechanisms as instincts.

Well, there are several tens of thousands of genes, as the article suggest only a few hundred differ, and not much.

They don't differ by much? What does that constitute? Do they even know? Have they done a full genome comparison between the species? Without knowing what the differences constitute the comparison is meaningless. In their totality the differences in tens of the thousands could constitute a hell of a lot now couldn't they?

Ten quadrillion?!? Maybe if we have fanthom interdimensional secrety God given genes, that is.

I meant 10,000,000. For some reason i forgot to remove the "million" when i added the zeros.

Well, it indicates how gene activity is altered by the enviroment, and their abilities. Just an example to show you that even if influenced by genes that influence can be affected.

I don't see how what you provided indicates what you concluded however the argument enviroment alters the body and behavior has been my argument all along.

Hello, have you not heard what I said. It was from members of nudist colonies that I found that bit out.

Have you not heard what i said? Shame is a societal construct! Hense the very reason they live in a nudist colony without shame while the rest of us do not walk around naked!

I’m not talking about developing the ability to use tools, just to personalize them. The capability to construct and give meaning, without the ability to do even the most minor of changes of personalizations is something that occurred.

Yes, this is a reflection of increasing intelligence. "Meaning" is a subjective term based on reasoning.

That after a minor period, suggesting a small mutation or mutations, this developed. No grand increase in intelligence or the like… just a minor change and you go from not being able to personalize your primitive tools to being able to.

How do you go about classifying that as a "minor change"? The ability to personalize over not being able to is insignificant? It was a series of steps which were minor changes however as a whole the changes are very significant. The dynamics of human behavior, the depth or our awareness, etc are very good examples of this.

Yeah, maybe with a few of the old geezers, who’ve been unable to keep up. The mayority of respectable researchers from the top universities seem to agree, that there is a genetic component, it’s its strength, that is contended. That is the reality.

Lol, no more like a lot of well educated men who refuse to allow you to revive this dinosaur called Instinct Theory.

Did you even bother to read over the reports i posted to you? The conclusions were quite understandable.

What you are saying is so damn subjective! They agree there is a genetic component? Thta could mean a whole range of things no where near as left field as some of the thigns you are proposing. I even agree there is a genetic component on some level. There has to be. If not for genes we wouldn't exist.

Hello, what I’ve said from the beginning is that a boy and a girl’s sexual perception has factors that are beyond simply those of the enviroment around them. You seem to be denying this. Maybe not, so is it truly not?

No, i am not denying there is a biological factor. What i have been arguing against is a PREDETERMINATION and human intinct. Yes, your sex drive is inpart, chemically based, however even it has enviromental factors which impact it quite readily.

What the? Don’t be making unnecessary connections, my friend.

I do not think its unnecessary at all.

It’s not been my intention to suggest what it seems you’ve understood. Those are example of genetic influence on mental illnesses, an example, not that I’m saying that those are the same mechanism involved in bisexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality.

I haven't denied there is a biological counterpart to our existance. What i have been arguing against are predetermination and human instincts through genes. I might add not a soul here has explained what a human instinct is or provided an example and explained why it is an instinct.

[quote]Just an example, to indicate how a similar change in the mechanisms that influence sexual orientation might too be changed. These changes could probably allow one to be more open towards partner selection or the like outside the standard homosexuality or heterosexuality.[quote]

Why do you continue to make such bold assumptions? You haven't shown a single example of a sexual orientation mechanism (as an instinct) yet you continue to assert some exist!

NO, this was to back up my prior example. That the brain machinery is constructed based on information encoded in genes.

No! That is not completely accurate at all! Enviromental factors such as nutrition effect the brain and its development quite readily! Even your experiences do. Read over the reports and essays i provided you. Such material is mentioned inside.

An example whose point was to showcase that complex things out of which even more complex things arise can be coded in the genetic code.

By your own reasoning though its only a "minor change".

With regards to that particular example, I think I’m most likely correct, the genes do carry the blueprint to construct such complex machinery.

Yes they carry a blueprint however that is subject to change. Read the reports and essays i provided you with.

It has been seen in many cases that non-protein coding regions are INDEED significant.

In many cases? How many have actually been tested? Furthermore what significance does this have in your argument?

Changes to these regions have had significant impact in the development of organism, they seem to code for other rna, that are behind some very complex mechanisms. This has been shown so in mayor scientific journals, and even in mainstream science mags.

I find it interesting you state this yet you still call the genetic change from primate to human a "minor change."

I will say i have read over statements saying many things about Introns. It is still held in contention whether all of them do something. THey could easily be simple place holders for gene sequences and therefore have a significant purpose without doing something themselves. I see this as reinforcing the idea that a difference in 10s of the thousands of genes constitute quite a lot.

Nope, what I’ve been arguing for is a genetic component to sexual orientation. One that could provide significant influence towards sexual orientation, and could be in part behind the decision of many to be homosexual or heterosexual.

Well, then i fail to see the significance of your argument. No one where denies that on some level genes affect sexuality. We disagree on how much. If you are arguing in favor of genetic influence no one here would argue against that. What would be argued is the level at which genes influence. I happen to believe they influence more on an emotional leveling then anything concluding predetermination of sexuality. I understand that enviroment is the leading cause of our understanding of our selves and our sexuality. I have certainly provided a bulk of research which leads one to this conclusion.

I hypothesized that maybe differences in this area, could provide influence in ones decision to be bisexual, or more open sexually than most.

And it will remain a hypothesis until evidence is provided.

No, and when I mean few millennia I mean periods of time spandind from a few dozen to a few hundred millennia. I was referring to some of the oldest of humanesque beings and their differences from those before.

Some of the oldest date back over 13 million years. The more time you provide the more i'd say evolution could easily account for the disappearance of instinct.

No, I’m saying that even now we’re not that different from those that came dozens upon dozens of thousands of years ago. Our technological advancement has not been due to further grand genetic changes, but to the passing of information.

OK but what does that have to do with your argument? You haven't established people over 10,000 years ago were driven by instinct.

Heh, I consider primitive, the behavior of most animals with less mental capacity…

Therefore primitive Native American's have less mental capacity? Were Native American's more driven by instincts then more advanced humans? Why do you only consider primitive a "behavior of most animals" an indication of "less mental capacity"?

thus I consider that which resembles this behavior as akin to it.

Another words you made a flawed assumption based on opinion rather than any real research.

Yes I know, such things can be influenced by other things. This quote does not go against what I said, I said "tend" not that it was absolute.

As you say "tend". You are right, its not an absolute. Therefore it could likewise apply here. Its hardly unlikely. It happens in evolution all the time.

No, it’s based on modern research. Surveys, and studies on groups of people are not the sources I consider most trust-worthy. It is more solid and mounting evidence on the genetic side, from reputable sources, aka nature, science, gov, high-end universities, that's convinced many.

I doubt the very quality of you the research you have reported or perhaps your perception of what it suggests. I myself have presented research by verying scientists which have addressed the very issues you have brought up who haven't come to your conclusions at all.

Still, you entirely dismiss any evidence based on genome comparisons, and gene activity.

No shit. Not one of us is qualified to suggest what the similiarities entail. He can't even see what samples they tested or if the samples they took accurately reflected the whole.

This is the most influential of the research, IMO. You cannot affect what's already down there inside the cell, there's no survey, or bias to corrupt mounting evidence in here.

I highly doubt it. As i have stated a fruit fly bares extremely high genetic similarities with humans and yet we do not share the same level of physical, mental or behavior appearances.

I'd have to say there is quite a bit of corruption there. Not a one of those scientists can go gene by gene and tell us what htey do or what their impact is. The comparisons are meaningless.

You can't change what's there, just as you can't change hundreds of fossils, the genetic evidence is also mounting, dismiss it as you will.

Of course i dismiss it! It observably false to assume these similarities are evidence of human instinct. You haven't shown a single human instinct yet you claim to have provided humans are driven by instincts. Does that not tell you something?

Yeah, sadly, that is why I said a quote from “somewhere”, research on humans is far more difficult, and many of them seem to be unreliable.

You want to know why? It rather clear, infact they state why. Human sexual orienation, as they concluded, has an imense enviromental factor which is impossible to reflect is a test which assumes sexuality is dimorphic! This renders the theory sexuality is predetermined false and undeniably so.

But, even ignoring such research, due to the fact that most of it seems to be compromised, that which is arriving from genetic research seems more compelling. The mounting evidence of genetic evidence continues to grow, it’s convinced most modern researchers, and it will eventually reach a point where it can be classified as more conclusive.

Genetic research more compelling? How could it be? Many of them have done rather standard and proven tests which have demonstrated genetic diseases and features quite well and are proven and relaible. I am damn sorry, but you can't get by with the genetic argument when identical twins only shar 50% likeliness to be both homosexual. Identical twins share 100% the same genes. The figure should yield 100% accuracy! I am sorry, this is rather damning evidence no matter how you spin it.

You argue the findings aren't revealing because the tests were compomised? Come on! Only a few of them were and were done so infavor or proving the scientists theories yet could not! The reports also listed legitimate tests that were done that yielded the same conclusions! How can you state the tests on twins, which mind you you refered to and are now back tracking, showed exactly what you suggested, or rather were lead to believe they showed are irrelevant? The real meaning behind the very test by Bailey and Pillard spoke volumes about enviromental influence they and the media tried to hide from the public. The only reason why you mentioned this test is because you were told it conveyed what you have been suggesting all along yet it infact does not. Now, you speak of more reliable tests. Why am i so doubtful do you suppose?

Could you please present the mounting research that is been conducted?

I’d say It’s in contention amongst those with no modern knowledge of genes, and pre-conceived notions of them.

Which must be the the body of most psychologists and psychiatrist around the wrold...right. You suggest your hypothesis is educated yet you nor the scientists conducting the research can tell me what all the similiarities and differences account for.

Aside from this i provided you with a report done on rats which was much in the same. As you can see the psychiatrist writting the paper came to a much different conclusion as to the behaviors and rather ludicrous generalizations committed by researchers running similiar tests. You should read over his reports. It was quite revealing about the behaviors exhibited and how they couldn't be directly associated with humans.

Well, then? You agree that there is genetic influence in sexual orientation,

To some degree yes. For instance it would be hard to have a sex drive without a libido wouldn't it?

that that which most anyone finds obvious, that females and males tend to have a sexual inclination towards the opposite sex?

It seemed you argued against this.

I agree in outside of this argument, i do not agree with your implications and your perceptions of what that suggets. You can't link this behavior to genetics you simply try to go around this by stating we are x% genetically similiar to another animal who has genetic links to sexual behaviors. Which of course proves nothing because you can't account for what that similarity means or for that matter why humans don't have instinct/reflex based sexual postering or rituals like the animals you are trying to suggest we are like. You are forced to make the same blatant and illogical assumptions the psychiatrist on the last link suggested all biological reductionists make. You write off the dynamics of human behavior which can't possibly be reduced to genes as genetically linked without any shread of evidence to back your statements. Likewise you deny the possibility what you perceive is nothing more than effects of enviroments simply because you won't comprehend the implications in human psychology.

Not a one of these scientist i presented, regardless of their position, believes enviroment has no affect on sexuality or sexual orientation. There is just to much evidence infavor of my argument to deny what i have suggested.

Again, that % seems awfully wrong, I mean IIRC, the fruitfly genome has only a few hundred million bases, while the human carries a few thousand million ones, IIRC. Also that % seems higher than even amongst some mammal comparisons, which goes against logic, since mammals are more closely related to each other than to insects.

it seems wrong or it is wrong simply because it refutes your position? What are these mammal comparisons? WIthout a doubt they are just taking samples of dna and comparing them suggesting their findings to be indicative of the whole.

As I've said I'm more into biology than to psychology, and it's evidence from biology that I find most compelling. That primate human comparison is just one of many, and as they continue to accumulate, and show what's inside the cells, what's in the genetic code they'll show you just how similar we humans are.

You can be into as much biology as you want, you just can deny the existance of psychology as you are. You are trying to reduce human behavior to a rather over simplified mechanism of genetic response. This is an outdated theory based on circular logic.

What primate human comparisons have you made? What is a "primate" human? Can you show me how any and or all of these "primate" humans were driven by instincts? Can you show me how later forms of our ancestors ie Homo Erectus were driven by instincts? Again you keep preaching the similarity argument but you can't account for what these similiarities and difference mean.

Additional complexity, as I've pointed out previously does not arise out of thin air in biological organisms, it's seen in the genes...

Thats not completely true. Enviromental factors directly effect development and behavior.

and it is at this level that we are seeing that we're not as far as you think. A few minor changes in a few hundred genes, particularly in activity is not what I'd call the root of unparalleled complexity.

Since you can't account for the dynamics of human psychology within genes your perception is meaningless. We are speaking about more than a few hundred genes, furthermore you havne't proven what impact these genes have had. On top of this you havne't proven earlier forms of our ancestors were governed by instinct. You haven't even proven primates are governed by instinct for that matter.

-PS

if we are 98.7% similiar in genetic code to primates how does one derive only a few hundred genes differ but not by much?

The math doesn't add up. How many genes do humans have and how many genes do the comparitve primates have?

If humans have 1,000,000 genes that means chimps only share 987,000 genes that are "similiar." This would make over 13,000 genes which are completely different.

If humans and chimps have 1,000,000 genes that means 13,000 of the chimps genes convey different instructions entirely and that 13,000 of ours aren't some simply addition.


What does "similiar" imply? Does that mean 98.7% of our genes is IDENTICAL to primates or that 98.7% of our genes are SIMILIAR in respect o primate genes?

[zidane1strife]

There is no way in hell they could say this shows a direct relation to genetics. What of those who didn't choose objects with symmetry? Are they genetic mutants? Come on! This is just crap. We haven't see the report to seee exactly what they concluded and why in the first place.

Not objects, just human mates, if said test is reliable... It indicates that some characteristics that are indicative of this possible mate could be transmitted in some of the secretions that are on the t-shirt. That's one of the most plausible explanations to why females would tend to choose the t-shirt from an unknown man, yet more symmetrical, as that which belongs to the most attractive one.

We haven't see the report to seee exactly what they concluded and why in the first place.

The summary is quite clear. I'll elaborate a little more, ok. Take females, give them t-shirts from several men, make them rate the t-shirts in terms of which belongs to the most attractive, and look for patterns afterwards. Is a pattern found? Yes, it seems it was found the t-shirts of those most symmetrical tended to be chosen as that of the most attractive

No, its not. Natoma and I confirmed this.

Where? I mean, that is an impossibility, they differ in the number of bases by more than an order of magnitude. Heck, that number seems higher than those I recall even for some PRIMATES!!! There is no way, that could be right. If it's from a small segment of a human genome compared to the fruitfly it could be, but entire genome comparison could never be that high. It's even impossible to compare in its entirety or most of it as you already get a difference of more than an order of magnitude based on size alone, aka number of bases.

Pretty interesting find isn't it? It says a lot about the quality of the information in general doesn't it?

Really, its not a whole genome comparison? Interesting addmition. How many comparisons are full genome comparisons?

Well, it's not even a comparison from a significant portion of the genome. I don't recall the exact number, but I think humans have around 30-40k genes, the chimp comparison I showed had what? 34k, seems about there.

These are enviromental factors which are learned. Unless, of course you'd like to demonstrate to me human sex mechanisms as instincts.

I dunno of anywhere where they teach you to find out the most attractive man, by smelling his t-shirt.

hey don't differ by much? What does that constitute? Do they even know? Have they done a full genome comparison between the species? Without knowing what the differences constitute the comparison is meaningless. In their totality the differences in tens of the thousands could constitute a hell of a lot now couldn't they?

It seems it involved the full genomes or close to it, I mean 34k hovers around the totality of genes humans have.

I don't see how what you provided indicates what you concluded however the argument enviroment alters the body and behavior has been my argument all along.

That's exactly what several of the researchers said in my last link. That even genes can be significantly influenced by the enviroment.

Have you not heard what i said? Shame is a societal construct! Hense the very reason they live in a nudist colony without shame while the rest of us do not walk around naked!

Yeah, but even many of them get the you know whats when looking at females... and that is why many engage in activities that will prevent them from getting an 3r3ction in public... Many I've heard, find that a little embarrasing.

The shame might be social construct, but are you implying the nature of their sexual elation towards females is mostly also a social construct?

Yes, this is a reflection of increasing intelligence. "Meaning" is a subjective term based on reasoning.

Well, if you say so. Creativity can be qualified as part of intelligence. Still, the fact that one can develop the ability to create tools, without been able to personalize them is quite suggestive...

How do you go about classifying that as a "minor change"?

IIRC it was within what is called a relatively short period of time in evolutive terms... thus few mutations, thus I'd say minor.

Did you even bother to read over the reports i posted to you? The conclusions were quite understandable.

Yup, and I've read similar while looking for stuff over the net. Again, I'd say that from what I know, the evidence against these conclusions is greater than the evidence in favor.

What you are saying is so damn subjective! They agree there is a genetic component? Thta could mean a whole range of things no where near as left field as some of the thigns you are proposing. I even agree there is a genetic component on some level. There has to be. If not for genes we wouldn't exist.

No, I'm not saying there's just a genetic component, which you make it sound as if quite distant, what I'm saying is there is one that influences orientation.

Why do you continue to make such bold assumptions? You haven't shown a single example of a sexual orientation mechanism (as an instinct) yet you continue to assert some exist!

Yes, I've shown an example a societal one. One you seem to call impossible, that which occurs when sex is a taboo, with it not being taught to the individual either at home or at school, yet no apparent change in tendency.

That is with very minor enviromental influence, inclinations/tendencies arising in sexual orientation.

No! That is not completely accurate at all! Enviromental factors such as nutrition effect the brain and its development quite readily! Even your experiences do. Read over the reports and essays i provided you. Such material is mentioned inside.

Not accurate? what? you think I mean it's only based on genes?!? Clearly that is not what I meant to convey. It's just that the brain is indeed constructed based on this info, through brain development is influenced by outside factors, but that does not contradict the fact that its machinery is based on what's in the genes.

That is I've not said this is not so, I mean I could expose a rock to the enviroment, or a piece of clay, or a dog. Why does the dog or rock or clay not develop into a man, but the child does? Is it not because there is a blueprint in the genes, what defines a cell as a neuron and not something else? Is it not its machinery, and is the code for this machinery not coded in the genes?

Nutrition, enviroment can indeed affect the development of the brain, I've not denied this, but it has its limits. You won't get human capability out of a mouse nor will you get super human ability out of a man.

Yes they carry a blueprint however that is subject to change. Read the reports and essays i provided you with.

Subject to change to a limited degree. NOTHING, I've read, contradicts the fact that the entire machine that is known as a neuron and/or its accompanying cells are based on genes, their receptors, their method of obtaining energy, their structure, they are the product of genes. Sure it could be influenced, you change the acidity, the salinity, the temperature, the chemicals around these things, the radioactivity, exposure to sound, stimulation, etc... And surely this will influence what occurs, but it does not deny the fact that there is information coded in these molecules, and that it is based on this information that the machines that compose the cell are made.

Can a child learn to speak without enviromental influence? NO. But, can a cat learn this even with enviromental influence? NO.

In many cases? How many have actually been tested? Furthermore what significance does this have in your argument?

These are the latest findings, they've been seen in many species, in many experiments, they more complex abilities of rna are giving hints even at the origins of life, for some rna have behavior similar to that of some proteins. Significant resources are now being allocated to further study this previously ignored regions. I think, even many of the modern biology books are now beginning to includes hints to this if not outright say so.

The significance of which, is that genes aren't the simple protein coding things you seem to think they are. They code for far more than that, allowing for very complex mechanisms to arise. Some of these mechanism, IIRC, do not go by what you'd expect based on mendelian hereditary rules.

I find it interesting you state this yet you still call the genetic change from primate to human a "minor change."

NO, I called the change that occured from one of our ancestors to another, a change that seems to involve creativity, a minor change. For from what I recall, it occured in a minor period of time.

That is, tool creating capable ancestors, and the later change that allowed personalization of said tools. Not the evolution of humans!!!

Why do you only consider primitive a "behavior of most animals" an indication of "less mental capacity"?

No, Let's not continue making uneccesary connections. I've said the behavior of most ANIMALS WITH LESS MENTAL CAPACITY, native americans are not animals with less mental capacity then humans, they ARE HUMANS. Then I said behavior akin to this of animals is primitive, not indicative of less mental capacity, no argument there I presume?

I highly doubt it. As i have stated a fruit fly bares extremely high genetic similarities with humans and yet we do not share the same level of physical, mental or behavior appearances.

That statement is most likely corrupted.

You haven't shown a single human instinct yet you claim to have provided humans are driven by instincts.

Again, let's not continue making unnecessary connections here. Genetic influence does not mean what I'm trying to convey for it is the same as the definition you've provided for instinct.

The only thing I called insticts, where the swimming abilities and sucking abilities of a new born... and that was for it was called as such by several doc.s I've heard, but they could've slipped up on the terminology a little.
Still, remains reflex like behaviors, that are there.

Human sexual orienation, as they concluded, has an imense enviromental factor which is impossible to reflect is a test which assumes sexuality is dimorphic! This renders the theory sexuality is predetermined false and undeniably so.

That evidence gives a theory against it. But I'd say what has happened to millions in real life, along with the results of dozens of cases of child sexual change surgery, is sufficient to more than contradict it.

The figure should yield 100% accuracy! I am sorry, this is rather damning evidence no matter how you spin it.

There are even PHYSICAL appearance traits in which twins differ(example iris.). Now, you've heard how enviroment affects even genetic behavior, even if we were to say there is a genetic inclination, there's no telling what factors could influence the development of this or its strength.

Heck, I'd say with the nearly trauma inducing enviroment that has existed in most countries regarding things like sexual orientation, it'd be hard to know, not only if someone's answered a survey correct... but even if their behavior and orientation have not been severly altered by it.

How can you state the tests on twins, which mind you you refered to and are now back tracking

Clearly, even when I showed those tests, I referred to them as from "somewhere", and said "it sounds reasonable"... For I've not been very trusting of them.

Could you please present the mounting research that is been conducted?

Basically most genetic research, seeing as this knowledge doubles, every few years. It's mounting rather quickly, and it's showing massive reuse of machinery, throughout the natural world.

Eventually even you will be able to see the genetic activity of most human genes and compare them to those of other primates with not to much investment, heheh.

To some degree yes. For instance it would be hard to have a sex drive without a libido wouldn't it?

I mean, beyond sexual desire, something that influences inclination towards the sex of a particular mate.

Which of course proves nothing because you can't account for what that similarity means or for that matter why humans don't have instinct/reflex based sexual postering or rituals like the animals you are trying to suggest we are like. You are forced to make the same blatant and illogical assumptions the psychiatrist on the last link suggested all biological reductionists make. You write off the dynamics of human behavior which can't possibly be reduced to genes as genetically linked without any shread of evidence to back your statements. Likewise you deny the possibility what you perceive is nothing more than effects of enviroments simply because you won't comprehend the implications in human psychology.

I think not, you've probably understood what I've said a little to the extreme.

Not a one of these scientist i presented, regardless of their position, believes enviroment has no affect on sexuality or sexual orientation. There is just to much evidence infavor of my argument to deny what i have suggested.

Neither have those I've presented for the most part, nor I've denied enviromental influence.

You can be into as much biology as you want, you just can deny the existance of psychology as you are. You are trying to reduce human behavior to a rather over simplified mechanism of genetic response. This is an outdated theory based on circular logic.

History of US, genetics, the results of cases of early childhood sex change surgeries, the beliefs of many experts, and basically the message that's been given in most science or news based channels by most experts. Can I deny the experiences of millions of US citizens? NO. The results of dozens of sex change surgeries based on these notions you say are up to date? No. The mounting body of genetic evidence that show lots of things are reused throughout nature, and that humans are not excluded from this? NO.

Thats not completely true. Enviromental factors directly effect development and behavior.

Well, it seems to be mostly true, a bacterium is less complex than a multi-cellular human.

if we are 98.7% similiar in genetic code to primates how does one derive only a few hundred genes differ but not by much?

Not to ALL primates, those where for chimps I think, IIRC. The % goes down for other more distant primate relatives, and keeps going down as you keep going further and further from humans.


Do you deny the sexual revolution? Do you deny that playboy was a magazine that showcased the changing of the times? Do you deny that clothing became more and more risque? That sex was more taboo back in the day? That sex has slowly throughout the decades become a more and more acceptable public topic?

Us history shows the lack of sexual education both at school and at home, millions were exposed to this. Do you think a few conservative, non risque radio shows or a few comics are sufficient for what you suggest?

With no mayor enviromental influence towards sexual orientation for small children, their tendency remained.

You asked, IIRC, how did they know what was causing their sexual impulses...

My answer is simply the fact that when they look at little Jenny Doe they got a gut feeling and that was often accompanied by an 3r3ct!on... That when they were around girls, they got new feelings that they're not used to feeling before... and that these feelings revolved around those of the opposite sex, for they were feeling them towards and around the members of this opposite sex.

"In fact, present data is increasing that despite great care in rearing these [male pseudo hermaphrodites] as females, some, or perhaps many of them, have strong male tendencies or may even change their assigned sex when they reach 12 to 14 years of age" (Reiner 1997a, p224).

Even female pseudo-hermaphrodites assigned and reared female, with early genital surgery, are considerably likely to switch to living as men as adults (Meyer-Bahlburg et al. 1996).

The video tape "I Am What I Feel To Be" (Fama Film A.G. 1997) presents interviews in Spanish with a number of people who were born as male pseudo hermaphrodites, raised female, and later changed to live as men. Both they and their partners describe their lives as sexually fulfilling, in spite of penises so small that until puberty they were considered to be girls (Fama Film A.G. 1997).

Why is that? ( assuming that occurs). That should BE IMPOSSIBLE if we were to assume enviromental influence completely overwhelms genetic influence towards orientation.

PS

The spanish cases occured, IIRC, in "Santo Domingo" aka Dominican republic, I think.

[zidane1strife]

My previous reply was not visible when accesing from "general discussion", probably a bug, so I'm posting this with the hopes it becomes visible.

ED

Here's info on one of the particular cases, the one I said, about the Doctor who laid down the grounds for the horrors that where to follow.

It’s a fame that derives not only from the fact that his medical metamorphosis was the first sex reassignment ever reported on a developmentally normal child but also from a stunning statistical long shot that lent a special significance to the case. He was born an identical twin, and his brother provided the experiment with a built-in matched control – a genetic clone who, with penis intact, was raised as a male. That the twins were reported to have grown into happy, well-adjusted children of opposite sex seemed unassailable proof of the primacy of rearing over biology in the differentiation of the sexes and was the basis for the rewriting of textbooks in a wide range of medical disciplines. Most seriously, the case set a precedent for sex reassignment as the standard treatment for thousands of newborns with similarly injured, or irregular, genitals. It also became a touchstone for the feminist movement in the 1970s, when it was cited as living proof that the gender gap is purely a result of cultural conditioning, not biology. For Dr. John Money, the medical psychologist who was the architect of the experiment, this case was to be the most publicly celebrated triumph of a 40-year career that recently earned him the accolade “one of the greatest sex researchers of the century.”

But as the mere existence of this young man in front of me would suggest, the experiment was a failure, a fact revealed in a March 1997 article in the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine. Authors Milton Diamond, a biologist at the University of Hawaii, and Keith Sigmundson, a psychiatrist from Victoria, British Columbia, documented how the twin had struggled against his imposed girlhood from the start. The paper set off shock waves in medical circles around the world, generating furious debate about the ongoing practice of sex reassignment (a procedure more common than anyone might think). It also raised troubling questions about the way the case was reported in the first place, why it took almost 20 years for a follow-up to reveal the actual outcome and why that follow-up was conducted not by Dr. Money but by outside researchers. The answers to these questions, fascinating for what they suggest about the mysteries of sexual identity, also bring to light a 30-year rivalry between eminent sex researchers, a rivalry whose very bitterness not only dictated how this most unsettling of medical tragedies was exposed but also may, in fact, have been the impetus behind the experiment in the first place.

In 1967, an anonymous baby boy was turned into a girl by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. For 25 years, the case of John/Joan was called a medical triumph — proof that a child’s gender identity could be changed — and thousands of “sex reassignments” were performed based on this example. But the case was a failure, the truth never reported. Now the man who grew up as a girl tells the story of his life, and a medical controversy erupts.
-The Rolling Stone, December 11, 1997. Pages 54-97
(For this article, he granted more than 20 hours of candid interviews and signed confidentiality waivers giving me exclusive access to a voluminous array of legal documents, therapists’ notes, Child Guidance Clinic reports, IQ tests, medical records and psychological work-ups. )

In 1973 and 1975, Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins, a leading expert in pediatric psychoendocrinology and developmental psychology, reported the outcome as favorable. In the ensuing twenty years, the case of the penectomized twin has taken on immense significance; it is cited in numerous elementary psychology, human sexuality, and sociology texts. Most importantly, the case influenced medical thinking about treatment of hermaphroditic infants. Medical texts now recommend that boys born with a penis that is "too small" be reassigned as girls, just as the twin was.Surgeons remove their penises and testes and construct a vagina, and a pediatric endocrinologist administers hormones to facilitate female puberty.

But in fact, according to Diamond's report, the penectomized twin steadfastly refused to grow into a woman, and now lives as an adult man. She didn't feel or act like a girl. She often discarded the estrogen pills which were prescribed at age 12, and she refused additional surgery to deepen the vagina which surgeons had constructed at 17 months of age, despite Hopkins staff's repeated attempts to convince her that life would be impossible without it. "You're not gonna find anybody unless you have vaginal surgery and live as a female," the twin recalls a Hopkins physician telling her.

....

Although the Hopkins staff were aware of the twin's resistance to medical intervention intended to make a woman of him, for nearly two decades they have dismissed questions about the outcome of this important case because the twin was "lost to followup." In discussion following Diamond's presentation, sexologists expressed shock and dismay that they had been allowed continued to teach and to write that the penectomized twin had been successfully transformed into a woman, for twenty years after the care providers involved knew that the experiment had been a tragic failure. Vern Bullough, the distinguished historian, stood to denounce the Hopkins team and John Money as having acted unethically in the matter.

This should've been impossible should it not?

Are you in favor or against gender assigning surgeries to people with ill defined g3nitali@?

Born in 1921 in New Zealand, Money had come to America at about age 26, received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard and then joined Johns Hopkins, where his rise as a researcher and clinician specializing in sexuality was meteoric. Within a decade of joining Hopkins, he was already widely credited as the man who had coined the term “gender identity” to describe a person’s inner sense of himself or herself as male or female, and was the world’s undisputed authority on the psychological ramifications of ambiguous genitalia.

Amazing isn't it, one of the founding pillars of what many a profesional believe... is based on things that are now proven to be nothing but lies...

But Money was not interested solely in intersexes. As he has stated often in his writings, he saw intersexual syndromes, which he called “experiments of nature,” chiefly as a way to learn about the sexual development of so-called normal humans. Thus, he immediately generalized his theories about intersexes to include all children, even those born without genital irregularities. “In the light of hermaphroditic evidence ” he wrote in a 1955 paper that would become a classic in the field of sexual development, “it is no longer possible to attribute psychological maleness or femaleness to chromosomal, gonadal or hormonal origins. . . . The evidence of hermaphroditism lends support to a conception that, psychologically, sexuality is undifferentiated at birth and that it becomes differentiated as masculine or feminine in the course of the various experiences of growing up.” In simple terms, Money was advancing the view that all children form a sense of themselves as male or female according to whether they are dressed in blue or pink, given a masculine or feminine name, clothed in pants or dresses, given guns or Barbies to play with.

Do you agree or disagree with these views?

Money’s theory that newborns are psychosexually neutral was both unorthodox and against the current climate of science, which for decades had centered on the critical role of chromosomes and hormones in determining sexual behavior. But if his colleagues considered Money’s ideas to be science fiction, they weren’t prepared to say so publicly. His papers outlining his theory became famous in his field, helping not only to propel him to international renown as a sex researcher but also to speed his rise up the ladder at Johns Hopkins, where he ascended from assistant to associate professor of medical psychology, teaching his theory of infant sexual development to generations of medical students. By 1965, the year of John and Kevin Thiessen’s birth, Money’s reputation was virtually unassailable. He had for more than a decade been head of Hopkins’ Psychohormonal Research Unit (his clinic for treating and studying intersex kids), and he was shortly to help co-found Hopkins’ groundbreaking Gender Identity Clinic – a coup that helped earn him a reputation, says John Hampson, as “the national authority on gender disorder.”

...

[Legion]

You know what Zidane? I am tired of this biological reductionist bullshit! I am tired of responding to every one of your posts asking you to provide examples of human instinct and the mechanism for their opperation while in return you only provide subjective tests where none of us can review all the materials to examin all factors involved that don't demonstrate what i am asking of you.

You continuing refusal to explain human instinct while asserting it exists because of some flawed genetic comparison to other species is stereotypical of biological reductionists.

You completely deny the major enfluence of enviroment in human behavior all the while posting reports you think back your claims but are open to much interpretation and are clearly corrupted as it is nearly impossibly to pull the subject out of reality to prevent them from being exposed to enviromental factors.

I am also rather irritated you simply brush aside the reports i posted to you that directly refuted your report on Fruit FLies which was conducted on rats as well as much of the other things you have stated.

Wrt to the tests done on identical twins how can you possibly look at the body of evidence infront of you and say gene determine sexualit orientation? It makes no sense that identical twins would share less than 100% likeliness to both be gay if genes determing sexual orientation. Identical twins share 100% the same genes! If they do why aren't they both gay if genes determine sexual orienation?! Explain this and stop dodging it. You are going to have to allow fow enviromental factors. If genes decided this alone both should be 100% likely. Even the scientists running the tests expected the result to be 100%. You didn't even bother to respond to what was mentioned within the reports i provided you. You simply can't reduce sexuality to a dimorpic existance as you are trying! You keep repeating over and over again there is someting in genetics (beyond the creation of a libido to help provide sex drive) that leads one to selecting a mate without providing what it could be. You try and reduce this discussion to selection between heterosexuality and homosexuality though other orientations exist! Hense you are trying to render sexuality into a dimorphic state which it is not.

[zidane1strife]

You know, you keep saying I've ignored your information, but I haven't. I prefer to give you counter examples to disproving yours. I've agreed with you on the fact that the enviroment provides significant influences, that can alter ones behavior. I've agreed with you that many of the studies that've been done are indeed questionable, the gene region one, the twins, etc.

Still, I think that for example you've not disproven the fruit fly example. Only brought its relevance in sexuality to question. But it still remains as an example of more complex gene activity. Complex activity, as is suggested even in some of your sources.

You say I seem to categorize sexuality in a dimorphic view, and that I appear to be a reductionist. But I've given you ample examples showing that I do indeed believe that views that don't involve attraction towards one particular sex are possible. I've even given examples from intersexuals/hermaphrodites, etc. Showing you this is not the case. I do believe that attraction towards a particular sex, is seen throughout nature, and it's only logical for any genetically based inclination to follow suit.

It also seems you've agreed with me that there is genetic or if you like biological influence, but to me it seems you're the one that seems to diminish its importance. You appear to be in a way, the reductionist you claim I am, only in your case it's in favor of the enviroment.

I still think that my latest examples are not subjective. The fact will remain, that individuals who've refused sexual reassigment treatment exist. These cases can be reviewed and analyzed, but the mere existence of these individuals should be more than enough to indicate the existence of other factors.

PS

Again, I've accepted that there are many factors involved in sexual orientation. So I'm not being a reductionist, for I accept the influence of other factors.

My views about the natural inclination being towards a member of a particular sex, are so because that is the most logical thing to expect. For it seems to be the most beneficial for the species.

The last example was to show that many of the texts, and many of the views that seem to ignore the genetic influence on inclination/orientation, were greatly influenced by an unethical man throughout the decades. The case I provided was very famous, and very influential in particular. That is it wasn't just to show you a simple case, but to show that what seems like a man that appears to be a fundamental pillar for these views was corrupted.

[Legion]

Originally Posted by zidane1strife

You know, you keep saying I've ignored your information, but I haven't. I prefer to give you counter examples to disproving yours. I've agreed with you on the fact that the enviroment provides significant influences, that can alter ones behavior. I've agreed with you that many of the studies that've been done are indeed questionable, the gene region one, the twins, etc.

Your counter examples are anything but. They are highly questiona;ble and include other outside influence which are enviromental factors.

The test done on twins isn't just questionable. identical twins share 100% the same genes. If genes alone decided sexual orientation they'd be 100% likely to both be gay or heterosexual. The fact bailey and pillard tested children from the same households is even more convincing there are exterior factors which caused their decisions. Considering they lived in the same household and probably shared much of the same in terms of experiences they'd have similiar stimuli affecting them. If any of these stimuli triggered some form of behavior instinct wrt sexual orientation they both should have been exposed to it.

It is indeed revealing their tests did not follow with the stipulations of genetics.

Still, I think that for example you've not disproven the fruit fly example.

oh? The rat example was very close to the nature of the tests done on fruit flies. Did you read what the psychiatrist had to say about the test and the nature of the researchers' assumptions?

Only brought its relevance in sexuality to question. But it still remains as an example of more complex gene activity. Complex activity, as is suggested even in some of your sources.

The psychiatrist i mentioned within my link discussed how this "complex activity" had no barings on human behavior and continue to demonstrate exactly why.

According to this hypothesis, high prenatal androgen levels during the appropriate critical period cause heterosexuality in men and homosexuality in women. Conversely, low fetal androgen levels lead to homosexuality in men and heterosexuality in women. This hypothesis rests largely on the observation that in rodents early exposure to hormones determines the balance between male and female patterns of mating behaviors displayed by adults. Female rodents that were exposed to androgens early in development show more male-typical mounting behavior than do normal adult females. Males deprived of androgens by castration during the same critical period display a female mating posture caused lordosis (bending of the back) when they are mounted.

Many researchers consider the castrated male rat that shows lordosis when mounted by another male to be homosexual (as is the female rat that mounts others). Lordosis, however, is little more than a reflex: the male will take the same posture when a handler strokes its back. Furthermore, the male that mounts another male is considered to be heterosexual, as is the female that displays lordosis when mounted by another female. Applying such logic to humans would imply that of two people of the same sex engaged in intercourse only one is homosexual--and which member of the couple it is depends on the positrons they assume.

In addition to determining rodent making patterns, early hormonal exposure determines whether an animal's brain can regulate normal ovarian function. A male rat's brain cannot respond to estrogen by triggering a chain of events, called positive feedback, that culminates in the abrupt increase of luteinizing hormone in the bloodstream, which in turn triggers ovulation. Some researchers reasoned from this fact to the idea that homosexual men (whose brains they allege to be insufficiently masculinized) might have a stronger positive feedback reaction than do heterosexual men.

Two laboratories reported that this was the case, but carefully designed and executed studies, most notably those of Luis J. G Gooren of the Free University in Amsterdam, disproved those findings. Furthermore, the feedback mechanism turns out to be irrelevant to human sexual orientation: workers have since found that the positive-feedback mechanism is not sexually dimorphic in primates, including humans. If this mechanism is indistinguishable in men and women, it is illogical to suggest that it should be "feminized" in gay men.

You say I seem to categorize sexuality in a dimorphic view, and that I appear to be a reductionist. But I've given you ample examples showing that I do indeed believe that views that don't involve attraction towards one particular sex are possible. I've even given examples from intersexuals/hermaphrodites, etc. Showing you this is not the case. I do believe that attraction towards a particular sex, is seen throughout nature, and it's only logical for any genetically based inclination to follow suit.

What you have provided are supposed explanations for how the human mind can have a preconceived notion of gender and have a genetically defined sexual orientation. Since your argument thusly has been concerning heterosexuality and homosexuality i am left to come to no other conclusion. Concidering human sexual orientation is a dynamic behavior which includes more than just feelings towards adult males/females you'd have to have a genetic explanation for pedophiles, necrophiliacs, etc etc.

It also seems you've agreed with me that there is genetic or if you like biological influence, but to me it seems you're the one that seems to diminish its importance. You appear to be in a way, the reductionist you claim I am, only in your case it's in favor of the enviroment.

Isn't this just the pot calling the kettle black? You try to offer explanations for why humans would have sexual orientation predisposition but can not provide evidence for such a theory. Likewise you can not provide evidence for human instinct.

The very reason i rate enviroment so highly is that it has been proven to have dramatic effects on people. The very basis of our psychology rests on many factors which are largely enviromental.

I still think that my latest examples are not subjective. The fact will remain, that individuals who've refused sexual reassigment treatment exist. These cases can be reviewed and analyzed, but the mere existence of these individuals should be more than enough to indicate the existence of other factors.

I completely disagree with your assessment that other factors outside of enviroment have to be the determing factors.

You mention that one of these individuals who refused the sexual reassignment treatment but do not igknowledge others have had sex changes and have altered their lives and life styles.

What were the reasonings for "rejecting" this reassignment? I haven't read over the whole history of the material you have presented but i do have a biography written by a psychiatrist affiliated with that person. I believe its the same man you mentioned as i do recall something to do with identical twins...

Whatever the causes this falls right back on the identical twins tests run by Bailey and Pillard, and Neil Whitehead. Whitehead proved that genetic causes for disease within identical twins would appear 100% of the time in both. This makes perfect sense as both share 100% the same genes. if there were a genetic predetermination to sexual orientation both should be homosexual or heterosexual 100% of the time. This is undeniable. I think it is safe to say there is an enviromental influence even if there is a genetic one (which is hard to believe considering identical twins share 100% the same genes). Likewise it is also safe to say one could make a choice as to which orientation they are as evident in the tests on twins.

PS

Again, I've accepted that there are many factors involved in sexual orientation. So I'm not being a reductionist, for I accept the influence of other factors.

Is it possible that what you think is genetic really is enviromental?

My views about the natural inclination being towards a member of a particular sex, are so because that is the most logical thing to expect. For it seems to be the most beneficial for the species.

How do you explain then sexual orientations such as necrophilia, pedophilia, etc etc? Is it logical to assume they are genetically influenced as well?

The last example was to show that many of the texts, and many of the views that seem to ignore the genetic influence on inclination/orientation, were greatly influenced by an unethical man throughout the decades.

Considering much of what you have presented seems to come from or mention conduct within the 1970s I find the allegations of lies quit striking indeed. The 70s and the 90s were eras in psychological history where some of the most bogus genetic experiments on humans were conducted (i mentioned quite a few who had their findings altered). Even the psychiatrist mentioned within the link i provided refers to the psuedoscience presented to the media by Dean Hammer by which gay propagandists foisted on society. It doesn't strike me as odd at all allegations of lies from the most one of the most corrupted divisions of psychology would be the battle cry biological reductionists and evolutionary psychologists. Afterall, they have to convince everyone to believe them.

But in fact, according to Diamond's report, the penectomized twin steadfastly refused to grow into a woman, and now lives as an adult man. She didn't feel or act like a girl. She often discarded the estrogen pills which were prescribed at age 12, and she refused additional surgery to deepen the vagina which surgeons had constructed at 17 months of age, despite Hopkins staff's repeated attempts to convince her that life would be impossible without it. "You're not gonna find anybody unless you have vaginal surgery and live as a female," the twin recalls a Hopkins physician telling her.

I see very statements like these as a very convincing reason there is an enviromental reasons for the lack of adaption. I would say forced surgeries would be very tramatic for a growing child. Also the rhetoric used by the doctor would most likely have an effect.