quote:I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting. Sure, disadvantages happen.
Yikes. Take 'homosexual' and replace it with 'interracial' and this could be straight out of the playbook of the anti-miscegenation crowd from half a century or so ago.
The more things change rite
Or "disabled," or "Athiest," or "poor," or "immigrant."
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"But wait, this mode of thought suggests that the only value of women is their ability to reproduce. It can't be that this whole argument boils down to good old fashioned latent misogyny... right?"
I have been telling myself that his views are a confluence between his personality and his Mormon upbringing.
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quote:The claims of those who support gay marriage rest entirely on the idea that science has proved several things...
-- is that I've had this conversation with OSC, and none of my claims (as a supporter of gay marriage) rest entirely on any proofs of science, much less the ones he chose to list.
Interestingly, his secular opposition to gay marriage seems to rest entirely on this:
quote:The cultures that last longest are the ones that maximize the reproductive opportunities and security of the largest number of their members. They must believe that they have a fair chance to reproduce, must be reasonably sure that the children they raise are their own, and must trust that society will provide mating opportunities for their adult children and not act to interfere with their reproductive success.
If it were proven that certain homosexual behaviors maximized reproductive success, then, would OSC change his mind on this subject? Alternately, if a form of relationship were found to improve security and reproductive opportunities beyond what is offered by modern marriage, would OSC immediately call for this new form to be adopted and recognized?
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I must stop annoying myself because it gives me a stomach ache but-
quote:We expect heterosexual males -- males who are expressing the very drive that leads to reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape -- to be able to recognize that "no means no" at every stage of wooing and coition.
No... Rape and a sex drive is an entirelly different thing.
I've had enough. It's just too irratating.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Interestingly, his secular opposition to gay marriage seems to rest entirely on this:
quote:The cultures that last longest are the ones that maximize the reproductive opportunities and security of the largest number of their members. They must believe that they have a fair chance to reproduce, must be reasonably sure that the children they raise are their own, and must trust that society will provide mating opportunities for their adult children and not act to interfere with their reproductive success.
That's... Genuinely boggling.
I don't mean, "that's ridiculous" or "that's stupid" or "that's hateful"; I mean, I genuinely cannot quite put myself inside that mindset, unless I'm misunderstanding it or imagining it far more narrowly than the author intended. "Ability to reproduce"- no qualifiers- as the drive for civilization?
I mean, on a very basic and- I would think- obvious level, the ability of everyone to have as many children as they possibly can must eventually begin to put a strain on a civilization. Imagine the problems that have been postulated for the "Baby Boom" generation increased by an order of magnitude.
There are so many things that are so much more important to me than a maximized ability to reproduce, not least of which being that any children I do have are given the maximum ability to achieve their full potential, including in a plethora of ways that have absolutely nothing to do with their own ability to reproduce. And that potential may well actually be threatened by large population who feel their best measure of success is their own ability to increase that population as quickly as possible.
If there were an n that defined members of a successful civilization, I would think ability to breed would be only a part of it.
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I don't think that OSC even grasps how offensive his comparisons to rape are. At this point, he's proving himself to be so ludicrous in both an ethical and a logical level that I can't get mad at him, any more than I couldn't get mad at at a toddler for not grasping multiplication.
quote:"But there can be no serious question that homosexuality, to the degree that it cannot be overcome or outlasted, is a reproductive dysfunction."
No more than celibacy is, and yet OSC has never argued that virgin women must be encouraged to have sex and get pregnant. Gay men in his stories get married and have children, why don't his Catholic priests and nuns ever do?
quote:"There are, however, different ways of living with homosexual desires."
And there's also different ways of living with desires of celibacy. But OSC considers celibacy to be normal and non-problematic, and he considers homosexuality to be abnormal and problematic, even though they're equally non-reproductive.
quote:"Wouldn't we prevent dyslexia, if we could?"
Yeah -- we must find the celibate gene / psychological affliction that must be striking all those priests and nuns, and cure them of their affliction. Forcefully. They're reproductively diseased after all.
As yet, he's still not given us the slightest evidence that homosexuality should be considered an "affliction", except in the sense that certain parts of society don't like it. OSC wants all his non-celibate people to hetero married and producing children, NO MATTER WHETHER THEY WANT IT THEMSELVES OR NOT.
I'd ask OSC to ask his homosexual friends whether they feel that it's the homosexuality itself that causes them the greater misery or whether it's society's attitude towards homosexuality.
And if it's society's ATTITUDE towards homosexuality that's causing the misery, not the homosexuality itself --- then it's society's ATTITUDE that must be seen as the dysfunction to be cured.
But you won't see OSC bashing society's complete acceptance of celibacy in priests and nuns. No, you merely see him bashing its acceptance of homosexuality instead.
The ironic thing is that because homosexuality *is* partially gene-based, his continuous attempts to drive homosexuality underground into "normal reproductive patterns" probably means that more homosexual people get born in the next generation.
If he only urged people that actually want to reproduce to do so, he'd probably get fewer gay people in the next generation (and more importantly, less unhappiness all around).
Since I don't care one way or another about the number of gay people out there, I only care that those people who are gay are allowed full equality, that outcome is completely neutral to me.
But OSC, so eager for so-called "reproductive normality" ought be urging gay people to be gay at each other, EXACTLY so that they're not forced to pass their supposedly flawed genes to the next generation.
quote:The ironic thing is that because homosexuality *is* partially gene-based, his continuous attempts to drive homosexuality underground into "normal reproductive patterns" probably means that more homosexual people get born in the next generation.
It doesn't work that way. There is some evidence that homosexuality in one sibling is associated with increased fertility in the others, especially those of the opposite sex. It is also more likely that a second or third child of a certain sex will be gay. A large part of this process appears to be hormonal levels in the child, but every single individual reacts to hormonal levels in a different way, and has a unique chemistry.
Now, the fact that hormonal levels affect sexual orientation does not make homosexuals "diseased." It's more like being tall, being artistic, being athletic, or being shy. Your brain just develops the way it develops, and that's who you are. There are some things, on that level, that can't be changed for love or money, and along with that, it's *who* these people are. The idea that OSC loves some individual gays is in itself a contradiction: those people could not exist in another way- their sexuality is not on the surface, they're not all victims of sexual abuse, and they aren't all damaged goods.
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quote:The ironic thing is that because homosexuality *is* partially gene-based, his continuous attempts to drive homosexuality underground into "normal reproductive patterns" probably means that more homosexual people get born in the next generation.
It doesn't work that way. There is some evidence that homosexuality in one sibling is associated with increased fertility in the others, especially those of the opposite sex
Uh, that's true, but I don't see how what you said contradicted what I said in any manner.
This fertility in the sibling is presumably not affected by whether the gay sibling is ALSO reproducing or not. If both siblings are reproducing then, if anything, "gay genes" are passed to more people in the next generations, than if only the straight sibling was reproducing.
If OSC really wants the "affliction" to go extinct, its counterproductive of him to be urging gay people to procreate.
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quote:Gay men in his stories get married and have children, why don't his Catholic priests and nuns ever do?
The Children of the Mind of Christ were certainly married, and in Speaker for the Dead, when Andrew meets with Bishop Peregrino, they talk about the Speaking he did for the founder of the Filhos. Andrew mentions that the founder of the Filhos WANTED those who belonged to his order to leave it eventually and reproduce.
quote:OSC has never argued that virgin women must be encouraged to have sex and get pregnant.
Not in so few words, and usually he talks about marriage and stable relationships first. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Amka: I presume to know because I took parenting seriously. I've read books, I’ve read studies, I’ve listened to my pediatrician (whose well visits often involve questions about how my husband involves himself and his feelings). Parents are role models, and they’re gender role models as well. To show a negative example: fathers who abuse their wives tend to raise sons who will then abuse their wives.
There are few good substitutes for parental role models, and those usually involve closely related family members such as a grandparent or uncle.
As far as studies go (someone mentioned that), they all suffer from the same design problem: self selection. These studies are comparing people who wish to participate in a study about the effect or non-effect of (usually) lesbian parenting. The bias is already built into the study. Further problems involve the design of questions as well as biased subjective answers to those questions. Any time any psychological or sociological study must recruit volunteers, the conclusions of that study cannot be taken as representative of the whole population.
I've got a few problems with these objections.
1) While the self-selection bias introduces a source of error, this can be overcome in several ways.
-- One by using a hypothesis of a binary nature. You're asserting that there is a universal lack in same sex parents. I assuem that there are specific ways that you'll assert that they are worse. That's what has been done. People have put forth "This will be a difference between children of mixed sex parents and those of same sex parents." If this is true and more or less universal, this should be no problem with a volunteer subject pool. Remember, you're claiming that all same sex parents have a universal fault, not just the ones who wouldn't volunteer for a survey.
Second, you can do it with numbers. A large enough sample set vitiates these errors. I was going through some of the studies about this, counting the sample sizes. When I got to a little over 900, I stopped. That's 1800 or so parents didn't fit into your unavoidably deficient characterization.
2) While many of the studies relied on volunteers answering questionaires, many did not. Not only were there various designs that selected the school kids to study (these were opt out, but didn't rely on volunteers), but there were also studies built off of standardized mandatory assessments of adopted children.
3) As I mentioned above, many of the assessments were standardized, meaning that your assertion that the questions were biased is incorrect.
-- As an aside, I resent your assertions that I and my colleages don't care about integrity or the welfare of children. The facts aren't what you want to believe shouldn't give you license to commit personal attacks. Besides the unjust nature of your attack on the field as a whole, it's telling to me that there are several people (myself included) who started out believing, as you did, that children raised by same sex parents would tend to be somewhat worse off in some areas than those raised by mixed sex parents, but changed their view as the data didn't show this.
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I'd like to know, which studies and which books have you read that show that same sex parents are worse than mixed sexed? I am not aware of them.
I can't speak to what you talked about with your pediatrician. I can however say that the American Academy of Pediatrics
quote:recognizes that a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence that children with parents who are homosexual can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual
posted
Regarding the 1973 decision by the APA, we had an uncontentious thread about the history here
I'll quote myself:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The 1973/74 decision took place within the context of two wider cultural shifts that may make what happened somewhat clearer.
The first was a redefintition of the purpose of sex across the cultural board. The introduction of effective, reliable contraception and the century or so of efforts by contraception advocates had brought about a sharp change in the public perception of the purpose of sex. As the physical reality of sex leading to reproduction had been largely obviated, the idea that sex was primarily about reproduction was also falling by the wayside. By the 70s, even the Catholic Church had altered it's millenia-old view of sex by raising pleasure from a secondary role to procreation to of equal importance. Though thwarted by papal intervention, a commission called in 1966 even said that there was no reason in doctrine or practice for the Church to be against birth control. Outside the sexual arch-conservatism of the Catholic Church, the idea that sex solely for pleasure was ok and even healthy became widely accepted.
More specifically, the 50s and 60s saw a widespread attack on the two dominant schools of psychology, Pschyoanalytic (the traditioanl couch jockeys - pretty much like Freudian) and Behavioral (what of the rewards and punishments, Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, and such). Experimental analysis of the predictions of these two theories often found them wanting. In the field of psychopathology, new therapies were being developed and applied with remarkable sucess. Albert Ellis and others developed treatments based on their patients cognitions, fueling the fledgling Cognitive school of psychology. Advances is the biological understanding of the brain led to the development of a wide array of pharmocological treatments.
As these two schools of psychology weakened, so did their way of approaching and defining psychopathology. Several people touched on the idea of homosexuality as a deviation. That what the inital definition of what was a mental illness relied on: deviations. A person was sick when they deviated from most people in society, from what society expected of them, and most importantly, from what the theory the therapist adhered to said was normal.
There was a growing dissatisfaction with this theoretical orientation, both from people who believed the the theories involved were highly flawed and from people who were noticing the problems with labeling people as "ill" and that some of the people so labeled didn't seem to be having any real problems.
While there were isolated extremists such as Thomas Szasz before this, these issues really came to a head when the gay activists used sophisticated (and some not so sophisticated) political protests to force confrontations at APA meetings during 1972 and 73. Out of these confrontations, there developed a dialogue between the APA and these activists and within the APA as homosexual members came forward (although, as the NPR piece points out usually in some sort of disguise) to discuss why, actually, homosexuality should be considered a disorder.
First in comittee and then, in 1974, by the whole APA membership, the determination was made that there didn't exist sufficient evidence to say that gay people should actually be considered intrinsically sick. Due in large part to the agitation and forcing of the issue, the APA membership moved towards a characterization of psychopathology that now seems inevitible. Rather than basing their judgements of what was sick and what was healthy on the predictionsof theories, they analyzed people's functioning and drafted condtions by which it could be considered impaired.
The rest of the 70s was characterized by a re-evaluation of the field of psychotherapy under this different standard of pathology. This can be seen clearly reflected in the change from the DSM-II to the DSM-III in 1980.
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The actual history and progression of this is much messier and more prone to politcs than I'm making out. Check out the NPR piece or some of the other reasoures. There's great stories involved here and the decisions and divisions that sprang out of this are still active today, some in places you wouldn't expect.
Also, it's important to note that, while it would be silly to say that there isn't an air of endorsement of homosexuality to this decision (which is borne out by later APA actions), the APA doesn't consider the DSM as a standard for judging what's right and what's wrong. Removing it as a classification doesn't mean that they were saying that it was right, just that it didn't fit the qualifications for being considered a mental illness. There's actually at least one interesting interview with an APA member who agreed with this decision but still considered homosexuality wrong. I'll see if I can find a on-line version of it.
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I'm not sure, but it seems to me that the rest of OSC's article is patently absurd enough that there isn't really a need for me to bring up the actual science to rebut it. Is this other people's impression? I don't mean people who were critical to begin with. Is there anyone who thinks "Well, that's a cogent article that makes good points and accurately represents the current science on this issue."?
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I do agree with OSC that genes should never be used to excuse any behavior. Regardless of our genetic makeup, we should still be held accountable for our actions. Someone may have the gene for aggression, but there are numerous ways that they can deal with that extra aggression. In my experience, most geneticists would agree with me on that point (I am a genetic researcher so these issues come up frequently).
So while I think homosexual actions can be avoided, I think that being able to limit your activities does not mean you should. In order to argue that a desire should be repressed, you must establish that the activity does harm.
While I personally believe that God does not want us to engage in that activity, I don't think that alone is justification for restricting others. I believe God wants everyone to attend my specific church, but I would never dream of forcing people into church.
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quote:I'm not sure, but it seems to me that the rest of OSC's article is patently absurd enough that there isn't really a need for me to bring up the actual science to rebut it. Is this other people's impression?
I think there's a need to bring up the actual science to rebut it, because positions such as those expressed by OSC direly need to be addressed.
At the same time, science really isn't a critical concern for him. The whole attempt in his latest article to discredit the 'scientific' premises lending support to equal marriage rights for gays is an errant attempt to lend legitimacy to his whole idea that marriage should be about ensuring maximally efficient procreation in society. And that whole hackneyed argument is only an attempt to say that his opposition to gay marriage is not religious.
It's so disingenuous it makes my head spin, but I'm especially grated by the 'don't get me wrong, I have gay friends' part.
Bag of nickels, etc.
What is this, honestly.
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Therefore, our scientific efforts in regard to homosexuality should be to identify genetic and uterine causes, as well as environmental and social influences that put their children at greater risk of this reproductive dysfunction so that the incidence of this dysfunction can be minimized, and where it occurs anyway its negative effects on the individual and the rest of society can be minimized.
This is Eugenics.
The danger is in the assumptions he's making, and the prescription he suggests shows why the assumptions are dangerous.
It's weirdly ironic that OSC would involve himself in a creatonist attack on Darwinism, call Hitler a Darwinist, by association linking the theory of natural selection with eugenics and therefore fascism, and then come full circle and espouse eugenics himself while rationalizing his idea with lip-service to Darwinism...
It shows pretty clearly that he has a deeply flawed understanding of Darwinism to begin with.
Just to be clear, the problem with OSC's assumption (and he has no problem whatsoever dismissing any study he doesn't agree with, so this shouldn't be shocking to him), the jury really IS out on why homosexuality happens. But the fact that it happens is not proof positive that it is a de facto problem, or as he puts it "sexual dysfunction." This has never been established scientifically.
OSC again acknowledges that sexual identity exists on a spectrum which is observable. However, he fails to allow for the possibility that this spectrum is a functional aspect of human development, and that it may itself be an adaptive part of our makeup as human beings.
For instance, plasticity in sexual identification may be, and probably is, related to birth order. This may be important for the way that families develop, so that the environment a person grows up in, say with 3 sisters or 2 brothers or a brother and a sister, does have an effect on that person's own identification. If we start blithely monkeying with a process that has been going on since the dawn of time, trying to pre-program the place of every child on the sexual-identity spectrum, we have NO IDEA of the consequences. For all we really know, monkeying with our sexual-identity formation process could destroy vital aspects of the nuclear family, having entirely the opposite effect as would be intended.
The fact that there are pedophiles and sex addicts in the world, and the fact that these problems, which demonstrably harm people, are caused by our environments is not proof that all environmental effects are negative. Else, OSC would encourage that children NOT be raised by their parents, lest their parents in some way damage them. It's clear that OSC is aware that the environment can have positive effects, and there's no reason to dismiss out of hand that gender identity is not meant to be plastic in youth. There are many concievable reasons why it should be.
That is why Eugenics is a bad idea: it presupposes that there is an "ideal" state for human beings, just as OSC is suggesting, and that deviation from that state is dysfunction. The plain fact that there are no two alike human beings demonstrates the fallacy of this belief.
If you decide that a person's sexual identity places them in a qualitatively inferior position as a human being, you should be free to say the same about their level of interest in religion, their artistic and musical abilities, their math abilities, their height, their build, their "cognitive ability," all of which qualities are SPECTRAL in nature, meaning that each person's individual qualities cannot be effectively or conclusively judged against a standard, because that standard is unknowable. OSC falls prey to the most basic fallacy that encourages racism, sexism, and eugenics, the idea that he knows or that anyone knows, or that there even exists, an ideal state for a human being.
I read a very very interesting paper about this a few months ago, I must go track it down and share it. It details the history of Eugenics, and the underlying fallacy that plagues our society to this day.
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quote:The ironic thing is that because homosexuality *is* partially gene-based, his continuous attempts to drive homosexuality underground into "normal reproductive patterns" probably means that more homosexual people get born in the next generation.
It doesn't work that way. There is some evidence that homosexuality in one sibling is associated with increased fertility in the others, especially those of the opposite sex
Uh, that's true, but I don't see how what you said contradicted what I said in any manner.
This fertility in the sibling is presumably not affected by whether the gay sibling is ALSO reproducing or not. If both siblings are reproducing then, if anything, "gay genes" are passed to more people in the next generations, than if only the straight sibling was reproducing.
Ah, I see my mistake, I assumed you understood something about genetics and inheritance. Though I am not a geneticist or a scientist, I will do my best to explain why you are wrong.
Scientists, feel free to correct me.
It is not necessarily true that a parent who expresses a dominant trait is MORE likely to pass that trait on to their child as a dominant gene. It is as likely for that gene to exist as a recessive trait in that individual's siblings, and for it to be expressed as a dominant trait in a successive generation. So, the fact that a gay person does not have children will not eliminate gay people, IF (and it's a big IF), genes are solely determinant of sexuality. Besides which, there are many genes associated with sexuality and gender expression, and it would difficult to impossible to determine definitively which genes affect what, and how.
You can't imagine it in the same way you imagine things like hair and eye color. Red hair will eventually vanish from the human race because it is based on a single gene which expresses itself only when two parents carry a certain recessive trait, which causes a deficiency in hair and skin pigment, causing red hair. That probably developed among a closed population in Ireland. Homosexuality shows no sign of a beginning in human history, and is present in every culture and every population group in the world, as far as I know. It's clearly more complex than a single gene.
I hope that's clear and close to accurate. The basic point is that genes don't work in a totally linear fashion. There are a number of genes, for instance many genetic diseases, which continue to be passed from generation to generation DESPITE the fact that when expressed, the gene kills the person. There are carriers who spread the gene without it affecting them. Sickle cell is an example of this, I believe, and there are many many others.
I have blue eyes, despite the fact that neither of my parents do. Now according to you, I must be adopted.
quote: If OSC really wants the "affliction" to go extinct, its counterproductive of him to be urging gay people to procreate.
And again, what is being suggested is Eugenics, and it is a class of theories about human beings which is based on false reasoning.
posted
Actually, if the gay gene (or one of them) is actually on the X chromosome as has been hypothesized, then sons of male men will not get the gene at all. Daughters will, however, be guaranteed to be carriers. So, gay men should not be having gay sons in theory (unless the gay man is hooking up with a female who is a carrier and assuming that the X gene model is the actual mechanism).
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quote:I'm not sure, but it seems to me that the rest of OSC's article is patently absurd enough that there isn't really a need for me to bring up the actual science to rebut it. Is this other people's impression?
I think there's a need to bring up the actual science to rebut it, because positions such as those expressed by OSC direly need to be addressed.
And I for one find you cogent and effective on the issue. I'd like to hear more. In fact I think you should write a more extended treatment of OSC's basic logical lapses. No need to be specific if he isn't being, but you could give a general treatment of his thought process from a scientific viewpoint, which you are good at.
Samprimary as well, from a more political angle- I find it enlightening to have the crap that people fling around regarding this issue (from both sides most assuredly) spelled out and dismissed for what it is.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: Actually, if the gay gene (or one of them) is actually on the X chromosome as has been hypothesized, then sons of male men will not get the gene at all. Daughters will, however, be guaranteed to be carriers. So, gay men should not be having gay sons in theory (unless the gay man is hooking up with a female who is a carrier and assuming that the X gene model is the actual mechanism).
Of course, thank you, that was the piece of information I had on the tip of my tongue and had forgotten.
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posted
Can you throw a bone to the scientifically disinclined and explain the difference between "genetic" and "hereditary"? I was under the impression that if sexuality is genetic, it doesn't necessarily mean its hereditary.
It's been a long time since 10th grade bio, but can you clarify this for me?
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Ah, I see my mistake, I assumed you understood something about genetics and inheritance.
That *sounds* obnoxious. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean it that way.
quote: It is not necessarily true that a parent who expresses a dominant trait is MORE likely to pass that trait on to their child as a dominant gene. It is as likely for that gene to exist as a recessive trait in that individual's siblings, and for it to be expressed as a dominant trait in a successive generation.
Yes, you're wrong, a dominant trait IS atleast as likely to pass as a recessive trait. But even if it were less likely to pass than a recessive trait, my argument would still hold, since the comparison isn't recessive dominant but rather between dominant AND recessive vs not-even-recessive.
quote: I have blue eyes, despite the fact that neither of my parents do. Now according to you, I must be adopted.
No I never said that. I understand quite well about recessive genes, thank you very much.
Honestly the points you refute, and the point I made have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And I don't have the patience to keep repeating my words, when you can merely reread them.
I never claimed it was a single gene. I never claimed it was as simple as dominant/recessive. I never claimed only gay people produce gay people.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: Actually, if the gay gene (or one of them) is actually on the X chromosome as has been hypothesized, then sons of male men will not get the gene at all. Daughters will, however, be guaranteed to be carriers. So, gay men should not be having gay sons in theory (unless the gay man is hooking up with a female who is a carrier and assuming that the X gene model is the actual mechanism).
Of course, thank you, that was the piece of information I had on the tip of my tongue and had forgotten.
You ignore the part where he said "Daughters will, however, be guaranteed to be carriers" -- which supports my conclusions, and not yours.
No matter how you cut it, if homosexuality has a partially genetic base, gay people reproducing their genes means more gay people in the future than if they didn't reproduce those genes.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: It is not necessarily true that a parent who expresses a dominant trait is MORE likely to pass that trait on to their child as a dominant gene. It is as likely for that gene to exist as a recessive trait in that individual's siblings, and for it to be expressed as a dominant trait in a successive generation.
Don't confuse matters by trying to pigeon-hold everything as "dominant" or "recessive".
That kind of thinking is not often useful outside of high school biology.
quote:You can't imagine it in the same way you imagine things like hair and eye color. Red hair will eventually vanish from the human race because it is based on a single gene which expresses itself only when two parents carry a certain recessive trait, which causes a deficiency in hair and skin pigment, causing red hair.
Becoming rare is not the same thing as vanishing. There would still be plenty of people with the one copy of the red-hair allele, and when two such people had kids, some of those kids would be red-heads.
quote:I have blue eyes, despite the fact that neither of my parents do. Now according to you, I must be adopted.
Who on earth said that? I don't think that anyone has said anything that demonstrates an ignorance of that much genetics.
quote:And again, what is being suggested is Eugenics, and it is a class of theories about human beings which is based on false reasoning.
The method of affecting the gene pool of future generations by over-breeding some alleles and under-breeding other will work, (it's not like animal breeders didn't know that for centuries) it's just that it only works if the traits you are basing your decision on are genetic. And people tended to decide who breeds and who doesn't breed based on things that weren't actually genetic, like doing well on an IQ test.
But no one is suggesting that we carry out Eugenics, but what is being pointed out is the irony that if you wanted there to be no more gay people, the last thing you want to do is to encourage them to get into false, dishonest marriages with straight people and have lots of kids.
However, I do not think this is OSC's goal, I think his is more for gay people to be gay, but act straight. So he doesn't care if a gay man marries a woman and has 20 gay kids, as long as those 20 gay kids enter into straight marriages. Their miserable life in lovelesss marariges is less important than the fact that their loveless marriages validate his own choice to be married.
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I don't know. I can't help but think that sexuality, gender and humanity in general is a lot more complicated than folks think. We'll never really understand it with this template of normal. It doesn't seem like that Atlantic article... really meshes totally with OSC's points of view... Totally meshes...
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My knowledge of biology extends to advanced highschool biology, years ago. So I'm glad to see someone knows more than I do.
quote: However, I do not think this is OSC's goal, I think his is more for gay people to be gay, but act straight. So he doesn't care if a gay man marries a woman and has 20 gay kids, as long as those 20 gay kids enter into straight marriages. Their miserable life in lovelesss marariges is less important than the fact that their loveless marriages validate his own choice to be married.
The excerpt I quoted explicity advocated the active elimination of "the sexual dysfunction" of homosexuality, and not just homosexual behavior.
I wanted to point out that blithely attempting to do so is most likely futile and probably destructive as well.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:And I for one find you cogent and effective on the issue. I'd like to hear more. In fact I think you should write a more extended treatment of OSC's basic logical lapses. No need to be specific if he isn't being, but you could give a general treatment of his thought process from a scientific viewpoint, which you are good at.
Someone just introduced me to the concept of "the dumbness of smart people," and used Orson Scott Card as a profound example of it: He's demonstrably smart. His good books are really good. And yet he's completely incapable of making any progress in his own personal philosophy because he refuses to let go of his preconceptions.
So, according to this guy, all we're seeing here is more evidence of the fact that people don't like letting go of their core ideology, especially if they're that dead-set on it, and that they will make all kinds of crazy arguments if pressed rather than do so. Pseudoscientific. Pseudological. Impervious. OSC is not remarkable in any way in this regard, except when you combine his stature with his cultural agenda that demands — demands — that gay marriage be stopped at all costs.
When you combine it with this agenda to assert the necessity of his social concepts, he fills up the public record of him by saying progressively more and more things which just come off as ... crazy. And as more people are driven to frustration with him or rejection of him because of this, the more you see exactly what you're seeing here.
You could no sooner convince him of the faultiness of his arguments against gay marriage than you could convince Behe of the faultiness of his arguments against evolutionary theory. As a person, he is no longer anywhere near the desire or ability to challenge those preconceptions. He is only interested in asserting them to the world. Anyone who disagrees with him can only really be interpreted by him as being, somehow, in remiss of the facts, or ignorant, or willfully blind.
All you are going to see from this point on is him playing out this mindset. He may become more apoplectic, or he might grow weary and retire from it, but his mind is set in stone.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: OSC falls prey to the most basic fallacy that encourages racism, sexism, and eugenics, the idea that he knows or that anyone knows, or that there even exists, an ideal state for a human being.
Yes! Exactly. This idea that everyone must fit into gender molds is just bizarre. Clearly, everyone doesn't fit and cramming people into them is wrong, sad, and deeply insulting to people who manage to live pretty decent lives without meeting the ideals of other people.
I can't express how angry this attitude makes me. NO, you arrogant, self-righteous jerks, you are not necessarily the end all of humanness. Everybody does not have to be just like you.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Scott, I think you missed my use of the word "everyone". I am not denying that there are gender roles and that lots, even most people find them reasonably comfortable.
What I find bizarre is the idea that people who don't fit these molds - and there are plenty of historical examples who don't - should be altered to fit.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:This idea that everyone must fit into gender molds is just bizarre.
It's not bizarre at all. It's a fairly well-recorded historical phenomenon.
The idea that gender roles don't exist-- now that's bizarre.
It really isn't. It's an artificial concept, like race that has caused mostly a lot of trouble and pain to people who couldn't fit the norm. The norm itself is an illusion anyway. People are much more complicated than girls=dresses and pink, boys, pants and blue. Not to mention that there are other cultures to consider.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:What I find bizarre is the idea that people who don't fit these molds - and there are plenty of historical examples who don't - should be altered to fit.
I don't know why you find it bizarre. It's a concept that's been around for ages and ages.
Of course, that doesn't mean it's right, any more than the concept of open (or null) gender roles is right merely because it's modern.
Syn:
Gender roles were not an artificial concept, historically. The sexes evolved both biologically and psychologically to fulfill different purposes-- part of OSC's premise calls out this point. (Xenocide and Children of the Mind also treat on his views)
Whether those roles are outmoded is up for discussion. But artificial, they aren't. They are ingrained in humanity's genes.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Fine. I find it bizarre that anyone who is not stupid and who lives in the 21st century and is not blinded by arrogance still cling to that idea.
And goodness knows we don't want to rise above our genes.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:But artificial, they aren't. They are ingrained in humanity's genes.
From my understanding of the cross cultural research on the universal differences between men and women, they are actually largely cultural artifacts and not so much ingrained in our genes.
Where are you getting your information on this Scott?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I'm having a hard time believing that any serious research on the subject doesn't take into account the basic genetic differences between men and women, and how those differences came to create similar roles in many diverse cultures throughout the world.
I'm getting my ideas from anthropology textbooks I've studied and neurobiology articles I've read.
You?
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quote:I find it bizarre that anyone who is not stupid and who lives in the 21st century and is not blinded by arrogance still cling to that idea.
It's an idea that all of us cling to, at some point. How strange is too strange for you to accept, kmboots?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
You think everyone clings to the idea that everyone else must fit their own ideas of gender roles? Really? Who do you mean by "all of us"?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:I'm having a hard time believing that any serious research on the subject doesn't take into account the basic genetic differences between men and women, and how those differences came to create similar roles in many diverse cultures throughout the world.
I'm getting my ideas from anthropology textbooks I've studied and neurobiology articles I've read.
You?
As I said, cross-cultural research done looking for universal differences between the sexes. There are surprisingly few.
What are these genetic differences that you're talking about and what sex roles do you think are ingrained in our genes? Maybe you're actually talking about the things that fall into these established differences.
---
edit: Also, the last I looked at this was back in 1999. Maybe your information is more recent. When was it from?
edit 2: I had a thought. Maybe you're talking about common cultural responses driven by biological necessities. For example, women get pregnant. This state and its importance and vulnerability can prompt a common constellation of behaviors and attitudes. But that's not a direct expression of the genes, which is what it seemed that you were talking about.
posted
I don't really think gender roles are engrained in the genes at all. I also think evolutionary biology is extremely irratating and those lines from Childer of the Mind and Xenocide really bugged me. I think people are a lot more complicated than that.
Or at least I am, because I never seem to fit into that pattern completely.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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'97. The neurobiology stuff I've looked at is as recent as 2001. Not cutting edge, but still...
Are we using different meanings for the same words?
Are you saying there are no (or few) genetic differences between men and women? How are you qualifying your opinion?
quote:what sex roles do you think are ingrained in our genes?
'Ingrained' was a hyper-dramatic word-- influenced by our genes is probably better. And even that of course doesn't do the topic justice: as you rightly point out, there's the influence of culture to consider.
However, there are very real physiological differences in men and women that have led to similarities in the development of gender roles across the world. Women all over the world take 9 months to bring a child to life, and can generally only birth one at a time. This limitation has had enormous effect on human culture as a whole-- and that's just a starting point. (For a very basic example, as populations take better care of mothers and children, their populations tend to grow; as they grow, they tend to settle. As they settle, they tend to move away from hunting and gathering; they tend to create more complex belief systems, and technology, etc)
I'm not sure, but the exception to this rule might be some of the pygmy tribes in Africa; I seem to remember that their birth cycle is much faster than other women's, and also that their life span is much shorter.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: You think everyone clings to the idea that everyone else must fit their own ideas of gender roles? Really? Who do you mean by "all of us"?
Are we playing at questions now?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: You think everyone clings to the idea that everyone else must fit their own ideas of gender roles? Really? Who do you mean by "all of us"?
Are we playing at questions now?
What good would that do?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Biological necessities aren't direct expressions of genetic makeup?
How did you come by this opinion?
The biological necessities are (sort of) direct expressions. The varied cultural responses (some of which have many aspects in common) to these biological necessities are not.
This is an enormously important distinction ni cross-culutural studies and really for anyone trying to determine what actually is "human nature".
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Gender roles were not an artificial concept, historically. The sexes evolved both biologically and psychologically to fulfill different purposes-- part of OSC's premise calls out this point. (Xenocide and Children of the Mind also treat on his views)
Whether those roles are outmoded is up for discussion. But artificial, they aren't. They are ingrained in humanity's genes.
Scott, we are not discussing the existence of gender differences, but the idea of an ideal state for either gender. I am contending that it is a fallacy to believe that there exists an ideal man, or an ideal women, and from this contention I argue that any attempt to define clear and "natural" gender roles as opposed to artificial ones that are the product of culture is problematic to the point of impossibility.
My problem with the argument you are making is that it is not fundamentally different from a defense of any sociological fallacy. Your argument works for racism: "it's obvious by nature that white people are different from blacks, because look at the way things are now!" This logic served originally to encourage europeans to conquer other cultures because their differences were seen as corresponding to their appearances, rather than their environments. The deviation of dark skinned people from the "norm" encountered among more comprehensible and familiar civilizations allowed dark-skinned people to be dehumanized in a completely artificial way.
I also wish to point out that you, and OSC, point to the "natural" state of things, and then advocate artificially altering all other states to realign them with "natural" or "normal." I ask, how can you presume to know that homosexuality is created or exists as a deviation from our natural state, based only on your observations of your own, non-ideal, behavior? Your assumption, at any time, that you are aware of the ideal condition is a fallacy, because that condition cannot exist.
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