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[Eighty Deuce]

We can cure the homosexuality gene! Wasn't this a joke on the venture brothers?

 

[CelticKnight]

So it's only a matter of time before somone makes an army of gay super-soldiers then?

 

[Ethelwulf]

The notion that, even hypothetically, someone can alter a chemical in your body and change something as intimate as who do you love is a scary one and I guess there's no getting around that. But what I think it must be said is that stuff is complex; something as complex as our behavior, even if it has a biological component, can't easily (or maybe even in principle) be reduced to chemical reactions within our body because the chemical reactions outside our body (i.e., the rest of the universe) also matters.

Debatable but I respect your opinion. Great that you are interested in these topics! I love them and my current work is on this Complex systems and emergent properties.

 

[War Peaceman]

So it's only a matter of time before somone makes an army of gay super-soldiers then?

Thankfully the USA already has the gay bomb tech to counter it!

But this is a really interesting article, thanks for posting it OP.

 

[Sblargh]

Debatable but I respect your opinion. Great that you are interested in these topics! I love them and my current work is on this Complex systems and emergent properties.

But when you say (and if I'm quoting out of context, I'm sorry) "genes are now seen as a substrate for intricate expression patterns caused in part by the environment." isn't another way of saying that the enviroment, i.e., what happens outside our bodies, also matter?

Also, if you could link me to something that clarifies what "expression pattern" means, it would make me very happy!

 

[SomTervo]

Yeah, it is an interesting topic for philosophy because the concepts are still developing within the scientific community; and as the science discover new things, philosophy must take it into consideration.

The fear of determinism is as inevitable as, I believe, justifiable. So much of our morals and ethics (and institutions and social organizations) are based around the notion of freedom that you can't expect to say that such and such is not a choice, but a consequence of something no one has control over without creating reasonable concern. At the same time, you can't ignore science.

The notion that, even hypothetically, someone can alter a chemical in your body and change something as intimate as who do you love is a scary one and I guess there's no getting around that. But what I think it must be said is that stuff is complex; something as complex as our behavior, even if it has a biological component, can't easily (or maybe even in principle) be reduced to chemical reactions within our body because the chemical reactions outside our body (i.e., the rest of the universe) also matters.

Loving your posts, but I'm not sure about the discussion of determinism. Are you suggesting it's worth questioning? Because from my perspective everything in the universe is mathematically determined anyway, there's no way things won't happen the way they will. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, 'the moment is structured that way'.

It's scary that altering a chemical in your body can affect who you are interested in - but every single thing about your personality and person is controlled 100% by your body in a predetermined, ultimately measurable fashion. Your personality is just a huge amount of electrical connections, for which the growth basis and structure is in your chemistry (both of which can be altered).

Edit: reading your posts further, I think we're agreeing. I just dislike the fear/stigma around determinism. I think it would be a healthy thing to move past for human culture.

 

[Kelpie]

Shame I can't control fire or something along with being gay. That would be rad.

That would be rad. Maybe someday.

 

[Buddha Beam]

I can see it now, weapons in the future that switch your sexual orientation.

First we hit 'em with the Gay Gun, then we hit 'em with the Viagra Gun and bang - they start fucking in the middle of the battle field.

 

[SigSig]

I can see it now, weapons in the future that switch your sexual orientation.

Smart guns that only work if you are a a gay liberal - wake up sheeple!

 

[TheSlySoul]

Interesting study, I always thought the need for mating was biological but who we choose to do it with was other factors.
Brain chemistry does make sense.

Edit: Hope they do not try to make a cure, would send wrong message.

 

[Spiritwalker]

I wouldn't be surprised if switching sexuality becomes possible sometime in the distant future

 

[Ratrat]

Interesting study, I always thought the need for mating was biological but who we choose to do it with was other factors.
Brain chemistry does make sense.

Edit: Hope they do not try to make a cure, would send wrong message.

They will just allow parents to abort their babies instead.

 

[Sblargh]

Loving your posts, but I'm not sure about the discussion of determinism. Are you suggesting it's worth questioning? Because from my perspective everything in the universe is mathematically determined anyway, there's no way things won't happen the way they will. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, 'the moment is structured that way'.

It's scary that altering a chemical in your body can affect who you are interested in - but every single thing about your personality and person is controlled 100% by your body in a predetermined, ultimately measurable fashion. Your personality is just a huge amount of electrical connections, for which the growth basis and structure is in your chemistry (both of which can be altered).

Edit: reading your posts further, I think we're agreeing. I just dislike the fear/stigma around determinism. I think it would be a healthy thing to move past for human culture.

Certain events (notably natural selection itself, and depending on the theory, quantum mechanics and neurology) are probabilistic in nature, not to mention stuff that is simply too complex to calculate like the effects of all your social interactions in life even if, in principle, you could calculate one.

Thinking of the world not in a deterministic way may be too pragmatic to ever give up. Even if it doesn't make sense. And maybe it does.

 

[TheSlySoul]

I wouldn't be surprised if switching sexuality becomes possible sometime in the distant future

I remember a Whitest Kids You Know sketch where they could modify the race, sexuality, personality, and other things of their kid. Would be a future...

 

[Ahasverus]

I'd take a cure

 

[Always-honest]

Depends on what you mean by digest. Haha.

It is easy to understand as it is an introductory book; it makes the effort to present the subjects with clarity and to not overburden people without a background on biology with esoteric terms, but also because it is an introductory book, it deals with subjects as distinct as evolutionary psychology, the meaning of progress and how complexity can arise without a design.

So in the end, you kind of have to organize your brain to deal with all those different topics and maybe choose the ones that picked your interest the most and go back to those chapters (and then to the "further reading" section of those chapters).



.

Sounds great to me. Thanx!

 

[QuicheFontaine]

That seems like a slightly lacking reason for poisoning pregnant women.

It's not like it hasn't been tried before.

lol, from that wiki page:

The reports also include many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in the combat area

Bees?

 

[Razmos]

I'd take a cure

Are you the gay equivalent of Rogue?

Do you suck the life out of anyone you touc- wait don't answer that

 

[……forgetit]

lol, from that wiki page:



Bees?

 

[Dictator93]

Are you the gay equivalent of Rogue?

Do you suck the life out of anyone you touc- wait don't answer that

My friends and I always used to joke how rogue handjobs would suck. BUt little did we know!

 

[Ahasverus]

Are you the gay equivalent of Rogue?

Do you suck the life out of anyone you touc- wait don't answer that

The republican definition of life, yes haha

 

[DedValve]

So all the homosexuality metaphors in X-Men movies were legit?

Shiiiieeeeet.

Thanks obama for injecting me with dna and turning me gay. I hope i get ice powers.

 

[Golnei]

The republican definition of life, yes haha

You can absorb embryos through people's skin?

 

[DedValve]

If there was a specific gene, and there was a way to alter it, would it be ethical to decide your child's orientation?

I guess best case scenario for this is making everyone bi with no pedophilia sexuality and no strong preference to boys/girland let the pieces fall where they lie.

But thats not gonna happen if gene manipulation is possible on that scale. Scary thoughts....

 

[braves01]

It would be great if people could have a choice about their orientation so hopefully some kind of treatment comes out of this.

 

[dity]

You can absorb embryos through people's skin?

I thought everyone did this.

 

[Rayis]

The implications of being able to "cure" homosexuality make me extremely uncomfortable, can we cure homophobia instead? that'd be great

 

[Razmos]

It would be great if people could have a choice about their orientation so hopefully some kind of treatment comes out of this.

I can't quite put into words why the idea of a 'cure' for homosexuality fills me with dread.

 

[Sesuadra]

I can't quite put into words why the idea of a 'cure' for homosexuality fills me with dread.

I understood the post more like "someone who is straight wants to be gay? okay! someone who is gay wants to be straight? you go." and not like "hey turn everyone who is gay straight"..but maybe I am to optimistic?

 

[dity]

It would be great if people could have a choice about their orientation so hopefully some kind of treatment comes out of this.

This post irks me somewhat. "Choice about their orientation" and "treatment" don't seem work together for me.

 

[Ethelwulf]

But when you say (and if I'm quoting out of context, I'm sorry) "genes are now seen as a substrate for intricate expression patterns caused in part by the environment." isn't another way of saying that the enviroment, i.e., what happens outside our bodies, also matter?

Also, if you could link me to something that clarifies what "expression pattern" means, it would make me very happy!

Oh I agree with that The environment should play a very important role in gene expression. I was just pinpointing the fact that you mentioned "the universe" as if stars or matter in The Universe (capital U) or something had a direct impact in our behavior, but if you're referring to the universe as environmental factors (nutrition, habits, social interactions, etc) is ok.

By "expression patterns" I mean a complex regulatory gene network which has both deterministic (biologically speaking) and flexible (through epigenetics) states. Here's the abstract of a Nature review paper from 2005:

The highly coordinated expression of thousands of genes in an organism is regulated by the concerted action of hundreds of transcription factors and chromatin proteins, as well as by epigenetic mechanisms. Understanding the architecture of these vastly complex regulatory networks is one of the main challenges in the postgenomic era. New microarray-based techniques have become available for the genome-wide mapping of in vivo protein-DNA interactions and epigenetic marks. Data sets obtained with these techniques begin to offer the first comprehensive views of genetic and epigenetic regulatory networks.

You can read more at the link although it might not be that accesible. Is review paper and has has scientific terminology.

Here is the Wikipedia page on Gene Regulatory Networks.

Any more information you might want just quote or pm me I love this topic, so the more I discuss the more I learn.

 

[Spiritwalker]

It's not about "curing" anything, but rather giving people a choice they never had.

 

[Golnei]

The implications of being able to "cure" homosexuality make me extremely uncomfortable, can we cure homophobia instead? that'd be great

Curing one would cure the other. But the logistics would make it futile - even if there were somehow a way to screen for it in a way that was mostly reliable, a large portion of the world's population might not have access to appropriate equipment; meaning that even if those with the means to perform the required tests aborted afflicted pregnancies, there would still be a not-inconsiderable amount of people with that expression pattern born. And considering it's a complicated combination of factors rather than a simple on-off switch, it's not like a horrific campaign of eugenics stands any chance of eliminating it within a population, it can only be controlled on the level of individual terminations.

 

[Rayis]

I understood the post more like "someone who is straight wants to be gay? okay! someone who is gay wants to be straight? you go." and not like "hey turn everyone who is gay straight"..but maybe I am to optimistic?

That'd be the way it would be used in 99% of cases, realistically those most interested in a cure are those who aren't very fond of homosexuality

 

[Razmos]

I understood the post more like "someone who is straight wants to be gay? okay! someone who is gay wants to be straight? you go." and not like "hey turn everyone who is gay straight"..but maybe I am to optimistic?

Well being straight is considered the norm, I can't imagine anyone choosing to be gay. Plus there would be ridiculous things like parents choosing for their children.

For it to work like that being gay and being straight would have to be equal which they absolutely are not. And what about bisexuals? what about Asexuals? Even being optimistic it's still really bad.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Well, this thread certainly took a eugenic turn.

 

[Fink]

Actually manipulating orientation is probably far-fetched, but it's not that implausible to believe that if a reliable screening method were eventually available for a consistent set of symptoms relatively early into the pregnancy, parents could make the decision to abort it based on that information.

Can you abort your child on the basis of not being male / female? There's gotta be some sort of measures in place to prevent that from happening. Even if being homosexual is not "normal" there's nothing preventing a gay child from growing up to function in society.

 

[Chezzymann]

There's a lot of resistance to acknowledging biological basis to human behavior, which makes no sense since we have many "conditions" which are known to originate from the brain being wired in a different way.

Don't crocodiles genders get determined on the temperture of where they're born? Stuff like this isn't new to nature at all

 

[Golnei]

I mean, can you abort your child on the basis of not being male / female?

Yes. Frequently.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Can you abort your child on the basis of not being male / female? There's gotta be some sort of measures in place to prevent that from happening. Even if being homosexual is not "normal" there's nothing preventing a gay child from growing up to function in society.

You can abort on the basis of wanting to abort. You don't need a reason to abort other than you don't want the kid.

 

[dity]

It's not about "curing" anything, but rather giving people a choice they never had.

But how would you come to that choice?

 

[DedValve]

I understood the post more like "someone who is straight wants to be gay? okay! someone who is gay wants to be straight? you go." and not like "hey turn everyone who is gay straight"..but maybe I am to optimistic?

The only reason you would ever want to change sexuality is if you where pressured into it. A straight person would NEVER willingly choose to be gay. A gay person on the other hand has a host of reasons of why they would be straight, almost none of them exist in a world where gays arent persecuted.

If this type of gene manipulation where to come and be widespread it would pretty much hallow out our numbers in 1 generation.

 

[John Kowalski]

It's not about "curing" anything, but rather giving people a choice they never had.

Yeah, until you're required to go through antigay inoculations to get certain jobs in certain companies, then you're required to have them if you want to work for the government, then they become standard inoculations given to ever kid....

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

He must have not met the american right.

The American right will hold whatever beliefs they hold irrespective of facts. No matter what information is out there, they will twist it to fit an anti-gay agenda if that is what they want to push.

Misuse of information is never a good reason to stifle research. Bigotry is based on the lack of information and a biased search for supporting evidence. There isn't anything researchers can do about that. They shouldn't even think about it.

It is nice when they explicitly say "no, you should not conclude X, Y, or Z based on this study," so they should keep doing that.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Yeah, until you're required to go through antigay inoculations to get certain jobs in certain companies, then you're required to have them if you want to work for the government, then they become standard inoculations given to ever kid....

That's reaching a bit, dontcha think? Not even today can companies discriminate openly like that without getting blowback. I mean, if in the future eugenics becomes the main policy, sure maybe that will happen, but we're not Gattaca yet.

 

[poppabk]

Hopefully, for encouraging and fruitful discussions. People tend to dislike (fear?) any claims about biology being on top of nurture though, so let's wait and see if this study is further supported by others.

Epigenetics is both nature and nurture.

 

[Fink]

Yes. Frequently.

You can abort on the basis of wanting to abort. You don't need a reason to abort other than you don't want the kid.

Geez... I'm glad for choice but it's such a terrible reason.

I would hope for a future where we can embrace our differences but if we could determine stuff like sexuality before birth and act upon it I am afraid for our future.

 

[Ethelwulf]

Epigenetic is both nature and nurture.

It is yeah! Not gonna argue with that. Isn't that fantastic?

 

[Golnei]

Geez... I'm glad for choice but it's such a terrible reason.

I would hope for a future where we can embrace our differences but if we could determine stuff like sexuality before birth and act upon it I am afraid for our future.

Sex-selective abortion isn't purely a modern issue, it's closer to another form of the age-old phenomenon of female infanticide. You might find the reasoning disagreeable, but at least it's a clinical abortion and not carrying a baby to term before drowning it.

 

[E92 M3]

I know twins where one is gay and the other is straight - it's very interesting. I've been fascinated with genetics for a long time and would love to read about the biological cause for homosexuality and how it exactly works. Chemical modification to DNA is an interesting perspective that I have not thought about yet.

Personally, always thought it was linked with certain gene expression caused by the environmental stimuli. Though, for now everyone is just guessing.