This is getting really heady/philosophical and somewhat off topic, but it's an interesting debate.
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Originally Posted by tore
If this DNA was changed, so could your thoughts, feelings and personality change depending on how big the change was. Psychology is a study of biological phenomenons; thoughts, feelings, behaviours. You could call it a specialized branch of biology if you wanted to.
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I'm not necessarily disputing that, it's more like I'm asking "Ok, so what?" Like you say that our thoughts, feelings and such can be changed by a change in our bodies, but how can we know that without knowledge of both our bodies AND our thoughts, feelings etc? I would argue more that psychology (and sociology) are studies of the application of biology, rather than specialized branches of it--the study of thoughts, emotions, cultural interactions, the whole "nurture" side of the equation--in order to find the patterns that allow us to draw parallels to things like genetics.
Thinking on it for a moment, I feel a bit weird making that distinction, but then again, that's exactly my point--any discussion of the one IS a discussion of the other--all kinds of information are relevant to an objective truth.
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Furthermore, psychological theory is not always required to test the effect of thoughts and emotions. F.ex I have a girlfriend who studies the effect of fear on the learning ability of chickens. She is not studying fear itself, only the effect of it (similar to your imprinting example) so psychological theory is not required. She just needs to recognize fear so that she can register it and perhaps rank it on a scale so that she can generate data for statistics.
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But that's also a very specialized study, when what we're talking about in terms of sexuality and human behavior is clearly far more complex than that. Even recognizing "homosexuality" in order to investigate a biological root, requires establishing a definition of what "homosexuality" is and that definition is going to be culturally-based. You could turn around and argue that cultural basis would have its roots in biology (and you'd be right), but that statement would also rely on cultural definitions, and so on and so forth. It's a dialectical loop.
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If I understand correctly, you seem to think that when there's a new biological discovery about homosexuality, one should not just care about the "right" interpretation, but also how the result is misinterpreted because that will have an effect on society as well.
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Sort of, but that's an oversimplification. To illustrate...
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I do not believe in hiding the truth for fear that it is misinterpreted. I do not believe in hiding any kind of truth from society, even if it is an unpleasant truth, for example that God does not in fact exist or that asians are smarter than white and black people. If society can't deal with a truth, then society should improve until it can.
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...take the example of God not existing. There at least as many people who disagree with that as who agree. Nothing you say is going to change their minds, nothing they say is going to change your mind (I'm guessing and working under that assumption--if I'm wrong, then when I say "you" here, consider it a general "you"). Both ideas, therefore, shape reality because their behavior is influenced by the belief that God exists and they would interpret the behavior of others similarly, just as your behavior and interpretation of the behavior of others is based on your beliefs.
Given that, how do we even recognize what an objective "truth about the universe" is? From your last statement there, it seems like you'd consider someone "wrong" for believing in God, but they would consider you "wrong" for not. You have scientific thought to back up your ideas, they have history, emotion, etc. If you consider those to be unreliable tools, that's a culturally constructed knowledge bias on your part (valuing some kinds experiential information as more "true" than others), just as the persistence of their beliefs is also a knowledge bias.
The only shot we have at Enlightenment requires a very, very broad scope. Since we're talking about homosexuality, if the goal is progressive tolerance and understanding (in both an emotional and knowledge sense) about homosexuality, we do have to uncover "truths" and some of those "truths" are going to be scientific. But without also approaching the topic on social/cultural/moral/etc grounds, those scientific "truths" can be reinterpreted, delegitimized, ignored, etc and society won't adapt to deal with them.