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Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies
This is getting really heady/philosophical and somewhat off topic, but it's an interesting debate.
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.
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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My point is that every day, lots of research articles on topics in biology are being published. The proportion of those where an understanding of psychology is fundamental is very small. In order to conduct a study on the evolutionary origin of homosexuality, you do not have to have training in psychology. Neither should you have to turn a study on the evolutionary origin of homosexuality into a sociological/psychological study as the topic is clearly evolution and if you have to be a psychologist/sociologist/biologist before you could do biological research, the amount of biologists in the world would decrease tremendously.
When I first mentioned the hierarchy, I did so to show how biologists can conduct studies without knowledge of social studies and the like, just like chemists are able to work without knowing biology. There are exceptions to every rule, but the practical relevance they have on the day to day proceedings on wordly academics is relatively small and does not really change what I've written so far.
Regarding the definition of homosexuality, the definition will be stated in the research paper along with a reference if they got it from somewhere else. It's not as important as you think because when they read the study 500 years in the future, they'll still be able to find out exactly how homosexuality was defined for that paper, just like people reading it now would be. If they have a different idea of what homosexuality is compared to the biologists conducting the research, readers will generally be aware of that. Scientific methodology is supposed to eliminate human error like what you mention and while it can't erase them completely, it does a pretty good job of it.
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Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies
Sort of, but that's an oversimplification. To illustrate...
...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.
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When I wrote "God does not in fact exist", it was an example of a "truth" that could ruin society. I did not claim it was the truth in our existence here, only that if it really was the truth and if society were somehow to find that out, it could have devastating effects depending on how dependent that society is on religion.
You seem to say that if there really is no God, believing in him can be arguably as right as not believing in him because the idea that he exists shape the world. However, the God people then believe in is not similar to what he in fact
is. In such a world, God is merely an idea which changes the world while people would believe he is a real entity with direct power over us, like you and me can squash a bug. In essence, what they believe God to be is not what he actually is. F.ex God will never be able to squash believers like bugs, even if they believe he could. Ideas can't do that to people.
An objective truth is the truth that is the same for all of us. As best as we can determine, this is all the stuff that empirically seem to make sense. You know from experience that if you stand on our planet and jump up, you fall down again. Describing that phenomenon is an attempt at describing an objective truth. The practical relevance of the existence of some lunatic which is unaware of gravity because he or she spends their entire existence isolated inside their heads where they soar the skies all day .. is insignificant. It's still true to 99% of the people in the world and they can benefit from such knowledge.
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Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies
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.
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One person can't know everything. In science, researchers do what they can, chipping away at the mountain of ignorance. Understanding the whole picture is obviously a team effort. Of course we require knowledge from several fields of study to understand it all.
So, I agree with you, but some of the problems you complain about are problems caused by human limitations. Each one of us can only do so much, can only know so much. The way the whole truth is generally established is that the biologist writes a paper on the evolutionary origins of homosexuality and perhaps the extent of variation caused by genetics, psychologist builds on that by writing about how homosexuals think, feel and behave, the sociologist takes those works and write about how homosexuality affects society and a philosopher might write about the moral implications of those studies. It might not be perfect, but it works. If any of these publications gain the attention of the media, the media is going to represent either a study on biology, psychology, sociology or ethics, but unfortunately not all at the same time.
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Of course more attempts can be done in science at collaborations between different fields of study, but your criticism might be overall better directed against the people who convey scientific knowledge to the masses than science itself - the teachers, writers and journalists of the world. If a journalist writes an article on homosexuality, he or she could make an effort to include research from all fields.