The problems with homosexuality

Nine Black Poppies · 12-07-2010, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBig3KilledMyRainDog

It depends on what the goal of that explanation is. Whenever its political I always gun for the most irrefutable and direct reasoning. In America, if you leave breathing room, the homophobic will suck all the air out.

Indeed, how one approaches the subject definitely does rely pretty heavily on the agenda of the conversation. I guess my point is more that--particularly in this case--using a genetic explanation isn't necessarily such an irrefutable and direct line of reasoning because it's subject to interpretation and context.

Which again, isn't to say it isn't a relevant contributing factor or that it can't be used in a tool for progressive persuasion--just that the human mind is remarkably adept at finding ways to use "empical" data to justify the beliefs it already holds, so there's a danger in relying to strongly on any mono-dimensional examination of what makes us who we are.

Guybrush · 12-07-2010, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

It always troubles me a wee bit when a discussion of sexuality comes down to genetics as I'm troubled by biologism in general. The approach seems subject to being overly deterministic, subject to marginalizing other significant factors (I'm more a social constructionist in this sense), and tends to gloss over the fact that the act of scientific discovery itself isn't entirely objective or outside the reach of sociocultural interpretation.

To wit, if a series of genes were isolated as being a high indicator for homosexuality, could there not be people who engage in homosexual behavior or identify with the associated culture who don't have those genes? And if such people were to exist, would they be somehow "less" gay? Who's qualified to make that determination? Etc.

To be clear, I'm not ruling out a biological component in the formation of sexuality, nor the importance of that component in shaping a society that is--for better or worse--biologistically minded. It's just a statement like that (the quoted one) strikes me as dangerous because it plays to an oversimplification of human behavior along one axis, which is always open to exploitation.

I understand what you mean and to some extent agree, but I think to understand the "problem" you describe, you have to look at reality and sciences in a sort of hierarchy.

Say physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology.

This is bottom up starting with the most fundamental (physics), so biology is based on chemistry which is based on physics. People dealing with society or the way people think should be aware that there is no scientific theory which explains how emotions, thoughts and behaviour can have an independent existence. They are a products of our biology which is a product of evolution. That means that homosexual behaviour is a product of evolution. This is not a sociological argument, rather it is a conclusion from a more fundamental level of science and is something social sciences have to relate to, just like biology has to relate to gravity.

If you think biology looks simple or deterministic, it's probably because biologists generally don't study the effects certain genes have on society. That's a job for sociologists. Studying the effects of certain genes on thoughts, emotions and mental health should generally be a job for psychologists. Both sociologists and psychologists should make sure they have their biological foundation in order.

So, to the point. Because biology is fundamental to psychology and sociology, any pure psychology/sociology attempt at explaining homosexuality without biology will fail at describing the truth. However, psychology and sociology are not fundamental to biology, so explaining homosexuality from a biological point of view works just fine. It will not contain the extra understanding you would get from including psychology and sociology, but you can explain in general terms why homosexuality exists and f.ex how much of it is caused by genes. Generally, biologists don't draw on social studies theory to reach the conclusions in their studies. When I read your post, it seems like a complaint against those who think the only thing worth knowing about homosexuality is what you can determine from biological theory. I would agree that's complaint-worthy and for a whole picture of what homosexuality is, we need to add the social fluff. However, a more dangerous error is when social sciences and the like fail to include biology. It's like building a house of cards and any rustling in the foundations (biology) can tip it.

To add a little extra to the conversation, to me, the biggest irritation about biology and particularly evolution is that it's something almost all western-worlderners think they understand when they really don't. In essence, people love to abuse it, as has been demonstrated twice within a relatively short amount of posts in this thread.

Nine Black Poppies · 12-07-2010, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

However, psychology and sociology are not fundamental to biology, so explaining homosexuality from a biological point of view works just fine.

I follow your line of reasoning and I understand the hierarchy paradigm you're arguing but I think the issue here is that we disagree on this key assumption--my argument is that psychological and social factors are very much at play in biology, both fundamentally and as a scientific discipline; the relationship between the two is dialectical and can't really be teased apart.

I don't feel fully equipped to get into the depths of the first part of that argument on my own, but isn't it generally accepted that psychological stimuli can have imprinted effects on the body and it's development and progeny? Like I say, I'm not in depth enough in that particular realm of scientific thought to be fully comfortable getting into it with someone who clearly is, but I do know there's a school of thought that feels the superorganic model (which, if my understanding is correct, corresponds to that hierarchy you describe) is, at best, inadequate.

But there's also an epistemological effect in play, and that I do feel comfortable talking about. In a radically simple form, it's basically the idea that scientists are human and active participants in culture and therefore--because scientific data require interpretation and context to have any meaning--no science can be perfectly objective or independent of pervasive cultural norms. In other words, that knowledge is not necessarily concrete--what science is being done and how is based on a system of what knowledge we value and there are things that we don't know, not because the information isn't available, but because we--as a culture, not necessarily as individuals--choose to not investigate, ignore or reframe it. You said yourself that there is a common misperception about the science among laymen that's been demonstrated even here. I'm suggesting that that misperception doesn't exist in a vacuum and that the same knowledge patterns that inform it can also inform the path scientific discovery can take even among people who "should" know better, as well as--in the case of sexuality--also having a multitude of intra-social and political effects justified by a misperception of science.

Quote:

When I read your post, it seems like a complaint against those who think the only thing worth knowing about homosexuality is what you can determine from biological theory. I would agree that's complaint-worthy and for a whole picture of what homosexuality is, we need to add the social fluff. However, a more dangerous error is when social sciences and the like fail to include biology. It's like building a house of cards and any rustling in the foundations (biology) can tip it.

So, in essence, you're right--that is what I was trying to address. But I don't think you can really say that one side is more dangerous than the other (nor could one fairly characterize the social aspect as "fluff")--doing so, especially when the scientific community itself (versus a layperson) does so, makes it that much easier to foster that misperception that biological theory can explain everything. And, as I said earlier, that misperception can be exploited.

Guybrush · 12-07-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

I follow your line of reasoning and I understand the hierarchy paradigm you're arguing but I think the issue here is that we disagree on this key assumption--my argument is that psychological and social factors are very much at play in biology, both fundamentally and as a scientific discipline; the relationship between the two is dialectical and can't really be teased apart.

I don't feel fully equipped to get into the depths of the first part of that argument on my own, but isn't it generally accepted that psychological stimuli can have imprinted effects on the body and it's development and progeny? Like I say, I'm not in depth enough in that particular realm of scientific thought to be fully comfortable getting into it with someone who clearly is, but I do know there's a school of thought that feels the superorganic model (which, if my understanding is correct, corresponds to that hierarchy you describe) is, at best, inadequate.

Your thoughts, feelings, personality would not exist without your body. Your body is built from a blueprint, your DNA. 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.

This is the reason why biology is fundamental to psychology and not vice versa. A study on how development is influenced by thoughts or feelings does not really change this. 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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

But there's also an epistemological effect in play, and that I do feel comfortable talking about. In a radically simple form, it's basically the idea that scientists are human and active participants in culture and therefore--because scientific data require interpretation and context to have any meaning--no science can be perfectly objective or independent of pervasive cultural norms. In other words, that knowledge is not necessarily concrete--what science is being done and how is based on a system of what knowledge we value and there are things that we don't know, not because the information isn't available, but because we--as a culture, not necessarily as individuals--choose to not investigate, ignore or reframe it. You said yourself that there is a common misperception about the science among laymen that's been demonstrated even here. I'm suggesting that that misperception doesn't exist in a vacuum and that the same knowledge patterns that inform it can also inform the path scientific discovery can take even among people who "should" know better, as well as--in the case of sexuality--also having a multitude of intra-social and political effects justified by a misperception of science.

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.

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.

In order to create a society capable of dealing with truth, we need to educate people. It is one of the most important things we can do and to me, hiding the truth is just not acceptable. I think truth and education is how you best benefit society long term. A lot of this is opinion of course, but there you go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

So, in essence, you're right--that is what I was trying to address. But I don't think you can really say that one side is more dangerous than the other (nor could one fairly characterize the social aspect as "fluff")--doing so, especially when the scientific community itself (versus a layperson) does so, makes it that much easier to foster that misperception that biological theory can explain everything. And, as I said earlier, that misperception can be exploited.

When I write dangerous, what I mean is more likely to end up at the wrong conclusions. When people say science has an agenda, they usually mean something like a mission to find out the truth about the universe. It is something we need to do if we want to better the collective status quo and future predictions for our children. Any study leading to false assumptions are bumps in our road to enlightenment.

s_k · 12-07-2010, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

If homosexuality was purely a random trait caused by an error in meiosis or something similar, so many people across the world would not share the trait. If you read my last post, you can see I write about one possible explanation for male homosexuality which has gained scientific weight.

It's nice to see people have ideas and hypotheses on why homosexuality is here, but without proper knowledge of evolution, it's likely to be incorrect.

I didn't say it was an idea of mine, I just said 'could be true'.
It didn't sound unlikely to me.
I'll have to read your post. Haven't, so far

.

Nine Black Poppies · 12-07-2010, 09:05 PM

This is getting really heady/philosophical and somewhat off topic, but it's an interesting debate.

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

Sort of, but that's an oversimplification. To illustrate...

Quote:

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.

...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.

TheBig3 · 12-07-2010, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by s_k

I didn't say it was an idea of mine, I just said 'could be true'.
It didn't sound unlikely to me.
I'll have to read your post. Haven't, so far

.

Hey man, I mean this is the most friendly, positive way possible. Avoid this discussion like the plague until the multi-paragraph, quote-broken posts die down.

Nine Black Poppies · 12-08-2010, 01:03 AM

This sort of philosophy is kind of a passion of mine--I get a little bit lit up when I get to bust it out.

Guybrush · 12-08-2010, 03:44 AM

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

edit :

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.

~~Dirty~~ · 12-08-2010, 05:35 AM

I don't really like to think too deeply into things like this (referring to all this DNA talk and whatnot). Interesting discussion but I'm just one of those people who doesn't really care why someone is gay. I mean, does it really matter why a dude likes another dude? The fact is that he does... and there's nothing wrong with it

12-08-2010, 01:03 AM	#588 (permalink)
Nine Black Poppies Music Addict Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: A State of Denial Posts: 357	This sort of philosophy is kind of a passion of mine--I get a little bit lit up when I get to bust it out. __________________ Like carnivores to carnal pleasures, so were we to desperate measures...

12-08-2010, 05:35 AM	#590 (permalink)
~~Dirty~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: USA Posts: 981	I don't really like to think too deeply into things like this (referring to all this DNA talk and whatnot). Interesting discussion but I'm just one of those people who doesn't really care why someone is gay. I mean, does it really matter why a dude likes another dude? The fact is that he does... and there's nothing wrong with it