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Author Topic:   Is homosexuality a natural response to large populations?
custard
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 44 (111073)
05-28-2004 5:53 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by custard
05-28-2004 3:54 AM


More Data On Genetics - conclusive?
Did some rummaging through the ether and came up with some info regarding genetic studies for homosexuality. So far it looks as if there is no strong data supporting genetic inheritibility of gender preferences.
The overviews of the studies I looked at were:
1- Studies of brain structure (e.g. Simon LeVay's study of the neurons in the hypothalamus)
2- Twin studies (e.g. the study of John M. Bailey and Richard Pillard on twin brothers)
3- Studies of chromosomes (e.g. by Dean Hamer)
Of the first study, LeVay himself states
quote:
"It's important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. ...Since I look at adult brains, we don't know if the differences I found were there at birth or if they appeared later."
The twins studies seem to indicate that "genetic factors play some role in the development of sexual orientation, but that they probably account for only a minority of variation and that further work will be needed to quantify their influence more precisely."
But it should be noted that the following criticisms were made of the studies:
1-in general is that they depend upon an assumption that MZ and DZ twins share a similar amount of their environments with their twins.
2-that the heritability of homosexuality has been overstated by volunteer studies.
3- Using different definitions of homosexuality yeilded different results, particularly for lesbians
Hamer's study's conclusions were:
quote:
1-...in families with two gay brothers, 33 out of 40 pairs shared a distinctive pattern in one region of the X chromosome, a far higher number than chance alone would predict DNA and family studies confirmed a much higher than average rate of homosexuality among male relatives on the mother's side of the family.
2-Dean Hamer also said: 'It would appear that whatever is being transmitted to lesbians is different than what is transmitted to gay men. It's more nurture than nature'. http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/...lag/deanhamer.html#X%20Chromosome
However a follow up study found no evidence of Hamer's chromosomal link
George Rice and George Ebers of the University of Western Ontario in Canada studied 148 families with two gay sons, 34 families with three gay sons and two families with four. Dr Hamer investigated the family history of a smaller sample of 76 gay men and 40 pairs of gay brothers.
The Canadian group reports in the journal Science that it failed to find a link between this marker and homosexuality, which would have emerged because their study was bigger than Dr Hamer's. (same site as Hamer link)
To me this indicates that, as far as we currently know, genetics do not determine sexual preference; therefore homosexuality could not be a biological response to large populations.
This message has been edited by custard, 05-28-2004 04:55 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by custard, posted 05-28-2004 3:54 AM custard has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 32 of 44 (111762)
05-31-2004 8:10 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by custard
05-28-2004 5:20 AM


Re: Yep
custard responds to me:
quote:
Unless you include the 4% bi-sexual men
But I'm not. Just the gay ones. If only 1% of men are gay, there's only about one-and-a-half million gay men in the US. You run out just by counting the ones in NYC and LA. What about SF, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Seattle, and all the other large population centers?
quote:
Of course the study to which you refer is now 13 years old
I wasn't really quoting from any study. I'm simply pointing out that those who claim only 1-2% of the population is gay really has no idea what they're talking about. They are too busy looking at the outcome of the survey to consider comparing what those numbers imply.
Of course, how we treat somebody has nothing to do with how few like him there are.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by custard, posted 05-28-2004 5:20 AM custard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by custard, posted 05-31-2004 7:12 PM Rrhain has replied

  
custard
Inactive Member


Message 33 of 44 (111905)
05-31-2004 7:12 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Rrhain
05-31-2004 8:10 AM


Re: Yep
Rrhain writes:
But I'm not. Just the gay ones.
I think you missed my point. What constitutes 'just the gay ones?' You referenced that a million people showed up to the gay march on Washington, that certainly does not mean that the entire population was homosexual (as you implied), nor that they were 100% gay (attracted to same sex only). There were family members, hetero supporters, bi-sexuals. Who knows what the percentages were?
Using the number of the participants in the march to infer the true numbers of non-bisexual homosexuals in the US will not provide an accurate number.
Rrhain writes:
I wasn't really quoting from any study.
Semantics. You were using the figure of 1% I quoted. So you were referring to that study through my quote.
Rrhain writes:
I'm simply pointing out that those who claim only 1-2% of the population is gay really has no idea what they're talking about.
Bold claim that NORC has no idea what it was talking about regarding the conclusions to it's own study. I find it amazing that they came up with "since age 18 less than 1% are gay and 4+% bisexual" my gut tells me that is low; but I don't know what the sample size was, how the participants identified themselves, what the criteria for 'gay' sex was (masturbation without contact - a la George Michael, any male-male contact leading to ejaculation, etc).
And, of course, what my gut thinks is not statiscally valid, so I wouldn't presume to say they don't know what they are talking about. Your assesment based on the numbers of the march on Washington is not valid either, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. Interesting.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Rrhain, posted 05-31-2004 8:10 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Rrhain, posted 05-31-2004 8:19 PM custard has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 34 of 44 (111922)
05-31-2004 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by custard
05-31-2004 7:12 PM


Re: Yep
custard responds to me:
quote:
What constitutes 'just the gay ones?'
That would seem to be fairly obvious. Unless you are making an argument that sexual orientation is a vague and nebulous concept....
quote:
You referenced that a million people showed up to the gay march on Washington, that certainly does not mean that the entire population was homosexual (as you implied),
Incorrect. I directly stated something quite different. Message 28:
And since well over a million people showed up to the March on Washington, presumably most of them gay
It would seem that I was well-aware that not all the people at the march were gay.
Suppose we were to take the extremely conservative view that half of the people at the march weren't gay. That's still half a million people. And if we assume that half the participants were male, that means a quarter million people.
That means a good fifth of the entire gay male population showed up to the March on Washington.
That seems a little odd, don't you think? If it were possible to rally the gay community so solidly for this one thing, that they would take time off from work and fly to Washington for this one event, why did it take a Supreme Court ruling to get sodomy laws overturned?
quote:
Using the number of the participants in the march to infer the true numbers of non-bisexual homosexuals in the US will not provide an accurate number.
As a means of determining the final number? No. As a means of determining if the number you have calculated via other means is reasonable? Yes.
The March on Washington gives us an idea of what the lower bound ought to be. If the results of your survey is such that it means a huge proportion of the gay people in the country came to this one, single event, then there is a very good probability that your survey is understating the reality.
quote:
quote:
I wasn't really quoting from any study.
Semantics. You were using the figure of 1% I quoted. So you were referring to that study through my quote.
In that case, how "out-of-date" it is is irrelevant as I was referring to the implications of what that percentage means. If someone were to come out today and say that 1% of the male population is gay, that would still lead to the conclusion that all of them live in NYC or LA.
quote:
And, of course, what my gut thinks is not statiscally valid, so I wouldn't presume to say they don't know what they are talking about.
Ah, but I'm not going by my gut. I'm going by my mathematics training. I am a mathematician, after all, and this is what I spent a lot of time and money learning how to do.
If only 1% of the country is gay, then they all live in NYC or LA and an outrageously high proportion of those showed up to a single political event.
We know that there are more gay people who don't live in NYC or LA and we know that you don't get that high of a response rate for a political rally.
Ergo, the claim of 1-2% must be false.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by custard, posted 05-31-2004 7:12 PM custard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 1:29 AM Rrhain has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 35 of 44 (111955)
06-01-2004 1:20 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by Denesha
05-17-2004 2:53 PM


Re: Population Control? Attraction genes?
Yes I think pheomes are part of the equation of attraction. there may well be a {behavior \ environmental} portion, as {de \ sensitivity} can be modified, but I don't think it can overpower attraction so much as modify it.
Hormone levels are known to influence growth at several key stages, and could well be a mechanism.
ps to admin - e-mail notification of replies still not working. I have reset the profile again to see if that fixes it.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

This message is a reply to:
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custard
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 44 (111956)
06-01-2004 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by Rrhain
05-31-2004 8:19 PM


Re: Yep
Ah, but I'm not going by my gut. I'm going by my mathematics training. I am a mathematician, after all, and this is what I spent a lot of time and money learning how to do.
Wonderful; however, training does not preclude one from making mistakes, which you have.
Let's start at the beginning. You state:
Rrhain writes:
Suppose we were to take the extremely conservative view that half of the people at the march weren't gay. That's still half a million people. And if we assume that half the participants were male, that means a quarter million people.
No it doesn't for the following reasons:
1- We don't know how many people were there. Crowd estimates for the 2000 gay millenium march are between 200,000 and 750,000 depending on the source. The march organizers estimated between 750,000 and 1mil but that figure is almost universally challenged.
Here's ONE example from sfgate.com:
quote:
Organizers said between 750,000 and 1 million people participated in the rally, though others said that number was grossly exaggerated and suggested the real turnout was barely 200,000.
So somewhere between 200,000 and 1 million. So what would your number be now? Using your current calculation something considerably less than 250,000. But wait, there's more.
2 - We don't know how many gay men were there. You assume half of the total population is homosexual. Then you assume half of that population is comprised of gay men. What evidence allows you to make that assumption? The march was comprised of gays, lesbians, transgenders, bi-sexuals, heterosexual supporters, and who knows how many other folks trying to get some free publicity for their own causes.
Can you honestly tell me you have a good idea what the actual percentage of gay men (remember, no bisexuals, you eliminated those) were there? You can't. The best you can do is make a broad generalization.
3- Do you even know what the definition of 'gay man' was, as used by NORC to for its sample populations? I don't, but maybe you do; but if you don't, how can you possibly call into question their analysis of their own sample population? You can't. Not with any reasonable amount of certainty. Does a transgender individual who used to be a man count as a gay man? What about a pre-operative transexual? Would that person be considered a gay man? How could you possibly know?
The best you can do is come up with a potential range of the number of gay men who were at the march. But you have to make so many assumptions, that the number is nothing better than a guess.
I'm not challenging your math. I'm challenging the assumptions you have made to come up with the numbers you have plugged into your equation. You simply can't know the real numbers, so you have to guess.
How can you proclaim NORC's study is ridiculous when you have stacked assumption upon assumption to come up with your final number? You can't. Not with any real degree of certainty; therfore, this statement:
Rrhain writes:
Ergo, the claim of 1-2% must be false.
is meaningless. How can you possibly compare your guess to factual evidence and hard numbers provided by NORC? That's hubris.
If you want to continue this discussion, I will be happy to do so in another thread. I'm not making these statements to get your goat, I'm just amazed that you think you haven't made an error here - even after it has been pointed out to you.
This message has been edited by custard, 06-01-2004 12:30 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Rrhain, posted 05-31-2004 8:19 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Rrhain, posted 06-01-2004 3:07 AM custard has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 37 of 44 (111966)
06-01-2004 3:07 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by custard
06-01-2004 1:29 AM


Re: Yep
custard responds to me:
quote:
1- We don't know how many people were there.
Yes, we do. We have the records from the sponsors regarding the number of unique visits.
quote:
Crowd estimates for the 2000 gay millenium march
Um, 2000? Who's talking about 2000? I'm talking about 1993. The 2000 March only had a few hundred thousand. The 1993 March had a million.
quote:
We don't know how many gay men were there. You assume half of the total population is homosexual.
Which is a gross underestimate. I chose it for precisely that reason. This way, we get a lower bound. You are right that I do not know the exact proportion of gay people to non-gay people at the March. However, it is unreasonably conservative to claim that only half of them were. Even if we take that extremely inappropriate ratio, we find that 250,000 gay men were at the March...a quarter of the available population (actually, a bit more than that given the total population of the country at the time).
It is unreasonable to think that a quarter of all gay men went to the March on Washington.
quote:
Do you even know what the definition of 'gay man' was, as used by NORC to for its sample populations?
Unless it is an extremely inappropriate definition (such as people who have never, ever had sex with someone of the opposite sex), it doesn't really matter. Whatever the definition, we will use it across the board. The populations of LA and NYC easily have one-and-a-half million gay men by any reasonable definition of the word. To then say that only 0.7% (let's use the actual number, shall we?) of the population of men in the US are gay necessarily means that they all live in those two cities.
Since that obviously is not true, the claim of only 0.7% of the population of men in the US are gay necessarily cannot be true.
By the way...that same NORC study found that 40% of men had never masturbated. Does that sound likely to you?
quote:
The best you can do is come up with a potential range of the number of gay men who were at the march.
Yes, but you are missing the point: All I am doing is coming up with a lower bound. I am not trying to come up with a specific number. I think it's safe to say that there was one gay man there (after all, Norman from The Real World was there and he's gay.)
This is common in mathematical analysis of series: You don't try to find the answer...you try to find where the answer isn't. For example, if you know that every single term of a series is always less than the equivalent term of another series and you know that the second series reaches a maximum of X, then you know the original series cannot be greater than X. You still have no idea where the original series winds up. You just know that it cannot be greater than X. This is the Ordinary Comparison Test. Formally:
Suppose 0 <= an <= bn for n >= N.
1) If Sum(bn) converges, so does Sum(an)
2) If Sum(an) diverges, so does Sum(bn)
For example, does Sum{n/n[/i](n + 1)} converge or diverge? Well:
n/n[/i](n + 1) = (1/2)nn/(n + 1) < (1/2)n
Since Sum(1/2)n converges, we know that Sum{n/n[/i](n + 1)}. And because we know that Sum(1/2)n converges to 1, we know that Sum{n/n[/i](n + 1)} must converge to a value less than or equal to 1. We have no idea what it is, but we know what it is not.
Since we know where to find 1.5 million gay men and since we know that their location doesn't nearly come close to exhausting the pool of available gay men, we necessarily conclude that a result of only a million total (.7% of 150 million) is grossly underestimating the population of gay men in the country.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 1:29 AM custard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 4:23 AM Rrhain has replied

  
custard
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 44 (111973)
06-01-2004 4:23 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Rrhain
06-01-2004 3:07 AM


Re: Yep
The 1993 March had a million.
Ok, cool. What do you base that number on? What the organizers reported? Please show your evidence.
You are right that I do not know the exact proportion of gay people to non-gay people at the March. However, it is unreasonably conservative to claim that only half of them were.
Why is it unreasonably conservative to claim that? What information do you have to indicate otherwise?
By the way...that same NORC study found that 40% of men had never masturbated. Does that sound likely to you?
Irrelevant. You are committing two fallacies here: incredulity and false analogy. Because this number seems low to you does not mean that this is not the number NORC's study arrived at; furthermore, whether that number is correct does not validate or invalidate the statistics regarding sexual preference.
It is unreasonable to think that a quarter of all gay men went to the March on Washington.
Why do you think that is unreasonable? What do you think is a reasonable percentage and why?
...the claim of only 0.7% of the population of men in the US are gay necessarily cannot be true.
How can you possibly say this? I'm sure I don't know one way or the other if .7% of US men have only had sex with other men since they were 18. How do you know this? If you have evidence that rebuts NORC I'm all ears; I just want to know why you are so sure of this.
Let's remember also, shall we, that any married gay man would have been considered a bi-sexual by the definition of the report. In fact, ANY gay man who had a female sexual partner ONCE since he was 18 would have been considered bi-sexual. Where is your evidence that more than .7% of the male population has only had sex with another man since turning eighteen years old?
You have presented no data, no evidence, only incredulity as your rebuttal. I don't understand when you think you can come up with a lower bound when you don't know:
1- how many people attended the march
2- how many of those people were men who only had male sex partners since their own eighteenth birthday.
I'm not a NORC wonk. I have no interest proving them correct, but your dispute of their seemingly statistically valid survey of a valid sample size (1500) is not based on data; or, if it is, you have not shown it adequately.
You seem to have real difficulty accpeting NORC's numbers. I think it is interesting to note that NORC cites over 12 other studies that are close to their results (page 10 of http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/online/sex.pdf). These other studies indicate that only 2-3% of men in the US and Europe actively engage in same gender sex (I have no idea if that means once a year, once every five years, etc.).
Finally, I am curious to know what figure(s) you think are realistic for gay men (and lesbians) in the US (and EU if possible)? Why do you think those figures are correct?
Thanks,
Custard
This message has been edited by custard, 06-01-2004 03:32 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Rrhain, posted 06-01-2004 3:07 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 4:47 AM custard has not replied
 Message 40 by Rrhain, posted 06-07-2004 12:30 AM custard has not replied

  
custard
Inactive Member


Message 39 of 44 (111974)
06-01-2004 4:47 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by custard
06-01-2004 4:23 AM


Re: Yep
Look, I'm not sure if we are arguing semantics here but it seems to me the real issue is how the term 'gay male' is defined.
I would describe a gay male as someone who has sex with other men regardless of how frequently he may have sex with female partners. I certainly consider married men who have children, yet cruise for male sex partners gay, although I suppose they are technically bi-sexual.
I think the issue we are belaboring is one of definition. The NORC study resulted in the following statistics:
Smith's 1991 analysis of National Opinion Research Center data [1] states that 5.9% of sexually active males had had a male sexual partner since age 18, but that "since age 18 less than 1% are gay and 4+% bisexual".
We seem to be arguing over whether it is really true that 1% (or slightly less) of US males have had no other sex partners but other men since age eighteen. I submit that without evidence from another study, which you, or others, may be privy to but have not yet cited, there is no way to refute this claim.
Calculations based on populations of LA and NYC and a 1993 Washington march do not reach the level of granularity necessary to confirm or refute the statement "in 1991 approximately 1% of all US males have only had sex with other men since age eighteen." If anyone can refute this, I would be happy to see the data.
Finally, back on topic, if these statics, or other that indicate that only 2-3% of the population of males in US and Europe are gay, and less are lesbian, then it would appear that homosexuality is NOT a natural response to large populations; unless a 2-3% decline in fecundity, which is not compensated for elsewhere, could somehow slow population growth to a significant degree.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 4:23 AM custard has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 40 of 44 (113122)
06-07-2004 12:30 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by custard
06-01-2004 4:23 AM


Re: Yep
custard responds to me:
quote:
quote:
The 1993 March had a million.
Ok, cool. What do you base that number on? What the organizers reported?
Yes. As I said, we know how many were there because of the counts of unique visits made by the various vendors and organizers.
quote:
quote:
You are right that I do not know the exact proportion of gay people to non-gay people at the March. However, it is unreasonably conservative to claim that only half of them were.
Why is it unreasonably conservative to claim that?
(*blink!*)
You did not just say that, did you?
Do you seriously believe that more than half a million heterosexual people would travel across the country to attend a gay rights rally that was advertised primarily to gay people?
Do you seriously think that most of the people who go to Pride parades are straight?
I don't deny that there were straight people in the crowd. Even a significant number of them. But to say that half of them were is, to put it bluntly, ludicrous.
quote:
quote:
By the way...that same NORC study found that 40% of men had never masturbated. Does that sound likely to you?
Irrelevant.
Incorrect. It goes to the question of the validity of their methodology. If their method returns a result that is known to be wildly inaccurate, how likely is it that the method is going to return a valid result in another instance?
quote:
Because this number seems low to you does not mean that this is not the number NORC's study arrived at;
I am not denying that the number they arrived at was the number they arrived at.
I am denying the validity of that number. You do understand the difference, yes? If I say that 2 + 2 = 5, there is a difference between saying that I said the answer was 5 and saying that the answer of 5 is correct.
quote:
furthermore, whether that number is correct does not validate or invalidate the statistics regarding sexual preference.
(*blink!*)
You did not just say that, did you?
You use a method that produces wildly inaccurate results and you claim that it doesn't invalidate its use for other, similar measurements?
If I use an unmarked meterstick to measure a grain of sand and come up with a meter, don't you think I'd be silly to use it to measure a grain of rice?
Considering that masturbation isn't nearly as controversial an issue as homosexuality, don't you think that a survey that finds nigh on half of all men have NEVER masturbated would most likely be questionable about its concurrent finding that only 0.7% of men are gay?
quote:
quote:
It is unreasonable to think that a quarter of all gay men went to the March on Washington.
Why do you think that is unreasonable?
Because it would be the first time in history that a political rally had managed to draw that large of its constituency. Are you seriously saying that gay people are really that affluent that they could afford to spend the time off of work, the money to get there, the money to lodge, etc., etc.?
If so many gay people were so politically active that they were willing to do this, why the hell did it take until now to overturn sodomy laws? How the hell did DOMA get passed? What the hell happened that this swell of activism was suddenly snuffed out?
quote:
quote:
the claim of only 0.7% of the population of men in the US are gay necessarily cannot be true.
How can you possibly say this?
Because it does not fit with anything else that is known about the gay population.
I'm reminded of a class in American Studies I had as an undergrad where the professor showed a documentary regarding the images of women in music videos. He was trying to make a point regarding dehumanizing images of women and how it contributes to rape. At the end of the documentary, it rattled off a slew of statistics.
In our discussion, I pointed out that it was a shame, among other things, that the author of the film undermined his point by using contradictory statistics.
Specifically, it trotted out the old chestnuts that a woman is raped once every six minutes in this country and that one-third of all women will be raped.
Those two numbers don't relate.
At the time, there were about 250 million people in the country. One-third of women would be about 42 million women.
But once every six minutes is 10 every hour, 240 every day, just under 88,000 every year, or about 6.5 million over the course of a lifetime.
6.5 million is only about 5% of women, not one-third.
So which is it? And if someone is going to be throwing all these numbers around as if they're all true, what are we to think of them? Results need to fit in with all the other results that we have. If they are wildly at odds, then some sort of explanation needs to be forthcoming about why that is the case.
In another example, freshman chem lab at college. We had to create alum crystals from a square of aluminum. The point of the experiment was to calculate the yield. Most people doing this experiment will come up with a yield of something approaching one thousand percent. So the obvious question is: Why are you getting something that can't possibly be true? Part of the grade for the lab was how well you determined what caused your results to be so far off reality.
quote:
You seem to have real difficulty accpeting NORC's numbers. I think it is interesting to note that NORC cites over 12 other studies that are close to their results (page 10 of http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/online/sex.pdf). These other studies indicate that only 2-3% of men in the US and Europe actively engage in same gender sex (I have no idea if that means once a year, once every five years, etc.).
Um, finding results three to four times greater than what you found is not "close." It indicates that something is seriously wrong with your methodology and you need to go back and find out where you're tripping up.
That only goes to show the problems with the NORC study: Other people trying to replicate the results keep coming up with much larger numbers.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by custard, posted 06-01-2004 4:23 AM custard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Trae, posted 06-24-2004 8:26 AM Rrhain has not replied

  
Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 41 of 44 (118210)
06-24-2004 8:26 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by Rrhain
06-07-2004 12:30 AM


What about the 2000 census numbers?
Nearly 0.6% of the US population was reported by the 2000 US census to consist of male homosexual households. With that in mind, the number 0.7% seems unreasonably low.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf
301,000 male same-sex couples
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kprof00-us.pdf
Male population 138,053,563
Male population over 18 100,994,367
602,000 (Male homosexuals in relationships in US. 301,000*2)
100,994,367 (since we’re talking couples in living situations where one of the members is the head-of-household. It seems necessary to limit the male population to those over 18 year of age.
Yields:
0.59607284830053937562676144106136%
Doesn’t include the impact of AIDs deaths on the US male homosexual population.
Doesn’t include male homosexuals in institutional settings.
No reliable percentage was found for figuring a rate of census under-reporting by male homosexuals.
[Edited to fix formatting to improve readability.]
This message has been edited by Trae, 06-26-2004 03:36 AM

This message is a reply to:
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Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 42 of 44 (121101)
07-02-2004 3:04 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by Trae
06-24-2004 8:26 AM


Re: What about the 2000 census numbers?
So no comment? Does the math look correct?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Trae, posted 06-24-2004 8:26 AM Trae has seen this message but not replied

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 Message 43 by custard, posted 07-02-2004 4:41 AM Trae has replied

  
custard
Inactive Member


Message 43 of 44 (121115)
07-02-2004 4:41 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Trae
07-02-2004 3:04 AM


Re: What about the 2000 census numbers?
No, it looks good. I did some more analysis of the numbers you provided and from the census and came up with some interesting things:
1- If every man who is married and lives with a woman is not considered gay (and here is the great unknown)
2- AND If 7% of the male population is gay
3- THEN 17% of the remaining male population over 18 must be gay.
Here's the math:
1-males over 18 (100,994,367) - males over 18 in household with female partner (59,374,609) = 41,619,758
men not in long term relationships with women.
2-If 7% of the total male pop is gay, then 7% * 100,994,367 = 7,069,605 gay men over 18 in the US.
3-If an insignificant percentage of men who are in long term relationships (married to or living with) with woman are gay, then the 7 million gay men must comprise the male population of 41 million.
4-7,069,605 gay men/41,619,758 men = 17% gay men.
Obviously the big IF is number 3. I couldn't find any data to indicate what the percentage of men who identified themselves as married or living with a woman might be gay.
So if the 7% number is true, then nearly one in 5 of the male pop not living with women is gay, or there are still a statistically significant number of men who live with women yet consider themselves to be gay.
Does that math seem correct?

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 Message 42 by Trae, posted 07-02-2004 3:04 AM Trae has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Trae, posted 07-03-2004 4:59 AM custard has not replied

  
Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 44 of 44 (121562)
07-03-2004 4:59 AM
Reply to: Message 43 by custard
07-02-2004 4:41 AM


Re: What about the 2000 census numbers?
I was looking at this thread and with all the numbers being thrown around my level of suspicion (my distrust of behavioral studies statistics) started kicking in. ;-)
I saw Rrhain’s figures based on a Washington march and remembered reading an article some time ago about the difficultly of establishing attendance numbers for public gatherings. Since I knew this was something that particularly the SFPD had been taken to task for (war protests, pride parades, etc), I thought perhaps there were some recent figures using more accurate methodologies. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to determine if they’ve been implemented as of yet. This seems to be a dead end, so I was racking my brain as to if there were any numbers which would be more trustworthy, when I remembered the census had started tracking non-married couples and specifically same-sex couples as of the last US Census.
I can’t think of any reasonable ways to extrapolate the Census data to encompass the general population with any degree of certainty.
As to your figures, and I really might be way off here (having never taken any statistic courses):
I’m not sure where you’re getting the 7% figure, did you mean 0.7% and not 7%? You’re referring to that earlier study you cited?
I’m not sure how one would go about making any comparisons between the given coupled same-sex populations and the unknown single same-sex populations. The societal presupposition is that same-sex male couples are less capable of forming and maintaining coupled-relationships. Even if that isn’t the case, I can’t think of a way to draw conclusions based on such dissimilar groups.

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