On the causes of sexual orientation

RE: The causes of heterosexuality and homosexuality:WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation is the undisputable cause of human babies and every other kind of baby you could possibly think of, with the only exceptions being binary fission, parthenogenesis, and cloning.WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation is a genetic condition that is accountable in humans by the genes on their X and Y chromosomes.WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation evolved as the key mechanism for facilitating a populations’ dynamic equilibrium and its resistence to Darwinian natural selection.WHEREAS: Homosexual orientation does not cause babies in any species, nor is the cause of homosexual orientation known to science.WHEREAS; Homosexual orientation did not evolve to facilitate a population’s dynamic equilibrium or its struggle against Darwinian natural selection; in fact, it may be a mechanism that suppresses a population’s ability to resist NS.THEREFORE: Heterosexual orientation is entirely consistent with biological principles that improve a population’s wellbeing, while homosexual orientation is detrimental to a population’s wellbeing because it does nothing to protect it from the ravages of Darwinian NS.Does science know enough about homosexual orientation to refute any of the WHEREAS statements and alter the THEREFORE statement?”HM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

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THEREFORE: Heterosexual orientation is entirely consistent with biological principles that improve a population’s wellbeing, while homosexual orientation is detrimental to a population’s wellbeing because it does nothing to protect it from the ravages of Darwinian NS.

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Does science know enough about homosexual orientation to refute any of the WHEREAS statements and alter the THEREFORE statement?

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This same reasoning might be used for peacock feathers. (An apt analogy given how fabulous homosexuals can be).In all seriousness, the answer is a complicated one. It's almost certainly the case that homosexuality has a strong biological component. However, how much of that role is genetic, epigenetic, or developmental isn't entirely known.In any case, homosexuality is observed across many, many species, from penguins to elephants to dogs to chimps. Thus, there must be something either beneficial or selectively neutral about homosexuality for it to persist.In wolves, mounting behavior between males is done to establish a dominance hierarchy. The same is true for rabbits, though humping behaviors persist even after neutering and is done by both genders. In bonobo chimps, lesbianism helps ease the stresses of inter-population migration. This last observation would seem to be a distinct positive effect.

You have not however shown that it is detrimental.I look around and see tons of gays. Humanity seems to be doing ok.

You don't seem to understand the difference between sexual orientation, sexual reproduction, and biological sex. Incorrect. Heterosexual sex is the major cause of human babies, not orientation. Certainly the prevalence of heterosexual orientation leads to a whole lot of heterosexual sex, but it isn't a prerequisite. If this were true surely homosexual orientation would simply be a variant form of genetic condition? Or do you mean that sex is determined by genetics, because once again that is quite distinct from sexual orientation. I'm not sure there is anything to support this characterisation. I certainly don't see where resistance to natural selection comes into it. Then surely neither is the basis of heterosexual orientation. I can't see what the genetic basis has to do with anything unless you want to argue that homosexuality is entirely a 'nurture' phenomenon, a position which there is substantial evidence to call in to doubt. A completely bald assertion, do you have anything at all to back this up? There is evidence that in some cases homosexuality in men is linked to above average fertility in their female relatives. Yes. Your THEREFORE statement is based on completely made up principles supported by nothing but bald assertion.TTFN,WK

You're wrong right from the start.

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WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation is the undisputable cause of human babies and every other kind of baby you could possibly think of, with the only exceptions being binary fission, parthenogenesis, and cloning.

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I dare say that never in the history of mankind has a baby ever been created by someone's sexual orientation. Babies are created by the joining of a sperm and an egg, followed by several months of development in a woman's womb. That's how each and every one has ever come about, at least up to now.Please note that nowhere in that process is the issue of sexual orientation a factor.I must say, your continued assault on other people's sexuality is rather amusing, and a little embarrassing. I for one would appreciate it if you'd give it up.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

BB, is it fair to call any of these examples a true form of homosexuality? I've seen dogs hump pillows, babies, and people's legs, but that doesn't prove they're homosexual. I used to be a member of the YMCA, but that didn't make me gay.”HM

All right what is the true form of homosexuality? Maybe with a definitive example, we can then debate this topic in a sane manner. Also , what has the YMCA got to do with a person being homosexual?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

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BB, is it fair to call any of these examples a true form of homosexuality? I've seen dogs hump pillows, babies, and people's legs, but that doesn't prove they're homosexual.

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Well, at the very least it provides reasoning for my choice of names.I do know of several reports where animals have engaged in pure same-sex relationships at the exclusion of opposite-sex relationships (such as the zoo penguins that had romanced each other and were even given a fake egg to tend to). There were news reports a few years ago of sheep engaging in homosexual activities, ignoring the opposite sex. In fact, this phenomenon was so significant that scientists did studies of sheep brains on this. The wikipedia article has plenty of examples in which homosexuality appears to be a social activity rather than one of simple horny rutting. I'm afraid I don't have access to the university network, so I can't provide any primary sources. However, if you do find some papers you're interested, give me a link and I can download them for your perusal next week.Now I've gotta go. There's a pillow in the corner there that's looking mighty attractive right now.

I don't see how homosexuality could be beneficial to a population's evenly proportioned reproductive success amongst individuals, which is required to prevent NS. Homosexuals don't seek out relationships that participate in a population's reproductive activity. As such, they may even degrade it into a state of vulnerability when NS comes to call. Maybe homosexuality is an acquired disease of populations that weakens them to the ravages of NS. Such a theory could argued on the grounds that NS is defined as "differential reproductive success amongst individuals of a population."”HM

Nah! I'm sticking with it. If a man's penis is not heterosexually oriented toward a woman vagina (not I'm getting hot, even at my age) he will not get where he needs to go to make a baby. I don't believe homosexuals care to be oriented in the said same way. Orientation has everything to do with it. Is there something you know of about sexuality that is not determined by genetics? I don't believe heterosexuality is a developmental process. Do you? I don't know what kind of a process homosexuality is. Does anybody know? None. It's just a bald assertion. No more bald than the assertion that gays need to get "married." Or the assertion that they became homosexuals by an act of nature that resembles the way black people become pigmented.”HM

Homosexuality is biological, suggests gay sheep study

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A study of gay sheep appears to confirm the controversial suggestion that there is a biological basis for sexual preference.

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The work shows that rams that prefer male sexual partners had small but distinct differences in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, when compared with rams that preferred to mate with ewes.

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Kay Larkin and colleagues from Oregon Health and Science University found the difference was in a particular region of the hypothalamus - the preoptic nucleus. The region is generally almost twice as large in rams as in ewes. But in gay rams its size was almost identical to that in "straight" females.

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The hypothalamus is known to control sex hormone release and many types of sexual behaviour. Several other parts of the hypothalamus showed consistent sex differences in size, but only this specific region showed differences that correlated with sexual preference.

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The differences are almost identical to those identified by the neuroscientist Simon LeVay in his studies of the brains of gay men. His work has always been considered controversial, partly because the brains he studied were mostly from men who had died of AIDS. So it was not clear whether the differences were related to the disease or to sexual preferences.

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Hormone converter
But the findings in sheep are an important confirmation of LeVay's work, says Jacques Balthazart from the University of Liege in Belgium.

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Sheep are particularly interesting, he says, because besides humans, they are the only animal where the males may naturally express exclusively gay sexual preferences. As many as one in 10 rams can be gay.

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Larkin's team also found that the hypothalamic region had a rich supply of the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone into oestrogen. It is in this form that the hormone interacts with the brain. This may help support one theory that sexual orientation, in part at least, may be related to the hormones present during fetal development, says Balthazart.

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But Larkin suggests there may also be the influence of genes at work, at least in predisposing the animals to homosexuality. This is because selective breeding seems to have been responsible for the high proportion of gay sheep compared with other animals.

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Larkin presented the research on Monday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Orlando Florida, US.

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Hoot, we discussed about this at great lengths just last year. Seriously, are you senile? For Sheep, Homosexuality Is In The Genes

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Researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine have confirmed that a male sheep's preference for same-sex partners has biological underpinnings.

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A study published in the journal Endocrinology demonstrates that not only are certain groups of cells different between genders in a part of the sheep brain controlling sexual behavior, but brain anatomy and hormone production may determine whether adult rams prefer other rams over ewes.

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"This particular study, along with others, strongly suggests that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals, and possibly in humans," said the lead author, Charles E. Roselli, professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. "The hope is that the study of these brain differences will provide clues to the processes involved in the development and regulation of heterosexual, as well as homosexual, behavior."

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The results lend credence to previous studies in humans that described anatomical differences between the brains of heterosexual men and homosexual men, as well as sexually unique versions of the same cluster of brain cells in males and females.

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"Same-sex attraction is widespread across many different species." said Roselli, whose laboratory collaborated with the Department of Animal Sciences at Oregon State University and the USDA Agricultural Research Service's U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho.

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Kay Larkin, an OHSU electron microscopist who performed laboratory analysis for the study, said scientists now have a marker that points to whether a ram may prefer other rams over ewes.

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"There's a difference in the brain that is correlated with partner preference rather than gender of the animal you're looking at," she said.

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Around 8 percent of domestic rams display preferences for other males as sexual partners. Scientists don't believe it's related to dominance or flock hierarchy; rather, their typical motor pattern for intercourse is merely directed at rams instead of ewes.

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"They're one of the few species that have been systematically studied, so we're able to do very careful and controlled experiments on sheep," Roselli said. "We used rams that had consistently shown exclusive sexual preference for other rams when they were given a choice between rams and ewes."

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OHSU researchers discovered an irregularly shaped, densely packed cluster of nerve cells in the hypothalamus of the sheep brain, which they named the ovine sexually dimorphic nucleus or oSDN because it is a different size in rams than in ewes. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls metabolic activities and reproductive functions.

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The oSDN in rams that preferred females was "significantly" larger and contained more neurons than in male-oriented rams and ewes. In addition, the oSDN of the female-oriented rams expressed higher levels of aromatase, a substance that converts testosterone to estradiol so the androgen hormone can facilitate typical male sexual behaviors. Aromatase expression was no different between male-oriented rams and ewes.

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The study was the first to demonstrate an association between natural variations in sexual partner preferences and brain structure in nonhuman animals.

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Scientists will work to further characterize the rams' behavior and study when during development these differences arise. "We do have some evidence the nucleus is sexually dimorphic in late gestation," Roselli said.

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They would also like to know whether sexual preferences can be altered by manipulating the prenatal hormone environment, such as by using drugs to prevent the actions of androgen in the fetal sheep brain.

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Born gay? How biology may drive orientation

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As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology?

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The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.

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Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones. In a bold test of his ideas, he hopes to engineer the birth of gay rams by altering conditions in the womb.

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Sheep aren't people, but the Oregon work adds to a growing body of research that bolsters biological explanations for sexual orientation across species ” including humans.

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Despite those scientific findings, some religious groups say homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be treated, if not prevented. One such group, the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, is sponsoring a one-day conference in Bothell Saturday.

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The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment ” including the right to marry? But if scientists unravel the roots of sexual orientation, will it some day be possible to "fix" people who don't fit the norms or abort fetuses likely to be born gay?

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To the admins:

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Sorry for the long copy and pastes. I had previously discussed this issue with Hoot at least half a dozen times before and he had previously admitted that these researches did indicate that homosexuality is more than just a choice and does have biological basis. However, senility seemed to kick in everytime because he'd always denied having such conversation with me shortly after we had it. I just thought there shouldn't be anymore excuse for him if the articles are posted right on here.

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Sincerely,

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Taz the Baby Eater

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I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

Because the Village People seemed to be a little light in their loafers when they scored their hit "YMCA."”HM

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I don't see how homosexuality could be beneficial to a population's evenly proportioned reproductive success amongst individuals, which is required to prevent NS. Homosexuals don't seek out relationships that participate in a population's reproductive activity.

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The same might be said of altruism and kin selection, though. Such behaviors are detrimental to the individual's fitness, but they improve the fitness of the population as a whole.As we've seen with species like the bonobos, there definitely seems to be a societal benefit to their lesbianism.I recently learned of another hypothesis though, whereby homosexuality may be an X-linked trait that causes a behavioral change in women who have it, increasing their motivation to mate with other men. Males who have this chromosome and turn out gay might just be a side-effect. There's a book here. It looks interesting but I haven't read it.EDIT:

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Homosexuality is biological, suggests gay sheep study

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Ah there we go. This'll make some frat boys happy, for sure.Edited by BeagleBob, : No reason given.

I'd like to give it up. But I really want to know what causes homosexuals and why they are like blacks. All we've got to go on are bald assertions.btw: I already know what causes heterosexual orientation, and without it no pecking penis will ever find its proper place where babies are made.”HM