Posts by Neil Morrison
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I went looking for something concise and informative on this issue and found this - Pas de Deux of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes
Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. “I think most of the scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth,” Dr. Breedlove said, “whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life.”
So there are maybe some differences in how men and women get their sexuality.
Still, we all start off as women but some of us get to be prats in cars.
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I'm genuinely not sure what you mean by that
I'm making the assumption that for heterosexuals sexuality is more significantly related to the X and Y chromsomes. XX = have sex with men, XY = have sex with women. Whereas with homosexuality there seems to be a larger set of possible causes. (I've just debated this, rather hotly, with my partner so maybe i'm overlooking something).
I agree there is a continuum but there is a large amount of clustering around the end points of straight and gay.
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Canty is a consrvative establishment and as such the study risks this bias.
In what way could men and women having evolved different mating strategies be considered as "conservative bias"?
And what of the love that we won't study or publish that'll screws up the curve?
Are you referring to homosexuality?
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Is it in their DNA?
Y?
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If you have two females in a couple, do they both look for what women look for in a partner, both look for what people look for in a female partner, or do you have one from each perspective?
I imagine that there would be a greater spread of mating strategies in same sex couples. It's only on average that heterosexual men and women conform to what one would expect to have evolved. Heterosexuality has, presumably, one main genetic cause, whereas homosexuality is most likely the result of a greater number of causes (genetic, the womb environment etc) and hence would show a greater variability.
It would be interesting to know if there was a major difference between gays and lesbians.
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I'm surprised that gender differences being shown to be a product of evolution rather than culture isn't generating as much heat as those biofuels.
Males do some strange things to show their genetic fitness - boy racing is a classic example of lekking. But if you really want to impress the female of the species then you need to take on Poisonous Bullet Ants.
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The funny thing is that the very hard line taken by AIPAC is not at all representative of US Jewish opinion when polled.
Indeed, since the Jewish vote has always gone to the Dems. I'd add that AIPAC (and the crazier evangelicals for that matter) has had little influence on US foreign policy, even though they like to think so.
The idea that there is a hugely influential Jewish lobby that makes the WASP political establishment go against its better judgment to irrationally support Israel is a very large distraction. A distraction from looking at the real reasons both Democrat and Republican administrations have had a fairly consistent line towards Israel.
Looking at those real reasons doesn't have to imply agreeing with every aspect of US policy in the Middle East.
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...the way Edwards, Clinton and Obama have all groveled to Israel of recent.
This is where I find the debate about Israel swerves into some strange territory.
Might it not be that case that Edwards, Clinton, Obama etc actually support Israel because they, like most US politicians of whatever ethnicity and/or party for the past 50 years, think it's the right thing to do. One could just easily disagree with their position without the need for the "undue influence" bit.
That's where Mearsheimer and Walt went so wrong. They wrongly conclude that the loud voice of AIPAC and US foreign policy are casually linked. There are many other reasons for US support for Israel. It's also a theory that doesn’t explain a great deal about the rest of US policy in the Middle East such as its ties with Saudi Arabia.
Just as it would be wrong to consider all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, it is wrong to consider all support for Israel to be the result of a Jewish conspiracy.
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Ngggg
I that a Marge Simpsonism?
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As part of the Vanity Fair interview with Hitchens the interviewer as part of a question says -
Lawrence Wright says in his one-man show, "My Trip to al-Qaeda," that getting along with women is a large part of what civilization is about.
Quite an interesting observation.
The Times has podcasts of Dawkins and Hitchens, not surprisingly, arguing for the affirmative in - Are we better off without religion?.