Fewer fruitflies in hell.

ETA: descriibing this as a "cure" is risible.

[http://This message has been edited by Iontach (edited Dec-10-2007).|http://This message has been edited by Iontach (edited Dec-10-2007).]

You lock your pheremone
In my receptor
Oh baby

Let's assume that there is a similar "genetic switch" for homosexuality in humans.

1. Wouldn't that prove beyond a doubt that being gay is genetic and not a "lifestyle choice," such that homophobes and religious nuts would have to abandon this vehicle for their condemnation?

2. If something is genetic, can we assign moral value to it? Is there genetic "good" and "evil"? Is there genetic "sin"?

3.  I'm going to assume that great throngs of people would want medicine to "flip" that "switch" in gay people in order to make them straight.  And that begs the question: why would you want to do that?  And if we make a moral judgment that the gay genetic switch should be flipped, why can't we make moral judgments about other genetic switches, whatever they be, whether related to ambition, food preference or skin color?

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackbird:

2. If something is genetic, can we assign moral value to it? Is there genetic "good" and "evil"? Is there genetic "sin"?

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Sin is, by nature, genetic.  It transmits from one generation to the next.  "The wages of sin is death", and "in Adam all die."

"My genes made me do it" is no more valid than "the devil made me do it."

(Wait!...Were they Levi's, or Wranglers?)

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackbird:

Let's assume that there is a similar "genetic switch" for homosexuality in humans.

1. Wouldn't that prove beyond a doubt that being gay is genetic and not a "lifestyle choice," such that homophobes and religious nuts would have to abandon this vehicle for their condemnation?

2. If something is genetic, can we assign moral value to it? Is there genetic "good" and "evil"? Is there genetic "sin"?

3. I'm going to assume that great throngs of people would want medicine to "flip" that "switch" in gay people in order to make them straight. And that begs the question: why would you want to do that? And if we make a moral judgment that the gay genetic switch should be flipped, why can't we make moral judgments about other genetic switches, whatever they be, whether related to ambition, food preference or skin color?

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That is a major assumption, and although I realize you're making it for the sake of positing a "what-if" scenario, extrapolating the results of Grosjean et al.'s work is hazardous. The mutated amino-acid transporter affects pheromonal signals. Human sexuality is far more complex.

I have no doubt that homosexuality is biologically based and part of the human sexual spectrum. But it is highly unlikely to reside in a single gene locus.

That said, the findings are highly bloggable so I have printed out the original paper from Nature Neurosciences plus some supporting material for a little review and commentary which may include my very calm measured opinion pertaining to that reprehensible fückwit, Mike Huckabee


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Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge[/URL" target="_blank">

[http://This message has been edited by CharlesRiverBlowfish (edited Dec-10-2007).|http://This message has been edited by CharlesRiverBlowfish (edited Dec-10-2007).]

That Mike Huckabee what?!

I prefer to regard this as the possible beginning of finding a cure for chronic and rampant heterosexuality.