Gay parents more likely to make gay kids

[Broomstick]

I'm not seeing anything about twins in that article. It's been shown in the past, more than once, that twins are more likely to both be homosexual (or not) than non-identical siblings, who, in turn, or more likely to both be homosexual (or not) than adopted siblings. If that doesn't show a large genetic component to sexual orientation then I don't know what does.

It doesn't. For one thing, IIRC about a third of identical twins have differing sexualities. Additionally, twins obviously share the same wombs and most of the time share the same environment. The evidence whenever I looked at it last seemed to be weighted towards the notion of hormones in the womb. Later kids were more likely to be gay than first-borns due to the womb getting "worn out" etc. It may well be a case of genetic sensitivity to those conditions too, and sexuality may be more fluid than liberals want to admit outside the womb.

Heritability is 50%, the rest being accounted for by natal factors. Identical twins may or may not share the same womb environment, depending on whether they share placental attachments and the same amniotic sack.

Um... it was my understanding that in humans genetically identical twins always share an amniotic sack and always share the same placenta. Knowing how biology is a real joker at times, it's probably more accurate to say almost always, but bottom line, the incidence of identical twins having separate aminionics/plancentas is probably on par with naturally occuring human chimeras, maybe even less. They exist, but so rarely that they don't wind up in these studies, or have significant statistical effect.

But even when they share so much, they still may not have identical experiences as it is possible for one twin to have a better blood flow than the other, with a result of genetically identical twins who wind up appearing very different from each other, usually significantly different sizes but it could cause other differences.

[Alyrium Denryle]

20-30% of identical twins spit early enough to share neither the placenta, nor the amniotic sack.

[Bakustra]

Hey, do you know why exactly people have such a negative reaction to evolutionary psychology? It's because it is generally used to reinforce traditional gender roles! And it's usually applied in a brain-dead way, too! In fact, his response was not so much to smear evolutionary psych as to object to objectification and reduction of himself as a person to being just a number on a chart. A natural impulse, I would suggest.

PS: So if there is concerted evidence that compatibilist free will is impossible, why hasn't that been proclaimed widely? My textbook, if you must know, was Goldstein's Cognitive Psychology.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hey, do you know why exactly people have such a negative reaction to evolutionary psychology? It's because it is generally used to reinforce traditional gender roles! And it's usually applied in a brain-dead way, too! In fact, his response was not so much to smear evolutionary psych as to object to objectification and reduction of himself as a person to being just a number on a chart. A natural impulse, I would suggest.

Which is fine. On the other hand he tried to shoehorn me into that category, which is not about to fly. The people using evolutionary psychology in that way are little better than the social darwinists. That having been said, there are reasons people do certain things, and those reasons hold true even if you are not neurologically... normal. Which gays and transgendered people are not. The polarity is just reversed, or there is a certain amount of gradation. Properly applied, evolutionary psychology rather handily predicts the existence of various gradations of bisexual as an alternative reproductive strategy, with the gays and transgendered riding on its statistical coat tails.

PS: So if there is concerted evidence that compatibilist free will is impossible, why hasn't that been proclaimed widely? My textbook, if you must know, was Goldstein's Cognitive Psychology.

Whenever I argue against free will, I do so against the incompatibalist notion of it. I have no issue with compatibalism, because it redefines free will so that it is no longer in conflict with determinism. Essentially "Man man do what he will wills, but cannot will what he wills", or the ability to act according to one's fully caused motivations.

[Broomstick]

20-30% of identical twins spit early enough to share neither the placenta, nor the amniotic sack.

Really? :::scribbles notes furiously::: Clearly I need to update my knowledge base.

[Bakustra]

Let's look at his response. "They're also not unthinking widgets in an evolutionary psychology simulation". If you take this to be insulting to evolutionary psychology as a field, rather than as a response to perceived dehumanization, there may well be something wrong with your perceptions. In the greater context, it's also a remark that sexuality is not quantized, in his belief. I see no real problem with that. Why do you?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Let's look at his response. "They're also not unthinking widgets in an evolutionary psychology simulation". If you take this to be insulting to evolutionary psychology as a field, rather than as a response to perceived dehumanization, there may well be something wrong with your perceptions. In the greater context, it's also a remark that sexuality is not quantized, in his belief. I see no real problem with that. Why do you?

Now that you have gone over it, I will retract my snark.

[Mayabird]

Schumm next went macro, poring over an anthropological study of various cultures' acceptance of homosexuality. He found that when communities welcome gays and lesbians, "89 percent feature higher rates of homosexual behavior."

I don't have a problem with that, even if I am heterosexual.

Also, one wonders if he may have considered that gay people are not fixed objects that sprout of the ground like trees. They move. Predictably, they move from places where more people hate them and want them to die to places where fewer people hate them and want them to die. Therefore, they tend to cluster in places that welcome them, as opposed to places that hate them and want them dead.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Which is exactly what happens. A gay person born in some shithole often moves/flees to a place like Seattle or Atlanta that has a big safe community of some sort already. Then you have neighborhoods that have extremely skewed percentages of GLBT people, way above that of the general population, because they can actually live there.