According to BBC News a Canadian study suggests that male homosexuality is determined by genetic factors (what they call "maternal memory") rather than sociological ones. In other words, "rearing" doesn't make you gay:
"If rearing or social factors associated with older male siblings underlies the fraternal birth-order effect [the link between the number of older brothers and male homosexuality], then the number of non-biological older brothers should predict men's sexual orientation, but they do not.
"These results support a prenatal origin to sexual orientation development in men."
What I find disappointing is how a gay rights group have responded to this evidence:
Andy Forrest, a spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall, said: "Increasingly, credible evidence appears to indicate that being gay is genetically determined rather than being a so-called lifestyle choice.
"It adds further weight to the argument that lesbian and gay people should be treated equally in society and not discriminated against for something that's just as inherent as skin colour."
Why should the nature/nurture argument affect homosexual discrimination? It's as if he's saying "We don't want to be gay so don't hold us against it - there's nothing we can do!". I'd have hoped that a gay rights group would be more concerned with saying "We're humans and are free to choose and live our lives however we wish". It seems awfully defeatist and apologetic.
Whilst we're on the subject of nature/nurture check out Bryan Caplan's: An Economist's Guide to Happier Parenting. Also, whilst we're at it (are we?) Radio 4 had two wonderfully complimentary stories about individualism yesterday:
Summerhill School is 85 years old this year, yet its philosophy - a free school where the pupils are equal in status to the teachers and lessons are optional - is yet to catch on. It's one of only two such schools in the UK and ZOË NEILL READHEAD, the daughter of the school's founder, is the current Principal. She discusses the theories behind the educational example that the school is still trying to promote. Summerhill and A S Neill is edited by Mark Vaughan and published by Open University Press.
Asked to describe the archetypal artist, we would probably think of a bohemian type, quirkily dressed, with unusual ideas about life and a tendency to be a bit different. But where did this characterisation come from? A new exhibition at the National Gallery looks into the roots of the image of the Artist. LOIS OLIVER is one of the curators of the new exhibition, Rebels and Martyrs, which shows how the image we know today began with Romanticism. Rebels and Martyrs: The Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century is at the National Gallery from 28 June to 28 August.
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Posted by: Cheap Jordan 1 | October 01, 2011 at 06:25 AM