Are gays ‘born that way’? Science says no

psy·cho·sis

sīˈkōsəs/

noun

1. a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/for-the-first-time-a-majority-of-americans-believe-homosexuals-are-born-tha

Are gays ‘born that way’? Most Americans now say yes, but science says no

Fr. Mark Hodges

PRINCETON, NJ, May 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- For the first time, a majority of Americans say that homosexuals are "born that way."

According to the latest Gallup poll, 51 percent of Americans say that people are born gay or lesbian, while only 30 percent say outside factors such as upbringing and environment determine sexual orientation.

However, science would not bear that out. No fewer than eight major studies from around the world have found homosexuality is not a genetic condition.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council says that these numerous, rigorous studies of identical twins have now made it impossible to argue that there is a "gay gene." If homosexuality were inborn and predetermined, then when one identical twin is homosexual, the other should be, as well.

Yet one study from Yale and Columbia Universities found homosexuality common to only 6.7 percent of male identical twins and 5.3 percent of female identical twins.

The low rate of common homosexuality in identical twins – around six percent – is easily explained by nurture, not nature.

Researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Brueckner concluded that environment was the determining factor. They rejected outright that "genetic influence independent of social context" as the reason for homosexuality. "(O)ur results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences."

"Less gendered socialization" means, a boy was without a positive father figure, or a girl was without a positive mother figure.

In light of the evidence, Sprigg said simply, "No one is born gay."

Psychiatrists William Byne and Bruce Parsons summarize the science: "Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking. ... In fact, the current trend may be to underrate the explanatory power of extant psychosocial models." In other words, homosexuality is a psychological malady, not something people are born with.

Some homosexuals openly admit that their lifestyle is a choice. Lindsay Miller, who describes herself as a "queer woman," complained in The Atlantic monthly, "I get frustrated with the veiled condescension of straight people who believe that queers 'can't help it,' and thus should be treated with tolerance and pity.”

“I was not born this way,” she wrote. “The life I have now is not something I ended up with because I had no other options. Make no mistake – it's a life I chose.”

"It's time to send the 'born that way' myth to the graveyard of misbegotten ideas, buried in the plot next to the myth that the sun revolves around the earth,” Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has written.

And yet, the myth continues to gain believers, even among conservatives. According to the new Gallup poll, Republicans are divided on whether Americans are born homosexual (40 percent) or whether same-sex orientation is determined by environmental factors (36 percent).

In previous polls, a majority of Republicans have said homosexuality is not innate. Now, according to this poll, they are equally likely to view sexual orientation as inherent, rather than a choice or a consequence of how people were raised. In all, 62 percent of Democrats believe homosexuals were born that way.

The issue affects Republican politicians who, like all politicians, base their public statements on the polls. Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson recently apologized for merely suggesting people choose to be gay or lesbian. Sen. Marco Rubio has said that, while he does not support same-sex "marriage," he believes that people are born gay or lesbian.

Fischer says our society and particularly our presidential candidates should make policy based on medical and scientific reality, not polls. "If homosexual behavior is a choice, then our public policy can freely be shaped by an honest look at whether this behavioral choice is healthy and should be encouraged, or unhealthy and dangerous and consequently discouraged," he wrote.

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There is no debate over the health threats posed by engaging in the homosexual lifestyle. Fischer notes that the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association admits homosexuals are at greater risk of AIDS, substance and alcohol abuse, depression and anxiety, hepatitis, STDs, and prostate and colon cancer.

"This is not behavior that any rational society should condone, endorse, subsidize, reward, promote or sanction in domestic policy or in the marketplace,” Fischer wrote. “It's a choice, and a bad one at that."

The Gallup poll, taken May 6-10, also reports a new record high number of Americans support same-sex "marriage."

The poll is based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,024 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the United States. The organization says its margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

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JR: The science is, as always, are inconclusive, given all of the variables. This we do know, mankind can be traced back to "the Fertile Crescent"... A place of origin. Science supports that. We are ALL related and probably to ancestors of color. "The modern-day countries with significant territory within the Fertile Crescent are Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, beside the southeastern fringe of Turkey and the western fringes of Iran." --Wikipedia

"Almost every man alive can trace his origins to one man who lived about 135,000 years ago, new research suggests. And that ancient man likely shared the planet with the mother of all women."

http://www.livescience.com/38613-genetic-adam-and-eve-uncovered.html

Genetic 'Adam' and 'Eve' Uncovered

Almost every man alive can trace his origins to one man who lived about 135,000 years ago, new research suggests. And that ancient man likely shared the planet with the mother of all women.

The findings, detailed today (Aug. 1) in the journal Science, come from the most complete analysis of the male sex chromosome, or the Y chromosome, to date. The results overturn earlier research, which suggested that men's most recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Despite their overlap in time, ancient "Adam" and ancient "Eve" probably didn't even live near each other, let alone mate. [The 10 Biggest Mysteries of the First Humans]

"Those two people didn't know each other," said Melissa Wilson Sayres, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

Tracing history

Researchers believe that modern humans left Africa between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago, and that the mother of all women likely emerged from East Africa. But beyond that, the details get fuzzy.

The Y chromosome is passed down identically from father to son, so mutations, or point changes, in the male sex chromosome can trace the male line back to the father of all humans. By contrast, DNA from the mitochondria, the energy powerhouse of the cell, is carried inside the egg, so only women pass it on to their children. The DNA hidden inside mitochondria, therefore, can reveal the maternal lineage to an ancient Eve.

But over time, the male chromosome gets bloated with duplicated, jumbled-up stretches of DNA, said study co-author Carlos Bustamante, a geneticist at Stanford University in California. As a result, piecing together fragments of DNA from gene sequencing was like trying to assemble a puzzle without the image on the box top, making thorough analysis difficult.

Y chromosome

Bustamante and his colleagues assembled a much bigger piece of the puzzle by sequencing the entire genome of the Y chromosome for 69 men from seven global populations, from African San Bushmen to the Yakut of Siberia.

By assuming a mutation rate anchored to archaeological events (such as the migration of people across the Bering Strait), the team concluded that all males in their global sample shared a single male ancestor in Africa roughly 125,000 to 156,000 years ago.

In addition, mitochondrial DNA from the men, as well as similar samples from 24 women, revealed that all women on the planet trace back to a mitochondrial Eve, who lived in Africa between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago — almost the same time period during which the Y-chromosome Adam lived.

More ancient Adam

But the results, though fascinating, are just part of the story, said Michael Hammer, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

A separate study in the same issue of the journal Science found that men shared a common ancestor between 180,000 and 200,000 years ago.

And in a study detailed in March in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Hammer's group showed that several men in Africa have unique, divergent Y chromosomes that trace back to an even more ancient man who lived between 237,000 and 581,000 years ago. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

"It doesn't even fit on the family tree that the Bustamante lab has constructed — It's older," Hammer told LiveScience.

Gene studies always rely on a sample of DNA and, therefore, provide an incomplete picture of human history. For instance, Hammer's group sampled a different group of men than Bustamante's lab did, leading to different estimates of how old common ancestors really are.

Adam and Eve?

These primeval people aren't parallel to the biblical Adam and Eve. They weren't the first modern humans on the planet, but instead just the two out of thousands of people alive at the time with unbroken male or female lineages that continue on today.

The rest of the human genome contains tiny snippets of DNA from many other ancestors — they just don't show up in mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA, Hammer said. (For instance, if an ancient woman had only sons, then her mitochondrial DNA would disappear, even though the son would pass on a quarter of her DNA via the rest of his genome.)

As a follow-up, Bustamante's lab is sequencing Y chromosomes from nearly 2,000 other men. Those data could help pinpoint precisely where in Africa these ancient humans lived.

"It's very exciting," Wilson Sayres told LiveScience. "As we get more populations across the world, we can start to understand exactly where we came from physically."

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

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