"The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.Your note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years."
NARTH of course conveniently conflates, non genetic with something that is a choice. It would seem to me that if NARTH is really interested in helping people and interested in the truth about homosexuality it would pull or at least rewrite the original article so as to not distort what Collins actually said and believes.
But no. Taking a page from the creationists and intelligent design advocates they have left the article intact. Sounds like NARTH understands what those propagandists have long known. If you repeat a lie enough people will begin to believe it.
I wonder what NARTH would make of this article from Scientific American. The article notes:
"In the past, people thought that…[political leanings were]…all environmentally influenced, a combination of biological dispositions as well as cultural shaping," says David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University. However, a new study, led by Amodio, indicates that political bent "is not just a choice people have, but it seems to be linked to fundamental differences in the way people process information."
Does this mean being a Republican can't be fixed with therapy?
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NARTH proposes "reparative" therapy, but what this exactly entails, no one is quite sure. When in the hands of the Psyche Industry, the therapist attached electrodes to man's erogenous zones, showed pictures of beautiful naked men, and then zapped the patient with electrical current, all based on Pavlovian operant conditioning.
Treatment, if it was meant to make one sexually dysfunctional, succeeded so well, that most patients committed suicide. One can condition a human's behavior to associate "pain" with "pleasure," just as Pavlov had with his dogs and salivation, but that operant, or aversive, conditioning does not affect the brain centers of desire. So the patient now had the sexual desire "in his head," but the physical inability to respond to it. Cured!
John Searle has some choice words about these practices in his Rediscovery of the Mind, as does E. O. Wilson in his 1978 Pulitzer Prize On Human Nature. Armed with Karl Popper's indictment of "psychologism" from decades earlier, some of us visited the Psyche's Convocation in Hawaii, 1973, and demanded "proof" that homophilia is a "disorder," and if a "disorder," how does reparative therapy "cure" it? The Convocation achieved "enlightenment," with its back to the wall, and by popular vote (how Council of Nicea) voted to make homosexuality a "non-disorder." Wouldn't the Greeks and Roman, all those Asians of antiquity, be surprised at this discovery?
What's truly ODD, now that biologists, including E. O. Wilson, assure us that homosexuality is biologically normal, the NARTH can continue to practice these draconian measures to "cure" the biologically normal. But, NARTH is not alone. Psychiatrists, since they are medical doctors, prohibit the use of psychiatry for C.I.A. torture, but not the American Psychological Association. The A.P.A. has no standards of scope of practice that can force torture-enablers or NARTH from practicing their voodoo. It has voted (how scientific of them) to disapprove of reparative therapy it created, but is powerless to implement its own preferences.
If one has no "theory," then any "practice" is fair game. As McGuire and Troisi in Darwinian Psychiatry assert, echoing Karl Popper, until the profession, psychiatrists included, starts with a proven scientific hypothesis, all sorts of aberrant practices by the Psyche Industry will continue. Their indictment fell on deaf ears. I found it compelling, as have some physicians, such as Randoph Nesse in conjunction with George Williams. But occultists are a "vested interest."
NARTH, actually is relatively benign, since its fraudulent claims are quite obvious. It's what is "allowed" by their fellows in the Psyche Industry that scares me. They've devised a "neuro-psych" test which is a terrible fraud, that has no physiological measurements, but develops a diagnosis according to the DSM-IV that is so bizarre, it can diagnose someone as being psychotic because s/he's a nominalist rather than essentialist.
Pseudo-science seems tame to call this industry. Granted, psychotropics are often a god send, but not those who profess that the "excluded middle" (i.e., "mind") is irrelevant to its therapeutic interventions. The "excluded middle," of course, refers to a logical process in Aristotlean logic, but the Psyche Industry denies all logic. It also defies it.
I don't think NARTH is benign at all any more than I think that Ken Hamm and his Creationist "Museum" is benign. But aside from that you are spot on.
Though not all therapy is bad if the point of therapy is to help a person understand him or herself and help make decisions for one's self.
Hmmm some people think nominalists are sick? I thought it was the essentialists who needed help. **eg**Of course I see the world exactly as it is so I have a somewhat privileged position. **Tougne firmly in cheek.**
Genetic determinism is based on false scientific inference. Showing that the presence of a gene significantly correlates with the presence of a trait does not establish causality. For example, the fact that 20% of people who have a gene are gay (which is significantly different from 0%) does not mean that having that specific gene causes homosexuality.
To establish causality, we need experiments. I would believe that "a gene causes homosexuality" only if:
(1) you create two human beings in the lab. these humans have exactly the same genes. the only - but only- difference is that one of them has the "gay gene" and the other one does not.
(2) you make these two humans grow up in the exact same environment.
(3) you measure their sexual orientation after they reach adulthood.
(4) you find that the one with the gay gene experiences attraction to same-sex while the one without that gene does not.
(5) you replicate this finding with a large number of pairs.
Doing a study like this is impossible, because scientists ethically cannot play with human genome like this. Furthermore, even if it were ethically possible, this study would be extremely costly. Thus, currently available scientific methods can never prove the "born-that-way" theory.
The scientist who identified the correlation between the "gay gene" and homosexuality is being cautious and I congratulate him/her for doing that.
I think that s/he was actually saying "being gay is NOT hard-wired." S/he was saying "being gay might be caused by genes, but there are other factors that contribute to the development of sexual orientation." Accepting that there are environmental factors in play is asserting that homosexuality is not entirely genetically determined; thus NOT HARDWIRED.
"Born-that-way" theory serves two purposes: (1) it helps people who practice homosexuality ease their feelings of inadequacy imposed by the society, and (2) it [might]convince some of anti-gay people to be more tolerant. That's why it's so popular.
I must add that I am not connected to NARTH or any right-wing organization/religious group. I just believe that telling young people confused with their sexual feelings that they are born to be gay is unfair. I have much symphaty for gays who enjoy their sexual identity. But, gays who do not enjoy it should be given a chance...
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