Russia...Politics...Beliefs.

[EssArrBee]

Aren't you an actual biologist Z? 

[n0mad23]

If we had to choose, I'd still take state sponsored "in-your-face propaganda of 'alternative lifestyles'" over state sponsored Abstinence Only education.  The latter potentially far more dangerous to my daughters' lives than the former.

[z929669]

Not practicing anymore. I left academia due to how crappy our society deems the worth of academics ($$ sucks for the effort put in) ... much as the public views scientific research, as certain posts here allude.

 

To anyone that wants to pick at terms like 'fact' and 'proof' in a philosophical sense ... that's fine, but almost entirely nit-picking semantics. Certain schools of philosophy logically argue against the reality of 'truth', 'fact' and 'proof' ... but we all have a good sense of what these concepts really mean in terms of logical conclusions. I use these terms here as they are typically intended and interpreted.

 

I just won't stand by and let people say things like "my religion is the only True religion" ... or "climate change is a biased 'opinion' of the entirety of the functional scientific community" ... or "sexuality is a person's choice" ... or "reality is not real" ... without crafting a retort to openly dispute for the sake of posterity

[n0mad23]

How well Academia is appreciated in the US currently  - fully 80% +/- are adjuncts making between .40 and .60 of a dollar that a tenured professor makes.  Calling us "adjuncts" instead of "part-time hourly employees" is a disservice that helps veil this, too.  

 

One year, I (illegally according to my contracts) taught 10 credit hours more per quarter than I was allowed, teaching at 4 simultaneous community colleges and a university, and in 4 quarters I grossed $18k.

 

My students working as baristas made more than I did.

 

There's a reason fundamentalists (and here I'm using the term outside of its normalized religious usage) go after intellectuals early in the culling campaigns.

 

Critical inquiry and thinking are dangerous to the status quo.

[EssArrBee]

I've noticed that the Liberal Arts people are treated pretty badly compared to the Science/Engineering folks. EE and CS professors are really taken care. Also, geologists are treated very well because they bring in money from oil companies.

 

You biology, archeology, and anthropology guys get it pretty bad though. Kinda left to flap in the wind for all the crazies to berate. I got it pretty good because no cares about math. Math doesn't really have as many religious implications as evolutionary biology. No one having a philosophical debate about what is an isn't real in math. Everything is fake, we made it all up, and it's all still true.

 

Nothing pissing me off more than the "it's just a theory" crowd. "There is a debate among the scientific community", "you're just a paid shill for the space jews that run the world", "NASA is hiding that the Earth is flat and we never went to moon using CGI technology that somehow still doesn't exist in 2015". How the hell did you get my personal email? What the hell are space jews? I don't even work for NASA. The flat earth people have been bothering me for about 5 years now. I don't know what or how they picked me, but I looked into them and it's sooooooooooooo dumb. I'll take them over religious nuts any day though. 

 

I'll just continue to hide in my office behind my chalkboards and play Fallout 4, thank you very much.

How well Academia is appreciated in the US currently  - fully 80% +/- are adjuncts making between .40 and .60 of a dollar that a tenured professor makes.  Calling us "adjuncts" instead of "part-time hourly employees" is a disservice that helps veil this, too.  

 

One year, I (illegally according to my contracts) taught 10 credit hours more per quarter than I was allowed, teaching at 4 simultaneous community colleges and a university, and in 4 quarters I grossed $18k.

 

My students working as baristas made more than I did.

 

There's a reason fundamentalists (and here I'm using the term outside of its normalized religious usage) go after intellectuals early in the culling campaigns.

 

Critical inquiry and thinking are dangerous to the status quo.

Being an adjunct is brutal depending on where you start and what subject you teach. Basically, you're like TAs with a little more power. Being tenure track is pretty dope though. Do recommend you stick it out. Keep your head down, mouth shut, and just keep grinding. It pays off after about 5 years. Could be worse. We could be replacing you with a robot like doctors, lawyers, or cab drivers. 

[Spock]

Once you have a child and begin to invest (figuratively) into his education, it becomes rather less important whether your society is 'prosperous' enough than whether your society is OK enough to let you raise him the way you think best.

Well, a clear no! It is way more important to me that I do not have take my child to the grave because I couldn't effort some medical treatment, that I know it won't end up being harmed because of some non-radical political view or the religion it chooses etc. then whether the public school teaches something contrary to my world view.

If my child thinks I am trustworthy and my arguments are good, it will follow my belief anyway. If not, it is really my own fault.

[elenhil]

Nature versus nurture largely does not apply to basal drives like hunger and sex drive (or innate sense of smell, intelligence, etc.). 

I might have believed that, had I not followed research into other aspects of human behaviour (including the reproductive circle) that were once thought to be '99.9 nature-driven'. To clarify: you're coming to this from biology, I'm coming to this from (cultural) anthropology, and our interpretations of the 'facts' are very much different. I say there are preciously few human behaviours that are purely biological. Cross-cultural studies show that the human animal is, indeed, unique in the extent to which he can distort his behaviour, oftentimes quite contrary to what nature and evolution clearly dictate. I wouldn't pretend to be an expert on sex drive alone, but I do know how other parts of the reproductive circle (namely, everything that has to do with 'exopregnancy' and child-rearing) are culture-driven. Driven, in fact, to the point of absurdity. Take nursing, or breastfeeding in particular. One might argue that a behaviour so essential to human procreation and so clearly evolutionary selected must be '99.9 nature'. Yet, the degree of cultural variation in this matter belies the 'nature vs nurture does not apply' thesis. We are perfectly able to begin to apply the stupidest and most harmful cultural norms to what is the most basic and essential behaviour in every species' evolutionary history, and successfully subvert and hijack them to our momentary cultural needs. 

 

Looking at the nature vs nurture debate from a history of science point of view, one can clearly see that this is, indeed, a pendulum that swings from one to the other. The recent breakthroughs in genetics tend to convince the public that biology is the name of the game. Heck, my old man (a psychologist by trade, mind you) even believed ALL human behaviour is genetically driven, and goes as far as building his own bizarre version of theism on the rather dubious thesis that, given that genes are rather easy to manipulate, the fact that God has not bothered to genetically 'cure' mankind of destructive behaviours proves that He is not a benevolent deity. The walking contradiction, my father. Still, this naive obsession with genetics and nature is only a temporary phenomenon, no doubt to be replaced with proponents of '99.9 culture' sometime in the future. After which the pendulum will start to go the other way.

Edited December 11, 2015 by elenhil

[elenhil]

However, instead of randomly casting doubts on a topic based upon a commonplace, one could have a look at actual studies.

To my knowledge, sexual orientation is largely influenced by hormonal exposure during pregnancy, somewhat by (epi)genetics and a bit by nurture.

When in doubt, check for yourself: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/advanced

Here's a study on the topic from last year: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25172350

I'm terribly sorry, but I do believe that, with a bit of work, one (even I) can produce a study suggesting the opposite. For example, the study you cite suggests that sexual orientation is more concordant in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic ones. No doubt, it refers to the study by Bailey and Pillard, of which there is enough criticism from their peers to not take it at face value. To quote from an anthropologist I happened to translate just recently,  

 

Bailey and Pillard’s work, and other twin studies, have come under fire. Since the twins in this work were raised in the same household, the study can’t reasonably factor out genes from environment. These studies also rely on questionnaires or the opinion of family members to label a person’s sexuality, and it’s hard to think this is reliable data of someone else’s sexual experience or desires. More basic to the science of these twin studies is what little we know about the genetics of twinning. Monozygotic twins may, in fact, not share every strand of DNA in common. 46 The variability of what genes twins carry might account for the fact that the rates of concordance, that is both twins being homosexual, vary across studies from a few percent to 100 percent. More striking, points out a critic of this work, William Byne, is the high number of identical twins that are not concordant for homosexuality— almost half— suggesting that many other factors besides genes guide the sexual orientation of an adult. 47 Like all other human behaviors that geneticists have looked at, say schizophrenia or alcoholism, genes can only explain so much. And so the twin studies suggest, but certainly don’t conclusively prove, a genetic component to sexual orientation, be it gay or straight.

 

Footnotes:

46. Turner 1994.

47. Byne and Parsons 1993; Byne 1994.

Small, Meredith What's Love Got to Do with It? 

 

The same can be said regarding the 'male sexual orientation is linked to several regions of the genome' claim. Criticism aimed at Hamer et al., 1993, will, no doubt, apply here, too:

 

Even Hamer admits they’ve only identified a region of the X chromosome that seems to most often look the same in brothers who are gay; this isn’t the same as finding the genes for homosexuality. This region contains about 4 million base pairs and represents less than 0.2 percent of the human genome. 40 Finding a particular gene, or a set of genes, that might direct sexuality in this area is the proverbial needle in the haystack. And even if they do find particular segments of DNA that account for sexual orientation, that isn’t the final answer either. Several families showed a paternal (through the father) rather than maternal pattern of homosexuality, so that the assumption of gaygenes on the X chromosome wouldn’t work for them. Also, seven of the brothers in this study didn’t even share the same markers. If these are the supposed genes or markers for homosexuality, why are they absent in some? And finally no one, not even Hamer, has any idea exactly what these markers code for. It’s possible they code for a certain brain chemistry or physiology that eventually translates into a type of sexual orientation. But for all we know, the approximately one hundred genes in this area code for something other than anything to do with sexuality. And so the supposed genes for homosexuality, or heterosexuality for that matter, remain to be discovered.

Footnotes: LeVay and Hamer 1994.

Ibid.

And so forth. I'm sorry I do not subscribe to academic literature in the field and cannot even access the full text of the study you're referring to (good for you if you can). However, the passages quoted by me show that the 'discovery' is hardly novel and has had its critics before. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no breakthroughs in the subject that have suddenly put all doubts at rest.

Edited December 11, 2015 by elenhil

[elenhil]

Well, a clear no! It is way more important to me that I do not have take my child to the grave because I couldn't effort some medical treatment, that I know it won't end up being harmed because of some non-radical political view or the religion it chooses etc. then whether the public school teaches something contrary to my world view.

If my child thinks I am trustworthy and my arguments are good, it will follow my belief anyway. If not, it is really my own fault.

The trouble is, surrendering your parental sovereignty to the state is not the solution, because the said state is not inherently more competent than a parent is. For example, not long ago my state used to mandate that all children had to have their tonsils ripped out, because it believed science overwhelmingly proved the gland to be a rudimentary, even dangerous appendage with no actual use and plenty of potential to harm for child. Ditto for breastfeeding. I also have no great regard for the factory-style early childhood education it used to mandate (and in some ways still does), and am sufficiently aware of the harm it does in the name of turning children into proper little citizens. And so on, and so forth. I would never want this same incompetent state to dictate how to care for my children and how to raise them. Luckily, the current human rights framework does still protect the primary role of the parent in this regard. 

Edited December 11, 2015 by elenhil

[elenhil]

Bonobos seem to be hard-wired bisexuals.  

I'm sorry, but I know of professional primatologists that would disagree and argue that 'homosexual' behaviour in bonobos has little to do with sexuality and everything to do with social interaction (of which sexually charged interactions are but one of the means, even if, in case of bonobos alone, it seems to be an uncommonly prominent one). 

 

It is, once again, a matter of which interpretation any given observer infers from the 'facts'.

[elwaps]

I'm terribly sorry, but I do believe that, with a bit of work, one (even I) can produce a study suggesting the opposite.

Not a repeatable one tho. What you're basically saying is that no study is of any worth, which is a pretty bold statement for someone with an academic background. I'm probably simplifying your post too much when saying it reminds me of popular but empty phrases like "For every study there's a study proving the opposite" and "Don't trust data you haven't faked yourself" which, when being mean, are translated to "Studies not matching my opinion are to be regarded as not trustworthy". Still there's an obvious resemblance.

 

By the way, how about we all have a look at the debate behind the "Is sexual preference mainly or entirely caused by factors not influenceable by individuals?" one, which would be the "Given sexual preference was mostly not caused by genetics/hormones/other factors before birth, why shouldn't people with a homo or bisexual preference be accepted?" one. Looking at the human population not being at the edge of extinction, the missing reproductional function of homosexual relationships shouldn't be an argument. Looking at most of us living in secular countries, holy scriptures shouldn't be an argument either. Looking at protecting our children from being exposed to homosexuality (looking at you, Russia), this isn't a reason itself but presupposing a reason that isn't defined and therefore shouldn't be an argument either. Looking at it being unnatural, life including humans is part of nature and therefore by definition unable to perform unnatural activities, so that shouldn't be an argument either.

 

Are there any arguments against acceptance besides vague personal feelings? If not, are vague personal feelings a good enough reason to restrict the entire lifes of other people?

[elenhil]

Not a repeatable one tho. What you're basically saying is that no study is of any worth

No, I do not. I'm saying that studies purporting to show predominance of genetic factors of sexuality are representing only a fraction of the interpretations available, and have long been susceptible to well-deserved peer criticism, examples of which I quoted above. Which is not the same as "bah, you can prove anything with studies nowadays!" And, speaking of repeatability, once more: we're dealing with interpretations of facts. One scholar chooses to observe a group of twins and, seeing some degree of concordance, suggests genetic causality. Another looks at the same facts and notes that there is a whole bunch of factors the first one decided to overlook, factors that make the same facts open to an entirely different interpretation.

 

Russia (any state for that matter), I believe, is perfectly entitled to use its discretion to find a balance between individual liberties and the public good (which, let me remind, includes not only healthcare, but also public morals). This is, by the way, derived from the existing universally recognized human rights instruments. So no, secularism or not, existing religious traditions (not to mention healthcare and depopulation concerns, both of where are very much an issue in Russia) do have a lawful direct impact on matters such as these. 

Edited December 11, 2015 by elenhil

[elwaps]

However, if allowing religious traditions in a secular state equals the discrimination of a part of that state's population, that's directly opposing human rights. Also, giving religion a lawful impact (hope getting you right here as I'm no native speaker) is against the separation of state and church inherent to secular states. The fact that many secular states struggle implementing this separation, mostly due to the traditional role and current influence of churches in these countries, does not change any of that.

 

Article 2 says

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."

This includes homosexual citizens. Religious freedom in that case is applied to individuals, meaning the freedom to personally choose and live a religion. Not to organized religion applying its values upon individuals, which would be opposing Article 2.

 

Article 12 says

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation."

Allowing (and in the case of Russia and many other countries also encouraging) discrimination based upon sexual preference includes attacking the privacy and reputation of homosexuals.

 

Article 22 says

"Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization [...] social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality."

Discriminating against homosexuals, especially when done by states, keeps back their rights to freely develop their personality. Establishing or tolerating a society that values homosexuality as something objectively negative also takes away their dignity.

 

Also, morality is subjective.

 

 

As for the study/studies, I wish I still had my university VPN account. Unfortunately even the references seem to be restricted to full access, which is a shame. Wasn't there a page/function on PubMed where you could search for all references used in a study? Am I just blind and it is there?! Or was it even Google Scholar or something? As I simplified your position and as your responses didn't contain any actual data, I'd wish the scientific side of that debate could be pursued based upon actual scientific results. If we're going for the raw data to reconstruct the conclusions that, according to you, are prone to interpretation, we'll need some form of access and I don't have 30 bucks per study lying around. Perhaps I can get the login of a friend or something. Of course I can give you more studies confirming my point of view but due to the lack of insight into the actual raw data you'll keep saying that the conclusions are biased, we're not getting anywhere with that. How about you presenting me a study (respectively abstract) underlining your opinion? I haven't seen one so far.

[elenhil]

Citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you are, I believe, aware of its Article 29(2), too:

 

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

 

It will come to you as no surprise that this is not some legal blip, but an integral principle of human rights legislation mirrored throughout the international treaties that followed UNDHR (cf. Article 19(3)(b) of ICCPR, Article 13(2)(b) of UNCRC, or Article 10(2) of ECHR, for example).

 

So, regardless of individual claims such as 'morality is subjective', virtually every human rights instrument there is somehow recognizes the overarching right (indeed, duty) of the state to protect it.

 

As for subjectivity, I personally see no problem whenever we're talking about not one group's opinion (say, an extremely vocal Evangelical section of the US society, for example, or a hardline section of the immigrant Muslim minority in some liberal European country), but a consensus among the major religions AND the non religiously affiliated part of the society. To put is shortly, Russian society is historically conservative enough for the majority of its citizens to hold open display of homosexuality contrary to their morals, be their Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist. Not a huge revelation, I believe. So, in legal terms, the Russian state has an obligation to protect the morals of the majority of its citizens rather than to convert them to a more Western set of moral values. These human rights laws are by definition very much entrenched against social change, you see. 

 

 

Regarding studies into homosexuality, I was under the impression that I cited at least one that directly contradicted the genetic causative theory (Byne, W. and B. Parsons (1993). Human sexual orientation: The biological theories reappraised. Arch. Gen. Psych. 50: 228–239), and highlighted the internal problems acknowledged by authors of a prominent study of twins themselves (LeVay, S. and D. H. Hamer (1994). Evidence for a biological influence in male homosexuality. Sci. Amer. 270: 44–49.). Sorry I can't address the maternal hormone theory, but that alone should be enough for starters, shouldn't it?

 

I'm not trying to 'convert' you. It is just that I can't stand people claiming some sort of consensus among the scholars of a subject when there clearly is none.

Edited December 11, 2015 by elenhil

[z929669]

I might have believed that, had I not followed research into other aspects of human behaviour (including the reproductive circle) that were once thought to be '99.9 nature-driven'. To clarify: you're coming to this from biology, I'm coming to this from (cultural) anthropology, and our interpretations of the 'facts' are very much different. I say there are preciously few human behaviours that are purely biological. Cross-cultural studies show that the human animal is, indeed, unique in the extent to which he can distort his behaviour, oftentimes quite contrary to what nature and evolution clearly dictate. I wouldn't pretend to be an expert on sex drive alone, but I do know how other parts of the reproductive circle (namely, everything that has to do with 'exopregnancy' and child-rearing) are culture-driven. Driven, in fact, to the point of absurdity. Take nursing, or breastfeeding in particular. One might argue that a behaviour so essential to human procreation and so clearly evolutionary selected must be '99.9 nature'. Yet, the degree of cultural variation in this matter belies the 'nature vs nurture does not apply' thesis. We are perfectly able to begin to apply the stupidest and most harmful cultural norms to what is the most basic and essential behaviour in every species' evolutionary history, and successfully subvert and hijack them to our momentary cultural needs. 

 

Looking at the nature vs nurture debate from a history of science point of view, one can clearly see that this is, indeed, a pendulum that swings from one to the other. The recent breakthroughs in genetics tend to convince the public that biology is the name of the game. Heck, my old man (a psychologist by trade, mind you) even believed ALL human behaviour is genetically driven, and goes as far as building his own bizarre version of theism on the rather dubious thesis that, given that genes are rather easy to manipulate, the fact that God has not bothered to genetically 'cure' mankind of destructive behaviours proves that He is not a benevolent deity. The walking contradiction, my father. Still, this naive obsession with genetics and nature is only a temporary phenomenon, no doubt to be replaced with proponents of '99.9 culture' sometime in the future. After which the pendulum will start to go the other way.

I'd like to point out that one's 'nature' insofar as one's instinctive drives/urges/tendencies can be markedly different from one's 'behavior'. The 'fact' is that all of one's purposeful behavior is ultimately dictated by choice (which also has nature/nurture components); however, how one instinctively 'feels' with respect to basal drives/urges is almost wholly dictated by one's physiology.

 

So a gay person could behave as a heterosexual, but this would amount to enormous internal pressure, since it is acting in contrast to that person's nature. Humans are uniquely capable of altering their behavior against their nature ... but at great cost. The alternative cost (social pressure) can also be great though, but probably not as great as going against one's genetically-programmed nature.

 

Thus, I say that if a person identifies socially as homosexual, it is almost always authentic and not some sort of 'deviant' choice they are purposefully making (but I do acknowledge taht it happens in rare cases). That would be much harder a choice to maintain, and it would be inherently inauthentic to the self in favor of (or sometimes contrary to) the society.

 

Gay people are almost always 'gay' by no choice of their own, and to disagree is to deny the powerful influence of genetically-determined physiology and a body of research that is far more prevalent, consistent, objective, and credible than the body of 'research' that refutes it (the latter of which is contaminated largely by subjective religious fervor ... like arguments against climate change, age/shape of the Earth, evolution, etc.).