Bailey et al are at pains to say that they cannot preclude genetic factors; even in the very quote you have given. (They did find heritability — they could not establish what it was due to.)

They plainly did not say genetics “were not” a factor. That completely overstates their careful wording.

They. did. not. preclude. genetic. factors.

“Is homosexuality genetic?”
“Our study did not provide statistically significant support.”
“Right… so it isn’t genetic?”
“I didn’t say that. I said our study did not provide statistically significant support — however this does not mean that our results support heritability estimates of zero. It may be.”
So you are saying it might be, or it might not be???”
“Correct, that is what I just said!!!”

Good grief.

—————————–

For those wanting/needing to read more…

Bem’s ref to Dunne et al is actually a different paper. (at that time unpublished)

The one under discussion is (or was) another one, by the same authors.

(unfortunately this team of authors have written so many papers from so many different statistical directions it does get very confusing.)

Regardless, Bem has said he used the same data set. Unfortunately, that’s not where the difference lies.

Bem strictly used a Kinsey0 for “heterosexual” and K1-K6 for “homosexual”. He got the results that he reported.

Kirk et al did not do that in their analysis — theirs was multi-variant, specifically to avoid the very simplification made by Bem.

“A further limitation of previous studies of sexual orientation is that they have focused on definitions derived from Kinsey et al. (1948). This approach neglects
the possibility of obtaining additional information from questionnaire items via multivariate techniques. Here we use multivariate structural equation modeling techniques
to maximize the information obtained from a number of distinct but closely related measures of sexual orientation and expand on the focus of Bailey et al.
(2000) by including measures of both behavioral and psychological sexual orientation.”

(fingers crossed, the links seem correct — lucky Jimbo’s here to do everyone’s QC!)

—————————–

“Using statistics the same a drunk uses a lamp post — for support rather than illumination.”

I am wondering if yoyu would care to respond to the comments i made on September 20?

Consistent with several studies of siblings (Bailey & Bell, 1993; Bailey & Benishay, 1993; Pillard, 1990; Pillard & Weinrich,1986), we found that sexual orientation is familial. In contrast to most prior twin studies of sexual orientation, however, ours did not provide statistically significant support for the importance of genetic factors for that trait. This does not mean that our results support heritability estimates of zero, though our results do not exclude them either. Our findings are also consistent with moderate to large heritabilities for both male and female sexual orientation,
and the confidence intervals of our estimates include estimates from earlier studies (Bailey & Pillard, 1991; Bailey, Pillard, et al., 1993; Buhrich, Bailey, & Martin, 1991). Our findings demonstrate the necessity of very large sample sizes to resolve
familial variance into its genetic and shared environmental components,
when one is studying traits with unfavorable distributions,
such as sexual orientation.

I am aware of what the follow up analysis reported, so I do not need to hear about that. I am also aware that Bem analyzed the same data and found no relationship between genetic similarity and sexual orientation similarity. There are significant questions about what we know in this regard.

———————–

We’ve addressed one part already:

it’s got to do with the stats methodology used: “cannot say it does” and “it does not” aren’t the same things. The language used to describe the testing results is precise, but not in any normal sense of English.

Perhaps we were unfair to you by precluding an option. So we’ll reword.

“Jones is either being misleading, or he knows diddly-squat about statistics.”

You chose.

———————–

You haven’t actually read the Kirk study have you?

“Kirk et al achieve this finding by putting together many variables in ways that strike me as problematic. So I am more persuaded by the Bailey, Dunne, & Martin conclusions…

Oh yes, the Bailey, Dunne, & Martin conclusions.

As opposed to the Kirk, Bailey, Dunne, & Martin conclusions?

Same authors. Notice.

Same sample. Notice.

———————–

And leaving the worst for last…

Dr Jones, please do us the good grace of not lying to our faces.

You didn’t have a brief, unexpected, uncharateristic lapse in memory.

“…the Australian twin registry, which registers every twin pair born in the entire country.”

Your words. From 2004. (try here)

“the entire Australian Twin Registry, an exhaustive listing of all twins born in its population”

Your words. From 1999 (here)

google “Stanton Jones Australian Twin Registry” and you’ll embarrassingly find the web full of you and your uncharacterisic lapse in memory.

You have been wrongly categorising the ATR as exhaustive for years. A monumental error, but not a sin.

Lying however….

You may therefore keep your apologies.

I don’t think I have ever confused the ferns for my man.

Perhaps that’s the special power of being gay, the ability to classify nouns?

I must be lucky.

Emproph,

normally I would think this sort of sentence is hyperbole and ignore it. And yet, you illustrated your point with clear example.

So while that sentence seems like a wild accusation … it also seems to be accurate. How sad.

From: Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate

Stanton L. Jones & Mark A. Yarhouse

From the last 5 pages of the book, starting on p 179:

Coming Full Circle: Summary and Concluding Thoughts on Homosexuality

“(4) the origins of homosexual attraction are unclear but grounded ultimately in our human fallenness and rebellion against God, and (5) that there were persons in the New Testament fellowship who were once participants in homosexual practice but who identified with such practices no longer.”

Basis: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. And that is what some of you were…

(P 180):

“Simply put, the supposed teachings of “science” were and are being used to convince the church that it can no longer hold to the traditional moral judgement regarding homosexual practice.”

And my personal favorite (p 181):

”Even if the homosexual condition of desiring intimacy and sexual union with a person of the same gender is cause in its entirety by causal factors outside of the personal control of the person, that does not constitute moral affirmation of acting on those desires. If it did, the pedophile who desires sex with children, the alcoholic who desires the pursuit of drunkenness, and the person with Antisocial Personality Disorder who desires the thrill of victimization and pain infliction would all have an equal case for moral approval of their exploits.”

Thus, the “moral” template that Jones and Yarhouse speak from.

So it’s not just not about science, it’s about the active pursuit to define – in the public arena – the consensual sharing of love between two gay persons, as morally equivalent to the willful harm of others.

And they actually think that their inability to distinguish between love and evil makes them morally superior.

But I will have to say, Dr. Jones, that it does not matter the slightest bit about the twin study, or whether being gay is genetic or not. I happen to believe that it is quite a subtle and multi-variable combination of genetic propensity and environmental/nurture factors, which would explain the twin results. But I can’t prove that.

Nor, ultimately, does it matter. Because, as my lengthy post that you never bothered to respond to indicates, (he said, petulantly):

(take a breath) THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. If you want to know what I am certain it is about, read my post. Or read some studies about societies, such as modern Thailand, or ancient Greece or Rome, or feudal Japan, where it just wasn’t an issue, and hence, there was nothing to do about it.

I’m going a bit out on a limb here, but I am going to say that even if it proved to be entirely genetic, you would still feel it is your god-given mission to change, suppress, or eradicate it, and oppose any normalization of gay people in law, culture or society. If I am wrong about this, please tell me, and I will apologize. But I don’t think I am or you will.

Even if being gay is not genetic, it still seems to be as deeply ingrained as if it were genetic (Is being left handed genetic? I don’t know. But it also does not seem to be changeable, and the damage done to one of my teachers exemplifies the danger of trying). By the results of your own study, it does not appear to be changeable in any meaningful, uncomplicated, and unequivocal sense.

As I said in my previous post, as far as your your study goes, prayer and religious belief are ineffective in changing sexual orientation. Therapy does not “cure” it either because apparently, by APA standards, there is nothing to cure. And since many gay men, my partner and myself included, have had good to excellent relationships with our fathers and other male figures during childhood, as have most of my friends, in ex-gay terms, there is no “brokenness” to “heal” either.

There are some behavioral changes, but basic orientation has not changed. So, I am left with the same question:

Why, when it was clear from the results of your study that actual, “uncomplicated” change from homo to hetero does not occur, at least by your methods, why do you advocate change, ESPECIALLY by your methods? My homosexuality, like the heterosexuality of my many straight friends, is very unequivocal and very uncomplicated. If the best that you can come up with are celibates and the “complicateds”, then I put it to you that you are leaving something not changed.

And whether it is genetic or not is not relevant either to you or to me.

As a frIend of mine once commented: “The only reason some people want to find out what causes homosexuality is so that they can eradicate it.”

I wonder why that is?