There is no discussion on the statistical modeling method that he uses–and by leaving it out this makes statisticians want to discount his entire analysis…

QUO III: Timothy, what are you basing that on? Is it just a hunch, or are there valid statistics?

What I understand Timothy to be saying is that there is no sufficient reason to believe that homosexuality is more prevalent among African Americans.

If anyone wishes to maintain that homosexuality IS more prevalent among African Americans, then the burden of proof lies with him or her, not with Timothy.

i can make them say anything you want them to say. i can even make them say both sides at the same time.

to that, add all of the explanations above about the science and reliability of the study and it makes it even more fun…

However it surprises me how many well thought out concepts with plenty of supporting evidence ultimately fall apart over time.

I don’t know the paticulars of Francis’ study or his motivations but his large sample size adds some credibility to the studies findings.

If a few more supersized studies have similar findings the FBO will be a gonner. I guess it’s wait and see time.

In the time it took you to write your rather lengthy objection to my opinion, you could have read Francis’ papers – all of them. Or perhaps you could have taken the time and re-read what I actually wrote rather than respond to what you imagined that I may possibly have written.

What I find amazing is that anyone would suggest that people don’t respond to incentives in some meaningful way.

Yeah, me too. Which is why I didn’t suggest that and why this post isn’t about that subject.

My call for caution (not “my case”) was based on the author’s possible bias, his inconsistent “results”, and his over-reaching conclusions.

I have not read the author in question but your description does not come near proving your case. You are upset he mentions a “shift from homosexual to heterosexual behavior” in “some men”. Sexual orientation and sexual behavior are not the same thing. There is no doubt that social incentives or disincentives (more typically) shift the sexual behaviours of “some men”. That doesn’t shift sexual orientation only actions — such as so-called “ex-gays” are more likely to stop having sex but no more likely to change orientation.

In addition there are individuals who have sexual orientations that are broader than others. Men tend to fall at the extremes in the Kinsey scale — more so than women. But some fall closer to the middle and thus have no problem “shifting” behavior.

You are most upset by “the assumption that sexual behavior is malleable”. Well, it is. Sexual orientation is a different matter. Are you confusing the two? Now if Francis is saying orientation is changeable that is different but you imply he has not actually said it — only that you think he believes it.

Then to muddy things up further the discussion goes on to sexual identity which is not the same as sexual orientation or sexual behaviour. Identity is how one defines one’s self and that appraisal can be wrong. Individuals who are exclusively attracted to the same sex and only have gay sex could claim a self identity of heterosexual (some exgays do just that).

As for class issues and sexual behavior there have always been huge differences in how people in the different classes (depending on you define them) view sexuality and how they behave. Working class individuals are more conservative in their values but more sexual active. These sorts of differences were noted from the beginning of sexology. And there is no reason to say these studies are a view “best left to porn”. That is just a silly statement.

Again since I have not seen the paper I can’t comment on what the author actually said only on what you say he said. I do know of people who identify as gay but aren’t attracted to the same sex. I remember one such young man who spent hours discussing that very problem with me. He wanted to be gay, saw himself as gay, but was only attracted to women. Whether there are significant numbers of such people I don’t know. Whether such people exist is not questionable.

All my own studies at university and from general life observations indicate that sexual orientation is pretty much determined, sexual behavior can change depending on circumstances (lots of straight me aren’t so straight in prison) without changing sexual orientation, and sexual self-identity may not correspond with the facts (i.e. sometimes people are motivated to believe things that are false). The other thing I know is that there are exceptions to almost all of this since humans tend not to fit into preconceived boxes well.

I tend to agree with “mgh” regarding Richard Posner’s excellent work Sex & Reason.

What I find amazing is that anyone would suggest that people don’t respond to incentives in some meaningful way. If that were the case then buying habit wouldn’t change according price and production levels wouldn’t be influenced by profits. Incentives matter. But that doesn’t mean that rigging incentives (ie central planning) works well as there are always unintended consequences.

Thanks for the clarification about confidence intervals. And I’ll agree with you that the variables he’s identified do not seem to be predictive in the real world.

However, I’m not convinced that his work is adequate to cast doubt on other predictive variables as reported or hypothesized by others.

I didn’t go into it in the body of this posting, but I’m just not sure that this sample is adequate to look at the question about fraternal birth order.

The ADDHealth sample consisted of children of which 61% were oldest or single children (the average family with children in 2000 was 1.86).
Only 2.6% of the entire sample (250 kids – male and female) had two older brothers. Of the group only 25 children had more than two older brothers and only one child had more than three.

While that may be representative of the population, it may be too small to tell us anything at all about the youngest of several sons.

Assuming that there is no contribution by a fraternal birth order, we would expect the following results:

116 male children with two older brother would yield 3 gay boys.

12 male children with three older brothers would yeild what, a third of a kid?

If you have two boys who either misidentify the number of male children of their mother or who hesitate to identify as “not heterosexual” and the results are suddenly wildly suggestive in the opposite direction.

Further, Francis’ analysis does not seem to me to adaquately distinguish between maternal siblings and family structure (i.e. half brothers, adopted brothers, and step brothers).

In short, I don’t know that there is much of value at all to be gleaned.

It would have been interesting had there been material and significant findings. But the absense of finding isn’t – as I see it – the evidence that there are no variables at play.

It’s a bit as though Francis went to the garden without a trowel and then reported that he found no potatoes.

Timothy, what are you basing that on? Is it just a hunch, or are there valid statistics?