I’d be very curious to meet my e-double. Sorry if I offended Tim, but thats’ no reason to claim that the world is conspiring against you!

Please, share the IP address . Ya never know – maybe I’ll get lucky!

While a discussion about the merits of looking for causation where correlation occurs may be a worthy pursuit, using multiple personalities can provide doubt as to the integrity of the debate.

So, thank you Bio-Curious for your kind words, but I am disappointed by your tactics.

Okay, we’ve come to a conclusion here. Correlations are by definition co-incidence. That’s what correlation means. Correlation does not mean causality.

Was this all just a mathematical misunderstanding?

Tim, I love your reporting, but you should know this stuff before you write about science. You can amass all the correlational data you want, but it’s still not evidence of causality. How can you disprove something that’s never been proven? It’s like asking someone to prove that drinking coffee doesn’t make you better looking.

Thank you for the reporting on Uganda.

At present it does appear that there are correlations with sexual orientation that are biologically based. This does not prove any specific biological causation, but the preponderance of evidence does strongly suggest that biology plays a part in the etiology of the orientation of at least some gay men.

You disagree. You state that my understanding is based on hazy theories and yours on research.

But as best I can tell, your position is taken not from research at all but rather from the dismissal of other research. In other words, it appears to me that you (and those with whom you agree) simply object to the research of others rather than present original studies of your own.

You dismiss the work that has been done, declare there to be an absence of evidence, and demand that this proves your point. To me, that argument is opinion rather than evidence.

Now should further studies be performed that illuminate that these observed correlations are nothing more than coincidence or faulty science, I’ll be ready to set them aside. Just as I have noted that the study of genetic marker Xq28 has not been replicated and thus does not inform my opinion.

I invite you to be equally open to new discovery. I welcome criticism that looks at studies and results and seeks to find the truth along with the error and determine whether, and to what extent, anything can be gleaned.

But simply dismissing that with which you disagree is not of any value to me or to any other readers here. So I hope you will resist that temptation.

You started off trying to deceive people here and may have gotten away with it if it weren’t for grantdale. Now everything you say has a question mark on it. If you want to re-establish your credibility you need to acknowledge your dishonesty, apologize for it and spend years being scrupulously honest before you can begin bit by bit to repair your credibility. Until such time you do that you’re just so much lying hot air.

I’d love to hear an explanation. This might also help me understand why Gina Kolata hasn’t run out and written a popular account of how this debate has been settled.

Just for the record, it’s a fool’s errand to try to disprove a matter of faith. I’m presuming that’s why you believe that the causal link between biology and homosexuality has to be “disproved”; for me, it has yet to be established. What we have is a better than a hundred years of hazy theories of causal chains, linking homosexuality (but also transvestism and other unusual expressions of gender and sexual identity) to biology.

Obviously, you’re welcome to take any position you like on this topic, but you’d do well to keep in mind that you’re digging yourself into quite an unusual corner of scientific opinion. You refer to sexual orientations as having and “etiology” and assert that its biological nature is so well established that any ideas to the contrary must first disprove this truth. Good luck getting any but the most die-hard believers to back you up on that one.

I’ve noticed BTB’s interest in what you term the “etiology” of homosexuality (not really sexual orientation, as I’ve never seen studies that attempt to account for straightness). Up until now, I’ve simply ignored them. I now realize how wise that strategy was.

Your dishonesty has been exposed and no amount of playing holier-than-thou is going to salvage your reputation after a stunt like that.

I am open to evidence that that the links between biology and gayness are but a passing fad. I am not open to opinion that this is so.

If you are a regular reader, you’ll know that the etiology of sexual orientation is a subject matter that we follow (though some commenters never fail to tell us that we are wrong to do so). So if evidence arises that disproves any connections between biology and orientation, I’m sure we will review it.

Perhaps at that time I’ll change my assumptions.

The fascination with the biological bases of homosexuality reached its peak most recently in the mid 1990s, a period that saw a flurry of publications with this theme. In the interest of brevity, I’ll cite a couple of works that I’ve used in courses. I’m drawing on memory here, so cut me some slack if I’m off on dates or spelling of names:

James de Cecco and David Parker – Sex, Cells and Same Sex Desire, the biology of sexual preference. This volume, published in 1995 as a book and previously as a special edition of the Journal of Homosexuality, offers a nice variety of above -average scholarship on the search for biological origins of homosexuality. There are a couple of initial chapters that locate sex, gender and sexual preference in the context of science and increasing medicalization of Western society. There are also a couple of pieces that refer to the previous peak of interest in this theme, in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

For an accessible (read: undergraduate friendly) account of the social history of queerness and science, see Vernon Rosario (editor): Science and Homosexualities, a guide to the debate (I think this is from around 2000). It’s an uneven compendium, but does what the title promises and is a fairly easy read.

It’s ironic that you attempt to marginalize my views by claiming that my opinions are out of the mainstream. First, I don’t deny that they are – although my opinions on science and homosexuality are really rather pedestrian, at least now. What I find ironic is that this assertion is an attempt to marginalize a point of view that exists in opposition to an idea you imagine to be mainstream science.

Your own opinions on other matters are clearly not part of mainstream journalism and are for that very reason interesting and provocative. In fact, were your ideas more mainstream, I’d probably skip BTB.

I encourage you to consider the idea that the links between biology and gayness are but a passing fad, and that your convictions may rest on very faulty assumptions. In historical terms, it wouldn’t be the first time – as is amply documented in the two works I reference above.

I believe I’ve made my point here. My question about Simon Levay isn’t just meant as a dig at him (though it’s that too). I mean to place his work and the questions that inform it into a historical context. And I believe that light is a tad unflattering.

Of course the research will continue, but I’m just simply stating that people stop putting their eggs in this basket, there’s a hole in the bottom of it.

I agree.

I am concerned for our community that there is a drive to look for a cause for homosexuality.

I think we’ve bought into the anti-gay rhetoric – that homosexuality can be, or needs to be, explained.

Do we only merit equality if homosexuality is biological?

If your answer is yes, then they have already won.