Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Unbiased Study shows Importance of Environment in Sexual Orientation Development?

http://www.peter-ould.net/2008/03/16/unbiased-study-shows-importance-of-environment-in-sexual-orientation-development/

[Peter Ould] 19 Mar 2008--Dr Whitehead has a precis of this new research that has incidentally shown what many of us have been batting on about for years.

Update - Please note the comment below by Warren Throckmorton who casts doubt on the usefulness of this study. I have adjusted the title accordingly!

Dean Hamer (whose name is particularly associated with “gay gene” studies) has an interview segment on the U-tube ex-ex-gay website in which he says that upbringing has nothing at all to do with the development of homosexuality. The reason he says that goes back basically to studies from 1981. But a recent paper from Taiwan, (Lung and Shu, 2007) shows for the first time in a modern sociological survey that in some places, in some cultures, the influence of mothers and fathers and upbringing can be extremely strong, in fact accounting for most of the influences. This also shows that cultural factors are important, because they cause the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors to shift. In this paper I review the intellectual history of this argument, to put the Taiwanese paper in context.

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