Parents kicked son out of the house for being gay

[test123]

The "if we don't know -why- people are gay, then people aren't really gay" argument always baffles me.

Nobody has made that argument here.

[chiyio]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

It's usually bad science.

You should look at the talk page, this statement basically sums it up.

"The editors who wrote this article, and who think that evolutionary psychology is pseudo-science, need some serious schooling. This article presents anti-science post-modernist / social constructivist / politically correct posers as offering serious rationalist critiques of the field? Really? Those are the topics that belong in a anti-rationalist wiki."

It's simply the study of human nature, that's what evolutionary psychology is. A lot of people just really hate what the evidence shows us about human nature.

I mean, it's an important enough and well respected field that Steven Pinker, probably the most well known evolutionary psychologist, was chosen by the Secular Coalition for America to do the US House briefing on Science along side Richard Dawkins. You don't get picked to do that by doing bad science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1TGiOagCE

If you want to actually know anything about it, I'd actually research it a tiny bit and learn for yourself, here's a great starting point Lecture that covers the basics. Every bit of information and claims in this are cited. It's not just people making this stuff up, it's evidence based science.

http://www.oneclickaudio.com/index.c...&course_id=151

I really am guessing you've never actually studied it. Posting a sheep picture when you aren't educated about something is silly.

[Kuya]

You should look at the talk page, this statement basically sums it up.

"The editors who wrote this article, and who think that evolutionary psychology is pseudo-science, need some serious schooling. This article presents anti-science post-modernist / social constructivist / politically correct posers as offering serious rationalist critiques of the field? Really? Those are the topics that belong in a anti-rationalist wiki."

It's simply the study of human nature, that's what evolutionary psychology is. A lot of people just really hate what the evidence shows us about human nature.

I mean, it's an important enough and well respected field that Steven Pinker, probably the most well known evolutionary psychologist, was chosen by the Secular Coalition for America to do the US House briefing on Science along side Richard Dawkins. You don't get picked to do that by doing bad science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1TGiOagCE

If you want to actually know anything about it, I'd actually research it a tiny bit and learn for yourself, here's a great starting point. Every bit of information and claims in this are cited. It's not just people making this stuff up, it's evidence based science.

http://www.oneclickaudio.com/index.c...&course_id=151

I really am guessing you've never actually studied it. Posting a sheep picture when you aren't educated about something is silly.

While i imagine not all evolutionary psychologists are terrible scientists, the entire field does have a nasty habbit of doing more speculation than actual science. If your hypothesis on something can't be falsified, i'd say that makes it pseudoscientific. An argument can be made that it can't be falsified now and that's not the field's fault, but that's not exactly good news for evolutionary psychology.

It's actually pretty bad science by even social science standards.

All fields of science claim to study human nature. Hell, quantum consciousness quacks also claim to study human nature. Doesn't mean you're actually doing science. A lot of people might hate evo psych for saying seemingly sexist things, but i hate it because it's terrible science. If you want to do good science, you have to propose a theory and then put it to the test. Evo psychologists don't seem to be very good at the latter.

Finally, i don't really care what a particular scientists has said or even if he won a prize. The good thing about science is it doesn't rely on the authority of any singular person. What matters in science is the evidence and the quality of the evidence, something that evo psych is terrible at.

Fortunately for the rest of us, real scientists in the field of neuroscience are actually working on the question of human sexuality and we don't have to rely on psychologists with an inferiority complex that weren't good enough to study biology.

[AoE]

Lol

[TummieGaruda]

Well, the good news is the internet banded together and raised $50k for him in a single day:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-help-him.html

It's a messed up situation but the donation bit seems a little off to me. Did the guy have a job? Was he going to school? Why couldn't he just move in with his boyfriend? The donation page doesn't list any of this information nor how they came up with the $2000 figure. I guess there is a part of me that doesn't trust the internet sometimes and leads me to believe that maybe they posted the video for sympathy donations.

[archibaldcrane]

I keep thinking that the "I was born this way" argument does fit my natural view of how things are, but on the other side, wouldn't evolution shut that whole thing down?

Could say the same thing about a whole host of other persistent conditions that aren't conducive to reproduction - but the simplest answer I could give here is that historically and currently many gay men still have sex with women and reproduce.

[chiyio]

You really don't have any idea what you're talking about. It largely is falsifiable. That's what makes it science.

" “Evolutionary psychology” is an approach and a set of theories, not a single hypothesis, so no single experiment can falsify it, just as no single experiment can falsify the theory of evolution or the connectionist (neural network) approach to cognition. But particular hypotheses can be individually tested, such as the ones on the relation of symmetry to beauty or the relation of logical cognition to social contracts, and tests of these are the day-to-day activity of evolutionary psychology. Journals such as Evolution and Human Behavior are not filled with speculative articles; they contain experiments, survey data, meta-analyses, and so on, hashing out particular hypotheses. And as I mentioned above, over the long run the approach called evolutionary psychology could be found unhelpful if all of its specific hypotheses are individually falsified."

But they haven't been, much to its critics dismay.

I could link you actual scientific journals and studies that bare this out, but I think you've decided it's "pseudoscience", and no amount of actual evidence will change your mind, so I'll drop it. You haven't studied it and likely won't, that much is obvious.

[Kuya]

You really don't have any idea what you're talking about. It largely is falsifiable. That's what makes it science.

" “Evolutionary psychology” is an approach and a set of theories, not a single hypothesis, so no single experiment can falsify it, just as no single experiment can falsify the theory of evolution or the connectionist (neural network) approach to cognition. But particular hypotheses can be individually tested, such as the ones on the relation of symmetry to beauty or the relation of logical cognition to social contracts, and tests of these are the day-to-day activity of evolutionary psychology. Journals such as Evolution and Human Behavior are not filled with speculative articles; they contain experiments, survey data, meta-analyses, and so on, hashing out particular hypotheses. And as I mentioned above, over the long run the approach called evolutionary psychology could be found unhelpful if all of its specific hypotheses are individually falsified."

But they haven't been, much to its critics dismay.

I could link you actual scientific journals and studies that bare this out, but I think you've decided it's "pseudoscience", and no amount of actual evidence will change your mind, so I'll drop it. You haven't studied it and likely won't, that much is obvious.

I challenge you to make a thread and post several articles from an evo psych journal from most recent to oldest (in chronological order) so that we can evaluate their methods. If i can see that most of the studies in that journal do in fact test their hyptheses and use sound methods, i'll change my position. Remember to tell me what journal you're using to extract the articles from and to post the full references for each article (author, year, journal, pages, etc.). I would prefer you get more than 10 articles. It's also a must that they be peer reviewed.

Now go.

[test123]

Could say the same thing about a whole host of other persistent conditions that aren't conducive to reproduction - but the simplest answer I could give here is that historically and currently many gay men still have sex with women and reproduce.

So gay men have sex with women?

[hey]

So gay men have sex with women?

You must be new to the world.

[Waraji]

rofl I just caught on to tests custom title.

[Melena]

rofl I just caught on to tests custom title.

Yea, that was an amazing quote he made I think a few months ago in another thread.

[AidenCarby]

Never understood this type of shit, why can't people just leave the gays alone.

[test123]

I would think that by definition that if a gay man would have sex with a woman then that man would no longer be gay?

[hey]

I would think that by definition that if a gay man would have sex with a woman then that man would no longer be gay?

No. Being gay means you are primarily sexually attracted to people of the same sex/gender. It does not mean you cannot be sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex at all, and it certainly doesn't mean you can't have sex with them. A gay man can have sex exclusively with women, and still be gay.

[AidenCarby]

Uhh, or he could be bi.

[Kuya]

I would think that by definition that if a gay man would have sex with a woman then that man would no longer be gay?

Depends if he's sexually attracted to the woman. If he just has sex with her to keep up appearance then yes, he's still gay. Think straight men having gay sex in a prison because there's nothing else.

[test123]

So the theory is; a man carrying the gay gene, is attracted to other men, but have sex with a woman to reproduce then passes on the gay gene to the offspring. The offspring of this man then might be born gay. The gene can be passed down many generations of straight men before it becomes dominant and produces a gay baby?

[hey]

So the theory is; a man carrying the gay gene, is attracted to other men, but have sex with a woman to reproduce then passes on the gay gene to the offspring. The offspring of this man then might be born gay. The gene can be passed down many generations of straight men before it becomes dominant and produces a gay baby?

It is not nearly that simple.

[Psion]

There's all sorts of theories of why homosexuality persists. one is that one of the genes that makes men possibly gay also increases fertility and libido in the female offspring, so it serves as a trade off. lose some not so precious males, gain some boosts to offspring in females. Another is that gay men tend to show disinterest in other peoples babies unless its a family member, meaning their likelier to dote on family members offspring, helping to ensure they grow up and pass on the genes.

There's really no clear answer, and it's quite possible theres a multitude of factors, both genetic and things such as hormone levels in the womb, that make it nigh impossible to pinpoint or even prevent. (and honestly we have much more important things to try and prevent than someones sexual orientation, like, i dunno, actual diseases.)