A One Note Symphony
On Friday night ABC's news program "20/20" did a story about the new search for a gay gene. This madness is never going to stop. It won't stop because the ideologues driving aren't going to stop. I have tried, I think unsuccessfully, in the past to explain why the search for a gay gene is ridiculous. I've said it until I'm blue in the face "a gene cannot code for a specific behavior, that's not the way genes work." We're not talking about eye color, we're talking about very complex human behaviors and interactions. The search for a gay gene is like searching for the single note of a symphony, or the single ingredient for a chocolate cake. There is no single gene which could possibly code for any human behavior let alone something as complex as human sexuality.
There are no one note symphonies and there are no one gene behaviors. Just as a symphony has many notes, uses many instruments, and needs coordination to create a cohesive understandable whole, so human behaviors would need to be orchestrated using myriad combinations of genes, working at various times in different ways. The writing, orchestrating and performance of a symphony is not a very good comparison for the workings of genes. The work of our genes is far more complex than any symphony could possibly be, but it's the best I've got.
Because of the complexities involved scientists regularly use animals that have fewer chromosome pairs than humans. One of the favorite subjects for genetic studies is the fruit fly. Fruit flies have 13 chromosome pairs next to 46 for humans. Lets take an arbitrary number: Imagine that there are 3 million possible genetic interaction for the fruit fly. In the human the number of possible genetic combinations/interactions could be more along the line of 300 trillion. Now I pulled those numbers completely out of my butt, The numbers aren't even close to the actual ratios, but you get the idea of why we might use creatures a great deal less complex than ourselves to study. No credible scientist would dare hold up what we discover about fruit flies and apply it to human beings. It doesn't stop junk science and media from doing it, but no credible scientist would ever do such a thing. The difference between what goes on with a fruit fly and a human is a chasm so vast it cannot be spanned. We study fruit flies to understand the workings of genes, not how they will work in humans.
The vast majority of people, especially those who keep doing "studies" and "experiments" in search of the "gay gene", don't have a clue as to the workings of genes. A real genetic study would include thousands of participants, over decades of time. The newest in the line of "fake" scientific endeavors is another study of "gay" siblings. The pool of participants may break the 1,000 participant mark, but hardly has the number to do a serious study. The findings of this new "study" will be splashed across the pages of main stream publications and television. The real scientific community will do what it has always done, keep it's cards close to it's vest, and hope to weather this new storm surge from "gonzo science". No new ground will be broken, nothing significant will change, and scientists will quickly go back to the work that really matters. The ripple from bad science will be acknowledged, reported upon, and viciously critiqued from within the scientific community. It will all be done in scientific journals and papers that none of the rest of us read. And believe me you don't want to read them. You have to have a PhD. in scientific lingo just to understand them.
There is no gay gene, no scientist can say if human sexuality is genetically encoded or not. We will probably never know one way or the other. The interaction of genes on such a scale is simply impossible for us to decode and understand. We don't even know what we're looking for. It's a "needle in a haystack" kind of thing, but no one knows what the needle looks like, or how big it actually is, or most importantly if the needle even exits. So it's more like looking for a myth in a haystack the size of Chicago. You not only don't know where it is, but you don't know if it actually exists to begin with. Scientists don't know how much genes have to do with human behaviors. They know genes certainly have a part, but the size and nature of that part is completely up in the air. Simply put....no one knows, but scientists do have serious doubts.
Putting forth the idea that something as complex as human sexuality being completely genetically predisposed is discouraged. Genes, it appears, don't code for specific behaviors. Best case is that genes make human behavior possible. So sexuality, like language, is made possible by our genes, but genes don't dictate who you will desire to have sex with, or which sex you'll choose. Genes make sexual language possible, but don't dictate which language we'll speak. The "gay gene" will continue to be a mystery, in the same way unicorns are a mystery.
And Christians who continue to give credence to this idea of "being born" gay are adding to the lies that credible science is being hijacked to create. Science doesn't support the view that people are born gay. Far from it, the real science is quietly debunking the politically motivated "junk" science behind "gay is inborn".
Feel free to follow the hijinks's of the latest search for the "gay" gene. I'm not sticking around for this one. I saw the first coming of the "gay" gene, and I already know the outcome of this one. It's already following in the footsteps of the other so called "gay scientific studies". If it's doing the same exact things the others have done then the same results will come as well. And what is the definition of insanity kids???
INSANITY: Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
That's my 2 cents on the matter!
Lonnie
Lonnie
