• Scientists claim they can predict sexual orientation with 70% probability from genes.[Sensationalism
    58 replies, posted
[quote] Scientists in the US claim they may have discovered how to predict a person's sexual orientation. They found nine parts of a person’s genetic code which may play a role in determining whether someone is straight or gay. The scientists uncovered the link after comparing the DNA of 47 pairs of male twins, including brothers with different sexual orientation. By studying molecular data from the nine genome sites, the team claim they were able to guess whether a twin pair was heterosexual or homosexual with 70% accuracy. Professor Tim Spector, from King's College London, a leading expert on twin studies and genetics, said: "It has always been a mystery why identical twins who share all their genes can vary in homosexuality. "Epigenetic differences are one obvious reason and this study provides evidence for this. [b]"However the small study needs replicating before any talk of prediction is realistic."[/b] [/quote] Small study, but interesting claim. [url]http://news.sky.com/story/1566381/straight-or-gay-sexuality-linked-to-dna-claim[/url]
if true, watch the religious right-wing across the planet slowly change their minds and decide that genetics is god's gift to humanity and not insulting to god or something.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;48866816]if true, watch the religious right-wing across the planet slowly change their minds and decide that genetics is god's gift to humanity and not insulting to god or something.[/QUOTE] Or they'l just go with the usual "LALALA BS MY BELIEFS LALALA"
or sponsored eugenics
[QUOTE=Mr.Moustachio;48867032]or sponsored eugenics[/QUOTE] Or parents looking to make designer babies. I would prefer genetic engineering over say, mechanical and computerized implants but I can't say that genetic engineering doesn't have its own moral pitfalls.
Or it might just be the result of many life choices and events which lead to different personalities throughout their life, as is the case of every part of the human consciousness. :v: People aren't born to be douchebags or kind people, it's what happens in their life what dictates how they will respond later on. The same can be said for sexuality, and now that it's more open, more people might end up looking for love in either side.
[quote]"Epigenetic differences are one obvious reason and this study provides evidence for this.[/quote] no it's not and no it doesn't.
[QUOTE=minilandstan;48867445] People aren't born to be douchebags or kind people, it's what happens in their life what dictates how they will respond later on.[/QUOTE] That's not entirely true. While your environment can potentially turn you into a nice person or an asshole, there are a lot of predispositions that decide your personality that are based on your physical makeup.
[QUOTE=minilandstan;48867445]Or it might just be the result of many life choices and events which lead to different personalities throughout their life, as is the case of every part of the human consciousness. :v:[/QUOTE] I don't agree, if it was a choice people wouldn't fucking do it because for much of history it was punishable by death or being tortured to death.
reminder that this hasn't even been published properly. the 70% claim is just beyond the bounds of credibility, nevermind the ritual invocation of epigenetics that must be some kind of statutory requirement in genetics press releases nowadays.
...lol what is this article even? No documentation on the study (at least from the source) and not even a peer-reviewed article. It's literally "we did a test." Even the people who viewed their presentation [quote="Sky News"]were sceptical and said more work was needed to confirm the findings.[/quote] Apparently this was also only a one time thing and has yet to even be replicated. Why is this even being reported on right now? :v:
they say they can do it with 9 markers -- they are talking out of their asses, plain and simple. if we could get that kind of predictive power out of such paltry data we would have had this conversation 10 or 15 years ago. there have been multiple GWAS's done to find out about the genetic roots of homosexuality. those studies are designed to tease out tiny correlations, variants that explain fractions of a percent of variation. these alleles would have stuck out like sore thumbs in those analyses. they didn't. [editline]9th October 2015[/editline] as for epigenetic "explanations": they're patently ridiculous.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;48867509]That's not entirely true. While your environment can potentially turn you into a nice person or an asshole, there are a lot of predispositions that decide your personality that are based on your physical makeup.[/QUOTE] Except most people's personalities are based off their parents, or lack thereof. If a child has no father figure and grows up in a ghetto, surrounded by bad influences, they'll end up completely different than having two loving parents in a middle class neighborhood. Then there's life lessons which can either make a person grow, lead to phobias and fears, lead to new hobbies, etc etc. And seeing as the study straight up says they haven't attempted reproducing the results yet, which is pretty key in something like this, I'd say that for the time being, things like your sexuality aren't grown into your DNA. And I, as well as many of my gay friends, weren't born on a side, we either fell in love with the same sex later down in life, or started feeling less emotional connections with the opposite.
Haven't twin studies basically proven that homosexuality isn't genetic since the rate of common homosexuality between twins sits lower than ~15% (and is often times in the single digits) across a range of studies? Of course whether genetic or not doesn't really change anything. It's not like every non-genetic part of a person is willingly chosen. It seems like homosexaulity is caused by hormonal and/or developmental causes, but like I said, it doesn't really matter. Things caused by genetics can be both good and bad anyway.
[QUOTE=minilandstan;48867666]Except most people's personalities are based off their parents, or lack thereof. If a child has no father figure and grows up in a ghetto, surrounded by bad influences, they'll end up completely different than having two loving parents in a middle class neighborhood. Then there's life lessons which can either make a person grow, lead to phobias and fears, lead to new hobbies, etc etc. And seeing as the study straight up says they haven't attempted reproducing the results yet, which is pretty key in something like this, I'd say that for the time being, things like your sexuality aren't grown into your DNA. And I, as well as many of my gay friends, weren't born on a side, we either fell in love with the same sex later down in life, or started feeling less emotional connections with the opposite.[/QUOTE] this is not true. personality is substantially heritable, and parental environmental influence can be almost completely ruled out from the non-heritable part. the idea that parenting significantly alters the development of children's personalities is a very recent one. it only really kicked off in the early 20th century alongside other highly dubious psychological claims.
the results came back in your son caught the gay but srsly shit like this can make someones life hard if the parents are one of those hardcore religious or anti-gay types.
[QUOTE=Wii60;48867689]the results came back in your son caught the gay[/QUOTE] i am become gay welp
[QUOTE=itisjuly;48867509]That's not entirely true. While your environment can potentially turn you into a nice person or an asshole, there are a lot of predispositions that decide your personality that are based on your physical makeup.[/QUOTE] Moral principles, values and views matter too though when it comes to wether someone is a nice person or an asshole.
I'm not extremely well versed in statistics but won't you achieve much greater than 70% probability of accuracy just by saying everyone is straight, since much more than 70% of people identify as heterosexual? if around 5% of people aren't heterosexual (a liberal estimate) then saying everyone is straight will give you 95% accuracy probability.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;48867804]I'm not extremely well versed in statistics but won't you achieve much greater than 70% probability of accuracy just by saying everyone is straight, since much more than 70% of people identify as heterosexual? if around 5% of people aren't heterosexual (a liberal estimate) then saying everyone is straight will give you 95% accuracy probability.[/QUOTE] You're right, but the idea is reversed when predicting the small minority, which is their claim. They are saying that they can point out a homosexaual person based on these markers, not a heterosexual person. So, if they were to just pick everyone like you showed, they would be wrong 95% of the time, and right only 5% of the time. Compared to this, the 70% claimed rate is much better.
[QUOTE=Wii60;48867689]the results came back in your son caught the gay but srsly shit like this can make someones life hard if the parents are one of those hardcore religious or anti-gay types.[/QUOTE] super conservative and christian parents: welp, time for an abortion, or have the kid born and we will throw as many strict bullshit anti-gay shit on him/her.
[QUOTE=garychencool;48868037]super conservative and christian parents: welp, time for an abortion, or have the kid born and we will throw as many strict bullshit anti-gay shit on him/her.[/QUOTE] Because that worked so well in the past. :unimpressed:
[QUOTE=nagachief;48869044]Because that worked so well in the past. :unimpressed:[/QUOTE] What is sarcasm
[QUOTE=Swilly;48867381]Or parents looking to make designer babies. I would prefer genetic engineering over say, mechanical and computerized implants but I can't say that genetic engineering doesn't have its own moral pitfalls.[/QUOTE] It would probably be better to create new organs and such that can talk with technology instead of implants.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;48867804]I'm not extremely well versed in statistics but won't you achieve much greater than 70% probability of accuracy just by saying everyone is straight, since much more than 70% of people identify as heterosexual? if around 5% of people aren't heterosexual (a liberal estimate) then saying everyone is straight will give you 95% accuracy probability.[/QUOTE] i don't know their methodology so I can't really comment directly on it, however in statistics what that 70% would represent is the coefficient of determination aka the r square (or adjusted r square) - which means that the model they've developed accounts for roughly 70% of variation within their data. the r square is a statistical tool for gauging how well the model can replicate observed data, ie how reliable and efficient its prediction is. under certain forms of statistical analysis this number can be inflated by simply including as many factors as possible into your analysis, which muddles your results. to counter that is the adjusted r square, which basically goes up only when its validity can't possibly be by chance. so this 70% can be either one or some other measure that wasn't explained well by the article.
By the time this evolves into a full test, I'm guessing that a lot of couples may go as far as terminating the pregnancy in case of homosexuality. As it stands today, over 90% of people terminate pregnancies where Downs syndrome is detected. Take for example a conservative family; a potential lesbian girl could be a complete deal breaker for them, and may go that route. [editline]10th October 2015[/editline] Hell, even normal couples who just don't feel like raising a gay kid might feel distressed or not entirely comfortable by the whole thing, and might choose to terminate the pregnancy anyway. So it goes beyond political tendencies. Not everyone is cut out to bring up someone with Down's syndrome -- or in this case, little gay/lesbian babies.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;48866816]if true, watch the religious right-wing across the planet slowly change their minds and decide that genetics is god's gift to humanity and not insulting to god or something.[/QUOTE] I don't get the point of this debate. If its entirely cultural and a choice the religious right doesn't really win anything.
[QUOTE=garychencool;48868037]super conservative and christian parents: welp, time for an abortion, or have the kid born and we will throw as many strict bullshit anti-gay shit on him/her.[/QUOTE] most pro-lifers don't have a problem with capital punishment anyways, so they're already hypocrites
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;48866816]if true, watch the religious right-wing across the planet slowly change their minds and decide that genetics is god's gift to humanity and not insulting to god or something.[/QUOTE] No, that's not how it works for them. If science doesn't have any immediate and obvious economic benefit, then it's not important. To them. This news is fascinating. I wonder if any of this explain bisexuality or fetishes.
I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be true, contrary to popular belief we already know that predisposition to behavior is linked to your genetic makeup, the question is on how large a scale and what behaviors it includes.
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