Scans Show 'gay Brain Difference'

[isanbirder]

More evidence that being gay is decided by your genes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7456588.stm

[Payboy]

Always thought it was jeans.

[endure]

Always thought it was jeans.

Home sweet home

[LeCharivari]

The numbers involved are far too small (some 20 each of gay/straight/men/women) to be conclusive - it would be interesting, though to see if those gays selected were "fem" gays and "butch" lesbians, which is at least a possibility.

I wonder what the results would have been for "fem" straight men and "butch" straight women .... the initial results look just a bit too convenient and stereotyping to be anywhere near valid.

[catmac]

Interesting that the research dates from 2008. I would have thought that if it had any real validity, someone would have followed it up during the last 5 years.

Personally, I treat all these so-called break throughs with a pinch of salt. As LeC says, the sample is so small and selective, that I can't see the value of it.

[isanbirder]

I admit I didn't look at the date at the top!

But I still take a more positive view, that more research will be done as a result of this small sample.....for all I know, people may be working on it now. After all, such a research project needs setting up, staffing, funding, and large numbers of 'guinea-pigs' whose sexual orientation is known.

[endure]

I admit I didn't look at the date at the top!

But I still take a more positive view, that more research will be done as a result of this small sample.....for all I know, people may be working on it now. After all, such a research project needs setting up, staffing, funding, and large numbers of 'guinea-pigs' whose sexual orientation is known.

Is this like the place where they pay you to get a cold for research purposes>? If they're going to pay me to spend two weeks humping where do I sign up?

[MrRealDeal]

They have similar studies about criminals showing different brain patterns , skitsophrenics , and so on ...... I'm not sure why it's news that groups of people having the same tendencies or behaviors have similar brain pattens , it's just common sence that they would and different behaviors would also have different patterns. It might be newsworthy that they found what patters they are , but the fact that people who like blue have a different brain pattern than people who like red should not suprise anyone.

I'm not sure it's good news to be taken as ..... it's how you were born and in your dna ..... It could just as easily be taken as ...... it's an abnormal\abberation of a healthy brain.

It seems more dangerous than good to me, as virtually all of the "dark areas" are associated with unhealthy aberations in the brain , the "dark areas" come up in criminals , mental illness, and are accepted to mean a "lower" functioning part of an otherwise healthy brain, amoung the scientists that study MRI patterns.

Their are no studies I am aware of that would say that any "dark spot" in a human brain is a benefit or a positive atribute , and linking homosexuality to a dark sopt in the brain seems like a backdoor way to try and indicate that with brain scans you can show that homosexuals have the same "dark spot" flaws found in other groups as the ones I already mentioned.

This study is NOT pro gay , it's not a study that would be used to say ..... look gay people are just like everyone else .... quite the contrairy , it's a study that is attempting to link homosexuality with a poorly functioning brain , not just different ..... but a brain with "dark spots" which mean lesser functioning, and something in need of repair........ in all other cases that have these dark spots.

Medcations are made to target these spots in brains in a sort of backdoor manner , the general theory is that these spots come from to many cemicals, and blockers of one kind or another are used to cure the problem , sometimes with great sucsess , sometimes not , this study will lead to people trying to find some sort of uptake inhibitor to "cure" the problem , or to do what they try to do about all the other dark spots , which is to block the cemecials they think are the cause of the dark spot on the MRI.

This study has the potential to begin a course of action by drug developers to develop drugs that could when taken actually change one's sexual preference in the same manner that drugs change other thoughts by blocking cemecials in the brain ......... pretty creepy sounding I know but that's what it's going to lead to.

[catmac]

Sounds almost as creepy as those quack criminologists back in Victorian times who asserted that you could tell a criminal by his facial features.

[LeCharivari]

.... This study is NOT pro gay , it's not a study that would be used to say ..... look gay people are just like everyone else .... quite the contrairy , it's a study that is attempting to link homosexuality with a poorly functioning brain , not just different ..... but a brain with "dark spots" which mean lesser functioning, and something in need of repair........ in all other cases that have these dark spots.

No idea where you got this from, but you're totally incorrect both about the study's purpose and its conclusions - unless you're saying that straight women have "a poorly functioning brain , not just different ..... but a brain with "dark spots" which mean lesser functioning, and something in need of repair". Neither the report nor the article in IB's link make any reference to anything you have said.

What the report says, in essence, is that gay men have brains and a similar cognitive and reasoning ability (and consequently behaviour) to straight women and that lesbian women compare similarly to straight men.

Its conclusions actually hark back to the days when gays and lesbians were all stereotyped as gays being "fem" and lesbians being "butch", with gays having feminine traits and lesbians having male ones - it may have some truth, but the sample is far too small to draw any conclusions, especially when it is not clear how the samples were selected.

[isanbirder]

This particular study is not a big issue, but the question whether being gay is genetically-programmed is. For a gay Catholic like myself (and there are quite a few of us out there!), it would be of huge importance to be able to say the Church is wrong, and here's the proof. OK, I believe that it is wrong, as many of my co-religionists do too, but the Church has a habit of lagging behind science on several occasions.... and I think this is another of them.

Someone once said that changing the Catholic Church's beliefs was rather like turning round a supertanker; it took a long, long while. Personally, I think the supertanker would win.

[onthemoon]

They have similar studies about criminals showing different brain patterns , skitsophrenics , and so on ...... I'm not sure why it's news that groups of people having the same tendencies or behaviors have similar brain pattens , it's just common sence that they would and different behaviors would also have different patterns. It might be newsworthy that they found what patters they are , but the fact that people who like blue have a different brain pattern than people who like red should not suprise anyone.

I'm not sure it's good news to be taken as ..... it's how you were born and in your dna ..... It could just as easily be taken as ...... it's an abnormal\abberation of a healthy brain.

It seems more dangerous than good to me, as virtually all of the "dark areas" are associated with unhealthy aberations in the brain , the "dark areas" come up in criminals , mental illness, and are accepted to mean a "lower" functioning part of an otherwise healthy brain, amoung the scientists that study MRI patterns.

Their are no studies I am aware of that would say that any "dark spot" in a human brain is a benefit or a positive atribute , and linking homosexuality to a dark sopt in the brain seems like a backdoor way to try and indicate that with brain scans you can show that homosexuals have the same "dark spot" flaws found in other groups as the ones I already mentioned.

This study is NOT pro gay , it's not a study that would be used to say ..... look gay people are just like everyone else .... quite the contrairy , it's a study that is attempting to link homosexuality with a poorly functioning brain , not just different ..... but a brain with "dark spots" which mean lesser functioning, and something in need of repair........ in all other cases that have these dark spots.

Medcations are made to target these spots in brains in a sort of backdoor manner , the general theory is that these spots come from to many cemicals, and blockers of one kind or another are used to cure the problem , sometimes with great sucsess , sometimes not , this study will lead to people trying to find some sort of uptake inhibitor to "cure" the problem , or to do what they try to do about all the other dark spots , which is to block the cemecials they think are the cause of the dark spot on the MRI.

This study has the potential to begin a course of action by drug developers to develop drugs that could when taken actually change one's sexual preference in the same manner that drugs change other thoughts by blocking cemecials in the brain ......... pretty creepy sounding I know but that's what it's going to lead to.

Where did you find anything about dark spots and inferiority of gay/lesbian brains in that article? Anything about a poorly functioning brain? It seems you have read a different article, or your brain is poorly functioning. One or the other.