Study shows that homosexuals are neither just made nor just born

This seems to be the logical inference from the most comprehensive study on the subject ever undertaken.

The results show that homosexual men share genetic signatures on the region of the X chromosome known as Xq28 (no such commonality was found among lesbians, which is most unfair, if you ask me).

The findings suggest that a man’s sexuality is 30 to 40 percent genetically predisposed, while the rest of it is caused by ‘environmental factors’.

Dr Lewis Wolpert, the prominent biologist and author of popular books explaining why there is no God, once wrote that scientific discoveries, such as a heliocentric universe or quarks, are usually counterintuitive.

Well, these ones aren’t. Even a rank amateur would nod when reading that homosexuals are genetically predisposed to be that way.

What I found interesting about Dr Bailey’s study is his interpretation of it. “Sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice,” he said. “Our findings suggest there may be genes at play.”

Now I can claim no expertise in molecular biology, but I’m reasonably confident about my ability to count to 100. If genetics accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the story, what about the remaining 60 to 70 percent?

Dr Alan Sanders who led the study can count to 100 too. “We don’t think genetics is the whole story,” he admits grudgingly. “It’s not.”

As uttered, Dr Bailey’s comment is a complete non sequitur, which is most regrettable coming from a scientist. The categorical statement (“nothing to do”) in no way follows from the cautious one (“there may be”).

Nothing at all to do with personal choice, Dr Bailey? Not even a teensy-weensy bit? Remember we still have 60 to 70 percent to account for?

Dr Bailey does remember that. Which is why he hastily explains that the environmental factors he meant may include things like the hormones in the mother’s body during gestation. No social inputs are involved and – certainly, definitely, absolutely! – NO PERSONAL CHOICE.

One wonders if Dr Bailey is aware that he’s making no logical sense. He probably is, the clever chap he must be. It’s just that the two parts of his statement came from two different parts of his personality. The cautious one came from the integrity of a scientist; the categorical one from the effluvia of an ideologue.

That even objective scientists have to combine the two roles is a ringing denunciation of our time. Yet often this doesn’t come from their personal conviction – ideological conformism is forced upon them.

In his 2006 book The Trouble with Physics, Dr Lee Smolin laments that no physicist rejecting the string theory can get an academic post or grant. The same goes for any scientist whose research shows that different races or sexes have different median levels of intelligence.

The issue of homosexuality is equally divisive, with the watershed running mostly along political and religious lines. Religious fundamentalists insist that it’s strictly a matter of choice, while homosexual activists (the existence of this job description is another ringing denunciation of our time) clamour it’s all genetics.

This study proves that both sides are wrong and the truth, as it stubbornly tends to be in most cases, is rather complex. Nevertheless Dr Bailey, who clearly wants to keep his job, felt he had to pay lip service to genetic and environmental determinism.

As a factor of his biography this is strictly a personal matter, and I wish him well. But it’s not just a personal matter – it’s also a comment on our time, which makes it rather more interesting.

In conflict here are two concepts of man: one lying at the foundations of our civilisation, the other reflecting the compulsion to destroy every such foundation.

The first concept is Judaeo-Christian: man is created in the image of God and endowed by his creator with the gift of free will. This makes man unique: he’s different from animals, vegetables and minerals in that his existence isn’t wholly determined by his physical, biological or genetic makeup. He’s a free agent capable of affecting his life by the choices he makes.

The second concept is modern, or post-modern if you’d rather. Man is an automaton whose actions are at the mercy of factors beyond his control. Such factors may be economic (Marx et al), biological (Darwin et al), psychological (Freud et al) or, as is fashionable today, genetic.

From the ideological standpoint it doesn’t really matter which. Pick one or another, mix some or all together – as long as what comes out in the wash is the debunking of our Judaeo-Christian heritage. That reason is thrown out with the same bathwater doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

Personally, any religious faith aside, I find the idea that man is created by a loving God in His image to be more aesthetically pleasing than one postulating our descent from a randomly self-created cell via a rather unsavoury mammal. The latter, I think, is based on our professional atheists’ frank self-assessment, and one has to concur with that if not with their conclusions.

In my rejection of any determinism I go so far as to take issue with Augustinian (and Calvinist) predestination. If our salvation doesn’t depend on anything we do, then it’s not immediately clear why God bothered to give us free will or indeed to create us at all. But at least subsequent, mainly Catholic, thought has managed to reconcile Augustine (if not Calvin) with free will.

No such reconciliation is possible between secular determinism and the traditional, which is to say sensible, view of man. Science, such as the Northwestern study, shows irrefutably that factors beyond his control affect a person’s behaviour. It’s just as irrefutable that they don’t predetermine it.

Exactly how does this apply to homosexuality? It has been clear to me all along, and this study confirms it, that genetic factors have a role to play. But believing that free personal choice isn’t involved at all agrees with neither philosophy nor religion nor logic – nor indeed science.

In fact, just like any other form of determinism, such a belief is deeply offensive to our humanity. I for one resent being insulted that way.

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