Anyone who doesn't understand needs to go a sea beach.
It's impossible to not try. You can't do it.

I think it's a leftover genetic trait from when we emerged from the ocean. I picture a spiny finned fish wriggling out of the sea, seeing the kelp and exclaiming "WOOHOO! EAT SHIT HARRISON FORD!!!"

SssssssshhWHACK!!!

...and then sullenly limping back under the waves.

"saying humans are born with either a penis or vagina isn't a hateful statement against people."
It absolutely is hateful to hermaphrodites, clearly saying they aren't human. Use the qualifier "usually" or "almost always".

"As for gender being something different than sex, if you define it that way"
No, you said that. I'm saying all the physical attributes of gender are changeable besides the brain, and many humans with male gonads have female brains, and vice versa. Today, gonads can be surgically changed, so where is gender? I argue it's in the brain, which today can't be changed.
Gender is different from sexuality, clearly, no?
Edit: I guess I do think gender is different from "sex", if sex is determined solely by your gonads.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction
....as to who cares about gender....the bigoted bakers do. ;-)

We're talking perceived race, gender, sexuality, ethnic group, as identified by the discriminating individuals. They don't DNA scan or brain scan customers before serving (or denying) them, they react based on perception.

Skin color, that's totally changeable. Never heard of spray tans or bleach? Try watching Eddie Murphy's 'White like me'.

Odd you might argue against perception being the measure, since you seemed to argue that gays could be perceived as acceptably heterosexual by not acting on their uncontrollable urges and desires, bypassing the bigoted discrimination, essentially by lying.

Again it's about perceived ethnicity, not actual genetic heritage. Like you say, your actual heritage is unidentifiable by strangers, so less important to this discussion of public business discrimination.
If I want my wedding cake for me and Chris, and I wear my pink paisley silk shirt, leather chaps, choker, and heavy makeup to buy it that doesn't make me gay but the bigot baker would still deny me because he would assume I was.

Legal, yes. Culturally accepted, not so much, slavery always had cultural opposition by the non ruling class. Natural, WTF?! Show me an example of pure non human slavery (not harems, not parasites) and I'll discuss it.

Granted, I don't know exactly how they measured, but his gene expression is what they measured, not his pure DNA. This goes to my point, that environment determines how your DNA is expressed, so twin studies are flawed from the onset by thinking they begin identical, they don't. They don't even start with identical DNA, just close.

"Genes and the environment", but not pure gene study....at least not like people think. People think twins are carbon copies, so one can be a control to study effects of what they're studying. That's not quite right. Certainly they are useful in genetic studies, but not that way. From before birth, they diverge in how nearly identical DNA is expressed. They might be good for finding what genes/traits need closer scrutiny, but only with large samples.

Grounds for individuals to (privately) discriminate, perhaps, but not (public) businesses....at least not in America. Our national identity is a melting pot of cultures, intolerance for the different is antithetical to that idea.


Gender, nope, you can totally choose that now.
Race, many people change their racial identity...Rachael Dolizal comes to mind....as does the term "passing".
Ethnicity, people pass as ethnic groups they weren't born into, sometimes unknowingly, daily.....again, Dolizal springs to mind.

So, I'll argue that all you mentioned for all intents and purposes are today often the result of free will and not beyond the control of every individual, but a full grasp of brain chemistry and design and well understood methods to change them are well beyond our current knowledge, so their behaviors and actions are, in part, out of their control and not the result of free will but of brain construction.....now what?

@newtboy

"Discriminating against people for their legal, culturally accepted, natural behavior makes the person doing the discriminating an asshole. "

Slavery also exists in nature, so it's natural, and once upon a time it was legal and culturally accepted. Discriminating against slave owners though, even back than, is contrary to your claim, quite noble.

"The space study with twins showed that in under a year their genes permanently diverged a full 7%"

You gotta be careful there exactly what is being measured, they did not find that fully 7% of his DNA changed and now was that different. Depending what you measure people also claim that human and chimp DNA only differs by less than 2%...


"Twins aren't genetically identical, even at birth. ...That makes twin studies a piss poor method of gene study."

If you read your own linked article it states:
Twins share the same genes but their environments become more different as they age. This unique aspect of twins makes them an excellent model for understanding how genes and the environment contribute to certain traits, especially complex behaviors and diseases.

If you bother to read the list of peer reviewed articles I linked, they are comparing mono-zygotic twins to di-zygotic twins. The very basic and largely accepted theory being that if a trait has a genetic component, 1000 twins split from the same zygote should share the trait more often than di-zygotic twins.

My argument though really doesn't care much though. I simply argue that beliefs, choices and behaviours are the result of free will and grounds to judge(discriminate) for and against those you deem good or bad, hurtful or harmful. Similarly, gender, race and ethnicity being things that are in zero way the result of free will and beyond the control of an individual and NOT grounds to judge(discriminate) for or against.

Twins aren't genetically identical, even at birth. They begin separating from each other genetically when the zygote splits. Environmental factors determine how genes are expressed, and those factors are not identical. That makes twin studies a piss poor method of gene study. All it can tell you is how much the environment might effect their expression over time, and they aren't very good at even that.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/twins/

Now that genetic testing is cheap, we're finding out most identical twins aren't identical at all. Proper gene testing doesn't assume twins are identical clones for life, it actually disproved that hypothesis. The space study with twins showed that in under a year their genes permanently diverged a full 7% (with a larger temporary change initially that lowered as they returned to similar environments).
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-confirms-preliminary-findings


I feel that people often misuse mistaken assumptions to validate their prejudices. If the science isn't clear and validated, using it against others is improper in the extreme.

Discriminating against people for their legal, culturally accepted, natural behavior makes the person doing the discriminating an asshole. Homosexuality is quite present in nature, is now culturally accepted in western cultures, and is legal. Tolerance is a learned behavior I wish was taught better, especially by churches.

"A twin study of self-reported psychopathic personality traits"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886902001848

Perhaps the above is more to the point. Similar twin study showing identical twins having similarly significant genetic component to psychopathy as the prior studies show for sexual orientation.

Should we be similarly upset at people assigning morality to psychopathic behaviours?

"Genetic and Environmental Influences on Religious Interests, Attitudes, and Values: A Study of Twins Reared Apart and Together"
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40062599?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

Religiosity shows the same thing, strong correlations for identical twins, raised apart from one another, and much weaker correlations for non-identical twins also raised apart.

If Tom Cruise claims his belief in Scientology is a birth right and how dare we judge him, is he really backed by the science?

Where I am coming from, is insisting that for all the factors involved in human decision and behaviours, I still want to conduct ourselves as though free will exists.

More importantly, the freedom to discriminate against people based upon their behaviours must be defended as strongly as the right to discriminate based upon purely in born, unchangeable attributes like race, gender and ethnicity must be opposed.

As promised, the most promising results when polling google scholar:

"Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample"

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J_Bailey2/publication/12572213_Genetics_and_Environmental_Influences_on_Sexual_Orientation_and_Its_Correlates_in_
an_Australian_Twin_Sample/links/0deec518bc0435c0cd000000.pdf

Probably one of the better studies, it breaks down orientation to a scale versus straight binary, though the results are then statistical correlations and my stats classes are too long ago for me to work that back into something resembling my claims above.

"Sexual Orientation in a U.S. National Sample
of Twin and Nontwin Sibling Pairs"
http://ioa126.medsch.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/47.pdf

19 identical twins in the study with at least one twin with non-hetro orientation, within those 19 pairs, 6 showed concordance. So 6 of 19 identical twins sharing orientation, 13 of 19 not. This supports my statement above that in studies identical twins more often than not don't share homosexual orientation. This study also lists the statistical correlation of this result as 0.68, the previous studies statistical correlation was lower at 0.51(1.0 would be perfect correlation). If I'm reading the statistics remotely right, the above study then is similarly in keeping with my statement.

"Homosexual Orientation in Twins: A Report on 61 Pairs and Three Triplet Sets"
http://hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1993-homosexual-orientation-in-twins.html

Smaller sample size and different polling methodology, specifically sought out respondents of non hetro orientation. Shows a higher correlation, 25 of 38 identical twins being concordant. That's 66% concordance so opposite of my claim that more often than not they are discordant.


Running out of time here to post results. If you keep digging though it's more of the same, identical twins don't come close to showing 100% correlation, highest study of the samples I've pulled is 66%, and it's by far the highest. This is in contrast to race and gender, where you fully expect 100/100 identical twins to match.

, I said it was more controversial.

I dare say even agreeing that we don't solely choose our sexual interests, when it comes to our actions I insist we treat those as the result of free will, aka choice.

When I'm not typing from a 4in screen I can pull up the references, but the peer reviewed studies on genetics hardly illustrate that sexual orientation and identity are dominated by it. Twins studies do show that identical twins more often share orientation than non-identical, which gives a correlation to genetics. However, I'll pull up the studies but last I reviewed them, more than half the identical twins in the studies did NOT share the same orientation. That is an arguably compelling indicator that genetics does not solely determine orientation.

Other twin studies comparing other behaviours like religion show a similar pattern. Studies with twins on violent and aggressive behaviour show an even stronger "genetic" component than the orientation studies, and nobody has any qualms about being politically incorrect declaring that violence is a choice and not a birth attribute...

Do you recall the day you chose to be heterosexual? ;-)

While far from settled, there are indications sexual orientation may be genetically influenced at least, if not genetically determined.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/speculative-genetic-link-to-homosexuality-found

There's more conclusive evidence of a genetic component to transsexuality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexuality

Nothin says lovin like screwing with your cousin.

Really this was more about basic genetics than incest imo.

Somehow, I've made it to 36 years old without ever having this test done.

I remember grade and high school classmates talking a lot about it, but that was usually in conjunction with going out for some team sport, which I never did. Sometimes a sudden cough gives me a bit of a twinge in the groin, so I've wondered if that is a potential symptom of the hernia, but I've never had any serious issues, so "meh" I guess.

My brother (adopted, so different genetics in case this runs in families) DID have this sort of hernia though, and had it surgically corrected. He came through with no ill effects, and I think that his was actually an extreme enough case that it was probably worth correcting and rolling the dice on the adverse side effects. Sucks that that was NOT the case for you guys, @newtboy and @Fairbs -- definitely good that it sounds like they are trying to just keep an eye on minor cases rather than immediately opting for surgery now, not that it does you guys any good...

*quality

Mildly terrifying too, but this is the future people.

genetic algorithm *engineering

@jwray I think genetic factors play a role in how aggressive someone is, I just think that in a society as genetically diverse as the US it will be impossible that that is the difference compared to other countries. My guess is that genes only explain a small part of gun violence, and no more than in other countries.

I think the vast majority of the high gun violence can be explained by culture. The US is a dog eat dog world. The mindset of the country seems to be Ann Randish / Neo Liberal / Right compared to similar countries in the rest of the world. The US seems to prefer personal freedom over common good.

In a country with that state of mind, you tend to get that everyone fights for themselves and there is less willingness to compromise. Everyone becomes defensive. Throw in poverty (another part of the same mindset) and guns and you get an explosive mix.

It is a classic prisoner dilemma. Everyone would be better off if they cooperate, yet because of lack of trust everyone defects.

Japan is one of the many places that shows what you can achieve with more social safety. It costs higher taxes and less personal freedom, you get back less death.

Uhhh... you are aware of the atrocities Japanese soldiers committed less than a century ago during WWII, right? And I think you're confusing psychopaths (who may or may not be violent) with those suffering from a psychosis (a complete mental break with reality).

Either way, mental illness is a huge problem in Japan and in fact treatment of mental illness is one area where their socialized medicine is sorely lacking behind other countries.

I don't know of any credible studies that say that mental illness rates are lower in Japan than in other developed countries, but I do know that the overwhelming majority of crimes in pretty much any country are actually committed by people who are legally sane.

So, despite what you may believe, "genetic" predisposition is an unlikely factor in explaining Japan's crime rate. Besides which, criminologists agree that whatever role genetics plays in people becoming criminals it isn't nearly the most important factor and is dwarfed by environmental factors (see this for a scholarly article on the topic and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212>this for a popular news article).

You're trying to paint this as two equal parts of the recipe for crime when in reality it's more like "add two cups of environmental and a dash of genetics/personality/whatever."

Crime does happen here. The kinds of stuff I hear about on a daily basis in the news: crimes of desperation (homeless guy stealing to survive), thrill-seeking crimes (stealing a bike because you're young and stupid and the chances of getting caught are pretty low), crimes of passion (i.e. domestic violence, drunken bar fights, etc.), organized crime (i.e. yakuza), and the big one--sexual assault.

Sexual assault is so prevalent in Japan that there are actual signs warning women of areas where they are likely to be groped or have men expose themselves. There are train cars for women only so they don't have to get groped on the way to work or school. I mean, how fucked up is that?

So it isn't all rainbows and unicorns over here. Crime happens, and unfortunately is much more likely to happen to you if you're a woman. Still, even accounting for that the crime rates here are ridiculously low, for the reasons I stated above.

@SDGundamX those cultural factors are all true, and none of it contradicts my point. Both culture and inborn personality traits play a role. A place where murderers have been routinely caught and removed from the gene pool for centuries is going to be a place with a lot less genes for psychopathy. Not so much in a frontier society without effective law enforcement for much of its history, like the US. The US isn't the worst in this respect, but it hasn't been civilized for nearly as long as Western Europe or Japan, and this is a source of both genetic and cultural differences.