blatham wrote:How blithely do you dismiss the common animist injunction to thank the plant or animal before consuming it? Or Hindu and Judaic prohibitions on eating meat? Do you invoke Tore before hunting as the Bushmen must? Do you avoid working on the land on Thursdays in keeping with Ashanti prohibition? What prohibitions do you think valid, finn? Why?
Marry me Blatham, no wait. That'd be illegal
In that case I'll just settle for saying "very neatly put".
baldimo wrote:Could it be because it disputes some of the info given by theantibuddha. Don't shoot the messenger; I'm just passing along some counter research. Sorry it doesn't pass your liberal only research criteria.
Baldimo... thankyou for your valiant attempt at "counter-research". Yet popular articles from public press, let alone christian websites are hardly scientific studies, no matter how many isolated statements by various scientists they quote, potentially out of context. Never the less, below I've included my opinions and findings on the two articles.
The first article on animal homosexuality is a very poor piece of work. The article is written by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo. An author who has no scientific qualifications whatsoever, and it shows.
In support of saying "animal homosexuality doesn't exist" they quote simon levay saying that "animal homosexuality is a RARITY", which is clearly stating that it exists.. Simon levay is also saying that it is a rarity amongst species, not individuals. Though as this statement is taken outside of it original context this may not be immediately apparent to those not already familiar with his work.
It then quotes Dr Pardo (a bioethicist and not a zoologist, a distinction that the unqualified author is clearly unfamiliar with) who incorrectly claims that no animals are exclusively homosexuality clearly demonstrating that he is unfamiliar with current fruit-fly research.
It then quotes ethologist Cesar Ades who is apparently a moron since their statement both A) claims humans are not animals. B) extends a global use of pheremones to every member of the kingdom Animalia when use of pheremones is both only a minor component of animal sex and which only a small percentage of creatures within that kingdom actually use. Visual cues and mating rituals are FAR more prevalent by several thousand times.
The quotation by Dr Barghemil is a quite accurate and frank admission of the nature of zoology which would be apparent to the most poorly educated first year student. In fact many lecturers in zoology use a similar statement as their first lesson they run for beginning students. Its use in the article is the most apt point in the entire piece and ON ITS OWN could be used for building quite a successful argument, yet is included as only a sideline. This demonstrates that the author clearly has no idea of the science involved and is merely quoting anything he can find that seems to contradict his opponents opinions.
In short this article quotes several scientists out of context, often commenting on things outside of their respective fields. By actively selecting the scientists they wish (many of whom are not authorities of their field but rather simply the outspoken fringe scientists who happen to agree with the authors point of view) of course they can make any argument they wish. This article is on about the same level as most I've seen defending UFO abductions.
Surely Baldimo you could have found a better piece of "counter-research".
The second article is FAR better than the first in that it makes reference to not only one but TWO studies. This is no doubt because it was written by a qualified psychologist who knows what he's talking about (somewhat, it would no doubt have been better from a geneticist but never the less from a christian site I'll take what I can get). However the fact that one scientist made a claim that he had found "the gay gene" and the subsequent invalidation of his claim does not in any way imply anything about a genetic basis to homosexuality.
The points that it raises regarding the Bailey and Pillard study that I suggested to you are indeed quite ept. Homosexuality is clearly NOT exlusively genetic, however just as clearly it has an extremely large genetic component. However the Eckert et al study of 1986 demonstrated high rates of male sexual concordance within seperated identical twins. The author is either unfamiliar with this study or unwilling to include it in the article as it disagrees with his allegations of entirely environmental causes.
Baldimo, thankyou for the food for thought, however these articles hardly qualify as "counter-research". They were however very interesting to read, so thankyou for suggesting them.
