Quote:
Originally Posted by oojay
Homosexuality is neither genetic nor inherant. If it were, then the father would be homosexual, and the grandfather, and so on. If they were homosexual then they would most likely not be having sex with women, thus not producing the father, nor his son, and so on. Your 'logic" has been permeated.
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A lesson in genetics: the recessive gene.
For genes, there is almost always a recessive "opposite", for want of a better term. One example is eye colour. There's a gene for brown eyes (dominant) and a gene for blue eyes (recessive). If the gene is recessive, it won't be active unless accompanied by a similar gene.
Deeper explanation:
Humans reproduce by a process called
mitosis. This is where the parents each impart half of their genetic code to the child. So, in the example of eye colour, the man has a mother with blue eyes and a father with brown. Therefore, his genetic structure contains genes for brown eyes (dominant) and blue eyes (recessive), leaving him with brown eyes. He marries a woman who has similar genetics - a genes for both blue and brown eyes, thus having brown eyes herself.
Now, each of the mans sperm contains a random organisation of half his DNA and the womans egg contains a random organisation of half her DNA. If they have 4 children, 1 will have blue eyes; 2 will carry the genes for blue eyes but have brown eyes (because blue is recessive and brown is dominant) and 1 will have purely brown eyes:
------------------Father-------
---------------Blue-----Brown-----
Mother Blue----Blue-----Carrier
Mother Brown--Carrier----Brown
In the same way a "***" gene may be carried on. Because it's not incredibly genetically useful at this time, it's understandably rare though for whatever reason it may have been useful at one point (in the same way as sickle cell anaemia), or may be a random genetic fault that's yet to be rooted out by sexual selection (such has huntingtons disease). The assertion that for it to be genetically carried the parents would need to display signs is not only false, but also not 100% relevant - as little as 10 years ago homosexuality was a big taboo. People have been getting married to women despite their gender preference due to social pressure (eg Freddy Mercury), and the same social pressure expects them to have sex, have kids and so they do. Just because a persons *** doesn't mean they're infertile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DontRunMeOver
Having said that, I really believe there is no 'gay gene', although probably many of the factors which determine somebody's sexuality are set in place so early and can be so unpredictable that the result is not very different to if the cause had been purely genetic.
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Scientists have found a high connection to a specific line of chromosmes. They haven't nailed the specific one, but it would be very hard to discount the probability of it's existence out of hand. Even if it doesn't give a definite "yes you will be ***", it's likely that it will make a person more prone to having homosexuality triggered if events fall in a certain direction.