Question for the ICEMAN

[WildBillHickok]

[Nortonesque]

Arg. The gay people don't pass on the gene(s). Straight people who have a copy of it (them) do.

about current scientific theories and research into what makes people gay.

[AlexMR]

Man

This is the nicest/craziest/stolenest (is that a word) thead I have ever seen in my life!!!!



AlexMR

[Felonius_Monk]

It seems that one of the most convincing arguments for more stringent controls on gun ownership and availability is the apprently large number of armed looters, criminals and murderers apparently currently roaming the streets of New Orleans, shooting hell out of everything and everyone. Sounds almost apocalyptic down there.

[Cactus Jack]

It's Mogadishu.

Another argument. While I was posting on BTP, Sunday, breaking news reported a 3 year old boy here shot himself in the face while playing with his father's handgun. He died, yesterday. His father had the gun for home defense.

Uh, a shotgun is better for home defense, and a 3 year old boy would have great difficulty pulling the trigger and shooting himself in the face.

CJ

[Felonius_Monk]

Oh, and as for the gay thing, conventional Mendelian genetics (the dominant/recessive single gene theory) is a massively simplified way of looking at the inheritance of physical and behavioral traits - in reality, something as complex as sexual behaviour is defined by thousands, perhaps millions of individual environmental and genetic factors during the development of a person. There ARE likely to be genetic bases for homosexual behaviour, but, by that same token, they are likely to be manifold, various, interconnected and highly complex, and therefore not predictable by simple Mendelian inheritance (otherwise, homosexuality would run in families!).

Furthermore, the sexual behaviour of humans is heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) influenced by the environment and society in which they grow up. Due to societal pressures many people with homosexual leanings or tendencies have, historically, got married and had families, which would further comlicate the genetic picture. Ultimately, the complexity of something like sexual behaviour is such that there will never be an "easy" answer as to what causes someone to be gay - you're delving into three incredibly nebulous and/or highly complex and variable systems (sociology, psychology and population genetics) and there's just no possibility that we can ever resolve these into a defined "answer". Curing cancer, for instance, would be (in comparison) many, many times more simple as the relationships between the genetic and environmental causes are liable to be much simpler - we've spent the last 40 years and trillions of dollars worldwide in trying to prevent cancer syndromes, and they're likely to still be a major cause of death long after any of us are dead and gone.

Science is yet to really explore in an objective manner the relationships between genetics, development and environment in even relatively simple systems - something as complex as human psychosexual development is so far advanced of that understanding that it'd be like the gap in understanding of quantum physics between a modern day physicist and a 12th century alchemist!

Monk
xxxxx

[Felonius_Monk]

I think the argument that guns are a benefit in terms of protecting your family is a bit of a false one, and that's pretty much beyond argument. Have a gun, and vote for less gun control, if you want the right to use guns, for sport, or for self-aggrandisement or whatever. If that's your reason for wanting guns (or, as a nation, for preserving an environment where lots of people can and do carry guns) then that's fine.

I think you can only take the rather silly argument that they're of any use for self-defence or for keeping your home safe then I think most sensible individuals would take that with a pinch of salt. If you own a gun you're (by a massive degree) more likely to die by gunshot; I think that tells its own story. I think I heard somewhere that more than 10 times more people are killed by a family-owned gun than use it to kill an intruder or attacker in America. Now, perhaps that's due to poor gun ownership and gun practice, though the argument would be, if people require no training, no certificates, and no control whatsoever to own powerful sidearms, is that not simply engendering a situation where you are guaranteeing a nation full of gun-toting individuals who are highly unlikely to use and secure them properly, or know how to handle them as safely as possible? A fairly persuasive argument for gun control, I'd have said.

However, I'm all for the will of the people and if that's what you want then I think you have to say that it's A-OK. I just think that, logically, it doesn't make much sense, and people make flawed arguments for the lack of gun control legislation based on the fact that they, personally, want to own a gun as hassle-free as possible. I haven't yet met an American who doesn't own a gun, or have guns in their family, who attempts to argue logically and passionately for zero control on the supply of guns.

[WildBillHickok]

[Molina]

Er, Bill, if I lived in the same country as you why would my life be safer because you own a gun and carry it around?

If it's the supposed deterrent effect, then why with 200 million guns in the U.S. is gun crime and resultant deaths be so huge? Surely by this logic there'd be a Cold War style stand-off by now, where anyone with a gun is afraid to use it because a gun is likely to be used on them. What's the solution? More guns?

And I've never understood the argument that shotguns are good for home defence in America, you make your houses out of wood! Surely shooting up your own house with your own family is a tad risky.

And I'm pretty surprised that Liberalism/socialism can be blamed as the cause of a hurricane causing the flooding of New Orleans. And the gun owners there don't seem to making it a safer place.

Molina

[BigPhish]

[Cactus Jack]

[Cactus Jack]

[WildBillHickok]

[droqqa]

[Felonius_Monk]