A second piece of shoddy science has been heralded as
proving people are born gay. This time, instead of cadavers, living twins were
studied. This study compared male identical twins to male fraternal twins; in
each set of twins, at least one man was homosexual.
22% of the fraternal twins showed both brothers to be gay,
compared to 52% of the identical twins. Since identical twins are closer
genetically than fraternal twins, this study claimed that genetics play in to
homosexuality, or that people are born gay.
But an obvious question that arose from this study is, why
did 48% of the identical twins only have one gay brother? If they are so close
genetically, then 100% of the identical twins should have two gay brothers.
This study does more harm than good to the argument from genetics.
There are other factors to be considered. One is that the
men doing the study (Richard Pillard and Michael Bailey) could have
intentionally picked fraternal twins that they knew only had one gay brother to
help their percentages; all scientists have a bias, and these men were gay
activists, so their motives cannot be subtracted from the conversation.
Another factor is that the identical twins were all raised
in the same house. If they studied identical twins separated at birth and found
52% of them to each be gay, that would be remarkable, but to find ones from the
same household is not. It has been long believed that things factor into a
person choosing to be gay, like no father in the home, abuse, or failed
relationships, so two boys being raised in the same environment would be
subjected to similar factors. This in no way proves genetics.
Finally, like LeVay’s research, this study has never been
replicated. In fact, in an attempt to, the British
Journal of Psychiatry found different results in that only 20% of the
identical twins were both gay, and their conclusion was that genetic factors
were not enough to prove that people are born gay.
(Read Part 1 here)
(For more information on the topic of homosexuality and the Bible, I highly recommend The Gay Gospel? by Joe Dallas)
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