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The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

nature.com

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Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#81

Post by klmadfejno »

coding123 wrote: post #39

I'm curious if they instead focused on a simple neural net that is fed genes + gay/straight flag if the NN would actually successfully predict it.... in other words, NN's don't care about "finding" that specific gene, they kinda include everything and it "finds" the gene without actually pointing it out. That's very different from the human approach which is to try to find something specific. I mean compare it to blo…

Neural nets for genetics are probably a good fit, and perhaps arguably, a better biological analogy than actual neurons. But they're likely already getting the gist here. They actually say that with genetic analysis (implying more than one gene at a time), they could explain 25% of sexual behavior. To be honest, that's a lot more than I would have expected. In biology, that's a pretty high predictive power, and I think is a way more interesting headline than "no single gene controls sexual orientation".

At the end of the day though, many other factors will contribute, so genetics can only explain so much. With aggressive data collection during development, I would wager we could get sexual orientation prediction much higher. Probably not high on the proverbial bio-ethicist's wishlist of things to make broadly available.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#82

Post by rootusrootus »

bzb6 wrote: post #70
rootusrootus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be ideal, but some people need to be convinced that it is not a choice before they will consider treating gay people with respect. So long as they think it's just a behavioral decision, they can rationalize their bigotry.

If anything this headline means the opposite, right? That you are not born a homosexual, at least from a genetic perspective.

I don't think it's making that strong a claim. They can't identify a specific gene. That's not quite "you are not born a homosexual." Plenty of studies over the years have shown statistically very significant genetic links. We just can't explain the exact mechanism yet.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#83

Post by ahupp »

It would be nice if they included the upper bound of the genetic component from twin studies. Without that it's hard to say whether the 8-25% they found here is as much as we'll get, or if large studies are needed.

It would be pretty surprising if they found a single gene though. The omnigenetic theory says that every complex trait is influenced by small contributions from many genes.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that...

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#84

Post by xirbeosbwo1234 »

ohduran wrote: post #2

Not an expert here but, IF a gay gene existed, wouldn't have it been evolved into extinction?

If you take a simplistic view of genetics where you draw Punnet squares and check if the offspring has GG alleles, maybe. Even if there are social benefits to there being some gay people around, that would still make those alleles pretty unlikely to be passed on. That doesn't imply there isn't a genetic component. Real genetics is a lot more complicated than that.

The fact that something is genetic doesn't imply there is no social component. Genetic factors could lead to a predisposition for a certain behavior that would still be altered by environment. There could be many genes that each has some small effect but none of which is an on/off switch. Those would lead to more complicated selection pressures.

We are pretty sure there is a genetic component. We are pretty sure that it isn't just "if you got the gay allele then you's gay".

Also, some gay (or mostly gay) people have children. This is because a) most people are at least a little bit bisexual, b) people may want to have children even if the sex act isn't appealing, and c) there are social pressures to conform.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#85

Post by abfan1127 »

creata wrote: post #12
ohduran wrote: post #2

Not an expert here but, IF a gay gene existed, wouldn't have it been evolved into extinction?

A common analogy here is that in lots of insects, you see whole groups of non-reproductive members, and yet the idea of a "non-reproductive worker insect" hasn't "evolved into extinction." (I'm not commenting on whether being gay has a genetic basis or whether it's an example of kin selection, because honestly, I have no idea.)

non-reproductive workers benefit the reproductive insects. For instance, worker bees benefit the queen. The queens that lay the eggs in the most beneficial ratios are most likely to survive and pass on.

For this analogy to be equivalent, it should lead to having gay children benefit the adults enough to allow for more successful breeding.

I do am not commenting on one's gayness has a genetic basis, because I also have not idea.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#86

Post by jodrellblank »

flowerlad wrote: post #49
dominotw wrote: post #26

Does it mean people are socialized into being gay ?

Hopefully, no. Because if true then it legitimizes conversation therapies.

But if they worked they wouldn’t be objectionable?

Being forced into them would be objectionable, but being forced into your family farm doesn’t mean farming itself is bad. If conversion therapy was a thing that worked and you could choose it if you wanted, it would be like any other life choice - changing career, religion, nationality, etc.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#87

Post by rickdeveloper »

coding123 wrote: post #39

I'm curious if they instead focused on a simple neural net that is fed genes + gay/straight flag if the NN would actually successfully predict it.... in other words, NN's don't care about "finding" that specific gene, they kinda include everything and it "finds" the gene without actually pointing it out. That's very different from the human approach which is to try to find something specific. I mean compare it to blo…

This is an interesting idea. I wonder if we could then use something like [0] to trace back "gay-ness" as well as other "personality features" (I'm not sure what the correct term is here) to the exact genes.

One potential issue I see is that the DNA of any person has an arbitrary length, which poses some challenges in the design of a neural network. Traditionally, this has been solved with LSTMs or RNNs, but as far I know these are designed for data with a temporal dimension (such as text or speech, which progress with time). I'm not sure if that's true for DNA.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.06321

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#88

Post by t-writescode »

red01 wrote: post #30
Kye wrote: post #3

A lot of the search for a gay gene seems trapped in an outdated understanding of sexuality as a binary proposition: "you're either A or B." How do you even begin to contemplate a study on sexuality once you understand it as highly varied and fluid? Same with gender. They're bimodal distributions at best . You can't just crop off the confounding valleys and call what you do with them good science.

To be fair the LGBT movement purposefully pushed that misconception because it was more convenient for civil rights purposes.

It was easier to fit in as a bisexual person in the past, than a homosexual person, so bisexual people didn't need as much representation in the past.

Ironically, now we're at a point where that's flipped, and you need to be either gay or straight and can't be somewhere in the middle; but, earlier on, bisexual people could escape persecution and therefore weren't the primary focus.

It's a lot more effective to have the discussion "Dad, I like guys!" and get the father to accept that in the 1950s than it was to say "Hey dad, I like guys and gals". The father could just as easily go "You know, I think there's some good looking men out there, too" and completely miss the point.

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#89

Post by implements »

Kye wrote: post #3

A lot of the search for a gay gene seems trapped in an outdated understanding of sexuality as a binary proposition: "you're either A or B." How do you even begin to contemplate a study on sexuality once you understand it as highly varied and fluid? Same with gender. They're bimodal distributions at best . You can't just crop off the confounding valleys and call what you do with them good science.

“Same with gender”, but not (in my opinion) sex.

Sex is bimodal, and genetic - though there are are rare chromosomal disorders, and disorders of sexual development, these are not normal variants and shouldn’t be considered a distribution.

There’s a suggestion that gender is innate and therefore (I assume) genetic, but do we really want to recreate the once anachronistic belief that most men and women are genetically predisposed to behave in masculine and feminine ways?

(Not intended to be flame bait, but I thought someone ought to express the now rarely heard gender critical position)

Re: The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality (2019)

#90

Post by abfan1127 »

I recently read about the spectrum of homosexuality. Its not a black and white issue. I don't recall the Kinsey scale being the article I read, but it seems relevant. If this is the case, it seems less likely its a single gene. Perhaps its multiple gene expressions accompanied with environmental factors?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale

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