Half of all people could be carrying ‘gay genes’

Straight men and women carry genes associated with homosexuality and pass them to their children, finds study

Around half of all people, including straight men and women, could carry “gay genes”, meaning that they continue to be passed down the generations despite the tendency of homosexuals not to have children, new research suggests.

The sisters of gay men tend to have more children, helping explain the persistence of homosexuality in larger populations, while straight men may also carry genes predisposing them to being gay, the study found. 

[snip] 

Based on Chaladze’s calculations, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, male homosexuality is maintained in a population at “low and stable frequencies” if half of the men and roughly more than half of the women carry genes that predispose men to homosexuality.

(No link with given to the study.)

The problem that I see is that no “gay gene” has ever been found:

The trumpets were left at home and the parades were canceled.  The press releases and campaign signs were quietly forgotten.  The news was big, but it did not contain what some had hoped for.  On April 14, 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project—two years ahead of schedule.  

The press report read: “The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over” (see “Human Genome Report…,” 2003, emp. added).  Most of the major science journals reported on the progress in the field of genetics, but also speculated on how the information would now be used.  The one piece of information that never materialized from the Human Genome Project was the identification of the so-called “gay gene.”

It is a hope based upon a “the Devil made me do it” defense, only substitute gene for devil. Or from their point of view, God made me this way.

What has been discovered?

It is easier to say what has not been discovered: the researchers in the United States whose findings were announced last week have not found a gene that causes homosexuality and they have not proved that homosexuality is hereditary.

They believe they have evidence linking a region of the X chromosome – which men inherit from their mothers – with the sexual orientation of some gay men. If they are right, they have uncovered hard evidence of a genetic basis of homosexuality.

The gene has still to be found. The specified region of the X chromosome may carry several hundred genes in all, and the researchers are still some way from identifying which one it is.

But the Human Genome Project, mapping all human genes, was completed in 2003, see above.

From The Problematic Hunt for a ‘Gay Gene’

As the discipline of genetics changed, so too did the scientific approach to homosexuality. In 2012, scientists examined the possibility that variations in hormone levels in the womb could influence the expression of genes that affect sexual orientation, a line of inquiry that falls under the emerging sub-discipline of epigenetics. The popular media, once so easily convinced by LeVay that homosexuality resulted from brain size and by Hamer that homosexuality was genetic, promptly changed its tune to declare that homosexuality was now epigenetic. Hooray? If it’s hard to get excited about these studies, it’s because, at this point, biological explanations for homosexuality are like iPhones—a new one comes out every year.

The statement ” Based on Chaladze’s calculations,…” from the “Half of all people could be carrying ‘gay genes” story make me think that the study is nought but a statistical analyse, and offers no direct proof that a gay gene exists.  Rather give a statistical modal to support the supposition that a gay gene does exist, but that it is so evenly distributed in the population that the Human Genome Project could not find it.  

I wish that I could have found the study to see the sample size, and the type of analyze none on the group. 

Here I underline the weasel words:

Half of all people could be carrying ‘gay genes’

Around half of all people, including straight men and women, could carry “gay genes

while straight men may also carry genes predisposing them to being gay

if half of the men and roughly more than half of the women carry genes that predispose men to homosexuality.

Weasel words are “what iffing”,and offers no proof of anything.

Bed bugs developing ‘thicker skin’ to beat insecticides; Not an example of Evolution

Headline from USA Today

Bed bugs developing ‘thicker skin’ to beat insecticides

This headline demonstrates a basic misunderstand of how the theory of evolution is said to work.  It implies that the developing of the ‘thick skin’ was a purposeful action to overcome an adversary.  When in fact is is another good example of selective breading not of evolution.   The insecticides kill off all the bugs with the thin skins leaving only the ones with the thicker skins to breed more bugs.  Only their thick skin offspring will survive the insecticides to make more bugs.

Here is the headline of the paper that the USA Today’s headline is referring to:

Cuticle Thickening in a Pyrethroid-Resistant Strain of the Common Bed Bug, Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae)

Abstract

Thickening of the integument as a mechanism of resistance to insecticides is a well recognised phenomenon in the insect world and, in recent times, has been found in insects exhibiting pyrethroid-resistance. Resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius L., is widespread and has been frequently inferred as a reason for the pest’s resurgence. Overexpression of cuticle depositing proteins has been demonstrated in pyrethroid-resistant bed bugs although, to date, no morphological analysis of the cuticle has been undertaken in order to confirm a phenotypic link. This paper describes examination of the cuticle thickness of a highly pyrethroid-resistant field strain collected in Sydney, Australia, in response to time-to-knockdown upon forced exposure to a pyrethroid insecticide. Mean cuticle thickness was positively correlated to time-to-knockdown, with significant differences observed between bugs knocked-down at 2 hours, 4 hours, and those still unaffected at 24 hours. Further analysis also demonstrated that the 24 hours survivors possessed a statistically significantly thicker cuticle when compared to a pyrethroid-susceptible strain of C. lectularius. This study demonstrates that cuticle thickening is present within a pyrethroid-resistant strain of C.lectularius and that, even within a stable resistant strain, cuticle thickness will vary according to time-to-knockdown upon exposure to an insecticide. This response should thus be considered in future studies on the cuticle of insecticide-resistant bed bugs and, potentially, other insects.

The results of the developing a ‘thicker skin’ bug is no different than when a breeder want to develop a new breed of dog.  He, the breeder, selects the dogs with the characteristic he wishes to develop in his new breed, be it largeness, smallness, strength, aggression,  or docility.  He then culls the dogs with the unwanted characteristic and breed only the ones he believes will go on to produce the type of dog he wants for his new breed.  Selective breeding will never produce anything but a dog.

Instead of a breeder selecting which bug will live to breed a new bug, the insecticide does the selecting, and this selection will never anything but another bug.

Genesis 1:25-26

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”…

When they show an example of a dog becoming something other than a dog, or a bed bug becoming something other that a bed bug I will concede that evolution is the driving force of creation, but un thin then I will take that old time religion for my explanation.