Homosexuality a Pathogen ?

[*Nately120*]

(05-19-2016, 11:49 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I told you you could get it from being near the gays.

Where do I go to catch asexuality?  My attraction to women has cost me more than I care to divulge.

[*michaelsean*]

(05-19-2016, 11:50 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Where do I go to catch asexuality?  My attraction to women has cost me more than I care to divulge.

Do you have a sharp knife? Immersion in videos of fat chicks in yoga pants may work as well.

[*Nately120*]

(05-19-2016, 11:56 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Do you have a sharp knife?

Yes, but I also have balls of steel.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

Can you please cite the original source material?

(05-19-2016, 07:32 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: First off.... I'm not subscribing to this theory and imagine it's propaganda.
I had not heard of it and figured I would share this post from another forum.
-------------------
Gregory Cochran, physicist and adjunct professor at the university of Utah has developed the hypothesis that homosexuality is caused by a pathogen [1] - either a virus or a bacterium. There are several good reasons to believe this may be the case.

- The low hereditability of homosexuality (0.22) [2]
- The absence of homosexuality in hunter-gatherer populations
- The relatively high frequency of homosexuality (~4% in the west)
- The lack of any plausible evolutionary explanation.

In short, a lack of sexual interest by males in females would be an evolutionary penalty. If it were caused by a 'gay gene', the trait would have been selected out long ago because of a lack of reproductive fitness. Also, the frequency is too high to be caused by a mutation.

If all "bad" genes should have selected themselves out long ago, then why do we still have bad genes?

Quote:There are various examples of infectious agents altering behavior: [3]

- Rabies causes dogs to be more aggressive in the final stage of the disease.
- Influenza causes humans to be more social in the days prior to the noticeable effects.
- Toxoplasma causes rats to be (sexually) attracted to cat urine.

Influenza causes humans to be more social?  I have never heard that before and I'm highly skeptical.  Rats infected with toxoplasma are sexually attracted to cat urine?  WTF?

Quote:There are many more examples of behavior-altering agents (mostly viruses). This leads us to the conclusion that a pathogen changing sexual orientation is far from impossible. It would explain the frequency in western population and the absence in hunter-gatherers.

Furthermore, there is the interesting phenomenon of homophobia. Homophobia isn't an actual phobia, but an aversion of gays. Interestingly, homophobia actually is heritable, much more so than homosexuality (around 0.5) [4]. If it is heritable, what purpose does it serve? In particular, what purpose does it serve if homosexuality is caused by a pathogen?
Research has been done on the nature of homophobia, and this research has found that it exists strongest with regard to homosexuals' contact with children. A subjective 'degree of discomfort' was found much higher when confronted with a scenario of gay people who hold a profession that involved contact with children (such as pediatrician or teacher) than with gay people who were e.g. lawyers or construction workers. A second study showed that for different types of medical doctors, a high degree of contact with children (e.g. child psychiatrist) induced more discomfort than an invasive procedure (e.g. brain surgeon) but only for gay doctors. Two more studies clearly suggested that homophobia is aimed at preventing children, particularly younger children, from being exposed to homosexuals. [5]

What if homophobia is aimed at preventing the spread of the pathogen that causes homosexuality?

How do those studies suggest homophobia is inheritible trait?

Quote:Cochran asserts that it’s not likely that the pathogen is spread by homosexual sex. How the putative pathogen is spread is not clear at this time. Even less clear is whether there is a “critical period” for this infection to affect sexual orientation. It’s also not clear how prevalent the pathogen is in the population, or what percentage of infected individuals become homosexual.

It's pretty hard to crunch prevalance data for a pathogen when you don't even know if you have a pathogen.

Quote:Regardless of how the pathogen is spread, it likely that extended periods of fairly close contact with an infected individual is more likely to result in transmission of the infectious agent. If there is a critical period of time, say some time in childhood, for an infection to result in sexual orientation being altered, the evolutionary purpose of homophobia starts to become more apparent.

Evolutionary purpose of homophobia?  Who wrote this?

Quote:Indeed, the existence of homophobia may stand as pretty good evidence in support of Greg Cochran’s pathogenic hypothesis for homosexuality. Indeed, for as many have pointed out, homosexuals are otherwise harmless and indeed perhaps beneficial to other males in the group (reduced competition for females, for example). That gays are nonetheless hated seems hard to explain otherwise.

Basically, the author is claiming it is difficult to explain the hatred for gay men without the "evolutionary purpose" of homophobia (homophobia which he previously claimed was inheritable and caused by the touch of homosexuals during childhood.)  But, without that you can't explain hatred of gay men.  This isn't science.  This is bullshit being masqueraded as science.

Quote:One possible way to test Cochran’s hypothesis is to observe if there is a higher incidence of homosexuality among the adopted children of homosexuals. Using adoptees controls for heredity, and presumably, sharing a household should give plenty of opportunity for the pathogen to be passed on to the adopted child. Ideally, the study should look only at children adopted very young, from strangers (to minimize selection bias among the adopted children). If higher rates of homosexuality were observed among these adopted children, it would point to some environmental factor – the most likely being infection.

The low, but non-zero heritability of male homosexuality may be indicative of some sort of genetic susceptibility to the pathogen, perhaps through weakened defenses or a vulnerable neural architecture.

If homosexuality is indeed caused by an infectious agent, it would have broad implications for society, particularly the prospect of being able to prevent homosexuality (perhaps through a vaccine).

[1] https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/depths-of-madness/
[2] http://www.mygenes.co.nz/whitehead_twinjhs.pdf
[3] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/308873/
[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2292426/
[5] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/natural-homophobes-evolutionary-psychology-and-antigay-attitudes/
[6] https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/a-gay-germ-is-homophobia-a-clue/

If homophobia is indeed (I don't know what the legal limit is on using "indeed" but this guy has exceeded it) heritable as the unknown author claims, it would have broad implications for society, particularly the prospect of gene therapy or genetic counseling to prevent homophobia once we identify the homophobia gene.

The hypothesis of a pathogen as an etiology is certainly something to consider, but I'd rank this pseudoscience crap on par with The Weekly World News only less entertaining and more annoying.  Indeed.

[Brownshoe]

(05-20-2016, 02:08 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Rats infected with toxoplasma are sexually attracted to cat urine?  WTF?

That's actually true. Toxoplasma is a parasite and it wants the rat to be eaten by the cat to get inside of the cat. Toxoplasma can also effect humans. It effects men and women differently. From what I read it makes men more aggressive (not like crazy aggressive) and women more promiscuous. It's also bad for pregnant women, because it can give birth defects. I don't think they can get rid of Toxoplasma either. And like 40% of the human population has it.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-20-2016, 02:10 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: That's actually true. Toxoplasma is a parasite and it wants the rat to be eaten by the cat to get inside of the cat. Toxoplasma can also effect humans. It effects men and women differently. From what I read it makes men more aggressive (not like crazy aggressive) and women more promiscuous. It's also bad for pregnant women, because it can give birth defects. I don't think they can get rid of Toxoplasma either. And like 40% of the human population has it.

Over the past 14 years, I've diagnosed one man with toxoplasmosis. He came in complaining about cold and flu like symptoms and he had some weird adenopathy which made me concerned it could be cancer.

I'm familiar with what toxoplasmosis is and what causes it; a unicellular Protozoa. As a unicellular organism it doesn't "want" anything because it doesn't have any sort of higher nervous system which could generate anything even remotely considered a thought. Let's not assign a higher order of intelligence to a single celled organism by just describing its life cycle.

But, all of that aside, how do they know the infected rats are sexually attracted to cat urine? Sexual attraction implies sexual desire. Now, what do you find sexually desirable and how would someone else know what you find sexually desirable?

Basically, by claiming the infected rats are sexually attracted to the cat urine the author is claiming the infected rats want to have sex with the cats. You just corroborated that claim. So I want to know . . . How they know . . . The infected rats want to **** the cats . . . Because it don't believe that claim without evidence.

[Rotobeast]

(05-20-2016, 02:08 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Can you please cite the original source material?

Sorry...I cannot.
It was an anonymous person on a message board that deals with a multitude of topics.
That is why I stated that it could very well be propaganda.

[Au165]

This is all sorts of bad science.

[GMDino]

(05-20-2016, 02:08 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Can you please cite the original source material?

Still looking.
Here are some sites the search has taken me so far:
http://www.narth.com/
http://www.narth.com/#!reincarnation-of-shidlo--/c1tch
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2011/12/06/university-of-utah-professor-narth-article-irresponsible-and-unscientific/
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Cochran#Homosexuality

Quote:Cochran does not suggest that an infectious agent that causes homosexuality is spread by homosexuals. The premise is that homosexuality reduces the number of offspring and would lead to the genes carried by a homosexual person to be progressively eliminated over generations. Cochran maintains that the observed level of prevalence of exclusive homosexuality (3 to 4 percent of men and 1 to 2 percent of women in the United States) means genes cannot be the cause of homosexuality. This argument is based on natural selection, the fitness cost of genes 'for' homosexuality being too great for its occurrence at a frequency above that of random mutation (~ 1 in 50,000). The argument assumes that evolution would have largely eliminated homosexuality related to non-infectious environmental causes, except novel ones.[8]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Cochran#cite_note-8][/url]
wikipedia references the original article/study.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081011094900/http://zero.poynt.zero.googlepages.com/home

[Benton]

(05-20-2016, 04:19 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Over the past 14 years, I've diagnosed one man with toxoplasmosis. He came in complaining about cold and flu like symptoms and he had some weird adenopathy which made me concerned it could be cancer.

I'm familiar with what toxoplasmosis is and what causes it; a unicellular Protozoa. As a unicellular organism it doesn't "want" anything because it doesn't have any sort of higher nervous system which could generate anything even remotely considered a thought. Let's not assign a higher order of intelligence to a single celled organism by just describing its life cycle.

But, all of that aside, how do they know the infected rats are sexually attracted to cat urine? Sexual attraction implies sexual desire. Now, what do you find sexually desirable and how would someone else know what you find sexually desirable?

Basically, by claiming the infected rats are sexually attracted to the cat urine the author is claiming the infected rats want to have sex with the cats. You just corroborated that claim. So I want to know . . . How they know . . . The infected rats want to **** the cats . . . Because it don't believe that claim without evidence.

Pretty obvious they were attracted to cat urine when they screwed the litter box.

[Rotobeast]

[Bengalzona]

The "You-rubbed-up-against-me-and-made-me-gay" theory?

Somewhere out there in this great land, homosexuals who hear this theory are getting swollen heads.





DOH!.... There goes the civil conversation!!!

[Bengalzona]

(05-19-2016, 11:58 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Yes, but I also have balls of steel.

"Balls of Steel"?

Didn't he used to hang out in Smack Talk on the old Board?

[Brownshoe]

(05-20-2016, 04:19 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Over the past 14 years, I've diagnosed one man with toxoplasmosis. He came in complaining about cold and flu like symptoms and he had some weird adenopathy which made me concerned it could be cancer.

I'm familiar with what toxoplasmosis is and what causes it; a unicellular Protozoa. As a unicellular organism it doesn't "want" anything because it doesn't have any sort of higher nervous system which could generate anything even remotely considered a thought. Let's not assign a higher order of intelligence to a single celled organism by just describing its life cycle.

But, all of that aside, how do they know the infected rats are sexually attracted to cat urine?  Sexual attraction implies sexual desire. Now, what do you find sexually desirable and how would someone else know what you find sexually desirable?

Basically, by claiming the infected rats are sexually attracted to the cat urine the author is claiming the infected rats want to have sex with the cats. You just corroborated that claim. So I want to know . . . How they know . . . The infected rats want to **** the cats . . . Because it don't believe that claim without evidence.

You're just being nit picky with the word "want". Obviously toxoplasmosis isn't intelligent, but it's nature is to screw with the rats brain and make it attracted to cat urine; since cats are the only place where toxoplasmosis can reproduce.

Well I'm not certain that the rats are sexually attracted to cat urine, but it DOES activate the part of the rats brain that normally triggers a mating response when they meet a female rat when it smells it. Or at least that's what Stanford University says.

[*bfine32*]

(05-19-2016, 11:50 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Where do I go to catch asexuality?  

Hines Field

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-20-2016, 10:11 AM)Benton Wrote: Pretty obvious they were attracted to cat urine when they screwed the litter box.

This is the type of observational evidence I'm after.

My dogs are so attracted to cat poop I'm surprised Blue Buffalo doesn't make a cat shit flavored dog treat, but that doesn't mean the attraction is sexual.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-20-2016, 01:33 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: You're just being nit picky with the word "want". Obviously toxoplasmosis isn't intelligent, but it's nature is to screw with the rats brain and make it attracted to cat urine; since cats are the only place where toxoplasmosis can reproduce.

Well I'm not certain that the rats are sexually attracted to cat urine, but it DOES activate the part of the rats brain that normally triggers a mating response when they meet a female rat when it smells it. Or at least that's what Stanford University says.

One man's nit picky is another man's accuracy. Cats are not the only place Toxoplasma gondii can reproduce as it has two distinct life cycles one of which is asexual. The asexual life forms can reproduce in secondary hosts and in turn infect other hosts.

It can affect a wide variety of organs which is why it can cause a wide variety of symptoms not just the the brain. According to Medscape only 10-20% of cases are symptomatic and don't require any sort of treatment. Most people don't even know the are infected. The seropositivity rate is reported between 10-15% for the U.S., 75% in France, and 50% in Germany. If you visit Paris you might consider eating MREs as their rate is reported as 90% and eating contaminated food is only one way to become infected.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

This is what I thought of if I had to read "indeed" one more time.

[Brownshoe]

(05-20-2016, 03:21 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: One man's nit picky is another man's accuracy. Cats are not the only place Toxoplasma gondii can reproduce as it has two distinct life cycles one of which is asexual. The asexual life forms can reproduce in secondary hosts and in turn infect other hosts.

It can affect a wide variety of organs which is why it can cause a wide variety of symptoms not just the the brain. According to Medscape only 10-20% of cases are symptomatic and don't require any sort of treatment. Most people don't even know the are infected. The seropositivity rate is reported between 10-15% for the U.S., 75% in France, and 50% in Germany. If you visit Paris you might consider eating MREs as their rate is reported as 90% and eating contaminated food is only one way to become infected.

Cats are the only place where it can sexually reproduce.

[Bengalzona]

(05-20-2016, 02:52 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: This is the type of observational evidence I'm after.

My dogs are so attracted to cat poop I'm surprised Blue Buffalo doesn't make a cat shit flavored dog treat, but that doesn't mean the attraction is sexual.

I had a dog once who, from observational evidence, must have felt that eating was a highly sexual experience.