Posts by Steve Parks
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and THAT is an overview??? Saying that "it's irrefutable" because "most scientists" believe it?
Do you mean the report of the advisory committee? If so (based on Russell's summary) they didn't conclude it was irrefutable. They concluded there was no absolute certainty, but that a precautionary approach should be taken based on the balance of probabilities.
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Getting tied up in details beyond those facts is utterly unnecessary.
I thought getting tied up could be entirely necessary?
(Okay, that's it, sleep time.)
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Yes, you're right, perhaps I was unclear. I'm fine with biological enquiry, it's the sociological ones that bug me. I mean, the research that's being done about the biological causes of sexual orientation are about was causes orientation, not what 'causes gay'. The 'you must have been abused' argument is about what made you deviant - there's no corresponding interest in what 'causes vanilla'.
But with both the 'causes' of homosexuality and kink, I do actually get kind of tired. I understand the importance of establishing the biological basis of sexuality, but should we actually HAVE to 'be born that way' to be accepted? Can't we just, y'know, get on? If it turned out that the 'cause' of homosexuality was actually social, would that make it something that needed to be cured?
The 'cause' argument around BDSM gets really, really ugly. It is 'why are you broken?'. The search for sociological answers seems to carry that judgementalism much more than the search for biological answers.
There’s a weird, in my view illogical, notion around sexual orientation (and human behavior in general) that says if it’s prescripted by nature (genetic) then you can’t help it and it is to be tolerated. However, if it’s caused by nurture (i.e. early childhood upbringing/development for the most part) then for some reason it resides in the area of “free will” or choice and is thusly more justifiably discriminated against.
But even with genetics you get the Orson Scott Card line: "our scientific efforts in regard to homosexuality should be to identify genetic and uterine causes... so that the incidence of this dysfunction can be minimized".
You’re right to point out that we should not be focused on a “why are you broken” view. Even Card’s reasoning involves a begging the question fallacy: implying that homosexuality is, as a given, a “dysfunction” that should be remedied if possible.
A little apropos of this discussion is this (now quite old) Scientific American article about how our behavior is a combination of nature and nurture. There is no simple “society made me do it“ or “my genes made me do it“ answer. (With homosexuality specifically, I happen to think it’s more a nature (genetic) trait, with culture as a suppressing/enabling factor.)
Anyway, why am I still awake?
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Actually, Nigel Latta annoys me full stop ...
I had wondered who was this Nigel Latta chap who had been mentioned round these parts (on another thread) and so I watched the start of his tv show a couple of weeks back. It was your typical, trite "pc has gone too far" waffle, and worse, he said it like it was news to point these things out. He spent an awful lot of time knocking down straw men, too.
Inane television from a smug jerk. Just what we needed more of.
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This week I made a long black and the blotch on the crema was in the shape of New Zealand. I should have taken a photo.
Reminds me of this from the see what you want to see files.
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Ditto Bat for Lashes covering Kings of Leon's 'Use Somebody'.
Thanks for that link. As a huge Bat for Lashes fan and moderate fan of Kings of Leon, I will unleash the awesome powers of my music review skills on that cover:
Pretty good! -
Two and a Half Men is purportedly funny except in reality it isn't.
On that, we agree.
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I'm not sure how "affectedly grand or important; pompous." would apply to pizza.
I suppose, in a pinch, if we had to choose, we might perceive hotdogs as being slightly more grandiose than toast, too, but I'd hardly describe them as a grandiose type of food.
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oops... "Axl". Axy is good too though.
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To answer my own question: Yes.