Slartibartfas

Even though I fear that I am off topic, I have to disagree. The relationship between dog and humans is far far more complex than you describe. Dogs are able of interpreting human behavior better than any other animal. They outdo in interpretation of human hand gestures even chimpanzees. And I am not talking about trained animals.

Actually dogs are a very underestimated species and scientific research only recently found out how interesting they are.

The dog relationship to humans and vice versa is a complex one and I think at best it can be described as symbiotic relationship. Both sides add to this relationship and the dogs are adopted better than any other animal for this kind of relationship. It would not surprise me if even humans would be adopted to it as well.


And regarding animals being able of something else than instinct. I think elephants showed that if their partner dies their reaction is very similar to the reaction of married people when a partner ceases away.

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Seer

I’m confused… are you trying to convey anything about gay people or is your argument purely animal related?

For the issue at hand, is WEB’s point not valid in it’s comparison to gays concerning conditioning?

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Oregon Elephant

Because the "conditioning" between the two is different. As shown with the male dog and bitch-in-heat pee, the conditions are easily broken and have to constantly be re-enforced. If the dolphin trainer stops giving fish, the dolphin stops performing. It doesn't continue. Once the conditioning stops (with some small lag time), they're done. So that doesn't hold with that gay people are being conditioned to be straigt and when the conditioning stops, they stay straight. If being gay was genetic instead of a choice or preference, then they would revert back to being their natural self when conditioning stopped.

Oregon Elephant

Why would I chose to eat sugar, knowing that I have a disposition towards becoming diabetic? Becauses I know that right now there is only a small risk.

In the US society the risk and punishment isn't that horrible. Not like coming out in Iran or any other Middle East country. There might be some impacts, and some people will have different preasures than others in the US, but as a whole, this is a very excepting country. Portland has a gay pride march every year with tens of thousands comeing down to support others that want to comeout, and there is never more than twenty people that come out to show their anger towards the gays and protest the gays' right to march. In a city of 700,000 only a few dozen are against gays enough to take action against it. That's not perfect for society, but it's a heck of a lot better than it use to be where people just labled them as insane.

Oregon Elephant

But not all of the 9 other will have the reccesive gene only some of them will and through time, the gene will die out. That's the whole idea behind evolution. There are far other controls that prevent a species population from growing out of control, it is the limited resources and the preditors that prey upon it. The population spiral is very accurately represented by Diff EQs, if there are low preditor levels, the prey population will skyrocket, so the preditors will have more food and their population will skyrocket (with a lag time). With more preditors, the prey population will fall, and it will go in a spiral until it reaches equalibrium. Those are the constraints that prevent a population from growing out of control, not being gay.

Oregon Elephant

I would say it has happened. In parts of the country it is still discriminated against, but in a lot of the country, there is no discrimination. There are gay people that walk up and down the street all the time from where I live in the appartments next to mine. My wife went to beauty school with several gay and bi people/couples and we stay in touch with them. Over in Oregon and Washington, society has accepted gays.

Think about why (part of the scientific method) this is happening. You get two choices to believe in.

1) The kids are gay and their parents are kicking them out of the house. I'm sure someone would find some kid and after helping the kid find out that the child was kicked out of it's home because of being gay and there would be a huge national story of it.

or

2) The kids are confussed in their homeless world and are trying to find acceptance and love where ever they can. Most gays in the US (once again, based on my person observations at gay pride week in Portland) are between the age of 18 - 30, where people are testing their sexuallity. Useally trying with multiple parters and styles, this age is where they try new things for them self (a lot try new drugs for the first time in this age group), including homosexuality and bisexuality.

Oregon Elephant

It's because their are two parents that the gene would die out. Any faulty gene that has no purpose but to stop reproduction would die out in a population. If the gay gene (or series of genes, but we'll assume it is one gene, because it doesn't make a difference on the out come) is recessive that means when paired with a none gay gene, you get a carrier. So if you have 2 parents with the carrier (so 100% of the population that we're looking at is a carrier) and they have 16 babies, you get 4 non carriers, 8 carriers, and 4 gays, the 4 gays don't reproduce. So the next genereation is 67% carriers and 33% non carriers, that's a 33% drop in the number of carriers in one generation, if you want to follow that out, it will die out (remember that if the gay gene isn't a single gene but a series of genes, you'll get the same results, but the genes will die out at a different rate).

Of course human intervention has a effect, but we're talking about natural preditor and prey balances. What is your view on the definition of "over population?" If it is more animals than what we had last year, or more than what I personally think is ideal, than it's skewed. It goes in cycles, when the prey pop goes up, the preditor pop will go up after a lag time, and than the prey pop will go down, and the preditor pop will go down, and the cycle continues. Human involvement of course throws off the previous balance.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Well there's not only carrots, but sticks, just like society does to gays. Carrots and sticks. The carrots are acceptance in society and the sticks are being disowned, publicly ridiculed, losing your friends and discrimination in all other sectors of society such as jobs and housing.

As for the dog, the relevant analogy would be training him to be a homosexual, which I'm sure is possible. You can train a hamster to push a certain lever to release food. You can train a male heterosexual dog to fuck another male dog up the ass.


WEB

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Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Yeah I see what you're saying. My comments are coming more from the perspective that you can condition anything to go against its nature. There is definitely a symbiotic relationship between people and dogs, but it's not a natural one. To some extent dogs are probably naturally designed to follow what the alpha male and alpha female command, but they were not trained to do the things we use them for (i.e. holding back their biological functions until we walk them outside, "sit", "stay", "fetch". We've also trained them to guard sheep and hunt for bombs and drugs.) All conditioned unnatural behavior.


WEB

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africanhope

Hey Oragon, sorry that I am replying to something said a lot earlier, but just remember the time difference.

I am returning to the whole older gay's proving it is a choice thing. You are sayingthat that you say there are not older gays since you do not see them at gay pride and gay bars.

How many people older than 60 hav you seen in Rave's lately? And the local club? Does this mean there is not many heterosexual old people? Off course not. As we get older, we do not attend these things anymore, as they no longer interest us. The same with gay people. So i would haveto say that your deduction is flawed.

Take me. I am 30, not TOO old. I do not go to gay clubs, just as I do not go to straight clubs, as it just no longer interests me. So does that mean I am actuyaly straight. Good heavens I hope not, since that will take some explaining.

But ultimatly, Iwant to, once aqgain, add my voice to that of Seer, what the bloody hell does it matter?

AH

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