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Dr. Ben Carson Apologizes For Saying Being Gay Is a Choice

Hicup said:
The answer is that we are all predisposed to be straight. Evolution chose our sexuality, however, somewhere along the line our social evolution allowed us more liberties, where our sexual urges were not dealt with by our built-in self gratification mechanism, but instead consciously and consensually and in some cases without consent, on others. Masturbation is generally agreed upon by most biologists and anthropologists to be a vestige (Yes they actually use that word) of our ancestral lack of mates at any given moment throughout history. It was a way of us to cope with our needs and urges without upsetting the social hierarchy. It was an evolutionary advantages for us, and a necessary one. I think it still is, but I do understand how many might think of it as a vestige leftover in our DNA.

That said, it is typically not in dispute that we evolve socially much faster than we have biologically, and as a result for anyone that thinks about this in more objective scientific terms, it's not hard to make the logical connection why some might assume homosexuality is more a socially conscious choice than it is anything related to our biological and evolutionary disposition.


Tim-
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Who says we're all predisposed to be straight? Pat Robertson? Or is that your opinion?
 
zimmer said:
You're the one who claimed to be the biologist. I observed not a rather professional mindset for one... ignoring the results of a scientific study of 7,600 pairs of identical twins, specifically related to whether homosexuality is a choice or not.

It's a choice.
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So you chose to be be straight? Is that what you are saying about sexual orientation?

(See, I try to stick to the discussion)
 
zimmer said:
Yours is a junior high debate tactic. Does not work here. Welcome to the Big Leagues.

This is not about me, but about a scientific study of 7,600 Swedish identical twins related to homosexuality being a choice or not.

It's a choice.
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Oh the irony, not to mention the ignorance and you bring up junior high. Can you cite where in that study was a definitive conclusion reached?
 
Hicup said:
I took your challenge, care to answer me, Lursa?

Tim-
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My, that's a bit demanding on the Internet.

I did so, by choice, before seeing your 'demand.' Sorry you are not my priority in general.
 
Hicup said:
Actually, Carson's argument, even though he never meant it this way, is an illustrative way to show these or those that think homosexuality is the same as being a race or gender, need only ask themselves whether going to jail could in any way force someone to go black, if white, or turn female if male? ;)

Often on these forums those that are in support of gay rights will say that being gay is a state of mind, as if this actually has any material or practical meaning within the proper syntax and understanding of linguistics. A state of mind is always fluid, almost never static,
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So your mind alternates between attraction to opposite sex and attraction to same sex, got it!

You're making the class mistake of conflating same sex acts and same sex attraction.


Hicup said:
and ones state of mind is wholly dependent on the circumstances and influences they are embroiled in. For instance, I'm not a murderer, and I have never killed anyone (that's my story and I'm sticking to it ;) ), however, sometimes when I watch the news, or I encounter evil, I have often placed myself in that mindset whereby, I actually think if presented with the opportunity, I would indeed take someone's life. Anger, emotions, rage, all of which are uncontrollable urges we have no real understanding of
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This is kind of disturbing...i dunno about you but i don't experience 'uncontrollable rage' just cause of crap on tv.

I don't think you understand that the sex drive is quite different and not dependent on any trigger really. It's not like if i were put in a padded cell i would stop having homosexual thoughts. No amount of staring at tits or even sex with females will do the trick either. The urges come consistently, with or without provocation. It's just not the same as getting upset at crap on the news


Hicup said:
, but at the time, other than actually taking action, I am for all intents and purposes a murderer, or someone capable of it. This is what a state of mind means in any context, and syntax is properly established and logical, however, until I actual do take action I am not a murderer, but the narrative from the gay left is that, regardless, I am still a murderer just like whether I was actually being gay or acting gay.
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no, we are the ones making a distinction between gay thoughts and acts, just like you have murderous thoughts but don't (i hope) commit murder


Hicup said:
It's why some younger females experiment with bi-sexuality or exclusive lesbianism, and why some men do at early ages, but what I find curious is that, boys who experiment seem to adopt the almost always exclusive homosexual identification, whilst young ladies, either adopt an adult bi-sexuality (until later in life where they ultimately choose one or the other but rarely both) or heterosexuality, with only a very small margin of those younger females that experiment choose or adopt an identity that is exclusively homosexual. The differences in the sexes and sexuality is often overlooked in psyche circles, why? I have no real way of knowing, but I suspect that it feels uncomfortable for them to explore with the intuitive answer being females can choose their sexuality more often than not, whilst men seem to not be as so fluid, suggesting that, at least with females sexuality is a choice. Something I suspect leaves psychologist and apologists really confused.
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This is quite possibly correct that, for some at least, lesbianism is more fluid. I suppose it has to do with the effect of hormones in the womb being different (androgen vs estrogen or whatever)



Hicup said:
The inescapable fact is though, that sexuality to one degree or another is fluid, somewhat of a choice, and defined by ones state of mind at any given moment.

Tim-
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Sweeping generalizations like this don't help. For some it might be, probably somewhere in the middle of the sexuality continuum, while for others, it definitely is not fluid. I've never been attracted to females, for instance, so where is the fluidity in that? Where is the choice in that?
 
Removable Mind said:
Who says we're all predisposed to be straight? Pat Robertson? Or is that your opinion?
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It's my opinion, but it's not like it isn't supported by our observations is it? All of the species that lived and have ever lived as far as we know maintain a female.male sexual copulation strategy. Outside of some very few examples, and outside of ones ideological perspective, is it really that much of a leap for you? ;)

Tim-
 
Hicup said:
That said, it is typically not in dispute that we evolve socially much faster than we have biologically, and as a result for anyone that thinks about this in more objective scientific terms, it's not hard to make the logical connection why some might assume homosexuality is more a socially conscious choice than it is anything related to our biological and evolutionary disposition.


Tim-
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Where do you see some kind of social advantage? Why would a young teenager in podunkville make a 'socially conscious choice' to be ostracized to no end? That just doesn't make sense
 
Hicup said:
It's my opinion, but it's not like it isn't supported by our observations is it? All of the species that lived and have ever lived as far as we know maintain a female.male sexual copulation strategy. Outside of some very few examples, and outside of ones ideological perspective, is it really that much of a leap for you? ;)

Tim-
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Okay...just checking.

Is it really that much of a leap for me? Uhmmmmm...is that a wee bit of sarcasm being thrown my way?

But at least I did post something with a little bit more scientific spin on it. See post #196, which is the OPINION by the American Psychological Association regarding "Sexual Orientation".

Check it out and see if it's too much of a leap for you.

Otay?
 
shrubnose said:
It's a fact. There are lots of doctors who aren't as smart as they think they are about a lot of topics. :roll:
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I am not denying the factual aspect at all, I just don't think that it is relevant when we are talking about a specific doctor. Had we been talking about doctors saying or doing stupid things I would have brought up Howard Dean, just to balance the political aspect.
 
chromium said:
So your mind alternates between attraction to opposite sex and attraction to same sex, got it!

You're making the class mistake of conflating same sex acts and same sex attraction.
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Nonsense.. I described the exact situation when exactly that occurs. If a man or a women for that matter is in jail and chooses to have sex with another of the same sex, are they not attracted to each other? What does love have to do with it?




This is kind of disturbing...i dunno about you but i don't experience 'uncontrollable rage' just cause of crap on tv.

I don't think you understand that the sex drive is quite different and not dependent on any trigger really. It's not like if i were put in a padded cell i would stop having homosexual thoughts. No amount of staring at tits or even sex with females will do the trick either. The urges come consistently, with or without provocation. It's just not the same as getting upset at crap on the news
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Yes, but these are intrinsic desires that are biological in nature, the urges are independent from our choice in what pleases us. These are socially manufactured and as of yet, not entirely understood.




no, we are the ones making a distinction between gay thoughts and acts, just like you have murderous thoughts but don't (i hope) commit murder
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Gay thoughts and gay acts are the same thing. My state of mind is the same whether I'm thinking about it or acting it out, my brain is behaving and lighting up exactly the same way.






This is quite possibly correct that, for some at least, lesbianism is more fluid. I suppose it has to do with the effect of hormones in the womb being different (androgen vs estrogen or whatever)
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But it begs the question, which I posed.





Sweeping generalizations like this don't help. For some it might be, probably somewhere in the middle of the sexuality continuum, while for others, it definitely is not fluid. I've never been attracted to females, for instance, so where is the fluidity in that? Where is the choice in that?
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The choice, as it were, may not be something you can remember, or pinpoint, but I believe that one was certainly made for you at some point in your life. Young boys are especially susceptible to outside stimulus, and there can be many factors that play into it. I will admit, it isn't anywhere near understood, but the brain does work in very mysterious ways, and we're just scratching the surface of the surface right now. Everyone has different upbringings, and like fingerprints no two are the same which adds to the complexities of finding correlations from one experience to the next, but there is defiantly something that triggers the brain to escape from its observably normal biological evolutionary path.

I don't profess to know, but the subject is fascinating to me, like many enigmas in human evolution.

Good talk!

Tim-
 
zimmer said:
You're reaching... and badly so.

7,600 is no small sample. It included all Swedish twins. Same mother... same womb service... same exposures.

Any "deviations" would be statistically insignificant, that is why they studied "identical twins".
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No, because 'identical' was always a misnomer. The minnesota study found a 50% concordance among so-called identical twins, but half that among fraternal, similar to various other traits. But you are simply drawing conclusions in a self confirmation bias manner. The Swedish researchers did not interpret their findings as you do:

"The authors indicate that hormones in utero could be an aspect of the non-shared environment....We know, for example, that if one identical twin has a congenital major brain anomaly such as microcephaly (being born with a very small cortex), the other twin is usually normal. Obviously, this is due to some kind of prenatal environmental factor or event. (It can’t be genetic, because they have the same genes.)" - Swedish twin study: Q & A with J. Michael Bailey

But of course, more recent research indicates that these twins are not in fact "identical" : "Maybe we shouldn't call them identical twins," Harvard's Bieber says. "We should call them 'one-egg twins.'"
 
Removable Mind said:
Okay...just checking.

Is it really that much of a leap for me? Uhmmmmm...is that a wee bit of sarcasm being thrown my way?

But at least I did post something with a little bit more scientific spin on it. See post #196, which is the OPINION by the American Psychological Association regarding "Sexual Orientation".

Check it out and see if it's too much of a leap for you.

Otay?
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Do you honestly think I would enter a conversation and present an opinion or theory not often seen and controversial, if I had no idea what the general consensus was among the light science communities? ;)

Tim-
 
Hicup said:
Do you honestly think I would enter a conversation and present an opinion or theory not often seen and controversial, if I had no idea what the general consensus was among the light science communities? ;)

Tim-
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Okay...thanks.
 
3/5/2015

another day in my life, I woke up and I chose to have a heterosexual orientation . . . . man . . its tiring making that choice all the time
:laughat: Ben Carson
 
Hicup said:
The choice, as it were, may not be something you can remember, or pinpoint, but I believe that one was certainly made for you at some point in your life. Young boys are especially susceptible to outside stimulus, and there can be many factors that play into it. I will admit, it isn't anywhere near understood, but the brain does work in very mysterious ways, and we're just scratching the surface of the surface right now. Everyone has different upbringings, and like fingerprints no two are the same which adds to the complexities of finding correlations from one experience to the next, but there is defiantly something that triggers the brain to escape from its observably normal biological evolutionary path.

I don't profess to know, but the subject is fascinating to me, like many enigmas in human evolution.

Good talk!

Tim-
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So at an age i was so young i wouldn't even remember, and despite being raised in a homophobic setting where the subject was taboo

How can we be influenced into permanent adult orientations at a young age when we don't even have a sex drive? The only way this makes sense to me is if our brains are wired in such a manner before we're born, and there is increasing evidence of this
 
AGENT J said:
3/5/2015

another day in my life, I woke up and I chose to have a heterosexual orientation . . . . man . . its tiring making that choice all the time
:laughat: Ben Carson
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Lol...yup, funny...I woke up today and made the same choice.
 
chromium said:
Where do you see some kind of social advantage? Why would a young teenager in podunkville make a 'socially conscious choice' to be ostracized to no end? That just doesn't make sense
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Why did you as a kid (Assuming you're from my generation) never admit to masturbating when asked? By the way, the choice for boys occurs much younger than it does for young girls, so by their teenage years, you effectively have no choice in the matter. But I would note that I am already seeing a trend in this conversation and I wonder if you or anyone else has picked up on it? Ah hell, I'll just tell you because I have to log off for a while. Notice we're no longer talking about homosexuality in terms of biology, but rather sociology. I find that intriguing, even if means nothing at all. ;)

Unlike many who try to deny homosexuality hasn't existed forever, I am quite different. I think that it might indeed have for any number of reasons, however back then our social evolution was way behind our biological evolution; not so today, and through the last 10,000 or so. I suspect it might have something to do with the mechanism in the brain for how we choose our friends. Again, I have no evidence of this, I'm really just hypothesizing because I like to discuss the matter without the mud slinging (Although I am quite capable of slinging mud if prompted) and as I stated, the brain works in mysterious ways, where we have only begun to understand the basics.


Tim-
 
chromium said:
So at an age i was so young i wouldn't even remember, and despite being raised in a homophobic setting where the subject was taboo

How can we be influenced into permanent adult orientations at a young age when we don't even have a sex drive? The only way this makes sense to me is if our brains are wired in such a manner before we're born, and there is increasing evidence of this
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We have a sex drive at birth. We learn about sex and how the urges interact with our world, and we never stop learning that until we die. Seriously? Did you just ask me that? Sorry missed that last part of yours. Now you're on to what I have been saying for years. It is commonly understood that our prefrontal cortex is fluid until about age 18 - 21 for boys, and ages 20 -25 for women. This is the reason center in our brain, it is how we decide what is good and what is bad, or what makes sense and what does not. It's also closely associated with our pleasure center, which correlates well with my hypothesis. Look, you don't have to agree with me, I haven't presented any material evidence to support my claim, but it doesn't mean we can discuss it with each other respectfully.

Tim-
 
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DA60 said:
Lol...yup, funny...I woke up today and made the same choice.
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Only have a half day of work tomorrow, maybe I'll try out that gay thing. See if I like it.
 
prometeus said:
I am not denying the factual aspect at all, I just don't think that it is relevant when we are talking about a specific doctor. Had we been talking about doctors saying or doing stupid things
I would have brought up Howard Dean, just to balance the political aspect.
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You just brought him up. :roll:
 
Deuce said:
Only have a half day of work tomorrow, maybe I'll try out that gay thing. See if I like it.
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You know full-well that once our prefrontal cortex is mature you can't teach an old dog new tricks. ;)

Tim-
 
DA60 said:
Lol...yup, funny...I woke up today and made the same choice.
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you too!!!!!
wow thats crazy

how did you chose yours, was it fast, was it long and drawn out?
 
Hicup said:
We have a sex drive at birth. We learn about sex and how the urges interact with our world, and we never stop learning that until we die. Seriously? Did you just ask me that? Sorry missed that last part of yours. Now you're on to what I have been saying for years. It is commonly understood that our prefrontal cortex is fluid until about age 18 - 21 for boys, and ages 20 -25 for women. This is the reason center in our brain, it is how we decide what is good and what is bad, or what makes sense and what does not. It's also closely associated with our pleasure center, which correlates well with my hypothesis. Look, you don't have to agree with me, I haven't presented any material evidence to support my claim, but it doesn't mean we can discuss it with each other respectfully.

Tim-
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Well, puberty is very often when gay thoughts are triggered and when we realize what that means...So how could i make some kind of choice to like guys my entire life, before puberty, before i felt attracted to anyone? That is all i meant

If i could somehow make such a deliberate choice, i would remember it. So let's move on from that.

Now, either one is born with a "gay brain," or some stimulus makes the choice (with an assist from prefrontal cortex), but what is the diff for practical purposes? The result is still a homosexual, through no real fault of their own

Also if the prefrontal cortex is responsible and still changing up to age 20 or so, then sexuality should be in flux or easily alterable at least during the puberty up to age 20 period. But that wasn't the case for me, at all, and for plenty others i know

Or possibly i misunderstand your argument, but it does seem diff from ben carson
 
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OK I got one

What do Sara Palin, Ben Carson, Allen West and Michelle Bachmann have in common.



they are republicans that will NEVER be elected president :D

sigh . . I HONESTLY hope these loons fade into the back ground and the ones that are there stay there . . . nothing would make me happier than two or more candidates (party doesnt matter) running that actually have a chance with the american people and current political climate.
 
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