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You just never miss an opportunity for a cheap shot at religion or its adherents, do you AS? Unfortunately, your overweening arrogance and anti-religious bigotry make you the fool yet again. Let me simplify this for you (in case you are intellectually challenged too and not just arguing in bad faith ): The results of twin studies are empirical. Empirical evidence is not affected one iota by the identity, or traits of the person citing such evidence. The fact that the concordance rates of identical twin boys (when one boy is a homosexual and the other not) is significantly less than 100% is an empirical fact whether the person citing that fact is a non-practicing Mormon, a Satanist or an arrogant, overweening, logic-challenged atheist. But you knew that, didn't you? You're just incapable of arguing the issue on the merits. I accept the concession of impotence you've made by choosing to employ ad hominem invective instead of logic.

This is the salient point: the fact that the concordance rates of genetically identical twin boys, where one is a homosexual, is less than 100%, means that homosexuality is not genetically determined if, by determined, we mean caused in the same sense that the color of your eyes are caused. In other words, in the case of two boys with identical genotypes, where one becomes a homosexual and the other does not, genetic influence on the first boy cannot logically be said to have determined his homosexuality in the same sense that genes determined the color of his eyes because it didn't determine the second twin to homosexuality. Note that this is not the same as saying genes have no on influence on someone becoming a homosexual. No one disputes the fact of genetic influence and I certainly did not deny it in my post--either explicitly or implicitly. The thrust of the debate in this thread has been whether homosexuals have a choice in their behavior. If genes were determinative of homosexuality in the same way genes are determinative of eye color, then, of necessity, the genetic determinism theory would require that both identical twins
(having the exact same genotype) be homosexual 100% of the time. The twin studies prove there is not 100% concordance, therefore disproving the theory of genetic determinism. The fact that twin identical brothers of homosexuals are not themselves homosexual 100% of the time means that the trait of homosexuality is not genetically determined (caused) and thus that choice, free will and environment are not relevant determinative factors.

Does this mean that resisting homosexuality might not be extremely difficult in consequence of genetic make up? Of course not. And nothing I said implies the contrary. What twin studies mean however, is that because homosexuality is not genetically determined (caused in the same way eye color is caused) genes may be a necessary condition, but they are not a sufficient condition to explain homosexuality. Environment, the free will of the individual and the influence and interplay of environment on the individual is therefore determinative. As Jeffrey Goldberg has put it: regardless of genetics, absent the necessary facilitating environmental conditions, no one must become a homosexual.

Twin studies undercut the narrative of the homosexual rights movement (which the United States Supreme Court has embraced virtually as a matter of law, even though that narrative is empirically false) that homosexuality is determined by genes---and is thus an outcome beyond the control of the homosexual. Twin studies prove that environment interacting with the individual is dispositive and therefore that free will (the metaphysical freedom of the mind) remains relevant.

In short, you've erected and attacked a straw man.


What I find most humorous though is a materialist such as yourself (someone who of necessity thinks free will is entirely illusory) arguing his case on the basis of concordance studies. Because if your default position is that the metaphysical freedom of the mind is illusory (because all freedom of action is determined by factors outside the control of any such thing as a "free agent")then what is the point of relying on a concordance study at all? The very fact of reliance upon concordance evidence in the case of genetically identical twins implies the belief that a behavior might not be genetically determined! I've thought for a very long time that you're not quite the thorough-going atheist you claim to be and your response above proves it (either that or you haven't thought through your atheism very thoroughly).

Jordan