Ladeer&Co.

In the TIME magazine's study on biological effects between siblings, it correlated sexual orientation with biological pathway. This controversial theory will of course face strong opposition from Christian camps. According to their statistic boys with more older brothers have higher tendency to become homosexual. The article stated that in average 3% of male population are gay, but among males with one older bother 4% are gay, with two older brothers 5%, and three older brothers 6%. Here is the excerpt of their proposed theory:

"Bogaert believes the answer may lie in the mother's immune system. Mothers' bodies naturally recognize boy fetuses as slightly more alien than girl fetuses, since all of us carry sex-specific proteins in our bloodstreams. Some mothers may develop antibodies to those male proteins. In subsequent boy pregnancies, Bogaert theorizes, the antibodies may cross the placenta and affect regions of the fetal brain that determine sexual orientation."

Let me make this clear. The hypothesis presented in the above exercept is no more credible than my aunt's wishful thinking. There exist so many levels of variables between sexual orientations of a boy (an area of psychology) and fetal development (an area of developmental biology) that renders this theory unconvincing. In other words, between the proposed "fetal antibody interaction" in gastrulation and many years later when a boy finds out that he is gay, his older brothers could have contributed to the boy's gayness in many possible ways (if this correlation was even true) less to say biological.

A rule-of-thumb for scientific research is that if you read about a hypothesis in the newspaper before the data was confirmed in scholarly journals, the research is almost never credible. Credible scientists take their research seriously and publicity carefully. Unless this study had indeed discovered the protein that they claimed to affect the certain area of the fetal brain, their claim will remain imaginary unworthy the name of science.

# posted by Gary Chou @ 10:21 AM