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Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 11, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Very little. Even attempting to study this can be a career-ending choice. This is because causal models often translate into curative models.

Who/what are you thinking of when you say this?

A large scale GWAS was published in Science a few years ago which is about as far from career-ending as you can get. Another from 2017. Here's a brain imaging/PGS paper from 2021. Evo psychobabble about the hypothetical evolutionary fitness of homosexuality. Here's a paper investigating associations between same-sex attraction and 'psychological distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms), and risky sexual behavior.' A search for 'same-sex attraction psychology' yields a hundred forty odd results in the last five years and is by no means exhaustive. Here's a review from 2020 that discusses genetics, birth order, in utero hormones and environment, abuse as a child, sexual orientation of the parents, etc which covers most of the ideas I've come across (not that I'm particularly knowledgeable about this field).

@Pasha depending on what exactly you're looking for, you most likely won't find a satisfying answer to your question. Our current answer for virtually all of these complex traits is the same: genetic and environmental factors play a role, GWAS can identify a large number of low-impact, difficult to understand variants that explain ~5-40% of the heritability and correlation with a number of environmental factors. Maybe some brain-imaging studies showing a 5 +/- 2% increase in activity in some corner of the brain in same-sex attracted individuals. Grand psychological theories like refrigerator mothers have mostly gone out of style.