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What kind of evidence would you accept? If it being the primary argument in essentially all the at-the-time documents (like briefs to the Supreme Court) and the NYT saying that it was "critical" for precisely that isn't good enough, what kind of evidence is? And what possible evidence could you bring that is up to this incredible standard in order to support a different conclusion?
I don't see how this is relevant to anything. People do all sorts of stuff even when I think they have every reason to do otherwise. They have different worldviews; simple as. I spoke here before about a person I met who was utterly convinced that it was his duty to sell marijuana, even though he had every reason not to, knowing that it was likely that he would go back to jail and cause hardship for his young daughter. What am I supposed to conclude from this? That he was born with the genes of a drug dealer?
Please don’t conflate “one opinion column” with “the NYT says”. Moreover, the people who needed to change their mind on gay marriage to go from 30% to over 50% weren’t exactly NYT readers.
Briefs to the Supreme Court are too late in the game to explain the change and not aimed at the public. It’s a lagging indicator.
What changes people’s minds it is hard to show in the best of circumstances. Self-reports are about as good as you can do. The self-reports back my position, not yours. That is to say that I’m sure the “science says” bit did help change minds, just not nearly as much as the other thing.
So I’ve demonstrated the kind of evidence I would accept. It just doesn’t help your case.
Here, by the way is an article on your side. I like the top comment.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/13k0xc4/the_born_gay_myth_when_ideology_masquerades_as/
You just brushing off people being gay back when it was a high-cost activity, even leading to prison/execution in many places still today, is indicative your model is wrong because it can’t incorporate this common phenomenon. See also: children being identified as gay very young (as another poster brought up).
Did Alan Turing ruin his life because someone lied to him about how being gay works? Do gays in much of the Islamic world risk serious penalty because it’s just a fun thing to do? Some people clearly have the strong predisposition others do not.
Most of this conversation has been about our senses of the important factors, culturally. In a battle of senses, appealing to an external source, whose raison d'etre is tracking cultural forces, and that is almost certainly in your direction politically, is evidence of the general sense. It doesn't say anything or require anything about NYT readers.
What self-reports? The self-reports of the NYT? Or your personal self-report? You and some buddies? What evidence have you shown of even self-reports? There are plenty of self-reports of folks who said that they were convinced by a version of 'born this way' or 'I know a guy who was born that way'. I don't think you've presented any sort of general evidence at all concerning any population statistics on self-reports. I don't think you've presented any sort of evidence at all. Just a wholesale rejection of all of the high-profile cultural evidence.
I don't see the relevance of your link.
No. I'm specifically saying that in literally every other case when we look at people who engage in high-cost/risk activity, we don't say, "They must have been born that way." Like, this is simply obscenely bad deductive reasoning. You cannot possibly be endorsing a version of, "For Activity X, if some number of people engage in Activity X in the face of high costs/risk, then we can conclude that people are born with the genes of Activity X."
What's most hilarious about this is that you're absolutely adamant that the bad science around born this way was completely irrelevant, but you just can't help yourself in that you're not making any argument at all about the cultural power around the idea and compulsively defending the idea, itself, but with, like, the shittiest version. Not even, "Here's some science," but like, "Yeah, my opinion, man," and, "Why would people endure high cost/risk for a chosen behavior?" Just hilariously bad. Your own behavior demonstrate just how utterly powerful and controlling the idea is.
The self-reports from the polling I linked to above shows people changed their minds most from exposure to the gays, not science lies.
You’re still not presenting a theory for why, consistently, a small percentage of the population shows a predisposition for homosexuality, even when it conflicts with their religious beliefs and/or risked major repercussions.
When we look at people who engage in high-cost/risk activity, we don't say, "They must have been born that way."
Kind of funny thing to say on a forum that takes biodeterminism so seriously.
Also, I didn’t say the science was completely irrelevant. If you read what I actually wrote I think it had some effect, but, it was mostly a lagging indicator.
My whole point is that the cultural power preceded the scientific lies, which is why the latter is not so incredibly relevant as you seem to believe. The main relevant factors were things like changing views on sexuality and marriage, alongside increased awareness and direct exposure to gay people.
Why would I bring “here’s some science” to an argument where I think the science is basically irrelevant? It’s not just my opinion, it’s a lot of “lived experience” of myself and others whom I trust. I certainly don’t trust the NYT or institutional science much these days, but I do trust the reported experience of the gay people I am familiar with, many who would have chosen in a heartbeat not to be gay if they could have.
Overall, you place way to much faith in how influential science lies propagated from on high are, relative to people having their own personal evidence. (This is generally true for the limits of propaganda.)
Their polling did not have an ability to consider a distinction that gets at what I had said. "I know a guy who was born gay" gets recorded as "I know a guy". I already pointed this out.
You're right. I'm not presenting a theory for that. I'm talking about the question of whether bad science was pushed as the only acceptable theory for that and whether that influenced the culture and how people thought about these issues. Whereas you're saying that this theory basically doesn't matter in people's opinions while tangentially being extremely committed to trying to prove the theory through the worst argumentation method possible, as if it's sooooo utterly critical to your thinking that this theory is correct, but, ya know, also that it basically doesn't matter.
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