Not sure, but perhaps statements like "Comments like these are so hilariously idiotic. Props for making me guffaw out loud." are why people downvote. Personally I think that OP contributed to the conversation so I wouldn't have downvoted (if I could), but maybe some people did because of that.
> Personally I think that OP contributed to the conversation so I wouldn't have downvoted
Same. He's saying the emperor has no clothes, with respect to the thread, which kicked off with this comment:
> To me this sounds like the mother's body is trying to "nudge" the odds towards a daughter after several sons, but sometimes the process "fails" and produces an effeminate male instead - a gay son.
I find it disturbing that his comment has been flagged and removed. All he did was call out some baseless extrapolation. How did "effeminacy" even enter the conversation?
The original "study" doesn't provide any evidential basis for any of this speculation. Its only data point is the supposed reporting by study participants that they have had more than zero same sex encounters in their life. How does that account for the thesis that a mother's body is generating effeminate homosexual males in a failed bid to generate daughters???
Why do you think it would be a parasite, as opposed to any other environmental factor? I don't know of any parasite that affects behavior in that way, but if you have some further information, I'd be interested in hearing it.
I'd be interested in hearing the voices of those downvoting this. Is one of the claims in the comment false, or do you disagree with the conclusion "I think this overestimation may influence some behavior at the margin." [note1] (or both)?
Additionally, what if the conclusion is right (hypothetically)? Is it really that improbable? And if the greater acceptance of homosexuality as of recently (compared to, say, the 19th century) does cause some otherwise-straight people to be gay, what exactly is the problem with that? Would that be something we should address?
And more generally, if we did find an environmental factor that was linked to homosexuality, would we want to address that factor?
Note 1: User Bostonian uses the term "at the margin" in their comment, and I don't know what they meant by that. I'm taking it to be the subset of people who are unsure of their sexuality, though perhaps the author was referring to something else.
