Subject: (urth) For Matthew: references for sexuality

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 05:21:14 +0000

Hey Matthew, there are a TON of different places that comment on this.  The 
easiest way to get a good (understandable no matter what your background in 
hormones and genetics) sample is to go to http://www.google.com and type in 
"Finger length and sexuality" as a search.  You will find a ton of stuff. It 
is, of course, controversial, then look up "Womb memory and sexuality".  There 
are the original scholarly journals which are a bit too complicated for most 
people, but they are summarized nicely in the news articles on them.  Check it 
out!  In my undergraduate education, we made "fruity" fruit flies - a spliced 
gene can make male fruit flies mount other male fruit flies.  Of course, as a 
Catholic, I believe in free will no matter what proclivity we may have, but I 
do accept that we cannot choose many innate things, and that who we are 
attracted to is not something we can really choose, and is therefore not an 
act of exercising free will. You should be able to find the basic research on 
the net if you want to.
Marc Aramini

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 13:02:28 +0000

>hormones and genetics) sample is to go to http://www.google.com and type in

Anyone can google, that's what they say, easy.
Anyone can google, any old day, easy.

It's all so simple:
Relax, let go, let fly!
So someone tell me, why can't I?

I can dance a tango, I can read Greek, easy.
I can slay a dragon any old week, easy!

What's hard is simple,
What's natural comes hard.
Maybe you could show me how to let go,
Lower my guard, learn to be free.
Maybe if you google, google for me.

>"Finger length and sexuality" as a search.

Adding "peer review" and "journal" has interesting effects on the search.  For
example all the pages from Berkeley Dept of Psych recorded in Google have been
taken down.

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~n51ls801/PHI340mirror/finger.html  is instructive.

You will find a ton of stuff. It
>people, but they are summarized nicely in the news articles on them.

The initial report in "Nature" was incorrect.

Can't find any peer review of the matter.

Statistical significance questioned, as is the rather casual methodology.

And even ignoring all that, the differences were noted in lesbians contrary to
your implication of a generalised case or demonstrable correlation in male
homosexuality - apparently the error that the editors of "Nature" made.

Issues around sexuality are contentious enough already.  Presenting as fact
matters that remain speculative; then misrepresenting those matters is at best
irresponsible.

Matthew
 - With apologies to Stephen Sondheim

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