Re: Fly Gene

More details (paper links and abstracts) are at
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001111.html

On 6/4/05, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
> Even if it is later demonstrated that sexual tendencies in human beings are
> genetically influenced, the behavior has to be controlled by other forces. I
> do not recall any passage in Torah that speaks of lesbianism, but male
> homosexual activity was fatal. Heterosexual activity was restricted to
> marriage, though multiple wives were tolerated, as were mistresses in
> addition to the wives. However, a male who had intercourse with a woman who
> was neither betrothed nor married had to marry her and could not divorce her
> ever. Forcing a betrothed or married woman had two possibilities. If she
> didn't make a fuss, both were stoned. If she made a fuss, or if assaulted
> away from town where a cry for help would not be answered, the man alone
> would be stoned. This is different from the current attitude of the
> justification of doing whatever comes naturally. But flies will be used to
> support the current view.
> Dave
>
> On Sat, 04 Jun 2005 12:39:54 -0700 "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
> writes:
>
> In case you missed it, here's a potentially explosive headline, from
> yesterday's Arizona Republic:
>
> Fly study points to master gene directing its sexual behavior
>
> It looks to me that this has the makings of real conflict for those who are
> certain that sexual preference and behavior are elective, particularly when
> based on some pretty explicit scripture references.
> There is some strong inference, some correlation evidence, and some pretty
> decent (coherent) working hypotheses that up 'til now just formed a
> tentative framework that anticipated this discovery. But this appears very
> likely to be the missing genetic piece of the puzzle - and unexpectedly
> focused on a single gene (at least in this case).
>
> JimA
>

-- 
john m. lynch
arizona state university
http://darwin.bc.asu.edu/blog/
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jmlynch