RE: [asa] Homosexuality & brain scan study

I need to preface this by saying that I am not a scientist, I am a Religious Studies graduate student. After reading the article, however, I failed to see how a person's sexual orientation (if there is such a thing as sexual orientation) can be *directly* attributed to the size of a portion of one's brain, or the number of neural connections in the amygdala. To me, this seems to be a case of confusion between correlation and causality (assuming there is a real correlation here, and the data is sufficient to show a consistent correlation across the entire human spectrum). This may be a weakness of the popular article itself, and not the study. I don't know. One of the questions that comes to mind, as a non-scientist (and maybe someone here could help me out), is whether or not the size of different portions of the brain changes with age? In other words, the scientists in the article were trying to make the claim, presumably based upon a test group of adults, that the brain size differences (and neural connection differences) indicated that sexual orientation was hardwired/fixed at birth...however, if the size of the portions of the brain, or the number of connections, typically changed between birth and adulthood, that would negate the whole argument. I really don't know enough to speak definitively about the authenticity of the experiment, the results, or the article, but I am suspicious.
 
Travis
> Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:25:55 -0700> From: christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com> Subject: [asa] Homosexuality & brain scan study> To: asa@calvin.edu> > Hi all,> > Any thoughts on this story?> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7456588.stm> > In Christ,> Christine (ASA member)> > "For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II Corinthians 5:7> > Help save the life of a homeless animal--visit www.azrescue.org to find out how.> > Recycling a single aluminum can conserves enough energy to power your TV for 3 hours--Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Learn more at www.cleanup.org> > > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
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Received on Tue Jun 17 09:57:23 2008