General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why would a straight person chose to be anything other than straight? [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)by means of which Rational Empiricism extracts knowledge/information from data (and that must be VALID data about sexual orientation in this case, which would therefore include 2 factors: biology + environment, also known as nature + nurture because it includes things such as parents or other caregivers and society/culture that interact with biology) is Descriptive Statistics.
Here's a gross oversimplification of the issues:
Descriptive Statistics operates upon mathematical theories that, amongst other things, predict that:
- IF you could construct a valid & reliable test by means of which to identify & describe the appropriate biological and environmental factors that result in one's sexual identity;
- IF you select an appropriate sample of the sexual orientation population to administer your test to and that testing therefore yields the valid and reliable nature:nurture traits that affect sexual-orientation;
- Descriptive Statistics will reveal a distribution of the variations in the determining nature:nurture traits in the subject sample, and hence, population, and that distribution will range from strong instances of those traits to weak instances;
- AND IF the test subject sample is UNLIMITED, the data range will eventually show that in about half of your subjects the result of the interaction between nature:nurture was determined by the nature factors, biology, and in about half of your subjects the resutlt of the interaction between nature:nurture was determined by the nurture factors, which includes the sorts of things that affect the choices we make;
- Within those two subsets, i.e. stronger nature vs. stronger nurture, there will be variations in the nature:nurture traits from those whose result was as nearly 100% as possible determined by the dominant factor, be it nature or nurture, to those in which the result was determined by a relationship between the traits, nature:nurture, that approaches 50:50. Descriptive Statistics predicts that MOST of the data will range around that 50:50.
To me this means that if we could produce comprehensive complete KNOWLEDGE of the nature:nurture dynamic, by means of Rational Empiricism and Descriptive Statistics, we'd find out that there are two minority subsets: one as nearly 100% as possible determined by nature/BIOLOGY - and - another minority as nearly 100% as possible determined by nurture/CHOICE - AND -we'd see a majority of the data would show that the relative strength/determination of the relevant driver, be it nature or nurture, declines from those strong instances of those traits, are less and less determined by either one, until the relationship becomes more and more arbitrary (or, actually, determined by something, possibly transitory and hence unreliable, that we aren't testing).