The Conflict of LGBT Culture and Science

As a biologist I'm increasingly finding my field often being demonised and mocked for simple acts of curiosity. When the field of biology is seen to overstep these pre-determined liberal boundaries there's always a concentrated outcry from the same areas of society. What I'm not suggesting is that all members of these communities are anti-science, but I am going to be providing evidence of worrying trends that linger in the cesspits of left wing echo chambers. To exemplify my thoughts I'm going to focus on a recent example where Cypriot scientists published a paper stating that lesbianism evolved due to male preferences. I would understand if the controversy surrounding this paper was centered around scientific debate, but that was not the subject of the outcry, rather how this hypothesis couldn't possibly be true due to it being published by privileged heterosexual men abusing their needs over that of oppressed lesbians. In general it was an outcry of feelings over anything else. The question I wish to pose is what the fuck this feelings based criticism has got to do with the objective truths of science? How arrogant do you have to be to decide that your narrative is always superior to scientific reasoning? This pathetic backlash has forced me to play devil's advocate. I'm being forced to defend my fellow scientists, even though I could happily criticise this substandard academic paper for days upon end.

To give a brief overview of the actual study you need to understand the fundamentals of sexual selection. Essentially with any sexual conflict there will be one sex limited by the number of mates and another by the number of offspring. The sex that is limited by the number of mates put less resources into sexual reproduction, that's human males, and so often sexual selection will not be favourable towards these individuals, with the other sex selecting human males for certain traits. That was quite poorly explained, but all you need to know is that there are a number of mechanisms involved in sexual selection, one of which this study aims to expand on. It's at this point the study gets a bit convoluted, with vague assumptions sprouting up all over the place, and some strange explanations that have no place in an evolutionary paper. My personal favourite was this:

'As men cannot always guard their partners, and because, they cannot always impose heavy costs on them if they cheat - they are limited for instance, in using physical punishment, due to the risk of retaliation from women's parents - they are always vulnerable to cuckoldry.'

None of that was even sourced, which I suppose isn't surprising, because it's unqualified nonsense. Anyway, the central argument of this paper is that lesbianism increases the reproductive fitness of human males. In essence it's a rare example of a sexual conflict where the fitness penalties are imposed on the female, which is something that is universally observed throughout the natural world. As men are more likely to reproduce with these individuals that have an affinity for women this 'lesbian allele' becomes fixed in the population. That's all fine. Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this idea. There's far too many assumptions for me to agree with this hypothesis, namely that lesbianism is the result of purely genetic variation, but it's not totally implausible. The real problems start with their methodology. It's a simple survey. There is a saying in science that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this paper simply does not provide this extraordinary evidence. Trashing this paper however is not the purpose of my response, rather it's the backlash of the LGBT community which frustrated me far more than this paper ever did.

This initial outburst from the LGBT community predictably picked up on by the mainstream media, resulting in some of the worst reporting on science I'd seen in years. The amount of bias and the number of attempts to shift this story towards a narrative was absolutely shocking. Here's The Independent for example, who thought tweets were an acceptable form of counter-evidence. Seriously that is the only sources they provide in the whole piece.

It's evident that newspapers such as The Independent don't acknowledge the stark contrast between a theory and a hypothesis. This suggested hypothesis was just a scientist trying to find a solution to an unknown conundrum backed up by his own research. Does that make it an objective truth? No, but it does allow other studies to build on these findings to potentially find an explanation for lesbianism. That does not give individuals an excuse to misrepresent and demonise these findings based on nothing but their feelings.

There's a very good reason why lesbians weren't included in an evolutionary study, and that's because they have zero reproductive fitness. In other words they don't pass on their genes to the next generation, and so are irrelevant in a study that tries to find an explanation in regards to the changes in allele frequency over time by means of male choice. The actual study itself seemed to forget about these allele frequencies, but if you had actually bothered to read the study you would have found a hypothesis that hinges of heterosexual choice. So what purpose would surveying lesbians achieve?

The real infuriating thing about these tweets is the unbelievable straw man arguments. Please quote me the part of this study that claims homosexuality isn't a choice. Putting words in another person's mouth is not a good way to structure a counterargument. It doesn't matter who you are attracted to personally because this is an evolutionary based study. Not only are your sexual preferences anecdotal in this scenario but it's also irrelevant, as if you remember this is a study on changing allele frequencies over generations. I'm sorry if the LGBT community feel this is encroaching on their echo chambers, but without this kind of research the mechanisms behind homosexuality will be forever unknown. You can't claim to be in support of science if you simultaneously censor the bits you don't like.

The Independent however was only mildly infuriating compared to my next example. This is by far the worst article on this subject I could find. It's by a news source called 'Advocate', and it may just be some of the most slanderous and moronic bullshit I've ever had the displeasure of reading.

I don't know why Advocate decided this article should be written in a false tone of superiority, but it makes them sound like condescending dicks. They decide to mock the scientist in question for his supposedly absurd claims despite not providing any counter evidence themselves. It's certainly a scientist that should be mocked and not some low rent journalistic source with a false sense of superiority. This source has the audacity to flat out reject this man's study despite clearly not reading a single word of it. There's no scientific insight on display here, just some idiots who've had their feelings hurt. Please tell me why this study doesn't follow the principles of evolutionary theory. It's then another thing to criticise another article that dared to refute the paper when you yourselves have provided absolutely fuck all evidence. He certainly did not at any stage claim lesbians didn't have their own free will, or 'biology'. You're just putting words in the man's mouth. If you had actually read the fucking paper you wouldn't have made such a stupid comment. Let me just quote the last line of the paper for you:

'Future research needs to replicate and extend these findings in order to better understand the evolutionary origins of same-sex attraction.'

Again, this is a hypothesis; a suggested idea. Unless you have any counter evidence stop making pointless ad hominem arguments to make yourselves look better. That's just being counterproductive.
 

This tone of mockery can just fuck off. It's like being spoken to by a fucking condescending child. I've said this already but interviewing lesbian women would be completely pointless. Not only are lesbian couple irrelevant to the hypothesis, but they're also largely irrelevant to the process of how allele frequency changes over time. If this sort of study is so easy then why don't you try and get your own version peer reviewed? I can assure you a feelings over facts narrative doesn't fly in the academic sphere.

The sheer ignorance of this writer culminates during this final segment. Suddenly this study isn't necessary because it doesn't align with their narrative. Tell me, was Darwin's ideas of natural selection necessary? Evolution didn't need to be placed under the microscope due to conflicts with common beliefs at the time, so it's a damn good job he did publish his findings. Funnily enough you'll find many controversial scientific studies written throughout time that didn't need to be placed under the microscope. This doesn't change the facts that all scientific studies are necessary. Science is a search for an objective truth, not a subjective autocratic system that revolves around some random low rent journalist's approval.

What's the issue with trying to find the mechanisms of lesbian relationships from an alternate perspective to yours? I don't recall the planet being at stake when Newton discovered the existence of gravity, but it was a pretty fucking influential discovery in any case. Surely if lesbianism has the potential to put the population of the planet at stake we should at least be suggesting the mechanisms behind it. But no, I'm sure watching Carol, a fucking fictional film, will give you the objective truths on how lesbianism evolved in the past. Having said that Carol is a brilliant film. I'd recommend reading the article as well however, as it may stop you from sounding like an uninformed idiot.

Pink News not surprisingly also weighed in on this debacle. I'm not going to complain about their coverage as I thought they came across as broadly sympathetic of the scientist in question, and actually went down the radical route of having an unbiased discussion by allowing him to give his personal defense of the study. However it's the comments section that really proves my point. If any evidence was needed that this anti-science behaviour is prevalent in a community then this comments section was just that.

Oh dear, that first comment. Jesus christ. Just because of the repeated use of a single word this study is apparently now invalid. Somehow I doubt that word has any bearing on the actual scientific principles of the paper. Are these two papers also invalid now? If you had actually bothered to read the paper you would discover that this couldn't possibly be a circle jerk because that would imply this hypothesis is already well established. Funnily enough it's not.

I actually thought the second comment was a fairly intelligent response that raised a good point. That was until I read the last sentence. I'm sorry if you think this single study is an attempt for men in general to get the world to revolve around them, but that is just an unqualified and libelous claim. I like how you think these scientists represent masculinity as a whole, and as for that last statement, well that's just naive. It's definitely just men that instigate wars.

The rest of the comments section was essentially triggered morons covering their ears and shouting 'misogyny' every time someone dared to challenge this echo chamber of lies. Any time an argument was raised in response to these challenges it was either inflammatory or descended worryingly quickly into eugenics. This isn't scientific debate, this is childish behaviour aiming to silence any form of debate.

Funnily enough this academic paper did not set the scientific community alight, and it will most likely end up with the huge heap of rejected ideas throughout history. However this does not excuse the pathetic reaction that groups of individuals routinely have on papers deemed 'controversial'. In this rant I've focused on the LGBT community, but this is a trend happening in all corners of the political sphere. This damaging anti-science attitude is a very real issue. It's a rejection of scientific debate in the face of academic studies that don't align to a particular narrative. Objective facts don't care if you want to play the victim, and the work of these Cypriot scientists like many others were driven through curiosity, and not a desire to oppress a group of people who cry wolf at the drop of a hat. The imbeciles that cry oppression in this case hadn't even bothered to understand the source material, but still have this hive mind mentality to demonise any scientists who dared to disagree with their attempts to bury their heads in the sand. I've often heard people say that we're heading towards a post fact society that values intrinsic morals over facts, and it's examples of this kind of attitude that make me worry for the future of scientific disciplines.