I'm so PROUD to be a CANADIAN!!!!!

Tonight we did it! We beat the USA in Olympic men's hockey! And I swear, all of Canada was there with them, sharing in their fight. All I could see all over FB were people's status updates about how they were watching the game. It was like the whole country's attention was finely tuned onto this one issue! Never before have I seen a whole nation come together in solidarity to cheer for something they hold dear.

I mean, it was just so much more exciting than following the Afghan detainee fiasco--and I bet you'll be hard pressed to divert our attention from this win as quickly as we were diverted from that! I'm so glad that our Prime Minister unnecessarily shut down our government for months; that way, we had saved up enough energy to really root on our team to the win!!!

And man, people are so proud now! Everyone's talking about how proud they are to be a Canadian, and how awesome we are as a country. And that's exactly what we need right now, cuz people were starting to feel a little low about themselves when they found out that their brothers and sisters are dying overseas just to prop up a sham, theocratic dictatorship. But now we can sleep a little easier at night because we OWN THE PODIUM!!! :D

Sure, the euphoria will pass, and Monday morning will shake us all out of bed and nudge us out the door to work. But this Monday will be different. Because now, we don't have to feel bad that our Minister of Science and Technology is a freakin' creationist Chiropractor, that our governing party is focused on passing counterproductive legislation, and that the Prime Minister is secretive as hell and thinks it's cool to shut the government down whenever he damn well pleases.

That's right. Tomorrow will be different. Because now, we have something we can be really proud of!!!! Something we can all get excited about! GO CANADA!!!

The Gay Gene?

I had a discussion with two friends recently about the genetic nature of homosexuality. This topic is often terribly misunderstood, so today I'll try to sum up all the information as concisely as possible.[1]

First, though, it's important to distinguish the difference between the terms "genetic," "developmental," and "in-born." When we say that something is genetically inherited, we mean that a quality is determined by one's genetic code. A good example would be sickle cell anemia. The hemoglobin (Hb)in your red blood cells is coded for by a handful of genes; a particular mutation in one of these genes results in misshaped Hb, which then deforms your red blood cells and makes you sick. Sickle cell anemia is entirely genetic in origin.

To say that something is developmental is to mean that a quality is determined by the the environment an organism is exposed to during development. Your height, for example, is partially determined by what kind of foods you eat while growing up, your level of exercise, and other factors.

However, we still refer to one's height as something that is "in-born;" that is to say, a personal quality that is outside one's control. Something determined by one's own nature. Keep this in mind for later in the post...

Now, homosexuality poses a bit of an evolutionary paradox. If evolution favours traits that improve a species' reproductive success, how could a trait like homosexuality become so common?[2] Surely any gene or genes for homosexuality would decrease the likelihood of its' possessor's reproduction, and be lost from the gene pool.

In a June 2008 paper, Andrea Ciani et al.[3], propose an evolutionary mechanism called "sexually antagonistic selection" that could account for the prevalence of homosexual behaviour. To sum up (to the best of my abilities), their paper suggests that sexuality is determined by two genes, one of which is located on the X chromosome. Having the "gay" version of these genes (we could say "gay alleles") makes males gay but makes females more likely to reproduce. The gay alleles could be said to simultaneously decrease male fitness but increase female fitness. This provides a solution to our paradox, assuming that the advantage for females outweighs the disadvantage to males.[4] Indeed, this genetic model is also compatible with other data, such as the fact that homosexual males' maternal aunts and grandmothers are found to be more fecund than baseline. [3]

This model adds to the growing data that support a natural cause for homosexuality. Previous studies have shown that homosexuality is at least 35% genetic in origin, and various other theories are being researched to understand the developmental components (handedness, brain anatomy, and hormonal exposure in the womb, for example).

However, as my friend and I agreed, while all this information is interesting from a basic sciences perspective, it serves almost no purpuse in terms of informing public opinion or policy concerning homosexuality. ...Or, rather, it shouldn't.

Public interest in the genetic/developmental origins of homosexuality center around the debate about whether or not being gay is a choice. While all the evidence so far points to a substantial "in-born" component to sexual preference, it doesn't matter anyway. There is nothing unnatural, immoral, or harmful about homosexual behaviour, so there should be no public recourse against it. And even if it were a choice to be gay (can you imagine choosing to be gay!?), lots of other life choices (such as religion, most notably), receive widespread public support. People who advance the "it's a choice" argument are either lacking integrity or honesty.

1. My apologies for the long time since my last post.

2 It is, in fact, quite common. See here for some examples of homosexuality observed in the Animal Kingdom.

3. Camperio Ciani A, Cermelli P, Zanzotto G (2008) Sexually Antagonistic Selection in Human Male Homosexuality. PLoS ONE 3(6): e2282. doi:10.1371/
journal.pone.0002282

4. This paper uses a LOT of wacky mathematics that make my head spin. I leave it to my more "numbered" readers to judge the merits of the authors' work.

Some Info On Evolution

I was surprised to find out the other day that one of my friends didn't know that there are actually quite a few examples of transitional forms in the fossil record. We had been discussing the film Expelled, and while my friend was aware that the documentary was full of misinformation, he didn't seem to have a lot of knowledge about evolution in general.

So here, I thought I would post some useful links and info about (the extremely well-tested, thoroughly scientific) theory of evolution.

One of the most useful sites out there is TalkOrigins. This site catalogs tons of info on examples of evolution (as in: yes, we've documented actual instances of evoluationary change. Not just "microevolution" of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, but "macroevolution" of new species.), common creationist claims (for those who are new to controversies about evolution, a lot of people refuse to "believe in" it, and insist on teaching various creation theories, such as Intelligent Design (ID) or a literal interpretation of Genesis), and other über-useful information.

The National Center for Science Education also has a lot of useful information, more centred around the teaching of evolution. Teaching evolution has actually generated a number of court cases, one of the most recent (and my personal favourite) being the Dover trial.

If anyone reading this has any questions about the theory of evolution, the teaching of it, or the controversies surrounding it, feel free to let loose in the comments. :)