Homosexuality Debate Nurture 2
Homosexuality – Nature or Nurture?
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Good morning, adjudicator, ladies and gentlemen.
Team line…….
We have just heard the case from the affirmative team and they have stated a convincing argument toward nature being the cause of homosexuality, however I will now endeavour to point out the main flaws in the affirmatives’ case.
First of all the 3rd speaker spoke about the study done by Bailey and Pillard on twins. Bailey and Pillard found that for every homosexual identical twin the chance that the other twin would be homosexual was only 50%, therefore there was still a 50% chance that the other twin would not be homosexual. However we know do that only 38% of the time the other identical twin is homosexual. These findings imply that genetics do not necessarily play a part in determining whether or not a person is homosexual. The results do highlight the fact that homosexuality is not entirely caused by genetics. If genetics did cause homosexuality then if one identical twin was homosexual then the other twin would be too because they share the same genetic makeup. As shown this is not the case.
The affirmative speaker then went on to talk about homosexuality in animals. This is a flawed argument as I will now explain. As Dr Charles Socarides from the National Association for Research and Therapy on Homosexuality said the term homosexuality should be limited to the human species, because in animals the investigator can only establish motor behaviour and as soon as he interprets the animal’s motivation he is applying human psychodynamics which is a risky, if not foolhardy scientific approach.
We are also unable to compare homosexuality in animals and humans because below the level of chimpanzees, sexual arousal patterns are completely automatic and reflexive. So how is it then possible to do studies of homosexuality in animals and then compare to that in humans? What occurs within other species is no way an indication of what happens in human beings therefore making it hard to say that nature causes homosexuality.
Now to sum up my own teams case. Our 1st speaker spoke about family values and how it’s the family’s primary goal to nurture and protects one’s child. It is a child’s upbringing that impacts and moulds a them therefore influencing ones homosexuality. Homosexuality is therefore created nurture. The 1st speaker then went on to talk about the Jung theory and how homosexuality came about because of the mother archetype.