I am not saying anything of this pertains to your sister, just giving you background for why I don’t take “nuture” lightly.[/quote]
The nature verse nurture debate is a false dichotomy. Reality is dynamic, interconnected and symbiotic.
I briefly mentioned this in the “Alcoholism” thread. The idea that genes “program” behavior is wrong, for the most part, a product of our mechanistic worldview; evidence shows that the environment triggers and even alters DNA. It’s called “epigenetics” – that non-genetic factors cause the organism’s genes to behave (or “express themselves”) differently. The younger an organism the more susceptible to environmental stresses that can trigger physiological changes. Prenatal and early childhood humans are very susceptible to genetic/biological altering environmental stresses which could cause a myriad of behavioral changes. This does not mean it is not “natural” because the changes were some sort of response to the stimuli.
I have not looked into the homosexuality scientifically, but I have spent some time reading about the most recent genetics and behavioral sciences. fwiw – intuitively I would not say homosexuality is analogous to having brown eyes. Maybe a genetic expression to an prenatal environmental stress in some. Maybe it goes “deeper” in others. I also met a women that entered a homosexual relationships after being severely abused in heterosexual relationships in her teens and admitted to having sexual attraction to men at one point – but something “switched off”. Though she did say she was attracted to women at a young age as well.
Bruce Lipton wrote a book recently called the “Biology of Belief” in which he showed compelling evidence that shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts. But I digress…
The point is reducing things down to nature verse nurture is doomed from the start. I agree, humans are way more malleable than we like to admit – down to a cellular level. It is kind of a dynamic interdependence of influences that create a human’s behavior – rather than this or that
