Re: New Arvorec words

En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

>
> Hm. I think my choice of word was rather unfortunate. By "chemicals" I
> did
> not refer only or even primarily to man-made, "unnatural" substances. As
> we
> all know, substances like testorsteone have a very large effect on our
> sex
> and sexuality. Indeed, a foetus with an XY genome will still become a
> female
> if it isn't subjected to a largish dosis of testosterone. Some
> researchers
> think that a low level of testosterone in male foetus at least increases
> the
> probability that it becomes a homosexual.
Strangely enough, I read a scientific article which stated exactly the contrary,
that a too high level of testosterone increased the probability of
homosexuality.

Just to say that things are extremely complicated.

 There are HEAPS of substances,
> natural or man-made that affects, or possibly affects, the development
> of an
> individual, and I find it hard believe that NONE of them would affect
> whether someone becomes homosexual or not.
>
Agreed.

>
> One suggested explanation of left-handedness is that it is caused by
> minor
> brain damage dring birth. That kind of "environmental effect" is about
> as
> likely in any society.
>
The problem with those kinds of explanations (brain damage, as if something was
wrong in being left-handed... Knowing that the proportion of left-handed people
is higher with gifted people and people with long education curriculi, it's
quite hard to believe) is that they pose right-handedness (or heterosexuality)
is the norm, and that something "wrong" happened which transformed the person
into left-handed (or homosexual). I'm sorry but I don't buy this. Being in
minority doesn't mean something's wrong with us. An explanation on how someone
becomes either righthanded, or lefthanded, or ambidextrous, *from scratch*,
without stating that one of those states is more normal than another (more
frequent is OK, but it says nothing about normality), and without stating that
one state was there before, and was changed for one reason or another, would be
more than valuable. Any other kind of explanation is much too likely to be
biased for wrong reasons. The same goes with sexual orientation. In my opinion,
there is a set of factors that make someone either heterosexual, or homosexual,
or bisexual, or (insert your choice here), *from scratch*, that's to say that
there is no previous heterosexual norm, which is changed by this set of factors,
but rather an absence of sexual orientation (or a "pansexuality", rather), which
is then decided through this set of factors. This way, heterosexuality can be
posed as equal as homosexuality, the fact that it's more frequent doesn't imply
that it's more normal, just that the set of factors tend to lead more often to
heterosexuality then to homosexuality (and on this there's nothing wrong about
it).

Note that I don't talk without knowing anything: I know that some studies done
about baby behaviour show that very young babies have no preference for either
hand. The lateralization occurs quite early (within the first year), but there
is strong suspicions that every child comes to life ambidextrous.

Note that I don't criticize you Andreas. I'm criticizing the people you give
examples from. Any explanation that takes as a first step that there is a norm,
which can then be changed, but a norm indeed, is to take very precautionously.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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