Old Podcast, but still annoying

[Beehive of Hate]

Has Alex already explained his statement regarding the scientific community funding research of homosexuality of sheep compared to testing true psychic ability?

It was made in his 11-26-07 podcast around 3 minutes into it. Again sorry if this has been discussed before but there are so many things wrong with that statement that I really want to find out whether or not he has a defense or anything in that nature. I also just realized that I should have searched for the original podcast thread, ack!

[Open Mind]

Welcome to the forum.

'So many things wrong with this statement'.

Perhaps you are reading too much into the comment.

Why is studying the homosexuality of sheep in particular important? I don't know anything about this research that Alex referred to in that podcast. What is the goal of the research? Are they trying to prevent homosexuality in sheep or trying to see if they can increase tendencies for research purposes? Is this research also looking for bisexual sheep? Is it more important than research on celibate sheep?

Personally I am also far more interested in psi research, so if I had to vote on what gets most funding, forgive me but I would definitely give psi research a higher priority. Feel free to convince me otherwise, I could be wrong.

Beehive, few people in this forum seem that religious so I don't think anyone in here is going to be critical of homosexuality due to a bible or what some other religious book says. We are discussing psi.

Cheers

[Beehive of Hate]

Thanks for replying to my post Open Mind! I realize that my user name gives off the feeling that I'm going to be a dick or the like. But I just like how absurd the idea of a beehive consisting of pure hate sounds, it's so intense!

Anyways, the reason why I took offense to Alex's comparison is that homosexuality is incorrectly thought by a lot of folks as a characteristic of humans only. Research of it in other species only helps to solidify the evidence that one cannot necessarily decide to be homosexual, it's a complicated process that one cannot possibly have any control over.

I saw Alex's statement as saying that peoples' first ideas on a topic for research should be the ideas we base our funding on, at a first glance homosexuality in sheep does look bizarre, but if really thought about, the findings it can support will benefit all of mankind. Where as research on whether or not mediums are the real thing, just seems to make it possible for that medium to charge people more money, because they are scientifically proven to know whether or not someone is confused in their love life, or the like.

I feel that some of the above statements I've made sound sweeping, if there are any anyone would like me to explain, please state so, because I do not wish to overgeneralize this subject. We all know that that is not good for seeking the right stance on matters.

regards,
Joe Creason
nationofjoe@ucla.edu

[David Bailey]

Beehive,

I think you will find that outside the fundamentalist religious community (who are not well represented here!) the idea that homosexuality is present in other animals is well known. Indeed, I guess you could ask any farmer. I think Alex was probably referring to the fact that this subject (like many others) did not really need further research.

Coming from the UK, where homosexuality seems to be pretty much accepted, I can understand that some of the debate in the US would be very hurtful to people of that persuasion, but honestly, that is not what we are debating here!

David