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What is your position on HBD in general, and the genetic basis of IQ in particular?
From the study that was linked in the article you linked:
We can get into the weeds over what exactly "8 to 25% of variation" means -- how many recalcitrant homosexuals should we expect to find in a given population, how easy is it to change one's sexual orientation or set someone on a different path of development via environmental factors -- but nonetheless, the paper states plainly that there is a genetic component. (The introduction to the paper also makes no mention of epigenetic factors or the pre-natal uterine environment, both of which could conceivably contribute to someone being "born that way" despite not being part of the genome proper.)
The article you directly linked states:
but this is just a caricature of the hereditarian position. There's a genetic component to IQ too, but no one thinks that you can predict someone's IQ just from genetics either (environmental factors can easily lower it).
I'm always surprised at the number of people who take a staunchly "realist" position on the biological reality of sex and race differences, but who stubbornly refuse to believe that homosexuality is anything but a matter of political propaganda and personal choice. I think there's a clear ideological motivation at work, stemming from the hope that we could eradicate homosexuality if we simply got the LGBT propaganda out of schools (much like how leftists think we could close the black-white achievement gap if we simply devised the proper education program; both projects are futile).
Look at it this way: there's a stunningly diverse range of maladies that the human body and brain can be afflicted with. People can be born without eyes and limbs, they can be born sterile, they can be born with profound mental retardation; is it that much of a stretch to think that a male could be born liking other males too? A healthy, properly functioning human is heterosexual; but there's always a possibility that an organism can simply go wrong and start functioning improperly.
I take it as evident that IQ is pretty clearly heritable. I strongly disagree with what I understand of the rest of the HBD complex, starting with the idea that human value clearly scales with intelligence.
Let's leave homosexuality aside, and look at something else. Let's try alcoholism.
It's pretty clear to me that alcoholism is at least partially genetic: there seem to be people who are predisposed to addictive behavior in general, and to alcoholism in particular. I'm given to understand that the body's reaction to alcohol consumption likewise varies widely, and it seems logical that on a purely physiological level, alcohol would hit some people harder than others, and that this variance in the experience would lead to variance in the formation of addiction.
Do people choose to be alcoholic? In some sense, yes; if you don't ever drink you'll never get addicted, and in most cases some other person is not tying them down and pouring vodka down their neck against their will. The one alcoholic I've known personally told me straight-up when they started drinking that they were looking for a new addiction. On the other hand, it's pretty clear that many, probably most, maybe all, understand on some level that the alcohol is bad for them and wish they could escape it, and likewise it seems probable that if they really understood the visceral reality of where it would lead, they would not have started drinking.
Can people choose not to be alcoholic? Again, in some sense, yes: each subsequent drink is chosen, and they can choose not to. Can we "treat" them such that they are cured of alcoholism? Yet again, in some sense yes: we can strap them down until they detox, and then keep them strapped down until the low levels of habit are broken. We could even keep them confined away from alcohol forever. We can give them drugs that make them violently ill if they imbibe, and so on, and so on. But the deeper reality is that no, we can't cure alcoholism the way we cure bacterial infections, because the defect is in the person's own will. "Choosing" not to be alcoholic appears to be very, very hard, and "cures" for alcoholism appear to be limited in efficacy, and stand or fall on the subsequent choices and circumstances of the alcoholic themselves.
It would probably not be good for alcoholics if we created and enforced a broad social meme-plex that alcoholism was a valid identity, generated large amounts of propaganda about how drunk driving was cool and totally safe, and about how being drunk all the time was a totally valid lifestyle, and anyone who disagreed was just a bigot, and any harmful behaviors by the drunks were really the fault of the people who refused to love and accept and support their true drunken nature, or of society for not accommodating them sufficiently.
I don't like alcohol. I've personally watched it destroy someone I loved very deeply. I don't drink. I don't encourage others to drink, and while I tolerate others drinking around me in moderation, I would not participate in serious alcohol culture in any form. I don't campaign for prohibition because we've tried it and there seem to have been significant downsides, and despite some skepticism over the nature and accuracy of the assessment of those downsides, I generally come down on "it isn't worth it." And yet if prohibition were on the ballot tomorrow, I would probably vote for it, because I think our current system is far too tolerant of a serious danger.
Does this seem to be an unreasonable position to take toward alcohol? If prohibition were on the ballot, would you say that I am "hoping to eradicate drunkenness", as though an act of congress could undo the laws of chemistry governing fermentation and the features of human nature that cause us to be naturally drawn to getting fucked up on giggle-water? I don't know how to fix drunkenness. I do know that it is, in and of itself, a problem, and that its problematic nature is part of reality, not simply a perspective that can be mediated away by sufficient social engineering.
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There’s an obvious objection to homosexuality being mostly genetic, and that’s that we should expect at least some selection against it.
Now obviously gays reproduce less- even closeted gays married to women probably have less sex with their wives means fewer babies at the margins- but also homosexuality is a terrible health decision which should also be selected against and the tendency of homosexuals to get STD’s would also reduce their wives’ fertility if closeted.
You could make the same argument about Down's Syndrome and cystic fibrosis. But they still keep happening. (Note that I also pointed out that "biological basis" is not equivalent to "simple heritable Mendelian trait" -- one hypothesis is that the level of testosterone that a fetus is exposed to in the womb has an impact on sexual orientation, for example.)
I'm saying that homosexuality should be thought of as an illness, a disorder of the reproductive system. Congenital defects that impact the reproductive system are well-documented (e.g. various types of intersex conditions). Disadvantageous traits are selected against, sure, but evolution can't insulate us from all possible illness. Things still break down and go wrong.
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Homosexuality is not a health decision, sodomy is.
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