biped

Actually, I don't see humans as a bit more than "life", so my opinion still stands. We agree to disagree.

Oh, and cancer kills you. Last I checked that hampers reproduction.

And no, I'm not here to do anything but out those who either a) simply jump on the bandwagon, or jump to conclusions. Obviously your critical thought puts you beyond those conditions.

fair enough, we can disagree rationally, thank god the act thereof has no bearing on relevance of life.

moving on ..
so what your saying is that anything that prematurely causes death ( therefore hindering your ability to procreate ) is a disease. the deadly car accident disease and the drug overdose disease ( ok addiction may very well be ).
weather the process is internal or external is irrevelant at this point.

if this is what you are saying, then i will concur that logically you have to conclude homosexuality is a disease as well. and seeing as we are all diseased, we better start reproducing more !!! ( i will try this angle at the bar with the ladies, will get back to you on it ).

As for the politics of definitions and the bodies that regulate, you really can't cherry pick that argument. every institition, weather non-profit care giving, to public/private research, education systems; the people that print the textbooks that feed us definitions of the word disease, are all politically motivated in one way or another. with enough time you can dispute any official/institutional opinion on the basis of political bias. mind you some a lot easier than others.

the deaf child is interesting.. even though the connection maybe weak, i remember richard dawkins talking about how there are no christian or mouslim children, there are only children of christian and mouslim parents. sufferage at the hands of parents is something intrinsic to 'life' maybe ?

its more a question of morality/ethics, rather than definitions, although you can definitely mash em up for a while if you are so inclined.

just for fun now ...


"What counts as a disease also changes over historical time, partly as a result of increasing expectations of health, partly due to changes in diagnostic ability, but mostly for a mixture of social and economic reasons. One example is osteoporosis, which after being officially recognized as a disease by the WHO in 1994 switched from being an unavoidable part of normal ageing to a pathology (WHO, 1994). This has consequences for sufferers' sense of whether they are 'normally old' or 'ill', but more concretely for their ability to have treatment reimbursed by health service providers. Another well-known example is homosexuality, which has travelled in the opposite direction to osteoporosis, through medical territory, and out the other side. After being redefined during the nineteenth century as a state rather than an act, in the first half of the twentieth century homo-sexuality was viewed as an endocrine disturbance requiring hormone treatment. Later its pathological identity changed as it was re-categorized as an organic mental disorder treatable by electroshock and sometimes neurosurgery; and finally in 1974 it was officially de-pathologized, when the American Psychiatric Association removed it from the listed disease states in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (Bayer & Spitzer, 1982). "

http://www.nature.co...ll/7400195.html

so officially homosexuality is not a disease, and officially the 'popular social definition' for disease is up in the air.

Maybe you don't see life so simply. But I do. Difference in opinion that we will never be able to resolve. Fair enough.

Your definition of disease is incorrect however. Chronic diseases can be caused by exterior conditions. The answer does not always lie in genetics. We don't actually know what causes homosexuality, only what it's effects are.

i see 'life' just as simply as you do, but i see humans as just a bit more than just life, and no that is not a spiritual or religious endeavor. maybe it help to think of it like life++ to avoid confusion.

actually your definition is still incorrect. ofcourse diseases can be brought on through external sources ( virii/bacteria/fungus/what have you ), but its at the point where it interacts with our own genetics, that it becomes a disease. there are a lot of maladies that aren't diseases that you can contract externally. cancer is a disease, does it stop you from reproducing ? no, its the death from cancer that stops you from reproducing. what you are suggesting is that 'herriditary diseases' are an oxymoron, and cannot exist.

i fail to see why you trumpet yourself as being 'purely objective' in the name of science. you are using an outdated definition to prop up a shock statement. thats not very objective if you ask me, unless your objective is to thread troll.


symantics asides, i think we atleast have the same respect and sentiment for our fellow homosexual human beings.

So you want the keys to be more like windows?

http://wiki.osx86pro...the_COMMAND_key

i already figured that part out. but thanks.


let me be more straightfoward.

this keyboard ( like a lot of pc keyboards ) has media keys, to use to control something like itunes/winamp/your fav music player. ( play / pause / stop / next track / prev track ) etc...

now while the volume up / down / mute buttons do their thing, the other keys don't.


also we in pc land might have buttons to open up things like browsers / email clients / etc.. i would also like to map these buttons to open up programs like 'calculator' etc..

its really quite a trivial concept.. so why is the solution so elusive. ( no you can't do it from the keyboard/mouse preferences pane )

As I figured, everyone would take this as face value.

The only point of any species is to reproduce. Sorry, but let's throw religion out for a moment and look at science. That is also humanity's only purpose, from a scientific standpoint.

Any behavioral trait which inhibits this ability is a disease, according to the classical scientific definition.

But science is about objectivity, not about judging.

snip snip

Oh, and biped? You assume homosexuality is a choice (castration, suicide, and monk-dom are). I do not.

from a biological standpoint, the purpose of any life is to reproduce, to propogate a species. however, you can't paint all life with the same broad stroke. we value our conscious existance. maybe a feat not achieved by any other known species. we think twice about killing humans ( for the most part ), but we don't fuss over killing a fly, stepping on a spider, throwing anti-biotics at bacteria. we are a bit a more than just a biological existance, and that is scientifically quantifiable. not getting into the realm of religion or spirituality. we differentiate our lives from the stuff we grow on petri dishes, as we should differentiate our use of language.

mind you the classical scientific definition you speak of, fits right along the science of ether and orgons. the more contemporary definition of 'disease' is that it requires genetic interaction... all diseases alter your genetics at some level, and this is maybe where you are crossing the line. by saying homosexuality is a disease, is suggesting homosexuality arrises from a genetic flaw. weather or not the genetic flaw inhibits reproduction is inconsequential. you are not going to make friends suggesting homosexuality is a genetic flaw.

i never suggested homosexuality was a choice, i'm not quite sure where you read that. i acknowledge 'sexual orientation' as it were.