Ben Carson. Conservative Xian, Republican Presidential hopeful. Dr. Carson’s recent gaffe in espousing his reasoning on how homosexuality is a choice and for which he subsequently apologized is covered by CNN HERE.
In case you haven’t heard by now, his evidence was that since some guys evidently turn gay in prison that was enough to convince the good doctor that homosexuality is obviously a choice.
“A lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight, and when they come out, they’re gay,”
Done. See how simple?
It’s not the cause of homosexuality that is simple here, it is the good doctor being simple.
But this man cant be simple minded. He has an MD. He was a respected pediatric neurosurgeon. How can he be simple? He must on the contrary be very bright. He made it thru medical school, no mean feat. And he wound up at one the most prestigious medical centers in the world. He truly had an impressive career. This is not a stupid man, so how can he make such a stupid judgment, and act so simple minded basing his conclusion on a dubious assumption and ignoring mountains of real evidence on the subject?

From the wiki:
“Carson was a professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics, and he was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. At age 33, he became the youngest major division director in the hospital’s history as director of pediatric neurosurgery. In 1987 Carson successfully separated conjoined twins, the Binder twins, who had been joined at the back of the head (craniopagus twins). The 70-member surgical team, led by Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were separated; both survived”

So how can a neurosurgeon, at Johns Hopkins no less, demonstrate such simple and wrong reasoning? All through his training, practice, and the hundreds of surgeries he must have performed, especially in preparing his use of pioneering techniques to separate and save those conjoined twins, he had to use quite sophisticated reasoning dependent on multiple sources of information and make deeply considered decisions employing detailed, multiple types of data to arrive at correct, even insightful answers. When he worked in his role as a surgeon, he thought like an evidence demanding, cautious, reasoned scientist.
But when he shot his mouth off about the cause of homosexuality he reasoned like a religionist.

He used one data point, (which wasn’t even correct) didn’t bother to check out if it was true or not, didn’t bother to check and consider the wealth of other information such as the facts or frequency of consensual homosexual acts or rapes in prison, nor how many men actually identify as newly homosexual after experiencing prison sex (or go back to being heterosexual when they are out and have access to females again), nor the massive amount of knowledge we currently have on the biology and psychology of sexual orientation. All of which he as an MD could source and understand in a heartbeat. But he didn’t. He made an asshole statement completely belying his obvious intelligence, scientific training and acumen.

Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist. When you think religiously you ignore the standards of evidence one uses in science and often decide beliefs with minimum of data points, or none at all, with Scripture and its current interpretation as your replacement for evidence, and with a level of credulity and certainty strenuously avoided by science.

From the wiki on Seventh Day Adventism:
“The first fundamental belief of the church states that “The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of [God’s] will.” Adventist theologians generally reject the “verbal inspiration” position on Scripture held by many conservative evangelical Christians”

Dr. Carson belongs to a church of the ultra Conservative wing of Conservative Xiansanity. Seventh Day Adventists believe in Creationism, the immanent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, Satan, Jesus is really Michael the Archangel and vice versa (no shit) and homosexuality is not accepted either in practice nor in relationships. Done.
He doesn’t need to research homosexuality like he would a new surgical procedure or medical finding, he doesn’t need to reason about it. His Church, his faith already told him the exact the truth of it, because it is in his Book. Science, medicine, research, data, evidence and reason mean nothing when you already know you have eternal, absolute truth. All religions teach this to varying degrees. All rely on jettisoning reason and evidence for faith.
Ben Carson is not a simple minded man by any means. But he speaks like one when he thinks in religion mode. Religious people slip seamlessly from one mode of thinking to the other, often without noticing it, or when pressed, vehemently denying it. Some try to rationalize it like the Pastor in the image above. Ben Carson’s church stands by it. On any other medical question Dr. Carson would use his training and skills, check out ALL the evidence, verify the data, but not this one. His Bible has the final word.

When Dr. Carson was prepping up for that eventual 22 hour conjoined twin surgery, wanna bet he did his homework well? He most likely didn’t just get lucky. He boned up on the latest techniques and procedures and all the available data on the subject of conjoined twins, their complicated anatomy, circulation, entwined nervous systems, etc., etc. You can bet he left no stone unturned, considered all the data, and he pulled it off.

But when he made his statement that prison sex makes men gay, he considered no evidence at all, didn’t do any homework, didn’t consider any available data, just made it up ignoring two complete lines of evidence:
1. Male prison sex. Most of it is rape. Estimates vary from 1/20 to 1/10 of male inmates experience coerced sex. That’s 90-95% of inmates that don’t get raped or forced into some sort of same-sex activities. Does the good doctor have any data on how many if any of the minority of men that do get raped in prison subsequently prefer sex with males and avoid women for the rest of their lives? Or do they retain their heterosexuality both in prison and when they get out?
“Yeah I got forced into passive anal sex while in prison and now I don’t find women attractive anymore and find some men to be very attractive and only engage in homosexual acts now. I’m gay.” Right. Got any evidence on that, Doc?

Dr. Carson apologized the next day and offered no support for his position.
There is no evidence that homosexual encounters, coerced or consensual in prison change anyone’s sexual orientation. Maybe that’s why he was silent on the issue.

Again here’s a man who spent his entire adult life, over 40 years, from age 18 to age 60 when he retired immersed in learning, researching and considering mountains of factual data on the human medical condition…at very least from his pre-med undergraduate days through medical school, internships and residency and throughout his impressive career. This is a man more familiar than most with the rigors of discovering and assimilating cutting edge human knowledge. One would think he would have defended his statement like a champ, supporting his reasoning with study after study, as he would defend any diagnosis he ever made or any surgical procedure he meticulously planned and executed.
He offered nothing and apologized. Done.

2. The biology of sexual orientation. I’ll be blogging on this subject in some detail soon, but any MD would be able to scan the literature and see the variation in chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, genital sex and the now well documented sex differences in the brain, all under the influence of different hormones at different stages of prenatal development, the behavioral genetics data from identical, fraternal twin and sibling studies, the psychological and sociological data…all which point to a biological origin of sexual orientation, none of which supports the hypothesis of it being a “choice”.
But his ultra-Conservative Xian church cannot accept any biological cause for sexual orientation, it must be as most other Conservative Xians unfoundedly affirm: “a choice.”

Dr. Carson certainly appears more than capable of making an informed statement on sexual orientation. He must be a very bright man. But it also appears he ignores his own intellect and training and skill and allows his faith to dictate his decision making when the reality may conflict with what his Church demands as a matter of faith. Reason and evidence are rejected for acceptance of scriptural authority and an attendant denial or at least purposed ignoring of actual knowledge.
Not a good candidate for a President.
A very bright man losing whatever credibility he has, which he may have rightly earned through his efforts and success as a prominent physician. This isn’t the first time his Conservative Xian claims have not helped his candidacy.
This is your brain on religion.

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