Byne W
Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY 10029, USA.
J Homosex. 1997;34(1):73-80. doi: 10.1300/J082v34n01_07.
While all mental phenomena must have an ultimate biological substrate, the precise contribution of biological factors to the development of sexual orientation remains to be elucidated. Does biology merely provide the slate of neural circuitry upon which sexual orientation is inscribed by experience? Do biological factors directly wire the brain so that it will support a particular orientation? Or do biological factors influence sexual orientation only indirectly, perhaps by influencing personality variables that in turn influence how one interacts with and shapes the environment as it contributes to the social relationships and experiences that shape sexual orientation as it emerges developmentally? Recent neurostructural and genetic linkage evidence pertaining to sexual orientation must be viewed tentatively until it has been adequately corroborated and integrated with psychological and cultural models. Moreover, even a reliable and robust correlation between a biological marker and sexual orientation would be equally compatible with the second and third possibilities delineated above. Yet if the third possibility more closely approximates reality, the search for predisposing biological factors will result in incomplete and misleading findings until their interactions with environmental factors are taken into account and controlled for in adequate longitudinal studies.
虽然所有心理现象都必定有一个最终的生物学基础，但生物因素对性取向发展的确切作用仍有待阐明。生物学仅仅提供了由经验铭刻性取向的神经回路板块吗？生物因素是否直接连接大脑，使其支持特定的性取向？或者生物因素仅间接影响性取向，也许是通过影响人格变量，而人格变量又反过来影响一个人与环境的互动方式以及塑造环境的方式，因为环境在性取向发展过程中对塑造性取向的社会关系和经历有贡献？与性取向相关的最新神经结构和基因连锁证据在得到充分证实并与心理和文化模型整合之前，必须谨慎看待。此外，即使生物标志物与性取向之间存在可靠且稳固的相关性，这也同样符合上述第二种和第三种可能性。然而，如果第三种可能性更接近现实，那么在充分的纵向研究中考虑并控制生物因素与环境因素的相互作用之前，寻找易患性生物因素将导致不完整且具有误导性的结果。
