Is there a geneticist in the house?

[deborah_c]

From yesterday's Hansard, courtesy of a particularly loopy (and I say this without prejudice, or at least any need for it, against his party) MP:

Any suggestion that people's genes are fixed in one particular way from the moment of conception is wrong. The expression ''bisexual''—I am never quite sure what it means—is now a commonplace in the language. It suggests that people can change their sexual proclivities at different stages of their life. That is a fact of life.

*boggle*

I think I'd support his "[not] sure what it means" wholeheartedly. As for the rest...

Comments

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

The process of government is a thing that I find more incomprehensible than genes. How do such weak intelligences with even weaker grasp of general knowledge get into the jobs? And we laugh at the Americans with their Bush...

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

To be fair, having got round to searching for that quote in Hansard, I think it's clear when taken in context that what he meant to say was:

Any suggesion that people's sexuality is fixed by their genes in one particular way from the moment of conception is wrong

[deborah_c]

... although, sadly, he didn't actually say it :)

Put even further in context, what he actually meant was

I will do everything in my power to obstruct this bill, and would happily read out the OED from now until the Queen's Speech if I were allowed to do so

Some of the epithets applied in the course of subsequent debate even by other members of his own party have been fairly entertaining!

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wrote that having just found the relevent part of Hansard. Having read a little bit more of the committee deliberations, I'm rather less inclined to give anything he says the benefit of the doubt... :-)