6 ms·

That digit ratio stuff has always weirded me out. There are even some studies that show certain ratios correspond with homosexuality. That wikipedia page even h

• wnevets 7y ago
  People tend to forget just how important hormones can be and just assume everything is because of genes.
  • Zenst 7y ago
    We are also only equally coming around to the thinking that the makeup of bacteria in the stomach has a bigger impact in area's that we have never invisanged before.
  • dekhn 7y ago
    hormones are proteins encoded by genes that affect gene transcription. Many hormones respond to entirely internal signals. So, much of what hormones do have a root cause in genomes (but, there are definitely limits on that statement).
  • refurb 7y ago
    That's an odd comment since hormones are the result of gene expression.
    • tapland 7y ago
      They are usually, but you don't get much variation without issues that are not genetic that affect hormones. Like hormone producing tumours.
    • wnevets 7y ago
      IMO gene expression is very different than what layman like myself mean when we talk about our genes.
      • refurb 7y ago
        OK, fair point. In order for genes to have any impact on an organism they need to be expressed. And it's expression that creates the enzymes that create hormones. So it's hard to separate those two. Environmental exposure can change how genes are expressed and thus hormones.
        • Sharlin 7y ago
          But hormones are one of the things that affect gene expression in turn. There aren’t really many straightforward causal relationships in biology.
          • refurb 7y ago
            That's true, but the hormones wouldn't changes gene expression unless it was already encoded in the genes.
    • PeterisP 7y ago
      Not necessarily, for example, the very thing in the article title - high levels of oestrogens in the womb - is about hormone levels not caused by expression of your genes but influenced by outside environment.
      • taneq 7y ago
        An outside environment which shares ~50% of your genes, though.
        • blaser-waffle 7y ago
          Nothing genetic about lead in the air or in paint, or hormones in your beef. Nothing genetic about alcohol or cigarette exposure in the womb. Or random thugs terrifying your parents, putting your pregnant mom through waves of fight-or-flight hormone spikes.
    • dsalso 7y ago
      Yeah, but they are more precisely a function of environment. Diet, stress even sunlight affect hormone levels in a given individual.
• Zenst 7y ago
  As with many traits, not always a given, just more likely. Though the last one you mention, as somebody with a low digit ratio is one that escaped me and I'm just fine with that, as happily dispel the relationship myth about shoe size in which I'm size 13UK/14USA.
• lonelappde 7y ago
  It's essentially a list of stereotypically male/female traits that correlate with testosterone/estrogen. And of course not a p-value or effect size is sight.
  • b_tterc_p 7y ago
    > And of course not a p-value or effect size is sight. Because... it’s wikipedia and you wouldn’t expect to find those things While I’m sure nobody thinks there is a casual relationship, you can find statistically significant effects on the digit ratio
• b_tterc_p 7y ago
  It’s not that surprising. It’s just a second order effect of an important environmental factor at a critical development stage. Hormones valances in the womb, as you mentioned, are likely a driver of homosexuality. And having kids changes the hormone balance, making some arrangements of sons and daughters more likely to be gay.