Questions about DNA, biology, genetics and genealogy tests

[timeuser84]

Is there any DNA, biology, genetics and genealogy tests that i can take to find out what i am supposed to do naturally OR what I am naturally made for? for example, my sexuality or being straight, bisexual, gay. If yes, what do these tests tell me about my DNA, biology and/or genes? Even if its no, what do these tests reveal to me about my DNA, biology, genetics and/or genealogy?

 

[jim mcnamara]

Ancestry.com, and more to your point, sites like 23and Me maintain databases on this type of information. 23 and Me emails me with new updates on some genetic tendencies/diseases. Periodically the site asks me to fill out questionaires on diseases I may or may not have been diagnosed for.

And they both definitely show your genealogy -Ancestry is much more oriented to that scope on a very personal level. My wife played the Ancestry game and found some cousins she did not know about, for example.

Send your spit to both sites, get the tests done.

Please note carefully so we do not go off the deep end in this thread and have to close it:
There is a concept called the Heredity Environment Interaction. Epigenetics is one aspect. And there are studies on identical twins (two humans who start life with exactly the same DNA) that support the hypothesis.

What it means in plain English: Heredity does not 100% control the outcomes for humans. The environment also impacts them. DNA is not absolute destiny in every possible instance.

Example: identical twins.
One smoked for many years, and had a lot of serious diseases before she died of cancer. The other non-smoking twin, AFAIK, is still alive today and did not have those problems. Or cancer.

To my knowledge, sexual orientation in the sense you mean, does not have a strong genetic component, so it cannot be "genetically tested for". The link below says it can vary in one individual over a lifetime, as well.
If someone knows more that would be great.

Study abstract:

Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample.

By Bailey, J. Michael,Dunne, Michael P.,Martin, Nicholas G.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 78(3), Mar 2000, 524-536

Abstract
The authors recruited twins systematically from the Australian Twin Registry and assessed their sexual orientation and 2 related traits: childhood gender nonconformity and continuous gender identity. Men and women differed in their distributions of sexual orientation, with women more likely to have slight-to-moderate degrees of homosexual attraction, and men more likely to have high degrees of homosexual attraction. Twin concordances for non-heterosexual orientation were lower than in prior studies. Univariate analyses showed that familial factors were important for all traits, but were less successful in distinguishing genetic from shared environmental influences. Only childhood gender nonconformity was significantly heritable for both men and women. Multivariate analyses suggested that the causal architecture differed between men and women, and, for women, provided significant evidence for the importance of genetic factors to the traits' covariation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

 

[drummer1280]

Is there any DNA, biology, genetics and genealogy tests that i can take to find out what i am supposed to do naturally OR what I am naturally made for? for example, my sexuality or being straight, bisexual, gay. If yes, what do these tests tell me about my DNA, biology and/or genes? Even if its no, what do these tests reveal to me about my DNA, biology, genetics and/or genealogy?
[/QUOT

Is there any DNA, biology, genetics and genealogy tests that i can take to find out what i am supposed to do naturally OR what I am naturally made for? for example, my sexuality or being straight, bisexual, gay. If yes, what do these tests tell me about my DNA, biology and/or genes? Even if its no, what do these tests reveal to me about my DNA, biology, genetics and/or genealogy?

You do not need a DNA test to tell you if you're "supposed" to be gay, bi, etc, which is good because that's not a possibility currently. Also, human sexuality can be fluid and change sometimes. I'm a transgender man that was always attracted to women, until 6 months into transition when I experienced a shift to bi. It happens to about a third of transgender men in transition. So, even if a test were available, it's not possible to predict fluidity in attraction. The idea of "supposed" to be, and testing for it would seem quite unsettling to say the least. It would reek of thinning out the traits judged not "supposed" to be. There was a push to weed out undesirable traits in the US not that long ago. There were still forced sterilization laws in the 1970s in the US.

 

[Laroxe]

I remember reading about an interview in which a famous biologist was asked how much control he thought genes had over our behaviour, Oh 100% he answered, he was then asked about the degree of environmental control, Oh, that's 100% as well he said. I think the long discredited debate about nature vs nurture is based on a misunderstanding about ideas of heritability which is something different.
All gene expression must take place in an environmental context, even if that environment is the product of other genes. Genes generally control one stage in protein synthesis and it became obvious some time ago that a specific fault to cause serious pathology but this became very misleading, people for years spent their time trying to link specific single genes to traits while some were identified its now clear that genes operate in complex networks which control their expression and respond to a wide range of chemical messengers that comprise their environment. Our genes provide information for the control of a complex organism that operates in and on the environment, this operation informs the functioning of the genes.
Its proved to be very difficult to identify single genes as having effects on complex processes or behaviours, unlike in many animals humans come equipped with very few fixed responses, we may have a number of predispositions but the most important givens for humans is intelligence and behavioural flexibility.
There are some specific physical risks that can be identified and predictions of probable features and traits but most of these are subject to environmental modification.
There has been a lot of debate about how accurate or useful these genetic tests actually are, there continue to be problems in the quality control, even though the technology has improved. The genetic information is also available to security services who have used simple searchers to identify offenders, this can even identify relatives of the subject