Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2019-20/Evidence in the Causes of Homosexuality

On the 19th of November, we met up to discuss the subject of our wikibook page. Finding it was difficult for us, as we had an array of ideas in mind. Our initial 3 subjects were 'the justification of colonization', using disciplines such as history, anthropology, economics, medecine (eugenics), religion ('mission civilisatrice') and litterature (Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad), 'marketing and the establishment of gender norms' with sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology, and finally 'mental health', with medicine, anthropology, epistemology and phenomenology. However, we quickly realized that these subjects were not the right fit for this assignment, and that it was going to be difficult to link them with issues.

We then thought about power and language, i.e. the power disparities language can create. Using the following disciplines: Despite how interesting this subject looked, it was too vague and we were struggling to find a common theme within it.
 * Linguistics : the establishment of koiné and creole languages + diglossia in post-colonial societies
 * Sociology : the importance of public speaking and knowing the vocabulary of the upper-class to be able to move up in the social structure.
 * Litterature : How female authors published their work with a male pseudonym to be taken seriously
 * Economic

Finally, Julie came up with the idea of the causes of homosexuality. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Amélie Clark

On the 1st of December, following clarifying that our topic was to be 'Evidence in the Causes of Homosexuality', we confirmed how we would contribute by assigning disciplines to each other. Amelie chose to write on 'Genetics', whilst I chose 'Behavioural Psychology' and Julie selected 'Endocrinology'. We all decided that we would then contribute equally to the fourth discipline in our Wikibook - Theology. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Oni Bhaumick

My first version of the "epigenetics" section was over 400 words. However, I read through some previous 'Evidence' wikibooks and realized that I was only summarizing and explaining the theories of the disciplines, and not actually looking at the way they used evidence. I decided to start over and cut my whole section. I did reuse some sentences in my second version, but found myself leaving many concepts that I had learned about out of the final version (which was disappointing because I had initially struggled to understand Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Amélie

The first draft of the Endocrinology section being over 600 words long, I cut parts of it to reach the required word count limit. I decided to make away with the descriptions of the experiments referenced, as simply an analysis of the form of evidence and theory derived from it seemed sufficient, and the experiments themselves can be explored in the references section. -Julie Cavalera

As we were both struggling to find theological causes of homosexuality and meeting the word limit in our individual sections, we all decided to give up on the discipline of Theology. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Amélie

I wrote the basic structure of the introduction and conclusion. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Amélie

We initially decided that we would be focusing in the realm of Behavioural Psychology as one of the disciplines discussed. However, after research into this discipline and the main theory (Exotic Becomes Erotic) in this section, I decided (with consultation from the group) to change to Developmental Psychology. This rendered the bulk of my research into Behavioural Psychology and its viewpoint on our topic useless. However, I started looking into Developmental Psychology and found out the discipline's research methodologies and their flaws. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Oni Bhaumick

After reading our final few drafts for the Wikibook - I contributed to some changes in the 'conclusion' section and introduction. In the final section, I mentioned how different disciplines can take positivist or interpretivist approaches leading to evidence being presented in different ways. In the introduction, I added a sentence to reflect the prompt of our task. Saumarkb (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Oni Bhaumick