Evolution

We still like putting people in pits and watching them fight, just not to the death. We tend to call it MMA and Boxing and such.

 

I've never seen anti-LGBT+ conservatives provide legitimate evidence in regards to LGBT people in any form, and I very much doubt their references to evolution are legitimate either.

It is a fallacy to assign any kind of goals, purpose, or direction to evolution. Evolution is a random 'drunkard's walk' that occasionally produces things that 'work' in the sense that the species survives.

Humans like to see patterns, meaning, and purpose in things when there really are none.

While cultures do evolve over time (even conservative ones), it is not a given that cultures will go in any particular direction. We currently consider gladiators killing each other to be an atrocity. Our descendants (or some subset of them) a couple thousand yeas in the future may have reinstated the practice and consider it to be great fun.

Modern conservatives would, in many cases, be considered incredibly 'liberal' by the standards of past centuries. Despite what they may think, they and the cultures they are part of have evolved and changed.

A concerted effort to hold the culture in stasis might work for a time, but would likely fail eventually, unless it could be imposed on a global scale. And a global culture would itself represent a pretty massive evolution beyond our current situation.

Todd

 

I've never heard of conservatives ever offering legitimate evidence. Usually they wave their bibles in the air and preach about how gays are going to hell.

I definitely think that traditional thinkers hinder an evolving society, but I doubt they have the power to stop it. Throughout history, progressives have always pushed through and succeeded, and history tends to repeat itself.

 

Evolution can be used in favor of gay rights. Evidence suggests that homosexuality evolved as a way for people to have better social connections and be able to survive.

Also, in ancient times, the Sacred Band of Thebes hand picked pairs of male lovers to fight in the elite force of the Theban army. They thought that if their warriors had romantic connections to other people in their troop, they would fight better in order to try to protect them. They had it figured out. (The only bad part was that they didn't let women fight.)

 

And to add to this, people have dabbled with tech that allows us to include simulated weapons to a one-on-one sport fight to even more closely simulate gladiator battles. What can we say? Humans love a rousing match of primal skill, power, and high stakes.

But yeah, to echo one or more commenters here, evolution is not to any end or ideal. It's just what happens. I would be extremely loath to use it in an argument unless the topic is "why are things how they are?" Because that's exactly what the theory explains, from the nature of life to any thing that has existed and changed over time.

 

I don't think evolving standards of decency hinder or help progress, per se.

In evolutionary temrs, The shit always hits the fan (genetic mutations), sometimes it's golden. I doubt conservative cultures in West Africa eons ago would have prevented or accelerated the expansion of the sickle cell trait.

Technological progress/evolution is also usually progressive and linear and positive (i.e. it builds upon itself). There are exceptions. Famously, humanity lost the recipe for Roman concrete after the fall of the Roman empire. It wasn't till a few hundred years ago that we fully rediscovered concrete and it (Portland) hasn't yet come up to par to that used in ancient times. Can you imagine where we'd be as a society if the compendium of knowledge of humanity wasn't at times lost? Technological progress requires faithfully maintaining our predecessors' knowledge because it us from there that we make the leap. Nowadays, it's so easy because our knowledge is essentially in many repositories and has redundant systems to prevent our collective knowledge and history from disappearing.

Knowledge and technology also are amoral, they simply are. How we use it and what values we put (e.g. liberal/conservative) make its applications morally subjective and bound by our mentality of the time, which may evolve (and by evolve, I mean change).

 

"Many individuals, typically those who are politically conservative and anti-LGBT+, utilize evolutionary history to justify their reasons in an argument. While the evidences provided by them are quite legitimate...." example of the evidence and what the arguements are please..also who are these "individuals"? are u refering to politicians, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists or....? i would imagine ur referring to sumbody who is studying interpersonal relationships and the way we communicate/live amongst eachother because im not too sure how the evolution of the physical traits of human beings could be involved in your question..

are you saying that by some people being conservative that it sorta delays or stops the process of evolving as a society to except lgbt into a norm? the example that you gave "For example, the ancient Romans enjoyed viewing gladiators engaging in combat until one perishes, but our society views it as an atrocity in this current period of time." followed by this: "Furthermore, if one continues to be conservative and does not change, will this hinder evolution and progression?" is alittle confusing..i would imagine that we as human beings evolved greatly already, socially..becuz of government and laws we all have a basis for morality: what we can and cannot do, when disrespecting sumbody becomes a crime (sexual harasment, threats, harm/violence) ..we are not independent of ourselves, so unless government changes, we wont "evolve" much (socially) and what do u mean by "progression?" the only thing that i can think of (right now) is that ur referring to acceptance of lgbt+ , and again, unless more and more people become open minded and government decides to pass laws that protect and give us rights, people will still be set in their ways; however, the old generations will die away along with old ideas so...perhaps eventually it could be a norm and nobody will question anything regarding it...

 

I think the idea of evolution goes way beyond the "I am Christian creationist" vs "I am not". It's more about ability to walk on 2 vs four legs. With that being said, as evolution continues: yes -the people who hold simplistic views will vanish generation after generation.

 

Huh? I've never heard a social conservative use evolutionary history to bash LGBT people or further any of their other out-dated beliefs. Usually they keep going on about "religious freedom" and "family values" and "Judeo-Christian values". Basically the perfect cocktail to make me go :bang:.

 

Huh? It's this conversation about human evolution of societal evolution? It seems half of the people on here and discussing one, and the other half the other...

 

I think that perhaps the point is that many conservatives are also Christian who do not believe in out right evolution, and they know that many LGBT people believe in evolution. And the point they made is how the heck does evolution happen if you can't procreate and a lot of LGBT people don't procreate, so in their mind, how is something that is genetic passed down if the people who carry the gene don't procreate?

Maybe they try to use our own science against us by implicitly stating that homosexuality is a learned behavioral and not an innate trait.

 

I think this thread is about the evolution of society not biological evolution.

 

Oh yes. And it will produce things that aren't even remotely efficient, but somehow work through symbiosis, or other complicated mechanisms.

You have me imagining a society where they've become immortal, and then using death matches as a way to feel more alive, and keep the population in check. :lol:

This is how I read it. "Evolution requires procreation, therefore, evolution would weed out homosexuality. Ergo, homosexuality cannot be a biological trait." I've seen the argument a couple times, but it's total bunk, because it oversimplifies the various survival mechanisms that species have employed and replaces it with "bumping uglies = passing genes". One study suggested that a homosexual man (in a patriarchal society) being altruistic to their nieces and nephews was in fact helping pass on the family genes (indirectly) through the support of their extended family. Thus, families with homosexual providers could fare better with a larger support network for the offspring, and pass on the genes that would have the potential to produce more homosexual offspring in future generations.