Homosexuality and "Natural Selection"

Actually if a small percentage of a group weren't inclined to have kids (speaking of cave men times here, no attraction to opposite sex, no societal pressure about raising a family being the best thing) then there would be more caregivers if anything happened to those that had kids.

More carers. Less mouths to feed. More people to get food.

 

Hi,

In our DNA is stored every adaptaptation that proved successful in perpetuation of species. These adaptations simply await the proper queues to re-emerge. Many of the things we classify as disease are simply misplaced adaptions, inadvertantly queued.

Yes, there are reasons for homosexuality, points in time it was beneficial to continuation of species, beyond survival of the individual. What is that old saying; "monkey see, monkey do"... There are points in time that a trade off of creativity to sexuality would be useful.

Gays are stereotypically known for creativity and doing it their way. So a band of apes is suffering, a creative (gay) ape finds a solution and the duller (straight) apes mimic the creative solution.

Darwin has a limited view. You do not need to contribute offspring to be value added to the survival of species. Contributing an idea that can be passed forward is as important as a gene.

Think of gay as sentinals of species. Nature reaches for balance.

Tom

 

April 9th should be a gay holiday.

On 4-9-1476 Leonardo Da Vinci was denounced for sodomy. No record he was ever married or had children.

Did he contribute ideas to the species as valuable as any gene or physical adaptation?

 

To be honest, I would say that many 'gay' men are capable of having sex with women. Just ask any older LGBT member on this forum.

 

It is indeed a mystery, as yet unsolved. I believe one theory is that mothers who have gay sons are also likely to be more fertile and have more offspring in general.

I guess we can take comfort in the fact that if there was absolutely no evolutionary advantage to homosexuality, it would have disappeared long ago.

 

Well, possibly. Genetic traits don't necessarily have to have a positive value to be passed on. They could be neutral.

Also, that supposes that homosexuality is ruled by our genetics and heritable, and there's no proof that's the case. And there are identical twins with one gay one not.

 

To get anthropological about it...

Human beings are very flexible in our behaviour, it's one of our major traits as a species. If sexuality is a continuum and not an either/or type of thing, that would automatically create a range of individuals that vary from completely homosexual to completely straight, with a lot of people somewhere in between.

If you look at human history and the different cultures out there, you will find incredible variety, not all of them follow the one man one woman strictly monogamous pairing that some cultures assume is the "natural" order of things (I believe most animal species don't follow this model, either). Conceiving a child only requires one act between two people, it doesn't require them to be in love with each other or stay together.

Humans were for most of our history and evolution a hunting and gathering species, and in a society in which the genders might have been often separated because hunters spent long periods of time away from the carers of children, it could definitely make a difference between survival and non-survival to have a strong bond with one or more people of the same gender. So one could argue that the potential to be sexually and emotionally flexible was a positive survival trait in the context of early human history.

 

Bonding on a whole helps improve society and helps to reduce friction between peoples because the bonding creates a vested interest in the welfare of others and also encourages people to be more vested in society as a whole.

So what if some of these bonds are same-sex?

Can you imagine what this world would be like if these bonds didn't exist? It would be even more loveless, intolerant, and hateful than it already is.

It isn't like the natural world outside of human beings doesn't have examples of non-heteronormative behaviors.

We're just the only ones who make a huge deal out of it.

 

But, it is not the only strategy in evolution that is universally accepted by the scientific community. It's just the one that most people know.

Posted by DragonHerz:

This seems like a very strong answer to me, and that homosexuality does not preclude someone from reproducing, and same-sex bonds confer an evolutionary advantage which is self-evident.

Also, with what to me is a much less compelling answer, homosexuality could be propagated through a form of kin selection.

More to the point, if you're caring for children, especially in sort of.. early history man, it''s very likely that these children are in some way related to you. As such, their survival in turn is the propagation of your own genes. Not as much as if they were your own children, but this is still the avenue for that sort of behaviour to be passed on.

Here's a source to look at: "Kin selection hypothesis" may explain homosexuality from an evolutionary point of view

With a quote from the source:

Not sure why it identifies only "homosexual men" and not women, but there you go

Also..

There really is no "goal". When people talk about genes "wanting" something, for example, it is really just in a figurative sense. A "goal" would imply some deeper purpose. Evolution is just something that happens. There's no assigned "purpose" to any of it. It's mathematical. Talking of it as a goal is just a way of dumbing it down and helping people to understand. I say this because, if the evolutionary background behind a trait is murky, it doesn't mean you should feel like it doesn't have purpose or meaning in the sense that we use those words.

In terms of..

Whilst I don't think clarifying the evolutionary background of sexuality constitutes being "accepted" by science, if it makes you feel better, there are plenty of other behaviours which are not very easily grasped under evolution, especially not natural selection on its own. Self-sacrificing behaviours and altruism are not supported by natural selection alone.

 

It is a mistake to take a complex behavior like human sexuality and try to understand it in terms of natural selection. There are many human behaviors which ostensibly "don't have survival value." People's personality and behaviors are shaped by multiple influences. And, only some right wing conservative religious types are anti-gay. There are many religious groups that embrace their whole flock, regardless of differences. You can also pass on your DNA by being a sperm donor. And, there are gay dads and moms who have kids with their own DNA. Science is definitely not on the wrong side of this issue.

 

Hi,

What arturo stated is correct. There are all kinds of people that could no longer survive natural selection. The world man has created has taken "natural" out of the equation.

 

Darwin's process of natural selection has indeed been corroborated by subsequent genetic and environmental discoveries, but to say that the science of evolution has not evolved itself since The Origin of Species was published in the 19th Century would be an error. There is to this day still considerable debate on the actual mechanism, and some very serious science has been applied to the question, generally agreeing with Darwin, but refining it considerably.

To the OP: the biggest error in your interpretation of what Darwin said is simply that it assumes a priori that homosexuality goes against what "seems" to be the "one" goal of organisms, i.e. reproduction. On what is this assertion based? It seems to me that it is more that the species itself should persist. If that is the case, and if the vast majority of a given viable species will indeed reproduce, how is homosexuality a threat to the species?

Let us agree, from a strictly empirical perspective that homosexuality is not confined to humans. That there are non-human examples of it everywhere is beyond question, yet all the evidence indicates that these species persist. Let us also agree that homosexuality is something that cannot be changed in ourselves, and that it has existed since the dawn of man...yet we persist.

I am reminded of a famous poem by Alexander Pope:

A Little Learning

A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hill peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !

 

Altruism in Primates

May find this interesting. I only briefly heard about this in anthropology and haven't read this article though.

But since homosexuality has survived it must have some sort of benefit to an individual or their kin who carry similar genes.... However as someone kind of pointed out lots of traits not helpful to survive have persisted... Laziness, depression, other mental issues? I believe human genetics is probably very complex especially when you come to behavior. It's going to be a mixture of genes that influence the otherall phenotype. If you think about it, if you have something small like 20 different genes that control personality you have 2^20 potential combinations, right? We'll probably find some epigenetic cause too. There's about a million potential explanations. I'm not that well versed in genetics though or research on homosexuality.

 

The idea of only being worthy of life and successful biologically only if you procreate offends me a lot. Humans are not just about procreation and natural selection completely dehumanizes humans, even if it is true.

 

No, it's not you at all, I mean I had this same thought during biology class when I was learned about natural selection for the first time. I just generally think it should be reworked and be more considerate for humans, sociable creatures with the need to do more with their lives than just eat, sleep and procreate. But that's what I think anyway

 

Lenny,

How about "continuation of species" which includes reproduction.

A worker bee or worker ant has no chance of mating but ensures continuation of species.

Tom