NationStates Jolt Archive

So your saying that two men can reproduce naturally together?

Homosexuality occurs naturally in other species. There is nothing unnatural about it.

By the laws of nature, A Man and a Man cannot reproduce, and a Woman and a Woman cannot reproduce.

i don't think you have much of a case for calling contingent evolutionary outcomes that aren't even universal among vertebrates 'laws of nature'. but perhaps you would like to try to make one?

But would that benefit be?

Why can't it just be a recessive gene, that stays but will in time over the next few hundred thousand years or so disappear at some point.

Of course that is assuming that the only reason people are gay is because of nature rather than perhaps some other factors as well.
Um, a gene being recessive does not necessarily mean it is likely to disappear from the gene pool.

And as others have pointed out, it is just as likely that sexuality is the result of the interaction of several different genes that serve other functions, plus environment and other influences. If that is so, then it is very unlikely that homosexuality would disappear from the gene pool. Also, if that is so, then the genetic benefit is likely from whatever genes interact to lead to this or that variation in sexuality, not from the sexuality variation itself.

And finally, the benefit of homosexuality has already been explained several times -- it is a benefit to the group of having healthy adult members who are less likely to breed.

Let's suppose for a moment that there is such a thing as a gay gene. And then let's think in terms of hypothetical primitive societies. Is it not imaginable that a family that contains such healthy but non-breeding adult members would be a successful cooperative group and, thus, be attractive to other groups to connect with -- marry/interbreed? If there is such a thing as a gay gene and it is recessive, then, if I understand correctly, it can be passed on through non-gay breeding adults, with a possibility that offspring will be homosexual.

I have read articles that suggest that women -- and apparently, females of some other species, too -- select mates, first, by their health/attractiveness and, second, by whether they are likely to provide support to assist the female in rearing offspring. A man who comes with a family that contains members who are likely to help but less likely to produce offspring of their own to compete for resources/attention/status with the woman's offspring, might have those gay siblings and cousins added to the list of attractive traits.

*shrug* It could happen.

Well, according to my professor from second-semester psychology homosexuality is present in 3% of males and 2% of females, so that's a pretty small minority.

Estimates do vary and really does depend on both the sample used and the criteria. It tends to be a bit closer to 6% males, 4% females as a rule. But even so, that's a significant percentage, it's approximately 1 in 20 people.

Estimates do vary and really does depend on both the sample used and the criteria. It tends to be a bit closer to 6% males, 4% females as a rule. But even so, that's a significant percentage, it's approximately 1 in 20 people.

Get any numbers on bisexuality? Some of the theories I've seen on the subject suggest that it would actually be much higher than homosexuality (of course, those theories also make homosexuality and heterosexuality to actually be abnormal states).

The way mankind has developed into urban cities we have almost entirely defeated any predators that prey on us. Thus in a society with no predators evolution fails to select based on reproductive success. Although this proves why evolution for humans is at a standstill it still does not touch on why homosexuality has not died off.
That has little to do with genes at all. Genes may have a role in increasing or decreasing the probability of someone being a homosexual, but enviromental factors play a more significant role in sexual orientation. To prove this you may only need to consider the numerous cases of identical twins (who share identical DNA) in which one is homosexual and one is not.

This explains why homosexuality can prevail without dying out. Genes play only a tiny portion compared to the persons upbrining and enviroment,

The way mankind has developed into urban cities we have almost entirely defeated any predators that prey on us. Thus in a society with no predators evolution fails to select based on reproductive success. Although this proves why evolution for humans is at a standstill....

It almost hurts my brain to read this.

It almost hurts my brain to read this.

*shares his aspirin*

T
That has little to do with genes at all. Genes may have a role in increasing or decreasing the probability of someone being a homosexual, but enviromental factors play a more significant role in sexual orientation. To prove this you may only need to consider the numerous cases of identical twins (who share identical DNA) in which one is homosexual and one is not.

This explains why homosexuality can prevail without dying out. Genes play only a tiny portion compared to the persons upbrining and enviroment,

Ahhh nature vs nurture.

You might want to read this and see how environment upbringing isn't as strong as you suggest.

http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0060929596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224665400&sr=8-1

Um, a gene being recessive does not necessarily mean it is likely to disappear from the gene pool.

That was my point.

And as others have pointed out, it is just as likely that sexuality is the result of the interaction of several different genes that serve other functions, plus environment and other influences. If that is so, then it is very unlikely that homosexuality would disappear from the gene pool. Also, if that is so, then the genetic benefit is likely from whatever genes interact to lead to this or that variation in sexuality, not from the sexuality variation itself.

And finally, the benefit of homosexuality has already been explained several times -- it is a benefit to the group of having healthy adult members who are less likely to breed.

But how often is that thought of? As opposed to having other adults who may also be of the same benefit.

Let's suppose for a moment that there is such a thing as a gay gene. And then let's think in terms of hypothetical primitive societies. Is it not imaginable that a family that contains such healthy but non-breeding adult members would be a successful cooperative group and, thus, be attractive to other groups to connect with -- marry/interbreed? If there is such a thing as a gay gene and it is recessive, then, if I understand correctly, it can be passed on through non-gay breeding adults, with a possibility that offspring will be homosexual.

I have read articles that suggest that women -- and apparently, females of some other species, too -- select mates, first, by their health/attractiveness and, second, by whether they are likely to provide support to assist the female in rearing offspring. A man who comes with a family that contains members who are likely to help but less likely to produce offspring of their own to compete for resources/attention/status with the woman's offspring, might have those gay siblings and cousins added to the list of attractive traits.

*shrug* It could happen.

Perhaps it is an interesting hypothesis.

Homosexuality occurs naturally in other species. There is nothing unnatural about it.

And? This has nothing to do with whether two males of the human species can reproduce together naturally.

And? This has nothing to do with whether two males of the human species can reproduce together naturally.

And your point is what? sex is only for reproduction?

Ahhh nature vs nurture.

You might want to read this and see how environment upbringing isn't as strong as you suggest.

http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0060929596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224665400&sr=8-1

Gender identity and sexual orientation are two entirely different concepts. Gender Identity is based alot more on gene and horomones some of which are produced in the genitalia. When a person does not recieve those horomones because he is sporting the wrong gonads and brain chemistry it can indeed be disaster.

However sexual orientation can be changed and has been documented in a ton of cases.

I'd add this, given much of this is theory.

Populations as a whole respond to external factors, I really don't know the mechanism and I'm not sure anyone does but, as an example, male-female birth ratios restore themselves fairly quickly after decimation of one, through war for example, disease may be another - disease is far more influential in evolution than any other factor, our entire evolutionary history has been an internal battle more than external although the visible signs of evolution would make that seem counter-intuitive, are genes themselves not purported to be viral?

I'd venture that the true reason for homosexuality is something to do with managing population stress, stemming either males or females in competing for a lack on either side.

It's therefore healthy to have a sustainable residual population of homosexuals, and 3-5% sounds about right to me, in order to maintain the genetic pool.

Pure theory but there you go.

EDIT: Point being, I don't buy the 'need for nurturers' line, or at least I think it's more about population stress than attractive qualities.

Get any numbers on bisexuality? Some of the theories I've seen on the subject suggest that it would actually be much higher than homosexuality (of course, those theories also make homosexuality and heterosexuality to actually be abnormal states).

Depends on how you define it, if you just count people who have had both homosexual and heterosexual experiences, then it's astronomically high (about 30% males and 60% females or something like that, though this was with students which will bias it again). If it's people who self-identify as bisexual then the numbers are either smaller than (in older populations) or a bit bigger (in student/young adult population) than homosexuality. But most research has tended to ignore bisexuality all-together so numbers for it are even less reliable than for homosexuality.

However sexual orientation can be changed and has been documented in a ton of cases.

Oh do enlighten us.....

However sexual orientation can be changed and has been documented in a ton of cases.

Really? Last research I read, it had never been reliably changed, certainly not when measured using implicit/physiological measures (as opposed to self-report).

In fact: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7456588.stm detailing underlying physiological differences too.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are two entirely different concepts. Gender Identity is based alot more on gene and horomones some of which are produced in the genitalia. When a person does not recieve those horomones because he is sporting the wrong gonads and brain chemistry it can indeed be disaster.

Then what of those of us who can change gender identity at will? Admittedly, I am currently being honest, but given the right motivation, I can change my gender to male and then back again. Part of why I usually don't mention my sex online (a few people know what the correct answer is, though) is that it's more fun for me to see what reasoning people come up with for identifying me as male or female.

However sexual orientation can be changed and has been documented in a ton of cases.

I'm really interested in this documentation.

Keep in mind that some people are bisexual, but of a bisexuality where they switch between which sex they're focused on. They're not conciously aware that they're doing it.

Then what of those of us who can change gender identity at will? Admittedly, I am currently being honest, but given the right motivation, I can change my gender to male and then back again. Part of why I usually don't mention my sex online (a few people know what the correct answer is, though) is that it's more fun for me to see what reasoning people come up with for identifying me as male or female.


You are only changing it temporarily and not even fully. The case that I was responding to was one of a boy raised as a girl for fourteen years. This ended in immense psychological trauma and eventual suicide. I highly doubt you could live as the opposite gender 24/7 for years on end.

Here's some more on stress,

http://www.mondovista.com/homosexual.html

It's not authoritative but it has good quotes and links.

Example: In 1972, Dr. Ward had no idea that androstendione in male pregnancies would prevent or inhibit the hypothalamus to develop into a healthy male brain, but this stress-related hormone now appears to do just that. The brain makes its gender committment very early in development and, once committed to either male or female, it can not change. The interference with testosterone in the later stages of pregnancy, or after birth, does little or nothing to inhibit primary gender development of the other organs of the body.

In Doctor Ward's own words:

"...The present data support the hypothesis that exposure of pregnant rats to environmental stressors modifies the normal process of sexual behavior differentiation in male fetuses by decreasing functional testosterone and elevating androstenedione levels during prenatal development. During stress conditions plasma testosterone emanating from the gonads decreases while adrenal androstenedione rises. The molecular structure of the two androgens, being very similar, it is postulated that the two hormones compete for the same receptor sites. Since androstenedione is a less potent androgen than testosterone, the decrease in male copulatory ability and increased lordotic potential seen in the prenatally stressed animals of the present study would be expected. The relative difference in potency between testosterone and androstendione has been repeatedly demonstrated.


It is therefore possible that while the body and organs of an animal can be a "male," the brain can coincidentally be "female." This extreme reaction to maternal stress even has a very logical and natural purpose. Sensing that a population is under the stress of crowding or poor living conditions, nature provides this hormonal mechanism as a means to limit population growth and thereby reduce the cause of the stress. Homosexual behavior results in less offspring than heterosexual behavior.

You are only changing it temporarily and not even fully. The case that I was responding to was one of a boy raised as a girl for fourteen years. This ended in immense psychological trauma and eventual suicide. I highly doubt you could live as the opposite gender 24/7 for years on end.

Ages 19-22. I also did it for months on end around the age of 16, just because it was fun.

It's actually relatively easy to do multiple times. The toughest time is the first. If you're doing it on your own, you risk insanity, but it can still be done.

How it can be changed should be pretty obvious, really. Just think along the lines of post-hypnotic suggestions.

And your point is what? sex is only for reproduction?

Did you read the post that I originally responded to? And the post that that poster responded to?

A poster said that two men couldn't reproduce naturally, it was replied with a got some proof to back up that statement, I replied with a statement asking that poster if he thought they did, than Callisdrun cam back with a statement that had nothing to do with the discussion.

The following statement will likely be controversial.

Yes, evolution will probobly mean there won't be any homosexuals in a few thousand years.
I see it as a gene carried which allows for a potential psychological trigger that would make someone homosexual.
As these people have trouble creating offspring (although, the ""Extinction"" of homosexuality could be offset or even avoided by artificial insemination) it is possible that a long way down the line those who carry the trigger gene would die out.

I could be wrong, and it could just be a pure-psychological trigger without genetics involved, in which case homosexuality is here to stay.

-
Ostroeuropa, Bisexual

@ Ostroeuropa
I doubt that homosexuality is going to die out, I mean a few thousand years down the line humans might not exist anyway!,
Homosexuality has always existed in humans, it was wide spread, and accepted throughout the world (to varying levels) until the dawn of monotheism, which arguably only decreed against it to make sure that the Jewish population (which was surrounded by hostile multi-theist cultures) could grow in number and thus strenght, and has then been adopted by Christianity (there is nothing in the new testament against homosexuality, Jesus never said anything against it) and then Islam. What I'm trying to say is that no matter how much acceptance or oppression homosexuality has continued at roughly the same level (around 10 to 20% of the population) so I dont really see why it would be extinct. Your forgetting that if the gay gene (or gay trigger gene depending on what it is, as its becoming increasingly likely that it is genetic) is recessive which is likely as a minority of the population is gay (even if the number is increasing in western countries, this could just be down to social changes in acceptance levels) then people that aren't gay can carry the gene onto their children or grand children, meaning that even if every gay person in the world doesn't reproduce but other members of their family do then homosexuality will continue infinately.

On another topic, I object to the use of gene "defect" its not a gene defect! its a gene variation! whether you believe its a good or bad or neutral variation it is still a variation not a defect! defect indicates something that is negative and unnatural, both of which are simply not true, being gay is natural and neither negative nor positive just, its just a variation of sexuality. You wouldn't say that being being black is a gene defect! you wouldn't say having blue eyes is a gene defect, you wouldn't say that being albino is a gene defect, its offencive!

how about homosexuality vs overpopulation?

personally i see anything short of killing and war, that can ease population pressure longterm, (which in a longterm context its highly questionable that more draconian measures actually ever do), as a very positive good thing that needs to be encouraged. at least untill, by attrition, human population levels actually ARE reduced, to something like 1/20th of where they are presently.

and by overpopulation, i'm obviously not talking about standing room, we'd all starve long before that became an issue, but the appearent near overloading of nature's cycles of renewal, the combination of population levels with the use of combustion to generate energy and propel transportation, being the culprets here, and very likely to resault in widespread famine and desease in the not all that distant future if we keep putting symbolic value and trying to impress each other ahead of the kind of world we all have to live in.

That was my point.



But how often is that thought of? As opposed to having other adults who may also be of the same benefit.



Perhaps it is an interesting hypothesis.
The suggestion is that adults who are busy having children of their own are not going to be of the same benefit, and elderly adults lack the health/longevity to be as much potential help as younger adults who are not seeking to have kids of their own.

And it doesn't have to be "thought of." The observable fact that the family is healthy, prosperous, supportive, etc, would be enough to add to the attractiveness of the prospective mate, without anyone taking particular note of the number of homosexual relatives who may be contributing to that -- even if their only contribution is that they are not actively seeking to produce more mouths to feed.

The way mankind has developed into urban cities we have almost entirely defeated any predators that prey on us. Thus in a society with no predators evolution fails to select based on reproductive success.

mating is entirely random and everybody produces the same number of offspring that themselves reproduce the same number of offspring in random mating? really?

The way mankind has developed into urban cities we have almost entirely defeated any predators that prey on us. Thus in a society with no predators evolution fails to select based on reproductive success. Although this proves why evolution for humans is at a standstill ...
What? I must have missed that memo.

i'm more interested in living as an entirely different life form, which in a sense, living as a hooman, of this earth i mean, seems in many ways perhapse like i am.

ok, i don't mean i'm disputing the facts of the birth of the life form i currently occupy, only that this earth, well this is the only lifetime i've lived on THIS sentient occupied world, but absolutely not the only one i've lived on tangable material planets, orbiting suns in this universe.

I would like to begin this thread by stating my annoyance at whoever that Doctor dude was who came along with all his sources and evidence.

I was going to do that. Bastard...

Anyway.

I'm going to proceed by quoting people and stating mistakes or agreements. Forgive my not giving the names of the people in the quote, but I just copied the text onto Notepad. Get over it.

But human beings are a social species, and same-sex couples are perfectly capable of caring for the children of others. The genetic material that sometimes gives rise to homosexuality may thus be socially useful in terms of reproductive fitness even if it is not individually useful.


This is a good hypothesis as well. It works quite well given our evolution as social animals.

False. Human beings are social animals, and this can in turn be explained due to the theory of "Tit for Tat." It does not, however, explain homosexuality. It is close, though. There was just a confusion of terms between "kinsmanship" and "social society." Homosexuality is evolutionarily stable due to the fact that, while the homosexual member of the family himself won't be having any children, (s)he will (therefore) be free to help the family out with the upbringing of the kids.

Though, actually... there should be a study on homosexuality in "unflocking" (can't remember the correct terminology... animals that don't form flocks or groups, but rather live alone and then get together for mating season) species where the young aren't brought up by the parents, but simply brought into the world and left to survive on their own. It would then be argued that the homosexual population would be absurdly low, if not non-existent, due to the lack of an evolutionary use for them. No family or flock means no need for support in raising the young.

"Recessive Genes"

In your examination of genetics, have you studied rudimentary elements like recessive genes?

Yes, I have, and clearly you haven't.

Homosexuality is not a recessive gene. If it were, then the children of homosexuals would be drastically more liable to becoming homosexuals (I'm not saying 'definitely' since, as has been said by many a reasonable poster, genes are not God. They don't define you beyond shadow of doubt. They're just demi-gods. Join them and the environment and free-will is a gonner. Well, not really.), since they'd have a 100% chance of being gay.

Not to mention the mathematics of genetics. If it were recessive and abundant in the population (to explain how homosexuals can 'so often' be children of two heterosexuals), then we'd all need to have a homosexual ancestor. Given how [i]homo sapiens has been just about defined for 130,000, that seems quite reasonable (especially given the genetic shortage that happened at around that time, decreasing global populations to somewhere between 1-10,000 individuals). However, the math still doesn't quite cut it:

H = homosexual (double-recessive)
C = carrier (heterosexual with one H-gene)
S = heterosexual (no H-gene)
(#) = generation
+ = mates with

1. H + S = 100% C
2. C(1) + S = 50% C, 50% S
3a. C(2) + S = 50% C, 50% S.
3b. S(2) + S = 100%
Therefore, the "overall probability" for a carrier to come out of Generation 3 is only 25% (50% chance of the carrier entering G3 and 50% of the carrier having a carrier-child).
The odds continue halving with every generation.

I am well and fully well aware that, in a population where heterozygous heterosexuals are the norm (one of my starting assumptions), the odds would be against every carrier mating with a homozygous heterosexual. However, that would gradually change, since even C + C = 25% S (along with 25% H and 50% C), so the population would always have a percentage of S members. And should any C "bump into" an S, those odds go up to 50%. While, whenever two S' get together, those odds are 100%. While H + H = sqrt(-1).

The population would therefore gradually change, with S's always boosting their own population and having every 4th C + C child join their cause and half of the "halfbreeds" (C + S). The C's would continue to exist as well, but would become an ever decreasing percentage of the population. And, with them, so would the population of homosexuals decrease.

Unless, of course, the homosexuals turn the genetic tables by having children of their own (with a carrier, of course), which will at least in part weaken the effect of the heterosexual population. But, seriously, how many homosexuals do you know that father children? In comparison to the number of straights?

I'm writing an Excel spreadsheet program to show that, but it's taking me some time. It already shows how the heterosexual population explodes in relation to the "carrier" and homosexual populations, but I can tell it has some flaws, so I'm just trying to iron those out first.

The C's would continue to exist as well, but would become an ever decreasing percentage of the population. And, with them, so would the population of homosexuals decrease.

Unless, of course, the homosexuals turn the genetic tables by having children of their own
Or, unless they are valuable to the chances of their relatives' children succeeding. You are leaving all the evolution out of the evolution discussion.

Or, unless they are valuable to the chances of their relatives' children succeeding. You are leaving all the evolution out of the evolution discussion.

or the heterozygous combo is beneficial itself. or the set of relevant genes is greater than 1, and they are each either neutral or actively selected for, but when they are all present together you catch the gay. or a whole host of other options.

i mean, by our large footed canadian friend's math, they must be mystified by the persistence of the gene that causes sickle cell.

H = homosexual (double-recessive)
C = carrier (heterosexual with one H-gene)
S = heterosexual (no H-gene)
(#) = generation
+ = mates with

1. H + S = 100% C
2. C(1) + S = 50% C, 50% S
3a. C(2) + S = 50% C, 50% S.
3b. S(2) + S = 100%
Therefore, the "overall probability" for a carrier to come out of Generation 3 is only 25% (50% chance of the carrier entering G3 and 50% of the carrier having a carrier-child).
The odds continue halving with every generation.

I am well and fully well aware that, in a population where heterozygous heterosexuals are the norm (one of my starting assumptions), the odds would be against every carrier mating with a homozygous heterosexual. However, that would gradually change, since even C + C = 25% S (along with 25% H and 50% C), so the population would always have a percentage of S members. And should any C "bump into" an S, those odds go up to 50%. While, whenever two S' get together, those odds are 100%. While H + H = sqrt(-1).

The population would therefore gradually change, with S's always boosting their own population and having every 4th C + C child join their cause and half of the "halfbreeds" (C + S). The C's would continue to exist as well, but would become an ever decreasing percentage of the population. And, with them, so would the population of homosexuals decrease.

Obviously, you didn't study genetics enough or never got very far into studying the basics of it.

What you describe is how Mendelian genetics work. In order for your argument to be true, homosexuality must be a Mendelian gene. And yet, as we know, there's actually at least three, if not four or more, sexual orientations for humans. The very nature of such a setup makes it a Nonmendelian and thus makes your statistical analysis invalid.

I would like to begin this thread by stating my annoyance at whoever that Doctor dude was who came along with all his sources and evidence.

I was going to do that. Bastard...

I'm assuming you mean me. I'm a female. And sources/evidence are habit. Sorry! ;)

Evolution does not work according to a plan.

Therefore, the premise of your question -- that "according to evolution, the only purpose an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds." -- is false. And thus, your question of whether homosexuality can't exist if evolution is real is based on nothing.

There is no "according to evolution" because evolution is not a thing that can articulate ideas. There is no "purpose" to any organism because there is no plan or goal to evolution. And homosexuals can do whatever they like, including engage in hetero sex in order to reproduce -- something they do and have done rather frequently throughout history.

So there you go.
This.

Next question?
I hope not!


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/MULE.gif
25 years

Evolution does not work according to a plan.

it does, however, work on mathematically modelable regularities, which we can forgive people for anthropomorphizing to some extent

it does, however, work on mathematically modelable regularities, which we can forgive people for anthropomorphizing to some extent
That's a pattern, though - not a plan.


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/MULE.gif
25 years

the vast majority of the population are hetrosexual, so reproduction still occurs, and same with evolution, there are enough people reproducing to carry on the genes

Emmm gays can have kids its not like their infertile it can happen other ways eg sperm donation, had sex b4 found out that they were gay ect... i have a gay friend who has a little girl with his best friend.

That's a pattern, though - not a plan.

but it isn't really wrong to say that, for example, according to evolution deleterious mutations should tend to disappear (given certain conditions, etc.).

but it isn't really wrong to say that, for example, according to evolution deleterious mutations should tend to disappear (given certain conditions, etc.).
No, true, that's not really wrong.

It is just too bad that some people always try to give evolution some sort of purpose or destination instead of realizing it's something that simply happens over time.


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/MULE.gif
25 years

it does, however, work on mathematically modelable regularities, which we can forgive people for anthropomorphizing to some extent
I'm not the forgiving type.

but it isn't really wrong to say that, for example, according to evolution deleterious mutations should tend to disappear (given certain conditions, etc.).
This has already been hashed out in this thread. I had my reasons for picking that particular nit, along with all the others, and I feel no inclination to adjust or soften what I said.

No, true, that's not really wrong.

It is just too bad that some people always try to give evolution some sort of purpose or destination instead of realizing it's something that simply happens over time.

^^ This.

It's worth mentioning that I read Matt Ridley, an author I was introduced to by his book, Nature via Nurture. I have, since then, read four of his other books. Oh, and Richard Dawkins, but mostly for his atheist stuff. I find Matt Ridley far more learning-friendly. And entertaining.

As well, I just realized I kind of stopped halfway through my post when I got carried away by the mathematics. Let me finish that off first.

Suppose the "anti-gayness medicine" exists right now. Should we use it ?
Is "being gay" something that is an undesireable condition in society ?

Nothing to add to this discussion (can't be bothered... not in the mood for arguing with bigots today. Which is odd, since I usually quite enjoy it), but this reminded me of an episode of Boston Legal, the greatest show of all time. And here's a [url=http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=boston+legal+homosexual&emb=0&aq=f#q=boston%20legal%20S03E14&emb=0]link to the relevant scene[/quote] (it's the link to the left... can't get the direct link). Well, I would've put the link directly to the closing statement, but I can't find it anymore. So now it's got to be the whole thing. Plus, it's Boston Legal, so it's not exactly punishment, either.

The causes of homosexuality can be biological without being genetic. I've heard it hypothesized that it's from basically a glitch that can happen in any pregnancy, a time during which a lot of things depend on the right levels of hormones being there at the right time. That's why you get homosexual animals and such. Genetics could factor in to how likely this is to happen.

As well, studies show that homosexuals have a statistical tendency to be someone's younger brother, further expanding the "proof" for environmental causes to homosexuality, the environment in this case being the uterus. [I know the "sibling theory" has already been mentioned, but I wanted to use it from the very first page of this thread, and gosh darnit, I'm gonna use it!]

"Purpose of Evolution"

Indeed, evolution has no purpose, plan, script, intention or final design. However, it could be argued that evolution, like a game, sets down a set of vague rules and a final target: procreation. And, like any game, there is a (arguably infinite) set of ways to play that makes you win, and an even greater set of ways to make you lose. However, unlike most games, this is a game where the vague rules allow for more than one winner. In fact, if all the players play their cards right, they might all win. That's not very probable during the next round of the game, though. Oh, and there's that, too. The game never really ends. Like tennis, it has games, sets and matches, only one can never get a matchpoint.

There is a goal to evolution: procreation. However, this isn't a final goal, but simply one in an infinite line. It's true. Evolution doesn't have a goal. It has an infinite number of them. However, for each species, they come one at a time. Therefore, it is fair that, at any point in time, evolution does have a goal. Sure, the game doesn't end when you get there, but it is there.

As well, please note my use of "vague rules." I am in no way disregarding niches. No one says you need to be a lion to be in the race. Hell, unicellular organisms are much faster runners in this race than we are. Billions of them have reached their goal in the time it took me to write this sentence. If you find a different way of reaching the goal, you're not disqualified. If anything, you're rewarded.

1) your looking at evolution in the wrong way, its too narrow, the idea is that evolution happens because organisms and animals that have a disadvantage genetically, like being really brightly coloured so all your preditors can see you are slowly killed off over many generations thus leaving only the organisms that have an "advantage" (in this case duller clours so they can hide more easily from preditors). OR that the strongest and most able oganisms/animals survive as they are more able to find food, or kill food, ect. thus killing off the weaker less able organisms as they are less successful in this respect.

Well, one could also say this is too narrow, as the peacock loves to remind us. Why the annoying and unwieldy plumage?

Is it to tell the females "check me out, I'm so completely absurd and unwieldy and yet here I am, alive and healthy. Hot damn, I'm the right pick?"
Is it to tell the females "look at my shiny plumage. If this doesn't tell you I've got good, healthy genes, I don't know what does?"
Or is it simply because, for God knows what reason, the females, at an age long gone, simply decided that large tails were the new pink, an opinion that has remained quite ridiculously unchanged over time?

2) your looking at evolution from a "sex for reproduction" point of view rather than what its really about. Evolution doesn't mean the only meaning of life is to pass on your genes, it is simply a way of progressing the species to a higher and more complex level of life.

Uhhh, actually, reproduction is what the game's all about. Evolution doesn't want to reach a higher and more complex level of life. God no. If you ask me, evolution is a loner's game. You're far more capable of adjusting to your surroundings (or, rather, your rapidly-reproducing offspring) as an amoeba than as a lion. Complexity means one thing: more things to go wrong. Sure, a clock is better at telling the time than a sundial is, but you won't ever need to get the sundial fixed, will you? Unless you drop something on it.

In fact, if it were up to genes, they wouldn't mutate at all. Genes want to continue just as they are. For one, if they mutate, odds are it'll be for the worse, so it could almost be argued that it's just not worth it. For two, even if it were an improvement, the previous generation gene wouldn't want to mutate anyway. If his 'son' is better at it than he is, then his son just becomes a competitor that can easily outbid him. I don't think Windows 95 is in speaking terms with '98 or XP. The bastards took over '95's neighborhood!

Your parents will of course never tell you this, but... you're an accident-child.

We all are.

And, well, I just spent all day on this spreadsheet, so I don't care about the Mendelian gene thing. A fact I was well aware of. However, with every new gene than is needed to "turn on" the homosexual in all of us (sorry, I couldn't help myself), the chance of someone becoming homosexual is severely decreased, even if the individual genes themselves remain. And, indeed, it is not said that "all the pieces of the puzzle" are required, but the existence of more than one is suggested. This, along with the fact that, as I stated the fact that this would imply that some parents would be nigh "doomed" to having homosexual children, which is not the case... last I checked.

I know it's not entirely valid (or at all...), but here's the spreadsheet anyway. The mathematics has been written in simplified form (which is actually surprisingly simple on occasion), but I can write the more complicated (and understandable) equations if someone bothers to look at it.

EDIT: OMG, I CANT UPLOAD THE SPREADSHEET. *cry*

Homosexuality vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
homosexuals were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker homosexual species to continue and defy the natural order

its one thing for science to suggest that the male genes slow process of decline will cause males to die off in some 250,000 years, and by then that women will have evolved to be able to reproduce asexually like s certain form of desert lizard can, just by simulating the act of intercourse - but as for male homosexuals, they should just go with the flow and accept extinction

There is a general"plan" in nature, for a species as a whole, to reproduce. For induvidual members however, anything can happen.

Homosexuality vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
homosexuals were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker homosexual species to continue and defy the natural order

So you're making the argument that homosexuals are not even human. Time to have some fun with this. Here's your argument with a few changes:

Christianity vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
Christians were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker christian species to continue and defy the natural order

Homosexuality vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
heterosexuals were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker heterosexual species to continue and defy the natural order

That's enough for now.

its one thing for science to suggest that the male genes slow process of decline will cause males to die off in some 250,000 years, and by then that women will have evolved to be able to reproduce asexually like s certain form of desert lizard can, just by simulating the act of intercourse - but as for male homosexuals, they should just go with the flow and accept extinction

Except for the fact that humans require the genes to allow for that type of reproduction to begin with. Which isn't likely going to happen.

Also, not all homosexuals are guys.

Homosexuality vs Evolution

its one thing for science to suggest that the male genes slow process of decline will cause males to die off in some 250,000 years, and by then that women will have evolved to be able to reproduce asexually like s certain form of desert lizard can, just by simulating the act of intercourse - but as for male homosexuals, they should just go with the flow and accept extinction

Humans have the unique ability not to care what nature says, and to move around it with technology. In 250,000, we could have Human cloning technology, to clone more males.

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker homosexual species to continue and defy the natural order


Yeah, that doesnt happen.


Is that why straight people have gay kids?

I don't think homosexuality is much of a gene more of just a preference. Is your favo(u)rite colo(u)r the same as your dad's or mom's favo(u)rite colo(u)r?

I don't think homosexuality is much of a gene more of just a preference. Is your favo(u)rite colo(u)r the same as your dad's or mom's favo(u)rite colo(u)r?

Favorite colors are kind of chooseable.

Favorite colors are kind of chooseable.

Are they? Or is it just what you are most attracted to?

Well looky here, aren't we all just having so much time? :p

Oh, and for all you homosexuals out there (myself not included) :fluffle:

Have Fun Kids

Homosexuality vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
homosexuals were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream
And whose plan is this?

trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker homosexual species to continue and defy the natural order
WTF? :D

Yeah, those pesky homosexuals being able reproduce and all, in defiance of your ridiculous claims. Damn them.

Also, they are not a different species. No, not even a species of Untermenschen.

its one thing for science to suggest that the male genes slow process of decline will cause males to die off in some 250,000 years, and by then that women will have evolved to be able to reproduce asexually like s certain form of desert lizard can, just by simulating the act of intercourse - but as for male homosexuals, they should just go with the flow and accept extinction
Why should they do that?

There is a general"plan" in nature, for a species as a whole, to reproduce. For induvidual members however, anything can happen.
There's a general "plan"? Really? What is it? Who made it? Where can I get a copy of it?

Did you read the post that I originally responded to? And the post that that poster responded to?

A poster said that two men couldn't reproduce naturally, it was replied with a got some proof to back up that statement, I replied with a statement asking that poster if he thought they did, than Callisdrun cam back with a statement that had nothing to do with the discussion.

I have to confess laziness on the one. Comment withdrawn.

And whose plan is this?

There's a general "plan"? Really? What is it? Who made it? Where can I get a copy of it?

Why it's God's of course. Didn't they teach you anything in school. :p

I'm assuming you mean me. I'm a female. And sources/evidence are habit. Sorry! ;)

And a hot doctor at that I might add! :p

So you are all done? I only ask because I have been away!

I got a headache from reading this.

Homosexuality vs Evolution

sits in with the normal 'natural selection'
homosexuals were not meant to reproduce, and thus phase out as the weaker species that cant keep up with the mainstream


Weaker species? Sorry but some rather power species have disappeared.

Homosexuals were not supposed to reproduce? How so? The mechanics still function in fact many homosexuals have a desire to reproduce. Be it through surrogates or "donations" to the reproduction center.


trouble is, that they just go off and get some normal woman pregnant and have babies, that run a chance of being gay like the gay parent and thus force the weaker homosexual species to continue and defy the natural order


What was that about not reproducing?

Weaker homosexual species? I didn't know there was such a species.

As to weaker? I know a few gay men that could probably beat the snot out of you. Many gay men are in better shape then the hetro males.

its one thing for science to suggest that the male genes slow process of decline will cause males to die off in some 250,000 years, and by then that women will have evolved to be able to reproduce asexually like s certain form of desert lizard can, just by simulating the act of intercourse - but as for male homosexuals, they should just go with the flow and accept extinction

*sighs* And who says the education system is not doing it's job.

*reaches for the aspirin bottle*

I got a headache from reading this.



Kirchen is a Nazi in the very worst, dangerous, hateful sense of the word. Just watch for his opinion on Jews to come up.

There's a general "plan"? Really? What is it? Who made it? Where can I get a copy of it?

reality made it. genes reproduce or genes go away.

And a hot doctor at that I might add! :p

So you are all done? I only ask because I have been away!

I am! I finish my residency in March. So close......

How have you been?

reality made it. genes reproduce or genes go away.
That's not a plan.

Seriously, people, just stop it. "Plan" implies intent. There is no intent. There is no plan. I don't care if a lot of people decide they want to be lazy and use fuzzy and inaccurate language -- I have seen time and time again people who defend that sort of laziness get sucked into mires of wrangling about semantics, on this very forum, as they lob shots back and forth about what the "plan" of evolution is. If you want to encourage that sort of behavior, fine, but don't expect me to sit and listen to your endless and pointless explanations of what you meant by "plan" when some idiot comes along and thinks you meant something else that "plan" also means.

It's not a "plan", dammit.

That's not a plan.

Seriously, people, just stop it. "Plan" implies intent. There is no intent. There is no plan. I don't care if a lot of people decide they want to be lazy and use fuzzy and inaccurate language -- I have seen time and time again people who defend that sort of laziness get sucked into mires of wrangling about semantics, on this very forum, as they lob shots back and forth about what the "plan" of evolution is. If you want to encourage that sort of behavior, fine, but don't expect me to sit and listen to your endless and pointless explanations of what you meant by "plan" when some idiot comes along and thinks you meant something else that "plan" also means.

It's not a "plan", dammit.

*adopts hushed reverential tone*

Yes it is, it's... God's plan.

*cries in anguish under God's infinite love*

"Plan" implies intent.

dude, the scare quotes were in the original

As to weaker? I know a few gay men that could probably beat the snot out of you. Many gay men are in better shape then the hetro males.


Agreed. As well as being clearly superior in all manners of art, fashion, cuisine, taste, and several other civilized endeavors.

Nay, I heartily proclaim that tis be the heterosexuals who ought to be deemed the weaker link.

On a more serious note, the OP and most people who argue homosexuality doesn't fit in with evolution are only showing what a weak, feeble grasp of both concepts they possess.

Several million years of uncounted homosexual individuals having successfully reproduced, divided among nearly every mammal and bird species show clearly and without a doubt that homosexuality works with "survival of the fittest".

Just to take up humans as an example, just go ahead and compare the average number of females who would like nothing best than to copulate with, and bear children from, gay men with the average number of women who would do the same for an average man. Clearly most women appreciate gay men for all their fabulous qualities, making said gay men's life easy when it comes a time to find a surrogate for their offsprings. Reproductive success does not rest solely on the frequency with which one spills its seed. Likewise, lesbian women find their life made even easier as far as getting children goes. All they need is either a good gay male friend, or a suitable heterosexual man who's willing to donate 23 gametes in exchange for an hour of fun.

Are they? Or is it just what you are most attracted to?

Partly I think your associations as a kid.

Blue: ocean, sky, my dad's truck, my house, Cal's color. Therefore, positive associations.

Red: um, Stanford and USC's color. Stop signs. blood. negative associations

Keep in mind, this is particularly my case only, because I come from a family where most people went to Cal and those who didn't went to some other UC, whose colors are all Blue and Gold. Cal's arch rival in sports is Stanford, and so tons of things in my family are blue and very little is red.

Agreed. As well as being clearly superior in all manners of art, fashion, cuisine, taste, and several other civilized endeavors.

Nay, I heartily proclaim that tis be the heterosexuals who ought to be deemed the weaker link.

On a more serious note,

I certainly hope so because that is the biggest amount of bullshit I have read since Kirchens post.

the OP and most people who argue homosexuality doesn't fit in with evolution are only showing what a weak, feeble grasp of both concepts they possess.

Several million years of uncounted homosexual individuals having successfully reproduced, divided among nearly every mammal and bird species show clearly and without a doubt that homosexuality works with "survival of the fittest".

Just to take up humans as an example, just go ahead and compare the average number of females who would like nothing best than to copulate with, and bear children from, gay men with the average number of women who would do the same for an average man. Clearly most women appreciate gay men for all their fabulous qualities, making said gay men's life easy when it comes a time to find a surrogate for their offsprings. Reproductive success does not rest solely on the frequency with which one spills its seed. Likewise, lesbian women find their life made even easier as far as getting children goes. All they need is either a good gay male friend, or a suitable heterosexual man who's willing to donate 23 gametes in exchange for an hour of fun.

Perhaps but wouldn't there be many women in the catergory more likely wanting to get with the gay men because they know (or at least think) it is harder to get with a gay man than a straight one? The whole that which is forbidden is wanted more than that which is allowed thing

Partly I think your associations as a kid.

Blue: ocean, sky, my dad's truck, my house, Cal's color. Therefore, positive associations.

Red: um, Stanford and USC's color. Stop signs. blood. negative associations

Keep in mind, this is particularly my case only, because I come from a family where most people went to Cal and those who didn't went to some other UC, whose colors are all Blue and Gold. Cal's arch rival in sports is Stanford, and so tons of things in my family are blue and very little is red.

Yeah perhaps, perhaps I was just chucking something in the wind there. Though red is more my preferred colour I think more to do with many teams I played for and support have this colour (more by acciedent than by design), though I do currently go to a uni which has various shades of blue as their colours and the team I play for is also blue.

I have seen some suggest that homosexuals are 'natures' way of telling us that we have a population problem, and that these homosexuals are a factor that prevent a further increase in population

Well, since I do predict another great war to be coming up within the next generation, although I do not want good men and woman to die just to help bring the world back to normal, a war could however lower the worlds population and thus we could have a decline or outright lack of homosexuals in the world until we come close to overpopulation levels again, but then, let us pray that never happens so homosexuals have to reason to come back in numbers to warn us of population problems

I have seen some suggest that homosexuals are 'natures' way of telling us that we have a population problem, and that these homosexuals are a factor that prevent a further increase in population

Well, since I do predict another great war to be coming up within the next generation, although I do not want good men and woman to die just to help bring the world back to normal, a war could however lower the worlds population and thus we could have a decline or outright lack of homosexuals in the world until we come close to overpopulation levels again, but then, let us pray that never happens so homosexuals have to reason to come back in numbers to warn us of population problems

*lol

Thanks for making me laugh this morning!
Homosexuals have been around for all of human existence. There are texts from antiquity and from cultures all over the globe relating to homosexuality. And I daresay that for most of the time, the human population wasn't exactly overpopulating the planet.
Also, homosexuality (not just homosexual behaviour, but homosexuality) has been observed in species as varied as dolphins, parrots and sheep. Are those due to overpopulation as well, do you think? Do we have a serious problem of keeping that damned dolphin population under control?

And what would cause this big gay wars of yours, just out of curiosity?

*lol

Thanks for making me laugh this morning!
Homosexuals have been around for all of human existence.

No, that didn't happen until one of our ancestors touched the monolith. The big, shiny, black monolith.


There are texts from antiquity and from cultures all over the globe relating to homosexuality. And I daresay that for most of the time, the human population wasn't exactly overpopulating the planet.
Also, homosexuality (not just homosexual behaviour, but homosexuality) has been observed in species as varied as dolphins, parrots and sheep. Are those due to overpopulation as well, do you think? Do we have a serious problem of keeping that damned dolphin population under control?

Yes and yes. Eat some tuna caught with indescriminate nets, so that the dolphin species will be reduced enough that male dolphins will stop blow-holing one another.


And what would cause this big gay wars of yours, just out of curiosity?

One day soon, Tim Gunn will announce himself as Chancellor of a new World Government. The gays and 2/3 of the straights will follow him, and we will cut a new world from the cloth of chaos. We will make it work.

*lol

Thanks for making me laugh this morning!
Homosexuals have been around for all of human existence. There are texts from antiquity and from cultures all over the globe relating to homosexuality. And I daresay that for most of the time, the human population wasn't exactly overpopulating the planet.
Also, homosexuality (not just homosexual behaviour, but homosexuality) has been observed in species as varied as dolphins, parrots and sheep. Are those due to overpopulation as well, do you think? Do we have a serious problem of keeping that damned dolphin population under control?

And what would cause this big gay wars of yours, just out of curiosity?

Actually...http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125114&postcount=270

Kirsen...missed the point a bit but over and underpopulation can be isolated to a locality, not the whole world, and the real point is population stress, not over/under population.

Actually...http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125114&postcount=270

Kirsen...missed the point a bit but over and underpopulation can be isolated to a locality, not the whole world, and the real point is population stress, not over/under population.

Interesting... personally, I've always had some suspicions that the reason why many couples can't have kids might have to do with the same kind of trigger that makes mice infertile when living in too crowded conditions.

However, I'm finding it a bit difficult to make overpopulation the sole factor. Surely a woman having lived through a war would be exposed to a lot of stress? What if that coincides with a pregnancy?
What about the stress caused by personal problems, say unemployment? Or a difficult family situation? A violent husband, for example?

However, I'm finding it a bit difficult to make overpopulation the sole factor. Surely a woman having lived through a war would be exposed to a lot of stress? What if that coincides with a pregnancy?
What about the stress caused by personal problems, say unemployment? Or a difficult family situation? A violent husband, for example?

Absolutely, and that's where Kirsen... missed the mark, and it's not like homosexuality suddenly appeared in humans.

A homosexual Tyrannosaurus Rex... now that was a sight to behold, especially when on parade.

A homosexual Tyrannosaurus Rex... now that was a sight to behold, especially when on parade.

RAWR!!.. Fear my blood-stained plushie!!!


...rawr!!..

No, that didn't happen until one of our ancestors touched the monolith. The big, shiny, black monolith.

And God knows that once you go black, you don't go back.

I certainly hope so because that is the biggest amount of bullshit I have read since Kirchens post.

Actually, not that far-fetched if Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is to be believed.





Perhaps but wouldn't there be many women in the catergory more likely wanting to get with the gay men because they know (or at least think) it is harder to get with a gay man than a straight one? The whole that which is forbidden is wanted more than that which is allowed thing
Perhaps, but the reasons why women would want to try to get their grubby little paws on gay men are irrelevant. All that matters is most gay men have a host of women who would love nothing more than breed with them should they so choose.

Sorry I'm just popping in here, but did anyone bring up Bonobos or Androgen?

Well, well the two major argument topics on NSG have laid down together and created this bizarre hybrid. Now all we need is abortion to be thrown in here somewhere and we would have something.

I leave it to you to think of a way to stick abortion in there, along with belief in God, Muslims, and gun control.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about evolution and my beliefs on the subject have changed. To me, the facts are in the evolution is real, and it's possible to believe this even if you're a Christian.

Anyway, it hit me that if evolution is real, then doesn't that make homosexuality unreal? According to evolution, the only purpose that an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds. Homosexuals, as we all know, can't reproduce with one another and for a homosexual to engage in heterosexual sex only for the purpose of passing on genes seems wrong.

I'm not bashing homosexuality, i'm not bashing evolution, i'm not bashing Christians or anyone. I'm just curious.

Neal Stephenson poses an interesting argument in the beginning of Cryptonomicon. Namely, that since the beginning of human civilization, the focus of evolution has shifted away from individuals and towards societies. Meaning that it's no longer a single gene set that survives, but a whole group of gene sets as well as memes (knowledge and social mores).

In a society, a homosexual person can fulfill any kind of function (Neal Stephenson is specifically referring to Alan Turing, the mathematician who cracked the Enigma code in WW2), and therefore suffer no particular survival disadvantage (especially if you take into account the two points that homosexuals do have kids on occasion, and that homosexuality is not necessarily a genetic trait).

On another note, that argument likewise stops the "social Darwinist" school of thought that promotes rabid capitalism and opposes welfare.

Actually, not that far-fetched if Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is to be believed.
If Michelangelo had been straight, he would have painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling with a roller!

Ermarian;14129094']
In a society, a homosexual can fulfill any kind of function (Neal Stephenson is specifically referring to Alan Turing, the mathematician who cracked the Enigma code in WW2), and therefore suffer no particular survival disadvantage (especially if you take into account the two points that homosexuals do have kids on occasion, and that homosexuality is not necessarily a genetic trait).


To expand on this, I would add that a Homosexual can be of any race, and thus not suffer any specific natural survival disadvantage other than those disadvantages presented by the race from which they come, and where they are living - for example, a gay black guy living in a 1st-world country like america has a higher survival probability than a gay black guy living in an AIDS infested part of africa

Further, Homosexuality may in fact be a genetic disorder, that while largely unnoticed can affect an individuals reactions to the world, and how they develop in life to the many circumstances that life presents to them
It all comes down to the unique mix of genetics, parenting and family environment, and the blend of external factors in life and both in what order these factors occur and how they occur

To expand on this, I would add that a Homosexual can be of any race, and thus not suffer any specific natural survival disadvantage other than those disadvantages presented by the race from which they come, and where they are living - for example, a gay black guy living in a 1st-world country like america has a higher survival probability than a gay black guy living in an AIDS infested part of africa


And for that matter, so does a straight black guy. You do know that straight people can get AIDS too right?

It's all because... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixkck8QnjY)

And God knows that once you go black, you don't go back.

True that.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about evolution and my beliefs on the subject have changed. To me, the facts are in the evolution is real, and it's possible to believe this even if you're a Christian.

Anyway, it hit me that if evolution is real, then doesn't that make homosexuality unreal? According to evolution, the only purpose that an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds. Homosexuals, as we all know, can't reproduce with one another and for a homosexual to engage in heterosexual sex only for the purpose of passing on genes seems wrong.

I'm not bashing homosexuality, i'm not bashing evolution, i'm not bashing Christians or anyone. I'm just curious.


The theory of evolution is not that the sole purpose of an organism is to pass on its genetic material and characteristics, it merely states that due to random genetic mutations, that can happen by chance, or by inheritance, organisms can have a change in a certain characteristic.
Your agrument, is, essentially, that homosexuals have no purpose in life, simple because they cannot procreate. However, they can reproduce, no matter how much you say it is "wrong", and this is besides the point, seen as evolution does not say that reproduction is the sole purpose of life, and, therefore, homosexuals probably do have a purpose in life. This is, of course, assuming that everything has a purpose of life, because there are many that argue that there is no purpose to life. They would argue that we (as in everyting on Earth and in Space) ended up where it is completely by chance.

No disrespect meant by this, but you argument is frankly a load of garble. Nothing you said makes much sense, to be quite honest. Plus the fact that it is rather prejudiced.

EDIT: I would also like to pick up on the point that many are making of homosexuality being a genetic disorder.
1) Homosexuality is not a disorder.
2) Even if it were a disorder, it would not be genetic. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that homosexuality is caused by genetics. There is more evidence to suggest that it is a psychological state. Many teenagers go through a stage of homosexuality or bisexuality, simple because hormones mess around with their minds (I am a teenager, I would know), and therefore, mess around, to a certain extent, with their psychological state. Homosexuality cannot be inherited, nor can it be a cell mutation.

Homosexuality/Bisexuality is simply a personal choice. Although many do not choose to "fancy", as it were, the same sex, it is more a psychological difference to the state of mind of heterosexual people.


Thanks.

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that homosexuality is caused by genetics.

except, you know, all the evidence that says so

Genetics also tell us to kill those who have what we want. But we are not animals, we are humans, will power being the only thing that seperates us. If a man cannot control his sexual urges his is little more than an animal and deserves to be treated as such.

Homosexuality/Bisexuality is simply a personal choice. Although many do not choose to "fancy", as it were, the same sex, it is more a psychological difference to the state of mind of heterosexual people.

Thanks.

Yeah, except it isn't. I'm not gay, but I have a feeling that with all the negative social stigma associated with it, as well as the legal limitations, religious too, that if it were a choice there would be quite a few less gays. I know that no matter how much I like a male friend (I am a guy) I doubt I could be physically attracted to them.

Genetics also tell us to kill those who have what we want. But we are not animals, we are humans, will power being the only thing that seperates us. If a man cannot control his sexual urges his is little more than an animal and deserves to be treated as such.

This is rediculous. Are you saying that those who don't suppress who they are because of how others think of them deserve to be treated like swine? Yeah, right.

Genetics also tell us to kill those who have what we want.

oh?

So lately I've been thinking a lot about evolution and my beliefs on the subject have changed. To me, the facts are in the evolution is real, and it's possible to believe this even if you're a Christian.

Anyway, it hit me that if evolution is real, then doesn't that make homosexuality unreal? According to evolution, the only purpose that an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds. Homosexuals, as we all know, can't reproduce with one another and for a homosexual to engage in heterosexual sex only for the purpose of passing on genes seems wrong.

I'm not bashing homosexuality, i'm not bashing evolution, i'm not bashing Christians or anyone. I'm just curious.

Vaguely what I read somewhere = The gene that causes homosexuality in one gender causes the opposite in the opposite gender.

OK! That's solved, now onto the next thread.

Why do all north american nazi wannabes have german sounding names? Only those who have german ancestry or citizenship or both should be able to use these nicks. At least a language test...

Why do all north american nazi wannabes have german sounding names? Only those who have german ancestry or citizenship or both should be able to use these nicks. At least a language test...Where would be the fun in reading their butchered German then?

Many teenagers go through a stage of homosexuality or bisexuality, simple because hormones mess around with their minds

Is there actually any evidence for this?

I'm sure people "experiment"... but how many cases are there really of people actually identifying as gay or bisexual as teenagers, and then reverting to heterosexuality as adults?

Will the headaches stop?

Genetics also tell us to kill those who have what we want.

Really?

But we are not animals,

Hmmm let's see.

Genus Homo
Family Hominidae
Order Primates
Class Mammalia
Kingdom Animalia

You lose.

we are humans, will power being the only thing that seperates us.

Will power? How many people smoke, eat, or drink to success? How many people spend beyond their means?, etc., etc., etc.


I remember a Silverback who was in a rather randy mood but his mate was pregnant. He was watching his daughter and you could see the frustration as he battled the urge to mate with her.

If a man cannot control his sexual urges his is little more than an animal and deserves to be treated as such.

Something tells me you don't have a girlfriend.....

*reaches for the aspirin bottle again*

So lately I've been thinking a lot about evolution and my beliefs on the subject have changed. To me, the facts are in the evolution is real, and it's possible to believe this even if you're a Christian.

Anyway, it hit me that if evolution is real, then doesn't that make homosexuality unreal? According to evolution, the only purpose that an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds. Homosexuals, as we all know, can't reproduce with one another and for a homosexual to engage in heterosexual sex only for the purpose of passing on genes seems wrong.

I'm not bashing homosexuality, i'm not bashing evolution, i'm not bashing Christians or anyone. I'm just curious.

Is there any compulsion to contribute to evolution? And in any case, I don't think EVERYONE is homosexual (are they?). :fluffle:

Something tells me you don't have a girlfriend.....

Why because he doesn't jump her bones whenever he feels like it?

*reaches for the aspirin bottle again*

Careful there you are may just overdose.

Actually, not that far-fetched if Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is to be believed.[/QUOTE

Yes and if The Living Daylights is to be believed then we were this close to have the whole of Silicon Valley flooded.

[QUOTE]Perhaps, but the reasons why women would want to try to get their grubby little paws on gay men are irrelevant. All that matters is most gay men have a host of women who would love nothing more than breed with them should they so choose.

Which is for the reason I gave because they can't get to them they want them even more.

Wow, lot of smug cunts here today aren't there?

As much as you try to sneer at it, it is a perfectly legitimate question that has still to be adequately answered, homosexuality removes desire for reproduction which is obviously going to lower one's reproductive success, otherwise no-one would feel sexual attraction in the first place. Yet somehow, the trait persists to the extent that apparently 10% of the male population is gay (I'm not sure what the figure is for women).

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it. Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world, that it would seem it can't be a cultural thing, it has to be genetic. Which makes no sense as the greater the gay population, the more women for the rest of us right? You would think it would be encouraged...

Wow, lot of smug cunts here today aren't there?

As much as you try to sneer at it, it is a perfectly legitimate question that has still to be adequately answered, homosexuality removes desire for reproduction which is obviously going to lower one's reproductive success, otherwise no-one would feel sexual attraction in the first place. Yet somehow, the trait persists to the extent that apparently 10% of the male population is gay (I'm not sure what the figure is for women).

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it. Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world, that it would seem it can't be a cultural thing, it has to be genetic. Which makes no sense as the greater the gay population, the more women for the rest of us right? You would think it would be encouraged...
It is because men don't like feeling vulnerable to rape. Men have a fear that homosexuals are gonna rape them and thats why they hate.

it is a perfectly legitimate question that has still to be adequately answered,

Of course it has been adequately answered. It has been given adequate answers throughout the thread.

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it. Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world,

Nonsense. To the extent it is, it is mostly so due to Western and Islamic influence. Plenty of cultures--Ancient Greece, Medieval Japan, some Native American and African tribes--have had socially acceptable forms of homosexuality.

It is because men don't like feeling vulnerable to rape. Men have a fear that homosexuals are gonna rape them and thats why they hate.

This fear itself is founded in the prejudice, though. It's not like gay men are rampaging hordes of rapists, and I don't see why straight men would just naturally view them that way.

More important, I think, is the rejection of established gender roles inherent in homosexuality.

As a side note, left-handed people, I think that regardless of whether John McCain or Barack Obama wins, that's the 5th left-handed president out of the last 6, Bush Jnr being the only right-handed president.

What's the evolutionary purpose behind left-handed people?

Burn them!

Just as useless a question as the OP.

One day soon, Tim Gunn will announce himself as Chancellor of a new World Government. The gays and 2/3 of the straights will follow him, and we will cut a new world from the cloth of chaos. We will make it work.
Siggin' :D

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it. Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world, that it would seem it can't be a cultural thing, it has to be genetic. Which makes no sense as the greater the gay population, the more women for the rest of us right? You would think it would be encouraged...

We hate that which we can not understand.

Yes and if The Living Daylights is to be believed then we were this close to have the whole of Silicon Valley flooded.


I thought that was View to a Kill.

Of course it has been adequately answered. It has been given adequate answers throughout the thread.

or at least we have come up with a number of plausible accounts, though we don't appear to have quite enough evidence to give a definitive answer.

Wow, lot of smug cunts here today aren't there?
And you make -- how many are we up to now? Welcome to the party.

As much as you try to sneer at it, it is a perfectly legitimate question that has still to be adequately answered, homosexuality removes desire for reproduction
Wrong. Homosexuals reproduce voluntarily very often and always have done so. Since you are wrong about that, which is your premise, then this:

which is obviously going to lower one's reproductive success,
...is based on nothing. And this:

otherwise no-one would feel sexual attraction in the first place.
...is not only a non sequitur, as it does not follow that not being successful at reproducing leads to one not wanting to have sex, but it is also another factual error because homosexuality does involve feelings of sexual attraction, so if everyone were gay, we would still feel sexual attraction.

Yet somehow, the trait persists to the extent that apparently 10% of the male population is gay (I'm not sure what the figure is for women).
Indeed, it does. You should take some time to think about why that might be.

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it.
Why does being Jewish have such a stigma attached to in various places, among various groups? Why does being black have such a stigma attached to it in various places, among various groups? Is it really not obvious to you why some people single out other people as targets of prejudice?

Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world, that it would seem it can't be a cultural thing, it has to be genetic.
And wrong again. Hatred of gays is a relatively modern social feature, and it is attached only to specific cultural influences. There have been far more times, places, and groups in which homosexuality was not stigmatized.

Which makes no sense as the greater the gay population, the more women for the rest of us right? You would think it would be encouraged...
Have you ever heard the expression, "Not even if you were the last man on Earth..."?

Trust me, surrounding yourself with whole hordes of gay men is not going to guarantee you dates with women.

Wow, lot of smug cunts here today aren't there?

Don't forget to turn that finger around now....

As much as you try to sneer at it, it is a perfectly legitimate question that has still to be adequately answered,


Nah. The sneering is usually reserved for those that have "studied" and yet error in the basic foundations in their arguements.

homosexuality removes desire for reproduction which is obviously going to lower one's reproductive success,

Actually no it does not. Many homosexuals have the basic urge to reproduce and many do in one fashion or another.

otherwise no-one would feel sexual attraction in the first place.

Ahm attraction is usually a major ingredient of sex. It varies in intensity from one all that one person can offer to just breathing. Then there are those that don't require breathing :eek:

Yet somehow, the trait persists to the extent that apparently 10% of the male population is gay (I'm not sure what the figure is for women).

Estimate at best. Certain religions and many conservatives makes it near impossible to get a true count.

An equally interesting question, is why homosexuality has such stigma attached to it. Hatred of gays is a feature that is just so universal across the world, that it would seem it can't be a cultural thing, it has to be genetic.

Genetic? :D

I would suggest Religion taught such hatred. Homosexuality is mentioned in many of the ancient cultures.

Which makes no sense as the greater the gay population, the more women for the rest of us right? You would think it would be encouraged...

Can't encourage if Christianity and Islam are against it.

I think in the world the ratio of women to men is already higher.

or at least we have come up with a number of plausible accounts, though we don't appear to have quite enough evidence to give a definitive answer.

I am not sure I want it answered.

Those destined for heaven would immediately change their tune to now that we know what causes it; let's find a cure.....

Why because he doesn't jump her bones whenever he feels like it?


You have to have a woman in order to try.

All men try all the time. Now if you want to talk about success? That is a different argument. ;)

I am not sure I want it answered.

Those destined for heaven would immediately change their tune to now that we know what causes it; let's find a cure.....

...which is why I prefer the population stress theory over 'non-procreating adult carer' theory, the former makes homosexuals an essential safety valve, part of Gods infinite wisdom - if that's the angle required.

Also, people have used 'reproduction' throughout this thread, technically, the only mechanism required for evolution is replication - mutations occur in replication, hence we are all mutations.

Burn us all!

I haven't read the entire thread since it's 25 pages long but I thought I'd add a few things in here,

homosexuality has about the same percentage in each culture disregarding geographical location.

Homosexuality is not saying that an individual cannot reproduce because obviously they can so they could pass on their genetics if they chose to. Sexual orientation is different than sexual behavior.

Animals can also be homosexual, not just humans.

Also, it would be interesting to think of homosexuality in terms of evolution because if they choose to not produce, that would still have an effect on the gene pool.

P.S. It's also a form of population control (in a way) and that's a part of evolution too. Nature attempting to maintain equilibrium or something like that.

P.S. It's also a form of population control (in a way) and that's a part of evolution too. Nature attempting to maintain equilibrium or something like that.
Not really, no. Because homosexuals usually do want to (and actually often does) reproduce. Sexual attraction does not affect the desirability of offsprings or weaken the parental fiber.

I apologize but what are you talking about? I wasn't talking about the affect of offspring desirability so I'm a little confused as to what you're trying to say in regards to my earlier comment.

Not really, no. Because homosexuals usually do want to (and actually often does) reproduce. Sexual attraction does not affect the desirability of offsprings or weaken the parental fiber.

Once again...http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125114&postcount=270

People seem to be making the continuous mistake of adding human desires to something not only seen in humans.

Just because human homosexuals may procreate for children doesn't mean frogs do, why species have homosexuals is the lens we should be viewing this through.

I apologize but what are you talking about? I wasn't talking about the affect of offspring desirability so I'm a little confused as to what you're trying to say in regards to my earlier comment.

I'm saying homosexuality cannot be considered a form of population control, because it doesn't in effect prevent reproduction. Gay men and women have children. Gay animals often adopt offspring left parentless (this has been documented in dolphins and some bird species), thus letting these offspring survive when they otherwise wouldn't. All those things means homosexual individuals do not impact negatively(or positively, for that matter) the overall proliferation of their specie.

Basically, you'll get pretty much the same population growths whether there are homosexuals or not. So you can't really consider this a natural mecanism of population control. Scarcity of resources is such a mechanism.

Oh, I was adding that last bit in as a side thought that I had. I mean, say heterosexuals wanted each other but their sex didn't result in potential reproduction and homosexual sex could result in reproduction (vice versa with the same labels). It's not only about the ability but I just don't feel like getting down with another chick.

I'm talking about sexual reproduction only, not adoption of another's offspring. There are a lot more variables to consider e.g. environment, resources, disease, population, etc.

Wrong. Homosexuals reproduce voluntarily very often and always have done so. Since you are wrong about that, which is your premise, then this:

What?! Wtf?! You're telling me that *not* wanting to have sex with women, instead pursuing men has no impact on the number of children a man has?

...is not only a non sequitur, as it does not follow that not being successful at reproducing leads to one not wanting to have sex, but it is also another factual error because homosexuality does involve feelings of sexual attraction, so if everyone were gay, we would still feel sexual attraction.

So why do you think sexual attraction exists then? For fun? Or perhaps because a desire to do the things that lead to you to reproduce, results in you reproducing more, which is a rather sucessful way of having more decendents, evolution etc.

Indeed, it does. You should take some time to think about why that might be.

I'm trying to do that now actually.

Why does being Jewish have such a stigma attached to in various places, among various groups? Why does being black have such a stigma attached to it in various places, among various groups? Is it really not obvious to you why some people single out other people as targets of prejudice?

I won't go into it too deeply. But being hostile towards other groups helps, because very often, you're in competition with these groups for resources etc. Individual members of such groups would be treated with suspicion seeing as their loyalties could well lie elsewhere.

And wrong again. Hatred of gays is a relatively modern social feature, and it is attached only to specific cultural influences. There have been far more times, places, and groups in which homosexuality was not stigmatized.

From the small titbits I've heard, I got the impression its pretty universal, infact the West being rather enlightened in that respect now (in a similar way as it is towards sexism, racism and so on). Admittedly, I don't really have any samples to back this up, but out of curiosity do you?

Have you ever heard the expression, "Not even if you were the last man on Earth..."?

Ouch.

But seriously, in a place where there are less men (or less men looking for women), the men who are looking have more women available to them (assuming they're straight as well), which means they can choose the more attractive partner, or if things are looking really bad (and/or theyre looking really good ;)), choose more than one. It helps them out for sure.

Actually no it does not. Many homosexuals have the basic urge to reproduce and many do in one fashion or another.

At the same frequency as straight men? Think about what you're saying please.

Ahm attraction is usually a major ingredient of sex. It varies in intensity from one all that one person can offer to just breathing. Then there are those that don't require breathing :eek:

?

Genetic? :D

I would suggest Religion taught such hatred. Homosexuality is mentioned in many of the ancient cultures.

Can't encourage if Christianity and Islam are against it.


This map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/World_homosexuality_laws.svg) where anything orange or darker indicates being gay is illegal, shows for example, illegality in that hyper-religious state of North Korea, as well as Hindu India, Buddhist Burma etc.

I think in the world the ratio of women to men is already higher.

Well, the less men to compete with the better.

What?! Wtf?! You're telling me that *not* wanting to have sex with women, instead pursuing men has no impact on the number of children a man has?
Do you know what the word "voluntarily" means? It means they do want to, just not for the same reason a hetero guy might. But since you're talking about making babies, then they're wanting to for the only reason that counts in that context.

There is nothing about being gay that limits a man's ability to produce large numbers of offspring except willingness -- and that also affects hetero guys' ability to produce large numbers of offspring, too, btw.

So why do you think sexual attraction exists then? For fun?
Yes, actually. Which would kind of go a ways towards explaining why it IS fun.

Or perhaps because a desire to do the things that lead to you to reproduce, results in you reproducing more, which is a rather sucessful way of having more decendents, evolution etc.
No. Animals have sex because they feel the urge to. They do not plan to have babies. Likewise, human animals' desire for sex far outpaces our desire for babies. In fact, we go to a lot of trouble to avoid making babies every single time we have sex. The desire for sex and the desire for babies are two different things.

I do not know of anyone who desires sex for the sake of the evolution of the species.


I'm trying to do that now actually.
Keep trying.

I won't go into it too deeply. But being hostile towards other groups helps, because very often, you're in competition with these groups for resources etc. Individual members of such groups would be treated with suspicion seeing as their loyalties could well lie elsewhere.
No, my friend, the real reason is the ego gratification of placing oneself higher up the social ladder by virtue of having someone who will always be ranked below you. Resources have nothing to do with it. The only resource at issue is social status.

From the small titbits I've heard, I got the impression its pretty universal, infact the West being rather enlightened in that respect now (in a similar way as it is towards sexism, racism and so on). Admittedly, I don't really have any samples to back this up, but out of curiosity do you?
Japan. Native American peoples. Ancient Greece. There are three examples just off the top of my head after only one cup of morning coffee and without even resorting to google ('cause I'm supposed to look like I'm working). All of those cultures not only did not stigmatize homosexuality but included homosexuality specifically in their cultural matrix as having a social function.

Also, I appreciate you admitting your own ignorance of this subject. I just wish you would follow that up by not continuing to defend your uninformed stance but, rather, by educating yourself about the subject. Your general impressions of universality based on nothing but small tidbits that you have heard do not make for a persuasive argument.

Ouch.

But seriously, in a place where there are less men (or less men looking for women), the men who are looking have more women available to them (assuming they're straight as well), which means they can choose the more attractive partner, or if things are looking really bad (and/or theyre looking really good ;)), choose more than one. It helps them out for sure.
No, it does not, because you still run into the issue of competition among the hetero men. Just as in other social animal groups, it is far more likely that only dominant males will mate with a larger number of females -- what makes a human male dominant, by the way, is largely determined by the females, not the males. That's how this species works -- keep it mind.

And of course, in a world where only the hottest of the he-man hotties get the most action, that leaves all the rest of the dweebs with only each other for comfort and company. Yep.

So no matter how few breeding males there are, your chances of getting any action will depend entirely on how big a loser you are, not how many gays you surround yourself with.


(Btw, it's fewer men, not less men. Pet peeve.)

2) Even if it were a disorder, it would not be genetic. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that homosexuality is caused by genetics. There is more evidence to suggest that it is a psychological state. Many teenagers go through a stage of homosexuality or bisexuality, simple because hormones mess around with their minds (I am a teenager, I would know), and therefore, mess around, to a certain extent, with their psychological state. Homosexuality cannot be inherited, nor can it be a cell mutation.



Having just written a paper for my abnormal psychology class on this topic, I can tell you that the consensus in the psychological community is that Homosexuality is determined by genetic factors (or environmental factors in the womb before birth, which is the same thing for our purposes).

-There are genetic differences between gays and straight at a statistically significant level including: brain size, inner ear structure, finger differences and more
-Evidence suggests that (for men) homosexuality passes down through the maternal line (on the X chromosome) and when research was done operating on this assumption, there was an identical sequence found on the Xq28 region of the chromosome (IIRC)
-There are a plethora of animals that exhibit homosexual behavior
-Identical twin studies find a 50% chance of you being gay if your twin is as well... and this number remains constant whether you were separated at birth or not.
-There is a lack of scientific evidence that having a "troubled youth" or something to that effect has an effect on your developing sexuality.


Bem, D. J. (1996). Exotic Becomes Erotic: A Developmental Theory of Sexual Orientation. Psychological Review, 103(2), 320-335.

Robinson, B. A. (2008, June 17). Essay 1 of 4: Six Studies. In Studies of the Causes of Homosexual Orientation. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus4.htm

Robinson, B. A. (2008, June 17). Essay 2 of 4: 8 More Studies. In Studies of the Causes of Homosexual Orientation. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus6.htm

Robinson, B. A. (2008, June 17). Essay 3 of 4: A Fairly Conclusive Study. In Studies of the Causes of Homosexual Orientation. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus7.htm

Robinson, B. A. (2008, June 17). Essay 4 of 4: Results of Identical Twin Studies. In The Cause(s) of Sexual Orientation. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Web site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_caus3.htm

Steen, R. G. (1996). Sexual orientation. In DNA and Destiny: Nature and Nurture in Human Behavior (pp. 185-202). New York: Plenum Press.

Weinrich, J. D., & Kirsch, J. A. (1991). Homosexuality, nature, and biology: Is homosexuality natural? Does it matter? In J. C. Gonsiorek (Ed.), Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy (pp. 13-31). Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Homosexuals reproduce voluntarily very often and always have done so.

but at the same rate as heterosexuals? i find that rather implausible; got any evidence?

remember, all it takes is minor amounts of differential reproductive success for alleles to become less and less frequent over time, with the selectively advantaged one becoming fixed (everyone in the population having it) at a mathematically predictable number of generations in the future.

but at the same rate as heterosexuals? i find that rather implausible; got any evidence?

remember, all it takes is minor amounts of differential reproductive success for alleles to become less and less frequent over time, with the selectively advantaged one becoming fixed (everyone in the population having it) at a mathematically predictable number of generations in the future.

A) Why have you suddenly decided to ignore all the rest of the content of the thread you yourself have been participating in for some time now? Is it just so you can bust my chops over nothing -- again?

B) The various reasons why homosexuality is not likely to be bred out of the gene pool have already been explored in depth. The main body of them have nothing whatsoever to do with the rate at which homosexuals produce offspring. You should know this. You participated in those post exchanges, I think, didn't you?

C) Since there are good and solid reasons why homosexuality is not likely to be bred out of the gene pool by gays having fewer babies than heteros, your remarks about the mathematics of baby-making rates are irrelevant.

D) Now that we have established that you are wasting my time with an irrelevant observation, let's turn back to the actual argument. The poster I was responding to asserted that gayness makes you not want to reproduce. This is patently false. Gays do want to reproduce. That is a stand-alone fact, that has absolutely nothing to do with the comparative rates of baby production between gays and heteros.

E) Do you deny that gays reproduce and do so by choice? If not, then you have no reason to question my mentioning that fact in refutation of a claim that they do not.

F) If you bother to read my arguments to see what my position is, instead of just lying in wait for individual phrases to pounce on, you will see that I have already made clear more than once that the lower rate at which homosexuals reproduce may be one of the benefits to the species that homsexuality brings. But that's okay, I realize that if you paid attention to what I actually say, you might find it harder to be a pestiferous blight on my day.

G) I do not enjoy these conversations with you.

A) Why have you suddenly decided to ignore all the rest of the content of the thread you yourself have been participating in for some time now? Is it just so you can bust my chops over nothing -- again?

it's because your answer to whatshisface was hinging on saying he was wrong about the reproductive angle of things. but he is more or less right about that, though the articulation could have been better. if we are talking just individual reproductive success, then we should expect homosexuality to not persist over time, if it has a genetic component. which is why real answers involve either gene combinations or kin selection or heterozygosity advantages or some such.

The poster I was responding to asserted that gayness makes you not want to reproduce. This is patently false. Gays do want to reproduce. That is a stand-alone fact, that has absolutely nothing to do with the comparative rates of baby production between gays and heteros.

E) Do you deny that gays reproduce and do so by choice? If not, then you have no reason to question my mentioning that fact in refutation of a claim that they do not.

yeah, but being charitable, we can change "removes desire for reproduction" to something more like "removes or lessens desire for engaging in activities that lead to reproduction" without doing any damage at all to their point.

to be gay is to find engaging in activities that lead to reproduction (that don't involve copious amounts of medical magic unavailable for the overwhelming bulk of evolutionary history) less enticing than a standard heterosexual would. this is trivially true.

the lower rate at which homosexuals reproduce may be one of the benefits to the species that homsexuality brings.

lay out or link to this argument again for me, please. because as stated it looks evolutionarily nonsensical. even if it is beneficial to 'the species' (or, more plausibly, the particular social group), unless the gay genes themselves disproportionately replicate, they should become more and more rare. aiding genes other than themselves to reproduce just makes those other genes more prevalent faster.

I feel that I'm talking to a brick wall here...

Do you know what the word "voluntarily" means? It means they do want to, just not for the same reason a hetero guy might. But since you're talking about making babies, then they're wanting to for the only reason that counts in that context.

There is nothing about being gay that limits a man's ability to produce large numbers of offspring except willingness -- and that also affects hetero guys' ability to produce large numbers of offspring, too, btw.

Except willingness, except for the fact they gain no pleasure from emitting sperm into a womans uterus - which is how until very recently 99.99% of humans have been created. I'd say, and this might be a bit hard to get your head around here, so bear with me: people who enjoy doing that are going to do it more often, and thus have more children!!!

I really really don't get how you can disagree with this.

Yes, actually. Which would kind of go a ways towards explaining why it IS fun.

So it exists because it is fun? Things now exist on that basis? :s

No. Animals have sex because they feel the urge to. They do not plan to have babies. Likewise, human animals' desire for sex far outpaces our desire for babies. In fact, we go to a lot of trouble to avoid making babies every single time we have sex. The desire for sex and the desire for babies are two different things.

I do not know of anyone who desires sex for the sake of the evolution of the species.

But until very recently, back in that mythical age before contraception. sex would always have the risk of impregnation (one of the reasons why sex before marriage was/is such a massive no no), it is a very modern phenomenon indeed to actually plan your family out. The majority of people who have ever lived would have been conceived by parents who were just a bit hot and bothered, not parents who actively made the decision to have a child.

You seem to have some misconceptions about evolution. There's no purposeful "continuation of the species". People don't get sexually aroused for that reason. They get sexually aroused because the ancestors who's genes they carry who did get sexually aroused, were able to pass on their genes to the present day because of the fact the trait of sexual arousal made it more likely for them to do so over others who did not get sexually aroused. Although the existence of homosexuality does seem to contradict this, and no-one has really been able to reconcile the two.

No, my friend, the real reason is the ego gratification of placing oneself higher up the social ladder by virtue of having someone who will always be ranked below you. Resources have nothing to do with it. The only resource at issue is social status.

What evolutionary benefit does such a mindset have? (please bear in mind that everything about us exists due to evolution, or is a side effect of some other evolutionary adaptation)

Japan. Native American peoples. Ancient Greece. There are three examples just off the top of my head after only one cup of morning coffee and without even resorting to google ('cause I'm supposed to look like I'm working). All of those cultures not only did not stigmatize homosexuality but included homosexuality specifically in their cultural matrix as having a social function.

Howabouts this map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/World_homosexuality_laws.svg) I linked to earlier of illegality of homosexuality in the world (orange or darker means its illegal, darker is more illegal). Map actually seems rather dominated by Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, not Europe! What does this say about it being some Western cutural thing?

Also, I appreciate you admitting your own ignorance of this subject. I just wish you would follow that up by not continuing to defend your uninformed stance but, rather, by educating yourself about the subject. Your general impressions of universality based on nothing but small tidbits that you have heard do not make for a persuasive argument.

Luckily it isn't my main point, it's just a little thought of my own. But you're being sure of yourself here for someone who seems to doesn't seem to understand how sexual attraction is evolutionary trait.

No, it does not, because you still run into the issue of competition among the hetero men. Just as in other social animal groups, it is far more likely that only dominant males will mate with a larger number of females -- what makes a human male dominant, by the way, is largely determined by the females, not the males. That's how this species works -- keep it mind.

And of course, in a world where only the hottest of the he-man hotties get the most action, that leaves all the rest of the dweebs with only each other for comfort and company. Yep.

So no matter how few breeding males there are, your chances of getting any action will depend entirely on how big a loser you are, not how many gays you surround yourself with.

Firstly as humans are more monogamous than, say, deer, generally it isn't winner takes all. Certainly the most attractive males will take more, but as females prize having a dedicated mate for child rearing it means that they might go for an otherwise less desirable guy, and thus losers can get a (perhaps smaller and less tasty) cut of the pie too.

Secondly though. It should be obvious that less straight men -> more women per straight man -> less competition -> greater chance of reproduction. It's like if you have share a cake in a room full of fat guys, likely you'll get less cake than in a room full of people on a diet.

homosexuals are natures way of population control, they provide for adults to assist in the raising of children

it is a very modern phenomenon indeed to actually plan your family out. The majority of people who have ever lived would have been conceived by parents who were just a bit hot and bothered, not parents who actively made the decision to have a child.

this isn't entirely true. i can't speak for percentages, but we do know that lots and lots of cultures knew of and used abortifacients and otherwise engages in family planning of various sorts. it just wasn't as effective as things are these days.

You seem to have some misconceptions about evolution. There's no purposeful "continuation of the species". People don't get sexually aroused for that reason. They get sexually aroused because the ancestors who's genes they carry who did get sexually aroused, were able to pass on their genes to the present day because of the fact the trait of sexual arousal made it more likely for them to do so over others who did not get sexually aroused. Although the existence of homosexuality does seem to contradict this, and no-one has really been able to reconcile the two.

several evolutionarily plausible reconciliations have been brought up in this very thread.

At the same frequency as straight men? Think about what you're saying please.


You have implied being gay means no desire to reproduce.

This map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/World_homosexuality_laws.svg) where anything orange or darker indicates being gay is illegal, shows for example, illegality in that hyper-religious state of North Korea, as well as Hindu India, Buddhist Burma etc.


And yet Christianity and Islam are at play in most of your dark countries. Even in India, the laws against homosexuality were introduced by the British.....

homosexuals are natures way of population control, they provide for adults to assist in the raising of children

but what is the mechanism by which more homosexuals arise? does nature just magic them into existence?

You have implied being gay means no desire to reproduce.

he corrected to the idea of the desire to engage in reproductive activities, which is what was fairly obviously meant in the first place

I personally do not believe homosexuality is genetic. Nor do i believe it's a choice. I believe it's a spontaneous change in brain chemistry.

I personally do not believe homosexuality is genetic. Nor do i believe it's a choice. I believe it's a spontaneous change in brain chemistry.Actually, the wildly varying popularity of same-sex sexual activity between different times and places (Comparing, say, classical Greece to fifties-era US, Edo-era Japan to modern Saudi-Arabia, the likes) suggests that the choice-element is comparatively strong, me thinks.

he corrected to the idea of the desire to engage in reproductive activities, which is what was fairly obviously meant in the first place

homosexuality removes desire for reproduction which is obviously going to lower one's reproductive success, otherwise no-one would feel sexual attraction in the first place.

Meh.

His choice of words then. Removes the desire versus lessons the desire. Point remains. Many homosexuals still like the idea of reproduction be it through surrogates or "donations" to a bank. Heck I even know of a gay man who is assisting a lesbian couple getting pregnant. ;) I wonder how many people will declare the child will be a homosexual?

So much lulz to be had in a thread of so much scientific ignorance.

it's because your answer to whatshisface was hinging on saying he was wrong about the reproductive angle of things. but he is more or less right about that, though the articulation could have been better. if we are talking just individual reproductive success, then we should expect homosexuality to not persist over time, if it has a genetic component. which is why real answers involve either gene combinations or kin selection or heterozygosity advantages or some such.



yeah, but being charitable, we can change "removes desire for reproduction" to something more like "removes or lessens desire for engaging in activities that lead to reproduction" without doing any damage at all to their point.

to be gay is to find engaging in activities that lead to reproduction (that don't involve copious amounts of medical magic unavailable for the overwhelming bulk of evolutionary history) less enticing than a standard heterosexual would. this is trivially true.



lay out or link to this argument again for me, please. because as stated it looks evolutionarily nonsensical. even if it is beneficial to 'the species' (or, more plausibly, the particular social group), unless the gay genes themselves disproportionately replicate, they should become more and more rare. aiding genes other than themselves to reproduce just makes those other genes more prevalent faster.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14120888&postcount=75
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14121127&postcount=113
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122189&postcount=152
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122773&postcount=191
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122913&postcount=193
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14123223&postcount=201
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14124633&postcount=253
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125086&postcount=264
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125114&postcount=270
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125480&postcount=276

There. Happy?

Above are a selection of posts outlining BOTH other ways in which homosexuality may arise in a population without requiring a gene to be passed on directly from a homosexual person AND more than one possible benefit to the species as a whole of having homosexuality occur within it.

You forced me to scan through the entire thread to find these for no reason that I can see other than you are too caught up in acting clever to pay real attention to the debate. I despise you for that.

Enjoy your reading. I know it won't make a difference to you needling me, but I don't care, because you don't exist to me as of today. I am putting you on ignore again until after Thanksgiving, because I am tired of you picking on me to invent stupid arguments over details taken out of context and pretending to be ignorant of the conversation as your excuse.

Actually, the wildly varying popularity of same-sex sexual activity between different times and places (Comparing, say, classical Greece to fifties-era US, Edo-era Japan to modern Saudi-Arabia, the likes) suggests that the choice-element is comparatively strong, me thinks.

Actually, the wildly varying social acceptance of homosexuality tends to curb the visibility, or lack thereof, of homosexuals. There is no significant difference in the proportion of homosexuals between Iran and Canada. The significant difference is that Iranian homosexuals tend to to to hide to avoid being buried alive. Which might lead some to (mistakenly) think they're not there.

So I'm afraid what you base your opinion on is in fact erroneous data.

I feel that I'm talking to a brick wall here...
Likewise.

Except willingness, except for the fact they gain no pleasure from emitting sperm into a womans uterus - which is how until very recently 99.99% of humans have been created. I'd say, and this might be a bit hard to get your head around here, so bear with me: people who enjoy doing that are going to do it more often, and thus have more children!!!
Oh, you're cute. So in your world, a willingness to make babies does not lead to the making of babies? Then explain all those gay daddies and momies out there. You don't actually have to enjoy it to get pregnant/make someone pregnant from it, you know.

I really really don't get how you can disagree with this.
You make it easy by being wrong.


So it exists because it is fun? Things now exist on that basis? :s
As you yourself so eloquently explained:

Except willingness, except for the fact they gain no pleasure from emitting sperm into a womans uterus - which is how until very recently 99.99% of humans have been created. I'd say, and this might be a bit hard to get your head around here, so bear with me: people who enjoy doing that are going to do it more often, and thus have more children!!!

But until very recently, back in that mythical age before contraception. sex would always have the risk of impregnation (one of the reasons why sex before marriage was/is such a massive no no), it is a very modern phenomenon indeed to actually plan your family out. The majority of people who have ever lived would have been conceived by parents who were just a bit hot and bothered, not parents who actively made the decision to have a child.
"Mythical age" is right -- there was no time before contraception. Also sex before marraige did not become a no no until the advent of the Abrahamic religions, and it is a no no only in societies currently dominated by those religions, and even then, in most places, it is only a minor no no, honored more in the breach than the observance. Is there any part of your position that is based on an actual fact?

And I enjoy the way you know what the mood of the vast majority of procreating couples is and has been, just like you know what goes on in the mind of a gay man having sex with a woman. You must be one heck of psychic.

You seem to have some misconceptions about evolution. There's no purposeful "continuation of the species". People don't get sexually aroused for that reason. They get sexually aroused because the ancestors who's genes they carry who did get sexually aroused, were able to pass on their genes to the present day because of the fact the trait of sexual arousal made it more likely for them to do so over others who did not get sexually aroused. Although the existence of homosexuality does seem to contradict this, and no-one has really been able to reconcile the two.
What the fuck are you blathering about, and where the fuck did you get this insane idea that homosexuals do not experience sexual arousal?

What evolutionary benefit does such a mindset have? (please bear in mind that everything about us exists due to evolution, or is a side effect of some other evolutionary adaptation)
Who said it has an evolutionary benefit? I'm telling you that is the motivation behind singling out groups for persecution. If it doesn't fit into and support your little argument, sorry, but so what?

Howabouts this map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/World_homosexuality_laws.svg) I linked to earlier of illegality of homosexuality in the world (orange or darker means its illegal, darker is more illegal). Map actually seems rather dominated by Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, not Europe! What does this say about it being some Western cutural thing?
Did I say it was a Western cultural thing? No, I did not.

Luckily it isn't my main point, it's just a little thought of my own. But you're being sure of yourself here for someone who seems to doesn't seem to understand how sexual attraction is evolutionary trait.
You get cuter and cuter. It's not that I don't understand how sexual attraction is an evolutionary trait. It's that I disagree with your uniformed arguments about how and why it works the way it does. I'm not disagreeing with you because I don't understand. I'm disagreeing because you are wrong.

Firstly as humans are more monogamous than, say, deer, generally it isn't winner takes all. Certainly the most attractive males will take more, but as females prize having a dedicated mate for child rearing it means that they might go for an otherwise less desirable guy, and thus losers can get a (perhaps smaller and less tasty) cut of the pie too.

Secondly though. It should be obvious that less straight men -> more women per straight man -> less competition -> greater chance of reproduction. It's like if you have share a cake in a room full of fat guys, likely you'll get less cake than in a room full of people on a diet.
You're still going home alone. Trust me on that.

hey! i have blue eyes! are you saying that im a freak of nature? ha! of course not! i was just joking!

This post supports that. You are a freak of nature.

:tongue:

Hey FS, welcome to the Muravyets ignore list club, so far there is me, Chumblywumbly, and now you. When shall our first meeting be? :D

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14120888&postcount=75
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14121127&postcount=113
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122189&postcount=152
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122773&postcount=191
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122913&postcount=193
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14123223&postcount=201
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14124633&postcount=253
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125086&postcount=264
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125114&postcount=270
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14125480&postcount=276

There. Happy?

Above are a selection of posts outlining BOTH other ways in which homosexuality may arise in a population without requiring a gene to be passed on directly from a homosexual person AND more than one possible benefit to the species as a whole of having homosexuality occur within it.

most of those were irrelevant to my question, and 'species as a whole' is still wrong. but yeah, if i get your intention, you meant something about kin selection when you said "the lower rate at which homosexuals reproduce may be one of the benefits to the species that homsexuality brings". it's badly garbled in the quote there, but slightly better put in this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14124633&postcount=253).

You forced me to scan through the entire thread to find these for no reason that I can see other than you are too caught up in acting clever to pay real attention to the debate. I despise you for that.

Enjoy your reading. I know it won't make a difference to you needling me, but I don't care, because you don't exist to me as of today. I am putting you on ignore again until after Thanksgiving, because I am tired of you picking on me to invent stupid arguments over details taken out of context and pretending to be ignorant of the conversation as your excuse.

¡pobrecito!

Actually, the wildly varying social acceptance of homosexuality tends to curb the visibility, or lack thereof, of homosexuals. There is no significant difference in the proportion of homosexuals between Iran and Canada. The significant difference is that Iranian homosexuals tend to to to hide to avoid being buried alive. Which might lead some to (mistakenly) think they're not there.

So I'm afraid what you base your opinion on is in fact erroneous data.I used popularity, rather than acceptance for a reason, just like I used examples where homosexuality wasn't just accepted but indeed popular to the point of being a social requirement (If you desired to fit in) for a reason. Unless the actual percentage of homo- and bisexuals is well above 50% (I believe 10% is the commonly accepted figure, these days?), and today's more liberal societies are considerably more intolerant than they're commonly believed to be... Doesn't work out.

Well, I suppose there could've (Well, to an extend, there certainly was. But to such an extreme extend... Err...) been social pressure at work, but I think it's much harder to explain why 90% of a population would choose to fuck their own gender despite not enjoying the idea, rather than 10% fucking the opposite despite not really being interested.

Nope according to your theory one thing that you forgot to acknowledge was that some homosexuals may repress their desires until later in life. As is the case with many people we do not fully come to except who we are as people until later in life. So with that being said it is possible, and happens quite often, some homosexuals have children before coming to terms with their sexuality. But let it be known that I think this whole discussion that was brought up is a bit odd. As we cannot definitively say whether or not homosexuality is nature v nurture. One has to take into consideration how so many isolated pockets of the world produce the same thing across the globe: homosexuals. Every continent on the globe since the old ages have had homosexuals whether it was repressed or excepted as in the Roman dominance times. We are all diverse and multi-faceted, therefore could it very we be possible that a higher power did in fact create homosexuality as a form of NATURAL birth control? Or even better diversity?

Hey FS, welcome to the Muravyets ignore list club, so far there is me, Chumblywumbly, and now you. When shall our first meeting be? :D

you know, i'm pretty sure i was already on it ("I am putting you on ignore again"). i guess i'm just too irresistible to be ignored for long. conservatively, i blame my raw animal magnetism.

so i'm not sure i'll make the best member for the club. what do your bylaws say about such situations?

look, i am 100% heterosexual and i have no desire to reproduce. its not that i dont want to have sex, its just that i dont want to have kids. does that make me gay? no. does that make me abnormal? no. wanting to reproduce is a choice. the sex is an instinct, but reproducing is not.

does that make me gay?

yes. enjoy your pride parades.

you know, i'm pretty sure i was already on it ("I am putting you on ignore again"). i guess i'm just too irresistible to be ignored for long. conservatively, i blame my raw animal magnetism.

so i'm not sure i'll make the best member for the club. what do your bylaws say about such situations?

I don't believe there is a law against temporary membership yet, but since you will probably be able to communicate with her in the future, I think you should act as our spokesperson to her, when we've got some serious beef. :)

I used popularity, rather than acceptance for a reason, just like I used examples where homosexuality wasn't just accepted but indeed popular to the point of being a social requirement (If you desired to fit in) for a reason. Unless the actual percentage of homo- and bisexuals is well above 50% (I believe 10% is the commonly accepted figure, these days?), and today's more liberal societies are considerably more intolerant than they're commonly believed to be... Doesn't work out.

Well, I suppose there could've (Well, to an extend, there certainly was. But to such an extreme extend... Err...) been social pressure at work, but I think it's much harder to explain why 90% of a population would choose to fuck their own gender despite not enjoying the idea, rather than 10% fucking the opposite despite not really being interested.
You seem under the impression that somehow, a majority of the population in Ancient Greece or Feudal Japan was homosexual. That never happened. What happened is that the elite of those societies was very accepting, and thus the visibility of homosexuality increased.

An increase in visibility and acceptance does not imply every last Greek Citizen engaged in hot sweaty gay sex for hours on end every day. It simply means that those well-known figures who did engage in this made the phenomenon more visible, and thus it was recorded. Whereas in cultures where you get stoned to death for being gay, you're hardly going to be jotting down the name of that guy who did nice things until, you know, he was put to death for getting frisky with that other dude.

The overall number of homosexuals has remained largely unchanged (And yes, roughly 8 to 10% is the commonly accepted figure).

What has had a significant impact, though, is the bisexual population. Some research has found surprisingly high numbers regarding bisexuality. According to some, as many as 30% to a staggering 50% of human beings would have felt desire or fantasized in a way or another towards member of their own gender. Of course, not all of them felt those attractions as strongly. If you remove from that pool the number of strictly homosexual individuals, that still leaves a very sizable number of at least somewhat bisexual blokes and gals.

Needless to say, in a very closed society that attaches either severe social stigma or legal penalties to same-sex love/romance/sex, those people will probably do the smart thing and get their share of personal fulfillment with a member of the opposite sex. In a very open, accepting society, those people are more likely to explore both sides of their attraction, thus leading to an increased number of people engaged in homosexual relationships. They haven't become any more homosexual due to the nature of their society; they're just more free to let their emotions roam among all the possibilities their attractions provide them.

So yes, them bisexuals have the best of both worlds. Unlike gays or straights, they have some extra leeway in how they choose to turn their attractions into relationships proper. Twice as much choice.

you know, i'm pretty sure i was already on it ("I am putting you on ignore again"). i guess i'm just too irresistible to be ignored for long. conservatively, i blame my raw animal magnetism.

so i'm not sure i'll make the best member for the club. what do your bylaws say about such situations?

I haven't put you on it yet because I'm at an office assignment today and got distracted when someone thought of something for me to do. I'll put you on ignore later. I only put you there when you show a trend towards picking pointless, circular arguments with me over details pulled out of topics on which you do not really disagree with me. That pisses me off, and if you do it often enough in a short period of time, I'll turn you off until you find something else to amuse yourself with.

Same for Chumbly. He's already off the list again.

Hydesland, on the other hand, is on it for the foreseeable future because he went trolling after me personally over more than three separate threads on different topics. He's all alone in the perma-ignore club.

You seem under the impression that somehow, a majority of the population in Ancient Greece or Feudal Japan was homosexual. That never happened. What happened is that the elite of those societies was very accepting, and thus the visibility of homosexuality increased.Debatable - the question would be how the elite ended up being such a statistical outlier. Certainly, the elites are what we know about - peasants not being particularly interesting to contemporary historians, poets or playwriters. But, err... This doesn't automatically mean that the citizenry/ peasantry at large didn't have similar interests - unless, of course, there's (Contemporary?) sources concerning exactly such a thing about. I'll admit to not being a specialist concerning these eras and civilisations, and thus not knowing whether these sources exist or not - help in this regard is certainly appreciated.

I'll admit - homosexual 'infiltration' of a small elite is a good deal easier than achieving the same with an entire civilisation - so assuming that the homo-ratio remained roughly constant throughout the ages, it's a decently viable hypothesis. But IMHO, so's my own POV.

most of those were irrelevant to my question, and 'species as a whole' is still wrong. but yeah, if i get your intention, you meant something about kin selection when you said "the lower rate at which homosexuals reproduce may be one of the benefits to the species that homsexuality brings". it's badly garbled in the quote there, but slightly better put in this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14124633&postcount=253).



¡pobrecito!

Actually the benefit to species as a whole is not "the lower rate at which homosexuals reproduce"

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14122189&postcount=152

Genetics also tell us to kill those who have what we want. But we are not animals, we are humans, will power being the only thing that seperates us. If a man cannot control his sexual urges his is little more than an animal and deserves to be treated as such.

NRG, as much as it is a part of the human psych to have these primal urges to do certain things and that with a minimal amount of self-control, that they are able to suppress these base instincts, those who break these controls in fact suffer from genetic deviations that make them more sensitive to specific urges and less able to control them
Homosexuals sit alongside the others such as those who feel compelled to kill, rape, steal or lie, and although yes, there are those who do have some mental strength to suppress these urges to degrees that they may function within human tolerance levels, they both still carry the genetic disorder, and for some, all they need is the right trigger that will cause them to lose their control and give in to temptation


Barbituates;14129995']Yeah, except it isn't. I'm not gay, but I have a feeling that with all the negative social stigma associated with it, as well as the legal limitations, religious too, that if it were a choice there would be quite a few less gays. I know that no matter how much I like a male friend (I am a guy) I doubt I could be physically attracted to them.

Barb, as homosexuality comes from a genetic disorder, it is like many others who suffer from psychological disorders, there are a number of them that one reason or another find themselves unable or unwilling to keep their disorders private.
Further, a number of their kind are simply frustrated with having to keep their dark secret hidden, and to quote Ghandi "You must be the change you wish to see in the world", there are a number of their kind that make their secret known in the long-term hope that they will eventually be accepted


Why do all north american nazi wannabes have german sounding names? Only those who have german ancestry or citizenship or both should be able to use these nicks. At least a language test...

Yes, it is funny how many choose german names, but when you look at the soup that is american racial history, that the British, French, Dutch and Irish made up most of america, they might be trying to play on those few drops of dutch blood that trickled down through the ages to them, in the hopes that puts them close enough to german


I personally do not believe homosexuality is genetic. Nor do i believe it's a choice. I believe it's a spontaneous change in brain chemistry.

And what causes any form of biological change in living organisms, but deviancy in the genetic code at some level. The genetic codes of all forms of life, Human, Animal or otherwise, all have that random factor that despite how much one would think that A+B=C, the random factor may in fact may cause A+B=G
As far as genetic science has developed to date, i doubt it could determine what manner of genetic mistake causes homosexuality, but at a quick guess, I feel that it is similar to what causes the shemale mutation - though whereas a shemale is a solid mutation where one is born with both male and female DNA mixing at some level, the factor of homosexuals is at a smaller degree where the homosexual produces the internal chemistry of the opposite gender and seeks a partner based on this 'looking through the other side's eyes', and/or simply is more responsive and attracted to the basic pheromones emitted by their own gender than that of the opposite gender

homosexuality comes from a genetic disorder

in what even vaguely plausible sense?

...

LOL. How old are you?

Oh, you're cute. So in your world, a willingness to make babies does not lead to the making of babies? Then explain all those gay daddies and momies out there. You don't actually have to enjoy it to get pregnant/make someone pregnant from it, you know.

Thank you for completely ignoring what I said, I said it would happen less. Let's break things down.

1) Gay men do not get the same pleasure straight men do from sexual intercourse with a female
2) Gay men are therefore, much less likely to seek out intercourse with females (their only reason being to make children, a feature straight men would feel just as strongly, and interestingly isn't their motivation in most cases).
3) Intercourse with women takes place less with gay men
4) Gay men have less children because its through intercourse babies are made

Which step is it you object to here?

As you yourself so eloquently explained:

I fail to see what the two quotes have to do with each other.

"Mythical age" is right -- there was no time before contraception. Also sex before marraige did not become a no no until the advent of the Abrahamic religions, and it is a no no only in societies currently dominated by those religions, and even then, in most places, it is only a minor no no, honored more in the breach than the observance. Is there any part of your position that is based on an actual fact?

Before the use of rubber, contraception essentially consisted of the rhythm method or a sock (excluding much of the superstitious remedies that would probably have been used to zero effect). We can all guess how effective it was back then. Especially when most of the population was illiterate and highly superstitious, and sex (like most things) only vaguely understood.

Ever wonder why back in the olden days people would have 13 children, but now have only 2? Are they less fertile now or something?

You are really saying that marriage, and the importance of virginity that is associated with it is a Judeo-Christian invention? Seriously what? What the hell?

And I enjoy the way you know what the mood of the vast majority of procreating couples is and has been, just like you know what goes on in the mind of a gay man having sex with a woman. You must be one heck of psychic.

Back in those ancient times, there was no science, while it would have been known that there was some connection between sexual activity and childbirth, I'm guessing (admittedly, but hear me out), that especially when people mostly struggled to survive and did not live long anyway, they would not have time to worry about such things as legacies and aren't-children-lovely the way we do today. So I'm assuming that they lived by their instincts, they fell in love, they had sex (two instincts that are much much stronger than "ooooh, wouldn't it be great to have kids?", bearing in mind also that people would have been spent by 30 anyway, at which point today most people start worrying about such things).

And certainly it's not an outrageous assumption that when a gay man has sex with a woman, by the very definition of gay, what they are not thinking is "oh my, isn't this highly enjoyable?". That's the only thing I assume about their mindset here.

What the fuck are you blathering about, and where the fuck did you get this insane idea that homosexuals do not experience sexual arousal?

How evolution works, something it seems painfully obvious you do not understand. And what maybe I should have said was "sexual arousal towards females", but I was comparing them to people who felt none at all at that point.

Who said it has an evolutionary benefit? I'm telling you that is the motivation behind singling out groups for persecution. If it doesn't fit into and support your little argument, sorry, but so what?

Like I said EVERYTHING about us is an evolutionary trait or a side-effect of one. Unless you're advocating intelligent design here, that's not up for debate. And the fact your idea can't explain itself in that context makes it wrong. End of story.

Did I say it was a Western cultural thing? No, I did not.

Well, you said this:

Hatred of gays is a relatively modern social feature, and it is attached only to specific cultural influences.

I suppose I took that to mean Western, seeing as that is one place where it certainly has been deeply stigmatised, and one place as a Westerner yourself (I would assume) you would be more aware of.

as homosexuality comes from a genetic disorder...

Except that, you know, it doesn't. But don't let science ruin your far-fetched theory.

Thank you for completely ignoring what I said, I said it would happen less. Let's break things down.

1) Gay men do not get the same pleasure straight men do from sexual intercourse with a female
2) Gay men are therefore, much less likely to seek out intercourse with females (their only reason being to make children, a feature straight men would feel just as strongly, and interestingly isn't their motivation in most cases).
3) Intercourse with women takes place less with gay men
4) Gay men have less children because its through intercourse babies are made

Which step is it you object to here?




Do you have the statistics which says gay men have less children? It sounds intuitive but never assume.

And then, correlation does not imply causation. The lower rates of fertility for gay men may not be due to sexuality but gender. IMO, women tend to want children more than men so heterosexual couples will want more children because there is a female involved while there are 2 men in a gay male couple. This is similar to sex. I've read somewhere that heterosexuals get less sex because women tend to like casual sex less. (There was a study in which 0% of the women accepted a casual sex offer from an attractive male while 70% of the men accepted the offer from an attractive female)

The biological steps that you said make sense but I think Muravyet's point is that it can be bypassed. If there are gay men who wants to have children, they can do it with a lesbian friend, female friend, etc, thru natural or artificial methods. In modern times. Before, they could be in closet and had kids, I guess. Or like in ancient Greeks, some gay men had families while having homosexual relationships. Indeed, there is also a modern day example in another thread here, about Jorg Haider, who was a gay politician but also married with 2 kids and his wife knew about his relationships. So his fertility rate of 2.0 was higher than the Austrian avarage.

And you should remember that a large majority of sex does not lead to reproduction. An avarage western female has like 1.3-2.1 babies while having sex prolly hundreds of times. So the biological need for sex has no bearing on how many kids u have cause most of the time most people are protected and most of the time you only have kids when you want them.

Thank you for completely ignoring what I said, I said it would happen less. Let's break things down.

1) Gay men do not get the same pleasure straight men do from sexual intercourse with a female
2) Gay men are therefore, much less likely to seek out intercourse with females (their only reason being to make children, a feature straight men would feel just as strongly, and interestingly isn't their motivation in most cases).
3) Intercourse with women takes place less with gay men
4) Gay men have less children because its through intercourse babies are made

Which step is it you object to here?

I object to the steps you chose to leave out this time, the ones that made your argument depend on a notion that homosexuals do not reproduce and that homosexuality somehow leads to people not wanting to have children. I also object to the step that involves you ignoring what I'm saying while accusing me of ignoring what you're saying. I further object to you dropping parts of your own argument and then acting as if they were never there.

You stated that homosexuality = a lack of desire to reproduce. That is false. You suggested that heterosexuality is a sexual attraction that involves sexual arousal and that homosexuality is not that. That is patently ridiculous. In addition to pointing out that homosexuals do experience attraction and arousal and that they do reproduce, I also pointed out wanting sex and wanting kids are two different and separate desires. You have chosen so far to ignore that point, but that doesn't improve the footing of your argument.

I fail to see what the two quotes have to do with each other.
That failure on your part is related to your persistent wrongness on this point.

Before the use of rubber, contraception essentially consisted of the rhythm method or a sock (excluding much of the superstitious remedies that would probably have been used to zero effect). We can all guess how effective it was back then. Especially when most of the population was illiterate and highly superstitious, and sex (like most things) only vaguely understood.
More wrongness. You're really good at this. I can see why you don't want to give it up.

The sheep skin condom has existed for thousands of years. It is very effective. They still make them for people allergic to latex. Herbal abortifacients have also existed for thousands of years. They are also very effective. Throughout all of history, people have understood the functions, if not the specific processes, of sex, pregnancy, menstruation, puberty, the sex organs, etc. It's amazing to me that all this information has been accumulating for all this time, yet you still managed somehow to miss it.

Ever wonder why back in the olden days people would have 13 children, but now have only 2? Are they less fertile now or something?
People where? I met a guy at the post office last week who bragged he was working on grinding out 10 for no good reason I could discern. People still like to have lots and lots of kids.

But here's a trend you seem to have missed: The higher the infant mortality rate, the higher the rate of pregnancy, typically. The lower the mortality rate, the lower the pregnancy rate. Interesting, isn't it, how back before antibiotics, good prenatal care/nutrition, etc., women would give birth 13 times but end up only raising 2 to adulthood. Hm...yeah, interesting. Interesting also how, in modern times, in places where infant mortality is very high you see that same pattern which we saw in Europe and the US 100 years ago. And just like in Europe and the US, when the likelihood of each child surviving to adulthood goes up, the number of pregnancies per woman goes down. Wow, must be magic.

You are really saying that marriage, and the importance of virginity that is associated with it is a Judeo-Christian invention? Seriously what? What the hell?
The obsession with it is. You know there are a lot of cultures in which it is considered abnormal to be a virgin when you get married.

Back in those ancient times, there was no science, while it would have been known that there was some connection between sexual activity and childbirth, I'm guessing (admittedly, but hear me out), that especially when people mostly struggled to survive and did not live long anyway, they would not have time to worry about such things as legacies and aren't-children-lovely the way we do today. So I'm assuming that they lived by their instincts, they fell in love, they had sex (two instincts that are much much stronger than "ooooh, wouldn't it be great to have kids?", bearing in mind also that people would have been spent by 30 anyway, at which point today most people start worrying about such things).

And certainly it's not an outrageous assumption that when a gay man has sex with a woman, by the very definition of gay, what they are not thinking is "oh my, isn't this highly enjoyable?". That's the only thing I assume about their mindset here.
More crystal ball gazing. You are starting to bore me. Can't you glean any cool celebrity gossip from your ESP?


How evolution works, something it seems painfully obvious you do not understand. And what maybe I should have said was "sexual arousal towards females", but I was comparing them to people who felt none at all at that point.



Like I said EVERYTHING about us is an evolutionary trait or a side-effect of one. Unless you're advocating intelligent design here, that's not up for debate. And the fact your idea can't explain itself in that context makes it wrong. End of story.
So, in your opinion, your point of view is so all-encompassing that anything that falls outside it must by definition be wrong? :D Hilarious.


Well, you said this:



I suppose I took that to mean Western, seeing as that is one place where it certainly has been deeply stigmatised, and one place as a Westerner yourself (I would assume) you would be more aware of.
And now your psychic powers extend to knowing what I'm most aware of, too. Truly you are astounding. Someone should call the Amazing Randy to put you to the test. You may be the one to shut him up finally.

Do you have the statistics which says gay men have less children? It sounds intuitive but never assume.

Well, my whole argument rests on the fact that someone who isn't sexually attracted to women, is less likely to have sex with them. Which in turn makes them less likely to reproduce. After all, for a man, things like large breasts, narrow waits and round hips are all signs of fertility, while clear skin is a sign of a good immune system and youth (you can get more babies out of a young 'un) etc. Its very clearly crafted to guide men towards having children. If men are attracted men, it seems to go against the whole point.

The biological steps that you said make sense but I think Muravyet's point is that it can be bypassed. If there are gay men who wants to have children, they can do it with a lesbian friend, female friend, etc, thru natural or artificial methods. In modern times. Before, they could be in closet and had kids, I guess. Or like in ancient Greeks, some gay men had families while having homosexual relationships. Indeed, there is also a modern day example in another thread here, about Jorg Haider, who was a gay politician but also married with 2 kids and his wife knew about his relationships. So his fertility rate of 2.0 was higher than the Austrian avarage.

But being in the closet, you'd be in a loveless marriage, you'd probably be less likely to sleep with your wife because you just aren't attracted to her. This can only have one affect on the number of children you produce, and that would be less. In the end, people with the "homosexual gene" (i know, I know it's more complicated than that, I'm just simplifying for clarity) would be out bred by those with the "heterosexual gene".

And you should remember that a large majority of sex does not lead to reproduction. An avarage western female has like 1.3-2.1 babies while having sex prolly hundreds of times. So the biological need for sex has no bearing on how many kids u have cause most of the time most people are protected and most of the time you only have kids when you want them.

Now maybe, but in the past without contraception, it would be much more likely to.

Well, my whole argument rests on the fact that someone who isn't sexually attracted to women, is less likely to have sex with them. Which in turn makes them less likely to reproduce.

This is why your argument is flawed. More sex does not mean better chances of reproduction.

Some species go for quantity. Other species opt for nurturing. Both are good reproductive strategies.

A gay man does not have children by accident. So he does not end up with children he does not want/is not ready to provide for, nor does he end up having children at inopportune times of his life, like during teenage or late pregancies.

A gay man who goes through the trouble of reproducing is very damn likely to take good care of his offspring. This translates in increased survival chances for the offspring.

Notice that this strategy has also become popular with straight men and women in richer, more well-off western countries. Whereas poorer countries still have much higher birth rates, simply to offset for the higher infancy mortality rates.

So no, the amount of sex you have is definately not the be-all, end-all of reproductive success.

Also, the whole gay gene thing? If homosexuality is genetic, which hasn't been proven or disproved out of all doubt yet, it most certainly is a combination of several genetic recessive factors. Children of gay men and women have exactly the same statistical chances of being gay than children of straight men and women. So all this "out breeding" talk is just nonsense.

This is why your argument is flawed. More sex does not mean better chances of reproduction.

Some species go for quantity. Other species opt for nurturing. Both are good reproductive strategies.

Specifically, it's the r/K strategy. And homosexuality happens to generally appear in K strategists, which are the ones that go for low numbers of offspring with high survival rates.

You stated that homosexuality = a lack of desire to reproduce. That is false. You suggested that heterosexuality is a sexual attraction that involves sexual arousal and that homosexuality is not that. That is patently ridiculous.

Surely it is pretty obvious that I said such things by mistake by using the wrong words, and that isn't what I ever meant in the first place?

I also pointed out wanting sex and wanting kids are two different and separate desires. You have chosen so far to ignore that point, but that doesn't improve the footing of your argument.

You should agree a great number of children are born not out of the desire for children, by sexual desire no? And there are many cases when its a bit of both right? Can you not see that (hetero-) sexual desire was an evolutionary adaptation that made people have more children?

The sheep skin condom has existed for thousands of years. It is very effective. They still make them for people allergic to latex. Herbal abortifacients have also existed for thousands of years. They are also very effective. Throughout all of history, people have understood the functions, if not the specific processes, of sex, pregnancy, menstruation, puberty, the sex organs, etc. It's amazing to me that all this information has been accumulating for all this time, yet you still managed somehow to miss it.

Quick question: If this was all so obvious and clearly known. Why do people have to be taught it today in school? To have misconceptions cleared up? (an example one such misconception that I know people have had is that its very hard, if not impossible to get pregnant the first time round). Just think what would happen if there were no such lessons, and that all these misconceptions stayed with people, and ended up just becoming established fact because no-one knew any better? It would be kind of like how the past was wouldn't it?

I would also say that if people were wise to the whole thing, it would have been the educated upper classes, there isn't a record of what the superstitious illiterate masses thought. "People" knew the world was round for a long long time. Problem was that only a few sailors and astronomers did, didn't change what the majority believed though.

People where? I met a guy at the post office last week who bragged he was working on grinding out 10 for no good reason I could discern. People still like to have lots and lots of kids.

Ok, now you're just being objectively wrong. The birth rate has dropped dramatically, look at your family tree if you want proof of this.

But here's a trend you seem to have missed: The higher the infant mortality rate, the higher the rate of pregnancy, typically. The lower the mortality rate, the lower the pregnancy rate. Interesting, isn't it, how back before antibiotics, good prenatal care/nutrition, etc., women would give birth 13 times but end up only raising 2 to adulthood. Hm...yeah, interesting. Interesting also how, in modern times, in places where infant mortality is very high you see that same pattern which we saw in Europe and the US 100 years ago. And just like in Europe and the US, when the likelihood of each child surviving to adulthood goes up, the number of pregnancies per woman goes down. Wow, must be magic.

You'll never guess what it is that actually goes hand in hand! Medical knowledge and development! Could your theory that people were just aiming to have a couple of children explain why there was a gap between birth rate and infant mortality for many years which lead to such a population explosion in the West which the take up of mass contraception was able to close up?

The obsession with it is. You know there are a lot of cultures in which it is considered abnormal to be a virgin when you get married.

Oh do I? Have you started to take up crystal ball gazing yourself then?

So, in your opinion, your point of view is so all-encompassing that anything that falls outside it must by definition be wrong? :D Hilarious.

Try reading what I said, it might help. So either a) we didn't totally come about due to evolution, or b) I'm missing something here you could be very helpful in enlightening me on c) My point is correct and you haven't really got anything to say to it except that.

And now your psychic powers extend to knowing what I'm most aware of, too. Truly you are astounding. Someone should call the Amazing Randy to put you to the test. You may be the one to shut him up finally.

Perhaps we could just get back to debating instead of you just making wise-cracks like this that don't address my points?

To simplify: Homosexuals as they do not get sexually aroused by women, have sex with them less, and thus have less offspring. Therefore it is rather counter-intuitive that they should be so prevalent to day.

That's all I'm saying, you could just stick to that if you like.

To simplify: Homosexuals as they do not get sexually aroused by women, have sex with them less, and thus have less offspring. Therefore it is rather counter-intuitive that they should be so prevalent to day.
Be sure to read what I wrote above, and for which Ctulthu helpfully provided the scientific names that eluded my memory.

More offspring does not mean better reproductive success.

Also, children of homosexuals are not any more likely to be homosexuals themselves. Several studies have proven this. In fact, the overhwhelming majority of gays and lesbians have straight parents, if only for the fact that there are more straights around than gays. It's simple math.

So your assumptions are twice wrong; once for believing that more offspring means automatically better reproductive success(it doesn't, it's just one of many useable strategies). And once again for thinking that somehow comparing the reproductive success of homosexuals versus heterosexuals has anything to do with the overall number of homosexuals.

Also, children of homosexuals are not any more likely to be homosexuals themselves. [...] So your assumptions are twice wrong; once for believing that more offspring means automatically better reproductive success(it doesn't, it's just one of many useable strategies). And once again for thinking that somehow comparing the reproductive success of homosexuals versus heterosexuals has anything to do with the overall number of homosexuals.You forgot 'Means that genetics have little, if any, say in the development of homosexual tendencies, leaving 'Choice' and 'Biochemistry' as the only remaining options, which in turn means that reproductive success is irrelevant to its existence & prevalence* :-p

* Not entirely correct, if one looks past the individual & human scale, but whatever. It's late, and besides, I presume the docus here is homosexuality in humans.

You forgot 'Means that genetics have little, if any, say in the development of homosexual tendencies, leaving 'Choice' and 'Biochemistry' as the only remaining options, which in turn means that reproductive success is irrelevant to its existence & prevalence* :-p

* Not entirely correct, if one looks past the individual & human scale, but whatever. It's late, and besides, I presume the docus here is homosexuality in humans.

The origins of the phenomenon, quite frankly, bores me. And the obsessive, unhealthy interest everyone has in finding "WHY, OH GOD WHY MUST SOME MEN LIKE MEN AND SOME WOMEN LIKE WOMEN?" annoys me.

It's not important why. We don't bloody care. Homosexuals exist, have always existed, and will always exist. They also appear in nearly every damn last evolved mammalian specie, as well as several evolved bird specie. It's natural. It's there. Deal with it and get over it. Obviously if it was an evolutionary dead end it wouldn't be prevalent as it is. And even if it was an evolutionary dead end, it doesn't matter.

Red-heads are an evolutionary dead-end, according to genetics specialists. They're likely to stop existing in some 100+ thousand years. You don't see everyone getting their panties in a bunch about it and arguing that red-haired people have "genetic disorders" (which doesn't even exist, anyway. Disorders are of the psychological nature. Genetics have defects).

Surely it is pretty obvious that I said such things by mistake by using the wrong words, and that isn't what I ever meant in the first place?
In other words, you realize that you were utterly wrong and now want to float an entirely different argument? No problem.

But you want to do it without retracting the first erroneous argument and act as if you were never wrong? Sorry, no.

And yes, all that has been obvious.


You should agree a great number of children are born not out of the desire for children, by sexual desire no?
I see no reason why I should do that.

And there are many cases when its a bit of both right? Can you not see that (hetero-) sexual desire was an evolutionary adaptation that made people have more children?
No.

Is this the part where, after having admitted that your argument was wrong, you nevertheless still try to promote it?

Quick question: If this was all so obvious and clearly known. Why do people have to be taught it today in school? To have misconceptions cleared up? (an example one such misconception that I know people have had is that its very hard, if not impossible to get pregnant the first time round). Just think what would happen if there were no such lessons, and that all these misconceptions stayed with people, and ended up just becoming established fact because no-one knew any better? It would be kind of like how the past was wouldn't it?
Gosh, I'm going to guess it's taught in school for the exact same reason math is taught in school even though we have known that 2 + 2 = 4 for thousands of years. It's because we are not a hive mind sharing common ancestral memory, born knowing everything. You are a case in point, based on the quality of your argument on this topic.

I would also say that if people were wise to the whole thing, it would have been the educated upper classes, there isn't a record of what the superstitious illiterate masses thought. "People" knew the world was round for a long long time. Problem was that only a few sailors and astronomers did, didn't change what the majority believed though.
So, since you are not able to argue that for thousands of years people did not know where babies come from, you now try to argue that, yeah, maybe people did, but only some people were able to figure it out? Yeah, right. Give it up.

Ok, now you're just being objectively wrong.
So funny coming from you.

The birth rate has dropped dramatically, look at your family tree if you want proof of this.
And now you're basing your suppositions on fantasies about my family tree. Priceless. :D

Hint: Try reading the words in the post you are responding to. I did not say that the birth rate did not go down. I was talking about why birth rates go up an down.


You'll never guess what it is that actually goes hand in hand! Medical knowledge and development! Could your theory that people were just aiming to have a couple of children explain why there was a gap between birth rate and infant mortality for many years which lead to such a population explosion in the West which the take up of mass contraception was able to close up?
No, I admit I am unable to explain the complete nonsense you spout.

Oh do I? Have you started to take up crystal ball gazing yourself then?

Aw, and now you pretend to be overly literal-minded. So adorable! *considers catching Altruisma and keeping him as a pet*

"You know, XYZ has been the case for years in tons of places" = the "you know" is a rhetorical flourish meant to convey the utter obviousness of what I am saying. As in, "water tends to be wet, you know."

Try reading what I said, it might help. So either a) we didn't totally come about due to evolution, or b) I'm missing something here you could be very helpful in enlightening me on c) My point is correct and you haven't really got anything to say to it except that.
I vote for option (b) except that I do not think it is possible to enlighten you because you are so convinced that you are right and others are wrong. You are not being receptive to opposing arguments.

Perhaps we could just get back to debating instead of you just making wise-cracks like this that don't address my points?
You mean just blankly and blandly keep telling you how and why you're wrong forever? Where's the fun in that?

To simplify: Homosexuals as they do not get sexually aroused by women, have sex with them less, and thus have less offspring. Therefore it is rather counter-intuitive that they should be so prevalent to day.

That's all I'm saying, you could just stick to that if you like.

Okay. You're wrong. I have already explained why. If you have nothing further to add to my counter arguments, we are done here.

The origins of the phenomenon, quite frankly, bores me. And the obsessive, unhealthy interest everyone has in finding "WHY, OH GOD WHY MUST SOME MEN LIKE MEN AND SOME WOMEN LIKE WOMEN?" annoys me.

It's not important why. We don't bloody care. Homosexuals exist, have always existed, and will always exist. They also appear in nearly every damn last evolved mammalian specie, as well as several evolved bird specie. It's natural. It's there. Deal with it and get over it. Obviously if it was an evolutionary dead end it wouldn't be prevalent as it is. And even if it was an evolutionary dead end, it doesn't matter.

Red-heads are an evolutionary dead-end, according to genetics specialists. They're likely to stop existing in some 100+ thousand years. You don't see everyone getting their panties in a bunch about it and arguing that red-haired people have "genetic disorders" (which doesn't even exist, anyway. Disorders are of the psychological nature. Genetics have defects).Heavily Edited: And this has... What to do with what I - or the OP - wrote?

Hum. Nothing whatsoe- Oh, wait. I see it now. You believe I'm a horrible homophobe. Noes. Now lets see. Why would you believe that...

I took your own argument, agreed with it, and pointed out that this leaves only two options as to the possible origins (And causes for the persistence) of homosexuality. Perfectly within the scope of the thread, and in fact, directly related to the op's question (Rather unlike your own post, which incidentally, contains a factual error - there are people who care. One of them started this thread. Which is about exactly the thing you do not care about. Which raises a question... Why did you post?)

What I didn't do was attaching any kind of moral judgement, be it positive or negative.

Well... You have me stumped, here. Why did you choose to make random assumptions about my own ethics concerning homosexuality? Do you actually believe that homosexual behaviour being a choice would make it immoral? No, of course not - however, it appears that you're afraid that social conservatives could use the argument in such a fashion. Which is why to you, 'Homosexuality as a Choice' is, apparently, not acceptable, irregardless of whether your own argumentation points strongly in that direction or not. No, logic has to be shut down, and inconsistencies accepted to take munition away from the social conservatives.

Hum. This looks to me like you and them have rather a lot more in common than you may think.

Well, anyway. I'd be okay with you admitting that you're a complete retard for making random assumptions about other people writing exclusively on-topic, without making any moral statements - or, heck, any implicit suggestions concerning the morality of a given behaviour -, and coincidentally completely missing the actual topic at hand in your ideological war, but I suspect strongly that you're far too high on your own self-righteousness and desire to fuel your e-rage with imagined INJUSTICE to do this.

Go and get a grip. If you're incapable of conversing about a, for all practical intends and purposes, scientific topic without whipping out your politics/ ethics and splashing sticky e-justice on your imaginary foes, don't do it at all.

Go to bed instead. It'll be good for your blood pressure as well as for the civility on this forum.

Care pointing me to where in what I wrote you found me to be a horrible homophobe?

I would, if it had actually been you I was talking about. Go and re-read the last 2 pages. You'll find no shortage of people who actually do fit what I wrote.


I'd also be okay with you admitting that you're a complete retard for making random assumptions about other people writing exclusively on-topic, without making any moral statements - or, heck, any implicit sugestions concerning the morality of a given behaviour - but I suspect strongly that you're far too high on your own self-righteousness and desire to fuel your e-rage with imagined INJUSTICE to do this.

Go and get a grip. If you're incapable of conversing about a, for all practical intends and purposes, scientific topic without whipping out your politics/ ethics and splashing sticky e-justice on your imaginary foes, don't do it at all.

Go to bed instead. It'll be good for your blood pressure as well as for the civility on this forum.

Edit: Oh, and you're factually wrong. This thread was made by a person who does care. If you don't, that's okay. But this just means that you've no business in this thread.
Seeing how you're mistaken in your assumption that my rant was directed towards you, most of this is rendered moot.

As for your edit, yes, I know the OP does care. My point was that the reasons a lot of people give way too much effort on finding how WHY it exists are usually flawed. Lots of them try to find reasons to vindicate prejudiced or contemptuous views, or seek for a way to "cure" the poor souls afflicted by such an horrible curse. What I'm trying to convey is that this goes beyond the simple scientific curiosity that we might have towards sexuality or reproduction in general. And that some of the time spent on this might be better spent on other endeavors, like treating everyone fairly and equitably without regard to sexual orientation.

Trust me, I would know.

I would, if it had actually been you I was talking about. Go and re-read the last 2 pages. You'll find no shortage of people who actually do fit what I wrote.So why did you quote me in your post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14132711&postcount=414)?


Seeing how you're mistaken in your assumption that my rant was directed towards you, most of this is rendered moot.So why did you quote me in your post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14132711&postcount=414)?

Anyway, edited it again, heavily so. 'cause I love being hostile and condescending, mostly.

Also, why did you quote me in your post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14132711&postcount=414) when you didn't actually address me?

As for your edit, yes, I know the OP does care. My point was that the reasons a lot of people give way too much effort on finding how WHY it exists are usually flawed. Lots of them try to find reasons to vindicate prejudiced or contemptuous views, or seek for a way to "cure" the poor souls afflicted by such an horrible curse. What I'm trying to convey is that this goes beyond the simple scientific curiosity that we might have towards sexuality or reproduction in general. And that some of the time spent on this might be better spent on other endeavors, like treating everyone fairly and equitably without regard to sexual orientation.This is certainly true, but I should think that such concerns are better kept in a thread that deals with the ethic implications of homosexuality - not with its socio-biological causes. While your moralising may have merit, it's ill-placed (And besides, why did you quote me when I wasn't addressed?). Certainly, a lot of homophobia can be implicit in such debates - But whatever. If it goes explicit, it's just as out of place as your own moralising.

Also, please don't quote me when I'm not the person addressed.

More sex does not mean better chances of reproduction.

Some species go for quantity. Other species opt for nurturing. Both are good reproductive strategies.

but here we are talking about a presumptive tendency towards reduced quantity compared to others who are also using a 'good enough' nurturing strategy.

So why did you quote me in your post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14132711&postcount=414)?

Because you brought up the "If the reason for homosexuality's existence is not genetic, then by elimination is should be choice or biochemical".

Basically, it went like this:

Me: [...]Besides, it's not genetic.
You: I agree. It means it must be something else, like choice or biochemistry.
Me: It's actually not even important. Most people who fret so much about the "why" of homosexuality aren't so much looking for a real answer as much as trying to vindicate already tainted negative views.
You: I take offense! I have never stated to hold such views.Just because I take a healthy scientific interest on the question does not make me a bigot, you jerk!
Me: Wasn't talking about you. Was talking about them *points the other guys who have had clearly homophobic posts*

While I'm willing to admit my quoting you while saying what I did might have erred on the side of ambiguity, I certainly never explicitly stated I thought you were an evil homophobic bastard based on the lines I quoted. Methinks you're being awfully quick to go man the barricades. If I thought you were a bigot, I'd go ahead and say it to your face. Like that guy who thinks it's a "genetic disorder".


This is certainly true, but I should think that such concerns are better kept in a thread that deals with the ethic implications of homosexuality - not with its socio-biological causes. While your moralising may have merit, it's ill-placed (And besides, why did you quote me when I wasn't addressed?). Certainly, a lot of homophobia can be implicit in such debates - But whatever. If it goes explicit, it's just as out of place as your own moralising.

Also, please don't quote me when I'm not the person addressed.
You were the person addressed, as I explain above. This thread does not specifically deal about the socio-biological causes of homosexuality, but rather its role in the wider evolutionary view of a specie. As such, me saying "The causes doesn't really matter" is also on-topic. While there might be merit in the pursuit of knowledge, I'm perfectly comfortable stating that most who do pursue answers about the causes of homosexuality have further intentions, be they negative or positive.

And I reserve the right to be moralizing if I feel like it, especially with all the implicit homophobia of this thread, as you so eloquently put it. A thread started under the sign of "Homosexuality is useless in the grand scheme of evolution and therefore gays are doomed to disappear! How do they exist still despite their lack of breeding?" reeks of both ignorance towards both how evolution works and the subject of homosexuality as a whole.

Just don't get all worked up and indignant over something that wasn't targeted at you.

In other words, you realize that you were utterly wrong and now want to float an entirely different argument? No problem.

But you want to do it without retracting the first erroneous argument and act as if you were never wrong? Sorry, no.

Entirely different arguments? Wha-? You're just looking for any opportunity to make personal attacks without actually debating the facts aren't you?

The two times I've said something a bit misleading: In the beginning I used the term "reproduce" to mean "sexual intercourse" and I used the term "sexual attraction" where possible I should have specified I was referring to heterosexuals. That's it. That's all I said. And you're now howling that these arguments are "entirely different". If you're not going to debate honestly, let's not debate at all.

I see no reason why I should do that.

No, I guess if all you're looking to do is score points and out-slur your opponent instead of any any serious honest discussion, no, there's no reason why you should accept that.

[/quote]No.

Is this the part where, after having admitted that your argument was wrong, you nevertheless still try to promote it?[/quote]

No, the fact it's an evolutionary adaptation it's the very heart of my argument. If you're aware what my argument is in the first place.

Gosh, I'm going to guess it's taught in school for the exact same reason math is taught in school even though we have known that 2 + 2 = 4 for thousands of years. It's because we are not a hive mind sharing common ancestral memory, born knowing everything. You are a case in point, based on the quality of your argument on this topic.

Well if we weren't taught basic numeracy, most people would not be numerate today. Duh? That's why we teach it isn't it? A few bright sparks would have picked up on it, but they'd be alone there. And what is that, another personal attack? Great, just keep on doing that, you'll be sure to win the argument eventually.

So, since you are not able to argue that for thousands of years people did not know where babies come from, you now try to argue that, yeah, maybe people did, but only some people were able to figure it out? Yeah, right. Give it up.

I think the numeracy example is a pretty good illumination of that actually. As is literacy. Most people couldn't read a thousand years ago, doesn't mean all couldn't.

And now you're basing your suppositions on fantasies about my family tree. Priceless. :D

Fantasies? You say it like I'm claiming you descend from Hitler or something. No, I am supposing your family tree resembles what most people's do, in the same way I presume you have hair on your head having never met you before. It's just a rather fair assumption to make.

Hint: Try reading the words in the post you are responding to. I did not say that the birth rate did not go down. I was talking about why birth rates go up an down.

But not the number of children one has to survive childbirth. Your argument would claim that should be pretty stable.

No, I admit I am unable to explain the complete nonsense you spout.

Oh god... So you are unaware of the population explosion of the past hundred years ago or it didn't actually happen or what? I don't know what to say here honestly...

"You know, XYZ has been the case for years in tons of places" = the "you know" is a rhetorical flourish meant to convey the utter obviousness of what I am saying. As in, "water tends to be wet, you know."

If that was indeed your point, care to list them?

I vote for option (b) except that I do not think it is possible to enlighten you because you are so convinced that you are right and others are wrong. You are not being receptive to opposing arguments.

Holy shit! If you're aim is to just piss me off you're doing an excellent job of it. My point is: you have no point at all to make but just snide remarks. Your reply: "I do, but I'm just not going to tell you because you wouldn't understand anyway". It must take time, skill and dedication to get to that good I have to say.

Okay. You're wrong. I have already explained why. If you have nothing further to add to my counter arguments, we are done here.

What counter arguments? Please, I'd like to hear some actual argument here.

Actually if you could start by saying a) "Heterosexual sexual attraction IS an evolutionary adaptation", and then try and answer the question of why it is obvious why homosexual attraction is still so prevalent.
or
b) "Heterosexual sexual attraction is NOT an evolutionary adaptation". And then, you know what, I might just cry or something, I don't know yet to be honest.

Entirely different arguments? Wha-? You're just looking for any opportunity to make personal attacks without actually debating the facts aren't you?
No.

First you presented an argument based on an assertion that gays don't want to reproduce, which you defined specifically when challenged as having babies. You also stated that, if a desire to have heterosexual sex was not evolutionarily necessary, then no one would ever feel sexual attraction, as if gays do not feel sexual attraction. In later statements attempting to defend those positions, you also equated heterosexual sex to "sexual arousal," as if gays do not get sexually aroused.

NOW you are trying to claim that you're just talking about the tendency of gay men to seek sex with women less frequently than hetero men seek sex with women.

Those are two entirely different arguments. One is ludicrous and the other is obvious.

The two times I've said something a bit misleading: In the beginning I used the term "reproduce" to mean "sexual intercourse" and I used the term "sexual attraction" where possible I should have specified I was referring to heterosexuals. That's it. That's all I said. And you're now howling that these arguments are "entirely different". If you're not going to debate honestly, let's not debate at all.
So you ALWAYS meant to argue that gays are less attracted to the opposite sex than heteros are? Really? And that groundbreaking observation adds precisely what to the discussion?

I'm sorry, Altruisma, but I just do not believe you. I think you are backpedaling from a ridiculous initial argument and trying to pretend that you aren't.

No, I guess if all you're looking to do is score points and out-slur your opponent instead of any any serious honest discussion, no, there's no reason why you should accept that.
Another reason not to accept is that it is wrong.

No, the fact it's an evolutionary adaptation it's the very heart of my argument. If you're aware what my argument is in the first place.
You are the one who seems unaware of what your opponent's argument is. This is now the second or third time I am telling you point blank that I am not disputing that sexual reproduction is an evolutionary adaptation.

What I am disputing is your arguments concerning homosexuality in regards to it on the following grounds:

1) Your arguments concerning homosexuality do not follow from your remarks about heterosexuality.

2) Your explanation of your argument has been factually incorrect on every point.


Well if we weren't taught basic numeracy, most people would not be numerate today. Duh? That's why we teach it isn't it? A few bright sparks would have picked up on it, but they'd be alone there. And what is that, another personal attack? Great, just keep on doing that, you'll be sure to win the argument eventually.
No. That's not how it works. That's not how the human brain works. People need to learn specific systems of numeration. They do not need to learn how to count and calculate. That we can do naturally.

Just like we don't need a teacher to help us observe events and make connections between them, such as sex followed sometimes by pregnancy.

This is another objection I have to your entire argument: It is completely unrealistic.

I think the numeracy example is a pretty good illumination of that actually. As is literacy. Most people couldn't read a thousand years ago, doesn't mean all couldn't.
Neither of your examples is good. If they were, then you would not also have been able to claim that people long ago had more kids than they do now -- unless you think we are un-learning how to fuck heterosexually.

Fantasies? You say it like I'm claiming you descend from Hitler or something.
Now that^^ is a fantasy. Kindly do not read more hyperbole into my statements than I actually put into them.

No, I am supposing your family tree resembles what most people's do, in the same way I presume you have hair on your head having never met you before. It's just a rather fair assumption to make.
No, it isn't. What it is, is a groundless assumption, just like all the other assumptions and speculations your argument depends on. That is what makes your argument worthless.

But not the number of children one has to survive childbirth. Your argument would claim that should be pretty stable.


Oh god... So you are unaware of the population explosion of the past hundred years ago or it didn't actually happen or what? I don't know what to say here honestly...
And the thing that makes it not even fun to argue with you is your annoying habit of making arguments that make no sense factually and then implying that your opponent doesn't agree with them just becuase she is ignorant -- when it is clearly you who have the problem following simple statements.

Let me just put it to you this way:

Oh god... So you are unaware of the revolution in medical science that drastically reduced the infant mortality rate in urbanized first world nations of the past hundred years ago or it didn't actually happen or what? I don't know what to say here honestly...

If that was indeed your point, care to list them?
Traditional African indigenous cultures. Traditional South American indigenous cultures. Traditional North American indigenous cultures. Traditional Pacific/Oceanic indigenous cultures. Traditiional northern Asian cultures. Large social segments of modern urbanized European and North American culture. Hm... Look at that. Covers most of the planet, doesn't it?


Holy shit! If you're aim is to just piss me off you're doing an excellent job of it. My point is: you have no point at all to make but just snide remarks. Your reply: "I do, but I'm just not going to tell you because you wouldn't understand anyway". It must take time, skill and dedication to get to that good I have to say.


What counter arguments? Please, I'd like to hear some actual argument here.
Sigh. I have explained what I think you missed in this post. Make what use of it you can.

Actually if you could start by saying a) "Heterosexual sexual attraction IS an evolutionary adaptation", and then try and answer the question of why homosexual attraction is still so prevalent.
or
b) "Heterosexual sexual attraction is NOT an evolutionary adaptation". And then, you know what, I might just cry or something, I don't know yet to be honest.
Let me explain something: The one thing that pisses me off the most of all the bad debate tactics on the internet is when people do not read the threads they are participating in.

I have already made my argument in precisely the form you request. Your apparent lack of awareness of that indicates to me that you have not been reading the posts.

I'm not getting bogged down here. My point in it's entirety was that the question posed in this thread was not a stupid question with an obvious answer like "if we evolved from monkeys why are there monkeys". No-one (in the world) has given an answer that is anywhere near to general acceptance. But when asked, all that it got was derision like the following:

Evolution does not work according to a plan.

Therefore, the premise of your question -- that "according to evolution, the only purpose an organism even has is to pass on the genetic material it holds." -- is false. And thus, your question of whether homosexuality can't exist if evolution is real is based on nothing.

There is no "according to evolution" because evolution is not a thing that can articulate ideas. There is no "purpose" to any organism because there is no plan or goal to evolution. And homosexuals can do whatever they like, including engage in hetero sex in order to reproduce -- something they do and have done rather frequently throughout history.

So there you go.

Next question?

Note the final sentence: that lovely touch was exactly the sort of smug-cuntery that I referred to in the first post I made.

I know I accused you of personal attacks, but I think I've made my point already, and you did imply I hadn't read what you'd said so I'd just like to give this as an example.

You didn't even begin to answer the question asked, you just said "well there's no purpose in evolution" as if that had anything to do with anything whatsoever and then went onto say "well gay people can have children if they want" ignoring the fact that it is fucking obvious, I repeat FUCKING OBVIOUS that a gay person is on average, going to have less children than a straight person. This post, like all the others I read did not begin to answer the question but was full of scorn and derision that it should have been asked in the first place

And that's was why I posted, to stick up for the thread creator.

I'll leave you alone now.

(a similar possible offensive, but valid, question is "why do ugly people exist, why haven't they been bred out of the gene pool?". I'll leave you to ponder that one)

Do you have the statistics which says gay men have less children? It sounds intuitive but never assume.

according to pillard and bailey (citing an earlier article by bell et al) in "human sexual orientation has a heritable component", human biology, 1998 vol 70.2, pg. 347, at least in modern societies homosexuals have about 1/5 as many children as heterosexuals.

I'm not getting bogged down here. My point in it's entirety was that the question posed in this thread was not a stupid question with an obvious answer like "if we evolved from monkeys why are there monkeys". No-one (in the world) has given an answer that is anywhere near to general acceptance. But when asked, all that it got was derision like the following:

Note the final sentence: that lovely touch was exactly the sort of smug-cuntery that I referred to in the first post I made.
You're joking, right?

I know I accused you of personal attacks, but I think I've made my point already, and you did imply I hadn't read what you'd said so I'd just like to give this as an example.

You didn't even begin to answer the question asked, you just said "well there's no purpose in evolution" as if that had anything to do with anything whatsoever and then went onto say "well gay people can have children if they want" ignoring the fact that it is fucking obvious, I repeat FUCKING OBVIOUS that a gay person is on average, going to have less children than a straight person. This post, like all the others I read did not begin to answer the question but was full of scorn and derision that it should have been asked in the first place
And you have been ignoring the "FUCKING OBVIOUS" fact that the frequency with which gays produce babies has absolutely nothing to do with the consistency of the gay proportion of the human population for generations.

It is a fact that there is no purpose to evolution. This lack of a purpose renders all arguments based on "the purpose of evolution" meaningless.

It is a fact that gays can and do reproduce. This renders all arguments based on the claim that homosexuals don't reproduce meaningless because they are false on their face.

Your constant harping on how many more babies a heterosexual is likely to make in their lifetime than a homosexual is just so much chin music, when faced with the facts presented by myself and other posters that, in fact, a lower birth rate with a higher survival rate is preferable anyway. So in optimal situations, a heterosexual is not likely to produce more babies in their lifetimes than a homosexual may.

And that's was why I posted, to stick up for the thread creator.

I'll leave you alone now.
Promise?

(a similar possible offensive, but valid, question is "why do ugly people exist, why haven't they been bred out of the gene pool?". I'll leave you to ponder that one)
I don't need to ponder it. It strikes me immediately as being as nonsensical as everything else you have said.

according to pillard and bailey (citing an earlier article by bell et al) in "human sexual orientation has a heritable component", human biology, 1998 vol 70.2, pg. 347, at least in modern societies homosexuals have about 1/5 as many children as heterosexuals.

But the ones who are most involved in the opposite-sex relationships in which they would have children are also not likely to identify as gay.

But the ones who are most involved in the opposite-sex relationships in which they would have children are also not likely to identify as gay.

indeed. but we have at least some reason to suspect there is a general tendency towards having fewer offspring. which should be all we need, selectively speaking.

indeed. but we have at least some reason to suspect there is a general tendency towards having fewer offspring. which should be all we need, selectively speaking.
Actually, no, because homosexuality is not granted through normal hereditary means. Homosexuals do not breed homosexual offspring. Heterosexual do not breed heterosexual offspring. If it is at all genetic, it appears through a combination of many widely distributed genes, probably of recessive nature. And even that has been far from proven. For every study that says it proves there is a genetic cause, you can find another saying it proves otherwise. There is simply no general scientific consensus.

Both gays and straights have the same statistical probability of having straight children. Likewise, the complement to that probability is the chance of having gay children, which is also the same for either.

Reproductive success of homosexuals (or comparative with the reproductive success of heterosexuals) has nothing to do with the continuation of appearance of homosexual individuals. The two topics are unrelated. And if reproductive success has nothing to do with the continuation of appearance of homosexuals, then it means that it is a reality that will not tend to disappear due to natural selection.

I anything, homosexuality appears in a form or another through almost every highly evolved mammal specie. That it is so widely present, at varying degrees, among so many specie means that at the very least it does not have a negative impact on the survivability and long-term prosperity of those species.

Well, well the two major argument topics on NSG have laid down together and created this bizarre hybrid. Now all we need is abortion to be thrown in here somewhere and we would have something.
http://www.gearsandwidgets.com/external/wherethisthreadgoing.jpg
Daffodil!

For every study that says it proves there is a genetic cause, you can find another saying it proves otherwise. There is simply no general scientific consensus.

i haven't actually seen anything serious that denies a genetic basis. got anything in particular in mind?

Both gays and straights have the same statistical probability of having straight children. Likewise, the complement to that probability is the chance of having gay children, which is also the same for either.

source?

Reproductive success of homosexuals (or comparative with the reproductive success of heterosexuals) has nothing to do with the continuation of appearance of homosexual individuals. The two topics are unrelated. And if reproductive success has nothing to do with the continuation of appearance of homosexuals, then it means that it is a reality that will not tend to disappear due to natural selection.

actually, it would seem more likely to argue that there must be some form of countervailing selection for whatever genes are involved. this would allow them to operate in a sort of equilibrium despite their selective disadvantage when expressed as homosexuality (whatever is involved in that).

I anything, homosexuality appears in a form or another through almost every highly evolved mammal specie. That it is so widely present, at varying degrees, among so many specie means that at the very least it does not have a negative impact on the survivability and long-term prosperity of those species.

but anything that widely shared almost certainly has a genetic component. it would be really weird if it didn't.

I thought that was View to a Kill.

It was to, damn and I call myself a Bond fan. I knew it was on of the one's in the 80's and yes it was Moore's last one another reason why I should have know it.

Very well then the if A View to a Kill is to be believed then Silicon Valley was nearly flooded and The Living Daylights shows well I forget, damn.

*Goes off and begins watching all the movies again*

You have to have a woman in order to try.

All men try all the time. Now if you want to talk about success? That is a different argument. ;)

lol, true.

I'm not getting bogged down here. My point in it's entirety was that the question posed in this thread was not a stupid question with an obvious answer like "if we evolved from monkeys why are there monkeys". No-one (in the world) has given an answer that is anywhere near to general acceptance. But when asked, all that it got was derision like the following:



Note the final sentence: that lovely touch was exactly the sort of smug-cuntery that I referred to in the first post I made.

I know I accused you of personal attacks, but I think I've made my point already, and you did imply I hadn't read what you'd said so I'd just like to give this as an example.

You didn't even begin to answer the question asked, you just said "well there's no purpose in evolution" as if that had anything to do with anything whatsoever and then went onto say "well gay people can have children if they want" ignoring the fact that it is fucking obvious, I repeat FUCKING OBVIOUS that a gay person is on average, going to have less children than a straight person. This post, like all the others I read did not begin to answer the question but was full of scorn and derision that it should have been asked in the first place

And that's was why I posted, to stick up for the thread creator.

I'll leave you alone now.

(a similar possible offensive, but valid, question is "why do ugly people exist, why haven't they been bred out of the gene pool?". I'll leave you to ponder that one)

Again, according to a hypothesis, homosexual tendency to have less children is compansated by str8 relatives with the "gay gene" who have more children. This DOES answer your question.


Survival of genetic homosexual traits explained

Italian geneticists may have explained how genes apparently linked to male homosexuality survive, despite gay men seldom having children. Their findings also undermine the theory of a single “gay gene”.

The researchers discovered that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This fertility boost more than compensates for the lack of offspring fathered by gay men, and keeps the “gay” genetic factors in circulation.

....


I posted this study pages ago, yet still the same discussion...

And I think this DOES sound reasonable. Given the fact that humans have been around for TENS of THOUSANDS years and that NOW, 5-10% of the population is gay, if the percentage of gays had been decreasing due to evolutinary disadvantages, the compostion of the starting human populations tens of thousands of years ago should have been like 50% gays for that number to be reduced to todays 5-10%. And I really dont think thats the case.

Again, according to a hypothesis, homosexual tendency to have less children is compansated by str8 relatives with the "gay gene" who have more children. This DOES answer your question.

I agree that's a plausible explanation, although there has yet to be a mechanism put forth to explain why that might be so. So while I agree it would answer the question posed in this thread, it it is by no means an obvious, or even generally accepted answer, so my point that this thread asks a valid question is still valid (:p)

I agree that's a plausible explanation, although there has yet to be a mechanism put forth to explain why that might be so. So while I agree it would answer the question posed in this thread, it it is by no means an obvious, or even generally accepted answer, so my point that this thread asks a valid question is still valid (:p)

Yes, such mechanisms have bloody well been put forward.

Interlinked combinations of recessive genes, for example, could lead to a basically flat statistical chance of homosexuality, and it is entirely possible that combinations of these genes also increase fertility (to point at a simpler example, sickle cell anemia is caused by a recessive gene. While those who develop the disease do not tend to breed, carriers have improved malaria resistance, and thus the gene has stayed common.*)

Also worth noting is that the chance of homosexuality goes up with the number of male children a woman has. Furthermore, some studies have shown that male homosexuals have some characteristics generally associated with females in areas such as brain structure, meaning it's not impossible to presume that females related to them would tend to be more 'female', and thus possible more fertile.

It really is quite easy to explain, even for one who merely dabbles in biology (I'm normally a maths and philosophy geek).

*Not saying, of course, that homosexuality is any sort of crippling genetic defect on the order of sickle cell anemia.

Yes, such mechanisms have bloody well been put forward.

I don't think you get quite what I mean. I'm saying that no mechanism has been put forward that would explain why a particular gene would both raise fertility of non-homosexuals, while at the same time increase the likely hood of homosexuality.

I don't think you get quite what I mean. I'm saying that no mechanism has been put forward that would explain why a particular gene would both raise fertility of non-homosexuals, while at the same time increase the likely hood of homosexuality.
The mechanisms that have been presented do explain why homosexuality is a more or less constant percentage in all populations and always has been.

Just because that explanation is not one that jibes with your preconceived notions of what the answer should have been does not mean they do not answer the question.

EDIT: A better question: A gene set increases fertility in female heterosexuals. Function. In combination with certain other gene sets and/or environmental conditions, it also raises the likelihood of homosexuality in offspring. Side effect. Why do function and side effect have to be related to each other? Why does there have to be one mechanism the primary function of which is to do both those things? We are suggesting a mechanism the primary function of which is to do one thing, and it just happens to also do the other sometimes.

I don't think you get quite what I mean. I'm saying that no mechanism has been put forward that would explain why a particular gene would both raise fertility of non-homosexuals, while at the same time increase the likely hood of homosexuality.

Methinks you did not read my post.

Regardless, assuming homosexuality is attributable to a single gene could be considered your first mistake. The evidence seems to suggest a vast number of interlinked factors, including some genetic sequences and the number of previous male children.

Having said that, some studies have suggested that there are biological similarities between the brain structure of women and male homosexuals. Therefore, let us speculate for a moment. Assume that some sequence of recessive genes, if activated as a combination, makes a person more 'feminine'. A woman who inherits this could quite plausibly be more fertile, while a man quite plausibly homosexual.

Voila, a mechanism by which it could work. It handily explains two pieces of the evidence: biological similarity; increased fertility. It also does a nice job of dealing with the near constant rate of homosexuality: for fairly obvious reasons, a man and a woman who both have this gene set may be less likely to breed with each other.

Methinks you did not read my post.

Oh sorry, you're right. I skimmed the last couple of sentences assuming you were explaining how a such a gene can both increase and decrease the chances of its own propagation (like in sickle cell anemia). :$

The mechanism you propose could well be correct. But it is still at this point hard to say (especially as "increased femininity" is a rather vague idea)

Regardless, assuming homosexuality is attributable to a single gene could be considered your first mistake.

I didn't. I said a gene that increased the chances of homosexuality.

Muravyets, as long as you say things like:


And you have been ignoring the "FUCKING OBVIOUS" fact that the frequency with which gays produce babies has absolutely nothing to do with the consistency of the gay proportion of the human population for generations.

I think I'm going to find it difficult speaking with you.

Oh sorry, you're right. I skimmed the last couple of sentences assuming you were explaining how a such a gene can both increase and decrease the chances of its own propagation (like in sickle cell anemia). :$

The mechanism you propose could well be correct. But it is still at this point hard to say (especially as "increased femininity" is a rather vague idea)



I didn't. I said a gene that increased the chances of homosexuality.

Muravyets, as long as you say things like:



I think I'm going to find it difficult speaking with you.
I was using your wording. Now you know how I feel talking to you.

I don't think you get quite what I mean. I'm saying that no mechanism has been put forward that would explain why a particular gene would both raise fertility of non-homosexuals, while at the same time increase the likely hood of homosexuality.

several mechanisms have been put forward. we just don't have the data to figure out which is the actual mechanism with any confidence.

I don't think you get quite what I mean. I'm saying that no mechanism has been put forward that would explain why a particular gene would both raise fertility of non-homosexuals, while at the same time increase the likely hood of homosexuality.
You are mistaken. There have been proposals (no evidence for this, mind you; but you were asserting that no mechanism had been proposed) that the same genes which make women desire men more, and therefore more likely to have lots of babies, have the same effect in the male.

You are mistaken. There have been proposals (no evidence for this, mind you; but you were asserting that no mechanism had been proposed) that the same genes which make women desire men more, and therefore more likely to have lots of babies, have the same effect in the male.

So the sluttier the woman the gayer the kids?

So the sluttier the woman the gayer the kids?

That's the theory, anyhow. I don't think much of it, but was just answering the claim that no mechanism had been proposed.

So the sluttier the woman the gayer the kids?

Since these "gay genes" only make guys gay and not girls, I think it's more correct to call them "cock crazy genes" :D

Seriosuly tho, does "more likely to have more kids" mean more slutty? It may mean mean women are simply more attractive or family oriented or both.

So the sluttier the woman the gayer the kids?

And hence why people frown on homosexuals so. It says something about their parents ;)

Seriosuly tho, does "more likely to have more kids" mean more slutty?

On the council estates of England it does..

And hence why people frown on homosexuals so. It says something about their parents ;)



honestly do u really believe that??

come one ...that is just plain wrong ..any kind of woman can have gay children, plus there is no proof to support that theory .....

anyone who believes that must have smthng wrong with their senses ...

duh !!!

honestly do u really believe that??

A quick look through my posting history would have shown you I do not ;)

honestly do u really believe that??

The wink he had there is an indication that he was joking.

On a side not what is it with people using the... every now and then?