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Does homosexuality defy evolution?

  • 27-03-2014 6:24pm
    #1
    mylastparadigm
    Registered Users Posts: 164 ✭✭


    I was listening to the radio today and this came into my head. Help me out here. I don't know a whole lot about it, but from the little i do know; traits are passed on in reproduction. if you dont reproduce, you dont pass on your traits. so, eh, this is where i get a bit lost. :)


Comments

  • #2
    jane82
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,590 ✭✭✭jane82


    Nope Id say it defies evolveing your own bloodline but not human evolution as a whole.
    I wonder if all the dinosaurs just turned gay?


  • #3
    Chazz Michael Michaels
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Chazz Michael Michaels


    mylastparadigm wrote: »
    I was listening to the radio today and this came into my head. Help me out here. I don't know a whole lot about it, but from the little i do know; traits are passed on in reproduction. if you dont reproduce, you dont pass on your traits. so, eh, this is where i get a bit lost. :)

    No, I don't understand why you think it would.


  • #4
    mylastparadigm
    Registered Users Posts: 164 ✭✭mylastparadigm


    Chazz Michael Michaels wrote: »
    No, I don't understand why you think it would.

    well, i just explained the conflict as my feeble minds sees it.

    so, traits are passed on to the next generation by reproduction.

    if you dont reproduce, those traits die out.

    so, homosexuality is a genetic trait but homosexuals dont reproduce... but they still exist.

    so something in my understanding is amiss. can anyone explain?


  • #5
    Chazz Michael Michaels
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Chazz Michael Michaels


    mylastparadigm wrote: »
    well, i just explained the conflict as my feeble minds sees it.

    so, traits are passed on to the next generation by reproduction.

    if you dont reproduce, those traits die out.

    so, homosexuality is a genetic trait but homosexuals dont reproduce... but they still exist.

    so something in my understanding is amiss. can anyone explain?

    There's plenty of genetic traits that prohibit or reduce the chances of reproduction, yet they persist. Do they defy evolution?


  • #6
    Red Nissan
    Registered Users Posts: 3,055 ✭✭✭Red Nissan


    It depends on how you accept that sexuality comes about. Genetically traits are passed on and over time, theoretically, one could produce a race of people, say blue eyes and blond hair.

    However, in general we don't produce clones of ourselves and the sexual gene mutates to produce a mixture of all sexual orientations.

    Whilst a person is born with a sexual trait, it is not guaranteed to be the same as the father's.

    Therefore your theory does not work and we won't die off because we are not reproducing, neither heterosexuals or others will evolve to extinction, the percentages tend to remain a constant and will do so into the future ** unless artificially genetically altered at conception.


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  • #7
    mylastparadigm
    Registered Users Posts: 164 ✭✭mylastparadigm


    Red Nissan wrote: »
    It depends on how you accept that sexuality comes about. Genetically traits are passed on and over time, theoretically, one could produce a race of people, say blue eyes and blond hair.

    However, in general we don't produce clones of ourselves and the sexual gene mutates to produce a mixture of all sexual orientations.

    Whilst a person is born with a sexual trait, it is not guaranteed to be the same as the father's.

    Therefore your theory does not work and we won't die off because we are not reproducing, neither heterosexuals or others will evolve to extinction, the percentages tend to remain a constant and will do so into the future ** unless artificially genetically altered at conception.

    i wonder about those percentages and their consistency. how does that work?

    but how do you think sexual orientation comes about?

    there is no guarentee of following parents trait but, over millennia, the process should work that way. we're talking countless cycles here.


  • #8
    Red Nissan
    Registered Users Posts: 3,055 ✭✭✭Red Nissan


    mylastparadigm wrote: »
    i wonder about those percentages and their consistency. how does that work?

    but how do you think sexual orientation comes about?

    there is no guarentee of following parents trait but, over millennia, the process should work that way. we're talking countless cycles here.

    Well it is all relatively new understandings, but people are born with genetically manipulable traits, the common traits are sexuality and 'hereditary' diseases.

    There is no guarantee that you as the son of a man who died of prostrate cancer in his forties, after his own father and father before him died also [before this we never knew the causes] but almost certainly one of your sons will the born with a genetic clock to trigger fatal prostrate cancer by his forties.

    There is an abundance of medical studies and the percentage risk factors are well known. Similarly are all other genetically manipulable conditions.

    To see how quickly one can change a race of people, look up the Spanish and Portuguese exploits in South America where they created a whole new race of people deliberately who survive today as their own ethnic group.


  • #9
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection


  • #10
    doolox
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,350 ✭✭✭doolox


    Homosexuality probably prevents death from overcompetition for scarce partners if an alpha male dominates a herd or pack of animals and kills off any competition and their offspring. The concept of same sex relationships is probably one step beyond grooming which you find in many animals and which acts as a bonding and relationship building activity within a social grouping.

    Having the outlet of same sex intercourse probably alleviates the urge for almost alpha males to take on and try to kill an alpha male and gain possession of the females within the group. It may be an evolutionary advantage not to have continuous warfare going on for the top spot until it is patently obvious that the alpha male is in decline and no longer able to hold off competitors or protect the herd.

    Bonoboes, the near relative of the chimpanzee, use sexual contact as a social bonding activity, rather like the way we humans converse and "shoot the breeze" in order to make relationships smoother and less stressful. Their is very little violence among bonoboes as a result.

    It is worth investigating if the antipathy of church and nation states towards homosexual behaviour is governed by a hidden agenda of trying to maximise population growth to further their own ends at the expense of individual standards of living and quality of life. It stands to reason that a rapidly expanding population can be exploited as there is keener competition for jobs and resources to the advantage of holders of land, houses and jobs etc.


  • #11
    Red Nissan
    Registered Users Posts: 3,055 ✭✭✭Red Nissan


    doolox wrote: »
    It is worth investigating if the antipathy of church and nation states towards homosexual behaviour .....

    That would be for individual countries and the scale would not influence evolution, even in nations that actively put to death dissidents of all types.


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  • #12
    robp
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,934 ✭✭✭robp


    mylastparadigm wrote: »
    i wonder about those percentages and their consistency. how does that work?

    but how do you think sexual orientation comes about?

    there is no guarentee of following parents trait but, over millennia, the process should work that way. we're talking countless cycles here.

    I guess its an opaque issue as i) we don't know the precise cause of sexual orientation (genetic, epigenetic, cultural etc). ii) We don't know the long term fertility of homosexuals in pre modern societies.

    I would be inclined to think they did have lower fertility rates in traditional societies buts its debatable.


  • #13
    Doublelime
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 165 ✭✭Doublelime


    Guys become Gay if they can't get a girl.
    Girls become Gay if they can't get a guy.
    The problem is that some people are mad in the head and they become Gay, that has become socially acceptable.


  • #14
    Dr Strange
    Registered Users Posts: 3,427 ✭✭✭Dr Strange


    Mod: Doublelime, don't post in this thread again. Fair warning!


  • #15
    seagull
    Registered Users Posts: 2,340 ✭✭✭seagull


    I remember hearing something a while back that suggested siblings of gay people were more likely to have gay children. I don't know if there was any further research into it, and I didn't ever see the article. I don't know if it was a genuine research paper or a bored journalist. Even if there is a correlation, you'd have to wonder whether it's genetic or societal.


  • #16
    Call Me Jimmy
    Registered Users Posts: 8,449 ✭✭✭Call Me Jimmy


    Isn't evolution just a big random splattering on the whole? Some stuff sticks others doesn't. It isn't possible to 'defy' evolution imueo.


  • #17
    TheNibbler
    Registered Users Posts: 271 ✭✭TheNibbler


    Interesting article on the topic:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26089486


  • #18
    Torakx
    Registered Users Posts: 3,831 ✭✭✭Torakx


    I heard or read(can't remember) that the chances go up pretty high for a boy to be born with a female brain, the more children they have.
    Something about the hormones in a womans body upping estrogen or soemthign when they have too many boys for example. Increasing the chances of the next boy to be closer to girl.
    I think it might be a mechanic to even the sexes. Or possibly and if you believe it's possible for a collective evolutionary mechanic to apply, it could be that smaller families survive better in this day and age. Soevolution is trying its best to make that happen? Playing with the numbers so to speak.

    The first part fits in pretty well in the case of my relatives.
    Where my grandmother had like 6 boys and a girl. The youngest of them all a boy and was homosexual.
    But was also abused... Which kind of messes with my head there... Coincedence? Inclinations towards other males to cause such a "coincedence"?
    Because the same situation also is present with a cousin.... exactly the same but less siblings...


  • #19
    DenisOakley
    Registered Users Posts: 16 ✭DenisOakley


    One evolutionary argument for homosexuality is that as half of your genes are in your siblings then there is a an evolutionary benefit to supporting them. Given that there is a greater likelihood of being homosexual if you are a 3rd or 4th male child you could argue that homosexuality enables the resources that they would have consumed in raising their own children are shifted to those of their siblings. (note that your own children only have half your genes so the ROI is not unreasonable.


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